Note 3 — Chapter XXI · THE EPICUREAN SYSTEM AS A WHOLE; ITS POSITION IN HISTORY.

(2) Relation to Aristippus. Towards the older philosophy Epicureanism bears nearly the same relation as Stoicism. True it is that Epicurus and his School would not recognise their obligation to either one or other of their predecessors.3 But far from disproving the influence of previous systems on his own, this conduct only shows the personal vanity of Epicurus. Epicureanism, like Stoicism, starts with the object of bringing down science from metaphysical speculation to the simpler form of a practical science of life. Both systems of philosophy, therefore, turn away from Plato and Aristotle, whose labours they notably neglect, to Socrates and those Socratic Schools which, without more extensive meddling with science, are content with ethics. Circumstances, however, led Epicurus to follow Aristippus as Zeno had followed Antisthenes. Not only in morals did Epicurus derive his principle of pleasure from the Cyrenaics; he likewise derived from them his theory of knowledge, that the sense-impressions are the only source of ideas, and that every feeling is true in itself. Nor can he altogether deny that feelings only furnish direct information respecting our personal states, and respecting the relative properties of things. With the Cyrenaics, too, he taught that true pleasure can only be secured by philosophic intelligence, and that this intelligence aims, before all things, at liberating the mind from passion, fear, and superstition. At the same time, he is by no means prepared to follow the Cyrenaics unreservedly. His theory of morals differs, as has already been seen, from the Cyrenaic theory in this important particular, that not sensual and individual pleasure, but mental repose and the whole state of the mind is regarded as the ultimate end, and the highest good in life. It was thus impossible for him to be content, as the Cyrenaics were, with feelings only, with individual and personal impressions. He could not help requiring conviction which reposed on a real knowledge of things, since only on such conviction can an equable and certain tone of mind depend.