Note 4 — Chapter XXI · THE EPICUREAN SYSTEM AS A WHOLE; ITS POSITION IN HISTORY.

It has been observed on a former occasion that the indifference to the immediate conditions of the senses, the withdrawal of the mind within itself, the contentment with itself of the thinking subject, which Epicurus no less than the Stoics and cotemporary Sceptics required, is itself a consequence of the idealism of Plato and Aristotle. Even the materialism of the post-Aristotelian systems, it is said, was by no means a going back to the old pre-Socratic philosophy of nature, but a one-sided practical apprehension of that idealism. These systems deny a soul in nature or a soul in man, because they look exclusively to consciousness and to personal activity for independence of the senses. The correctness of this observation may be easily proved from the Epicurean teaching, notwithstanding the severity and harshness of its materialism. Why was it that Epicurus relentlessly banished from nature all immaterial causes and all idea of purpose? And why did he confine himself exclusively to a mechanical explanation of nature? Was it not because he felt afraid that the admission of any other than material causes would imperil the certainty of consciousness; because he feared to lose the firm groundwork of reality by admitting invisible forces, and to expose human life to influences beyond calculation if he allowed anything immaterial? Yet in his view of life, how little does he adhere to present facts, since his wise man is made to enjoy perfect happiness by himself alone, independent of everything external. The same ideal is reproduced in the Epicurean Gods. In their isolated contemplation of themselves, what else do they resemble but the God of Aristotle, who, aloof from all intermeddling with the world, meditates on himself alone? No doubt the independent existence of the thinking mind is held by Aristotle in a clear and dignified manner. By Epicurus it is pourtrayed in a sensuous, and, therefore, a contradictory form. But the connection of the views of both cannot be ignored. There is a similar general relation between the Epicurean philosophy and that of Plato and Aristotle.4 Little as the former can be compared with the latter in breadth and depth, it must not, therefore, be regarded as an intellectual monstrosity. Epicureanism is a tenable though one-sided expression of a certain stage in the development of the intellect of Greece.