Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Page 60
Such were the terms of his will.
23 Epicurus had many students, and among the most distinguished was Metrodorus of Lampsacus, son of Athenaeus (or of Timocrates) and Sande. From their first meeting, Metrodorus never left his side except for a six-month visit to his native place, after which he returned. He proved his goodness in every way, as Epicurus attests in the introductions to his works and in the third book of Timocrates. Such was his character that he gave his sister Batis in marriage to Idomeneus, and took the courtesan Leontion of Athens as his concubine. He was dauntless in the face of troubles and death, as Epicurus says in the first book of Metrodorus. They say that he died seven years before Epicurus, at the age of fifty-three. (Epicurus himself, in the will previously cited, clearly speaks of him as departed and instructs his executors to take care of his children.) Epicurus also had as a student the above-mentioned Timocrates, Metrodorus’ shiftless brother.
Marble head of Metrodorus, second-century Roman copy of a c. 275 BC Hellenistic original. As Epicurus’ beloved friend and one of his most important followers, Metrodorus was portrayed as very similar in appearance to his teacher. This head would have been set up in the grounds of the Epicurean school at Athens.
24 Metrodorus wrote the following works:
Against Physicians, three books
On Sensations
Against Timocrates
On Magnanimity
On Epicurus’ Bad Health
Against the Dialecticians
Against the Sophists, nine books
On the Path to Wisdom
On Change
On Wealth
Against Democritus
On Noble Birth
There was also Polyaenus of Lampsacus, son of Athenodorus, a fair and amiable man, according to Philodemus and his students; and Epicurus’ successor, Hermarchus, son of Agemortus, of Mitylene, the son of a poor man and originally a student of rhetoric.
25 To him are attributed the following excellent works:
Collected Correspondence
On Empedocles, twenty-two books
On the Disciples
Against Plato
Against Aristotle
He died of paralysis, having proved a capable man.
26 There is also Leonteus of Lampsacus and his wife, Themista, with whom Epicurus corresponded;61 and Colotes62 and Idomeneus, both from Lampsacus. All of these were well-regarded, as was Polystratus,63 who succeeded Hermarchus. (Polystratus was succeeded by Dionysius, and Dionysius by Basilides.) Apollodorus, the “tyrant of the Garden,”64 was also distinguished, having written more than four hundred books; and the two Ptolemies from Alexandria: the Black and the White;65 and Zeno of Sidon, a student of Apollodorus, a prolific writer; and Demetrius, who was called the Laconian, and Diogenes of Tarsus, who compiled The Selected Letters; and Orion and others whom the genuine Epicureans call “sophists.”
There were three other men named Epicurus: the son of Leonteus and Themista;66 another from Magnesia; the fourth a drill sergeant.
27 Epicurus was extraordinarily prolific, surpassing everyone in the number of his works. For there are roughly three hundred rolls, and they do not include any quotations from other authors, but contain only his own words. Chrysippus sought to rival him in productivity, which is why Carneades calls him “Epicurus’ literary parasite.” For if Epicurus wrote a book, Chrysippus ventured to write one just as long. This is why he often repeated himself and wrote the first thing that came to mind, and in his haste left his text uncorrected; and his quotations were so numerous that they alone fill his books,67 something one also finds in the works of Zeno and Aristotle.
28 This, then, is the character and quantity of Epicurus’ writings. The best of them are the following:
On Nature, thirty-seven books
On Atoms and Void
On Love
Epitome of Arguments Against the Natural Scientists
Against the Megarians
Problems
Chief Maxims
On Choice and Avoidance
On the End
On the Criterion or The Canon
Chaeredemus68
On Gods
On Piety
Hegesianax
On Ways of Life, four books
On Just Dealing
Neocles, dedicated to Themista
Symposium
Eurylochus, dedicated to Metrodorus
On Vision
On the Angle in the Atom
On Touch
On Fate
Views about the Emotions, dedicated to Timocrates
Prognostication
Protreptic
On Oratory
On Images
On Impressions
Aristobulus69
On Music
On Justice and the Other Virtues
On Gifts and Gratitude
Polymedes
Timocrates, three books
Metrodorus, five books
Antidorus, two books
Opinions about Diseases and Death, dedicated to Mithras70
Callistolas
On Kingship
Anaximenes
Letters
29 I will try to set forth the views expressed in these works by quoting three of his letters, in which his entire philosophy has been summarized. I will also present his Chief Maxims as well as any utterance of his that seems worth citing, so that you71 may study the man from every vantage point and I may know how to judge him.
The first letter is addressed to Herodotus and
30 He divided philosophy into three parts—canonic, physics, and ethics. The canonic part presents his system’s methodology and is contained in a single book titled The Canon; the physical part includes his entire theory of nature and is contained in the thirty-seven books of his work On Nature and, in an abridged form, in the letters; the ethical part deals with choice and avoidance; this material is found in his work On Ways of Life, in his letters, and in his work On the End. Usually, however, the Epicureans class canonic with physics; they call the former the science that concerns criteria and first principles, or the fundamentals of philosophy; the physical part deals with becoming, perishing, and nature; the ethical part deals with things to be chosen and avoided, and with ways of life and the end.
Fragment of a letter from Roman Alexandria about works of Epicurean philosophy, second half of the second century AD. The fifteen lines of Greek inscription preserved read: “… greetings / book(s) of (?) Metrodorus / Epicurus’ (book) ‘On Justice’ / best ‘On Pleasure’ / For the second book ‘On …’ / (to?) another friend / I will send / I sent through the hand of / -leites does not seem to me / so that to me / books / Greet / Farewell. Year 4, Choiak 4.”
31,32 They reject dialectic as superfluous, maintaining that it is sufficient that natural philosophers should proceed in accordance with the ordinary words for things. In The Canon Epicurus says the criteria of truth are our sensations, preconceptions, and feelings. (But the Epicureans say that applications of the intellect to impressions are also criteria.) He makes this claim also in the Epitome addressed to Herodotus and in his Chief Maxims. “Every sensation,” he says, “is devoid of reason and incapable of memory; for it is not self-caused, nor, if caused by something else, can it add or subtract anything; nor can anything refute our sensations. For one sensation cannot refute another produced by the same sense, since they are of equal strength; nor can sensations produced by different senses be superior to one another, since they do not judge or discriminate the same things. And the same holds true where reason is concerned, since all reason is derived from sensation. Nor is any one of the senses superior to another, since we pay heed to them all. And the fact that our perceptions exist guarantees the truth of our sensations; for seeing and hearing are as real to
us as feeling pain.” Hence, it is from phenomena that we must draw inferences about nonevident realities. For all our thoughts are derived from sensation, either by contact, analogy, resemblance, or synthesis (with some assistance from reasoning). And the delusions of madmen, as well as the visions we see in sleep, are real, since they have effects; whereas what is unreal has no effect.
Bronze statuette of a man working, Greek, fifth century BC.
33 By “preconception,” the Epicureans mean a kind of apprehension or a correct opinion or reflection, or general idea stored in the mind; that is, the memory of an external object often presented, as when one says, “Such and such a thing is a man”; for as soon as the word “man” is uttered, we think of the shape of a man by an act of preconception derived from previous sensations. Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is clear; and we would not have embarked on a search for something unless we had known previously what it was we were seeking. Accordingly, if we say, “The object standing there is a horse” or “a cow,” we must at some point have known, by means of a preconception, the shape of a horse or a cow; nor would we have given anything a name had we not previously learned its form by means of a preconception. So it follows that preconceptions are clear.
34 The object of an opinion is derived from something previously clear, to which we refer when speaking, as when we say, for example, “How do we know that this is a man?” Opinion they also call assumption, and claim that it admits of truth and falsity. For if something is attested by evidence, or is not contested, it is true; but if it is not attested by evidence, or is contested, it is false. Hence the introduction of the phrase “that which awaits” confirmation; for example, one waits, when approaching a tower, and learns what it looks like from near at hand.73
The Epicureans maintain that there are two states of feeling, pleasure and pain, both of which arise in every living creature: and that the former is friendly to it, the latter hostile; and that these become the basis of choice and avoidance. They also say that there are two kinds of inquiry, one concerned with things, the other only with words. So much for the division and criterion as Epicurus outlined them.
But we must proceed to the letter.
Epicurus to Herodotus, greetings.
36 For those who are unable, Herodotus, to make a detailed study of all my works on nature, or to examine my longer treatises, I have myself prepared a summary of the whole system as an aid to preserving in memory enough of the principal doctrines so that on each occasion readers may be able to assist themselves on the most important points, insofar as they take up the study of nature. And even those who have made sufficient progress in the examination of the whole system should retain in their memory the outline, arranged according to the elementary principles, of the entire doctrine. For a comprehensive view is needed often, the details only on occasion. We must return constantly to those main points and commit to memory an amount of doctrine sufficient to secure a reliable conception of the facts; furthermore, all the details will be discovered accurately if the general outlines are well understood and remembered, since even for the advanced student the chief condition of accurate knowledge is the ability to make ready use of his conceptions by referring each of them to fundamental facts and simple terms. For it is not possible to obtain the results of a continuous diligent study of the universe unless we can embrace in brief terms everything that could have been accurately known down to the smallest detail. Since such a course is useful for all who take up natural science, I recommend an unremitting and energetic study of it; it is with this sort of activity, more than any other, that I attain serenity in life. That is why I have composed for you just such a summary and elementary exposition of the entire set of doctrines.
37 First, Herodotus, we must grasp what it is that words denote, so that with reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions, inquiries, or perplexities, and so that all our proofs may not lead on ad infinitum, and our words may not be devoid of meaning. For the principal conception of each word must be clearly grasped, and should not need to be proved; it is on this basis that we obtain something to which the point at issue or the perplexity or the opinion we are addressing may be referred. Furthermore, we must by all means observe our sensations, and in general our present apprehensions, whether of the mind or of any other criterion whatsoever; and likewise our actual feelings, so that we can have some means of drawing inferences both about whatever awaits confirmation and about that which remains nonevident to sense.
38 Once we have adopted this course, we must consider what remains nonevident to sense. In the first place, nothing comes into being from that which does not exist. For in that case anything could have arisen out of anything, without any need for seeds. And if what disappears were destroyed and ceased to exist, all things would have been destroyed, since that into which they were dissolved does not exist. Furthermore, the sum total of things was always what it is now, and will remain so forever. For there is nothing into which it can change, since nothing exists besides the totality that could enter it and effect the change.
39 Furthermore [He also says this in the Greater Epitome, near the beginning, and in the first book of his work On Nature],74 the whole of being is made up of
40 Moreover [this is also in the first book of On Nature and in the fourteenth and fifteenth books of the Greater Epitome], some bodies are composite, while others are the elements from which compounds are formed. These elements are indivisible and unchangeable, since otherwise all things will be destroyed and become nonexistent; they will be strong enough to survive the disintegration of compounds because they are solid by nature and not subject to dissolution in any manner or fashion. Thus the basic elements of bodies must be indivisible entities.
41 Furthermore, the totality of things is unlimited. For what is limited has an extremity, and the extremity is discerned by way of a comparison with something else; accordingly, as the totality has no extremity, it has no limit; and as it has no limit, it must be unlimited and infinite.
42 In addition, the totality of things is unlimited both by virtue of the multitude of the bodies and the magnitude of the void. For if the void were unlimited but the bodies finite in number, the bodies would not have stayed anywhere but would have been transported and dispersed throughout the unlimited void, having nothing to support them or check them by collision. And if the void were finite, the unlimited number of bodies would not have anywhere to be.
43 Furthermore, the solid atoms, from which compounds come into being and into which they dissolve, possess more different shapes than the mind can grasp; for so many variations could not have come into being from a limited number of the same shapes. The like atoms of each shape are absolutely unlimited, whereas the variety of shapes is not absolutely unlimited, but only ungraspable [for he says later on that the divisibility does not continue ad infinitum, but comes to a stop, adding, “Since the qualities change.”], unless one is willing to keep enlarging their magnitudes also, simply ad infinitum.
44 The atoms are in constant motion for eternity. [He says later on that they also move with equal velocity, the void yielding equally to the lightest and the heaviest.] Some travel great distances from one another, while others continue to oscillate in place when they find themselves entangled or enclosed in a mesh of atoms.
45 This is because each atom is separated from the rest by void, which cannot provide any resistance; and the atom’s solidity makes it rebound aft
er any collision, no matter how distant, whereupon it finds itself entangled in a mesh of atoms. Of these motions there is no beginning, since they are caused by the atoms and the void. [Later on he says that the atoms have no quality except shape, size, and weight. That their color varies with their arrangement he says in the Twelve Fundamentals. He also maintains that atoms are not of every size; an atom, at any rate, has never been seen by the human eye.]
46 A recapitulation of this length, if all these points are remembered, provides an adequate outline for our conception of the nature of things.
47 Furthermore, there is an unlimited number of worlds, some of them like ours, others unlike. For the atoms, being unlimited in number, as has just been shown, travel to the most distant points. For atoms of this description, out of which a world might arise, or from which it might be composed, have not been used up either on one world or on a limited number of worlds, whether resembling ours or not. Hence, nothing stands in the way of an unlimited number of worlds.
48 Furthermore, outlines exist that are of the same shape as the solids, though their thinness far exceeds that of visible objects. For it is not impossible that such compounds should come into being in the surrounding air, or that there should be suitable opportunities for the production of hollow and thin films, or that effluences should retain the orderly arrangement and position they had in the solid objects. We call these outlines “images.” Furthermore, if as they travel through the void they encounter no resistance, they can cover enormous distances in an inconceivably brief interval of time. For resistance and lack of resistance are the equivalents of slowness and speed. In the intervals of time mentally conceivable, the image as it travels cannot itself reach more than one place at the same time—for that would be inconceivable; but in a perceptible interval of time it does arrive simultaneously, even if its actual point of departure is not the one we imagined. For if it were delayed, that would be equivalent to its meeting with resistance, even if until that point we allow nothing to hinder the speed of its motion. (This is a useful basic notion to bear in mind.) Also, the exceptional thinness of the images is contradicted by none of the phenomena we observe. Accordingly, the speeds of the images cannot be surpassed, given that they always find a passage to accommodate them, and meet with little or no resistance, whereas a great many atoms, if not an unlimited number, do at once encounter resistance. Besides this, one must bear in mind that the genesis of the images occurs with the speed of thought. For there is a continuous flow of particles from the surface of bodies (objects do not appear to have grown smaller, because these losses are replenished), and the image retains the arrangement and order of the atoms in the solid for a long time, though it is occasionally disrupted. These entities form rapidly in the surrounding air because they need not attain the compactness of solid bodies. They are also formed in other ways. For none of these possibilities is contradicted by our sensations if we consider how we ascribe to them the effects and qualities coming from external objects to us.75