Note 1 — Chapter XXI · THE EPICUREAN SYSTEM AS A WHOLE; ITS POSITION IN HISTORY.

The strongest argument in favour of Epicureanism is that the development of the system does not pretend to rest upon an intellectual platform. Epicurus sought in philosophy a path to happiness, a school of practical wisdom. For him knowledge has only a secondary value, because it contributes to this end; indeed, both the tone and the results of his intellectual activity were determined by a reference to this end. In the case of the Stoics, however, it has been already seen that the comparative subordination of Logic and Natural Science to Moral Science, the going back to the older view of nature, the vindication of the truth of the senses and of the reality of matter, grew out of their peculiarly one-sided view of the scope of philosophy. In the case of Epicurus the same results appear, and all the more markedly, since Epicurus did not, like the Stoics, look for happiness in subordination to a universal law, but in individual gratification or pleasure. For him the recognition of a universal law had not the same importance as for the Stoics; and consequently Epicurus did not feel the same need of a scientific method as they had done. He could therefore more exclusively content himself with the impressions of the senses, and regard them as the only unfailing source of knowledge. No necessity compelled him to advance from pure materialism to a view of matter in which it is described as possessing a soul, and made to be the bearer of reason. In fact, the more exclusively everything was referred by him to mechanical causes, the more easily could he regard the individual as independent of all superhuman forces in his pursuit of happiness, and left entirely to himself and his natural powers. No system in ancient times has so consistently carried out the mechanical view of nature as that of the Atomists. None, therefore, afforded such a strong metaphysical support to the Epicurean views of the absolute worth of the individual. It was as natural for Epicurus to build on the teaching of Democritus as for the Stoics to build on that of Heraclitus. But Epicurus, influenced probably more by practical than by scientific considerations, allowed himself, by his theory of the swerving aside of atoms, to destroy the consistency of the theory of Democritus.1