Note 39 — Chapter XIX · THE MORAL SCIENCE OF THE EPICUREANS. GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

C. The wise man. The same claims were advanced by Epicurus on behalf of his wise man as the Stoics had urged on behalf of theirs. Not only does he attribute to him a control over pain, in nothing inferior to the Stoic insensibility of feeling, but he endeavours himself to describe the wise man’s life as most perfect and satisfactory in itself. Albeit not free from emotions, and in particular susceptible to the higher feelings of the soul such as compassion, the wise man finds his philosophic activity in no wise thereby impaired.39 Without despising enjoyment, he is altogether master of his desires, and knows how to restrain them by intelligence, so that they never exercise a harmful influence on life. He alone has an unwavering certainty of conviction;40 he alone knows how to do the right thing in the right way; he alone, as Metrodorus observes,41 knows how to be thankful. Nay, more, he is so far exalted above ordinary men, that Epicurus promises his pupils that, by carefully observing his teaching, they will dwell as Gods among men;42 so little can destiny influence him, that he calls him happy under all circumstances.43 Happiness may, indeed, depend on certain external conditions; it may even be allowed that the disposition to happiness is not found in every nature, nor in every person;44 but still, when it is found, its stability is sure, nor can time affect its duration. For wisdom—so Epicurus and the Stoics alike believed—is indestructible,45 and the wise man’s happiness can never be increased by time. A life, therefore, bounded by time can be quite as complete as one not so bounded.46