Posts by Cassius

The astonished, the affrighted Theon, started from the arm of the sage, and, staggering backwards, was saved, probably from falling, by a statue that stood against the wall on one side of the door; he leaned against it, pale and almost fainting. He knew not what to do, scarcely what to feel, and was totally blind to all the objects around him. His conductor, who had possibly expected his confusion, did not turn to observe it, but advanced in such a manner as to cover him from the view of the company, and, still to give time for recollection, stood receiving and returning salutations.

“Well met, my sons! and I suppose you say well met, also. Are you starving, or am I to be starved? Have you eat up the supper, or only sat longing for it, cursing my delay?”

“The latter, only the latter,” cried a lively youth, hurrying to meet his master. Another and another advanced, and in a moment he was locked in a close circle.

“Mercy! mercy!” cried the philosopher, “drive me a step further, and you will overturn a couple of statues.” Then, looking over his shoulder, I have brought you, if he has not run away, a very pleasant young Corinthian, for whom, until he gain his own tongue, I shall demand reception.” He held out his hand with a look of bewitching encouragement, and the yet faltering Theon advanced. The mist had now passed from his eyes, and the singing from his ears, and both room and company stood revealed before him. Perhaps, had it not been for this motion, and still more this look of the sage, he had just now made a retreat instead of an advance.” In the hall of Epicurus — in that hall where Timocrates had beheld” oh, horrid imagination! “And he a disciple of Zeno, the friend of Cleanthes — the son of a follower of Plato — had he crossed the threshold of vice, the threshold of the impious Gargettian;” Yes; he had certainly fled, but for that extended hand, and that bewitching smile. These however conquered. He advanced, and, with an effort at composure, met the offered hand. The circle made way, and Epicurus presented ‘a friend.’ “His name you must learn from himself, I am only acquainted with his heart, and that on a knowledge of two hours, I pronounce myself in love with.”

“Then he shall be my brother,” cried the lively youth who had before spoken, and he ran to the embrace of Theon.

“When shall we use our own eyes, ears, and understandings” said the sage, gently stroking his scholar’s head. ” See our new friend knows not how to meet your premature affection.”

“He waits,” returned the youth archly, “to receive the same commendation of me that I have of him. Let the master say he is in love with my heart, and he too will open his arms to a brother.”

“I hope he is not such a fool,” gaily replied the sage. Then, with an accent more serious, but still sweeter, ” I hope he will judge all things, and all people, with his own understanding, and not with that of Epicurus, or yet of a wiser man. “When may I hope this of Sofron?” smiling and shaking his head; “can Sofron tell me?”

“No, indeed he cannot,” rejoined the scholar, smiling and shaking his head also, as in mimicry of his master.

“Go, go, you rogue! and show us to our supper: I more than half suspect you have devoured it.” He turned, and’ familiarly taking Theon by the shoulder, walked up the room, or rather gallery, and entered a spacious rotunda.

A lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, lighted a table spread beneath it, with, a simple but elegant repast. Round the walls, in niches at equal distances, stood twelve statues, the work of the best masters; on either hand of these burnt a lamp on a small tripod. Beside one of the lamps, a female figure was reclining on a couch, reading with earnest study from a book that lay upon her knee. Her head was so much bowed forward as to conceal her face, besides that it was shadowed by her hand, which, the elbow supported on an arm of the couch, was spread above her brows as a relief from the glare of the light. At her feet was seated a young girl by whose side lay a small cithara, silent and forgotten by its mistress. Crete might have lent those eyes their sparkling jet, but all the soul of tenderness that breathed from them was pure Ionian. The full and ruddy lips, half parted, showed two rows of pearls, which Thetis might have envied. Still a vulgar eye would not have rested on the countenance: the features wanted the Doric harmony, and the complexion was tinged as by an Afric sun. Theon, however, saw not this, as his eyes fell on those of the girl, uplifted to the countenance of her studious companion. Never was a book read more earnestly than was that face by the fond and gentle eyes which seemed to worship as they gazed. The sound of approaching feet caught the ear of the maiden. She rose, blushed, half returned the salute of the master, and timidly drew back some paces. The student was still intent upon the scroll over which she hung, when the sage advanced towards her and laying a finger on her shoulder, “What read you my daughter?”

She dropt her hand, and looked up in his face. What a countenance was then revealed! It was not the beauty of blooming, blushing youth, courting love and desire. It was the self-possessed dignity of ripened womanhood, and the noble majesty of mind, that asked respect and promised delight and instruction. The features were not those of Venus, but Minerva. The eyes looked deep and steady from beneath two even brows, that sense, not years, had slightly knit in centre of the forehead, which else was uniformly smooth, and polished as marble. The nose was rather Roman than Grecian, yet perfectly regular, and, though not masculine, would have been severe in expression, but for a mouth where all that was lovely and graceful habited. The chin was elegantly rounded, and turned in the Greek manner. The colour of the cheeks was of the softest and palest rose, so pale, indeed, as scarcely to be discernible until deepened by emotion. It was so at this moment: startled by the address of the sage, a bright flush passed over her face. She rolled up the book, dropped it on the couch, and rose. Her stature was much above the female standard, but every limb and every motion was symmetry and harmony.

“A treatise of Theophrastus; — eloquent, ingenious, and chimerical. I have a fancy to answer it.” Her voice was lull and deep, like the tones of a harp, when its chords are struck by the hands of a master.

“No one could do it better,” replied the sage. But I should have guessed the aged Peripatetic already silenced by the most acute, elegant, and subtle pen of Athens.” She bowed to the compliment.

“Is that then the famous Leontium?” muttered Theon. “Timocrates must be a liar.”

“I know not,” resumed Leontium, “that I should this evening have so frequently thought Theophrastus wrong, if he had not made me so continually feel that he thought himself right. Must I seek the cause of this in the writer’s or the reader’s vanity?”

“Perhaps,” said the master, smiling, ” you will find that it lies in both.”

“I believe you have it,” returned Leontium. “Theophrastus, in betraying his self-love, hurt mine. He who is about to prove that his own way of thinking is right, must bear in mind, that he is about also to prove that all other ways of thinking are wrong. And if this should make him slow to enter on the undertaking, it should make him yet more careful, when he does enter on it, to do it with becoming modesty. We are surely imperiously called upon to make a sacrifice of our own vanity, before we call upon others to make a sacrifice of theirs. But I would not particularize Theophrastus for sometimes forgetting this, as I have never known but one who always remembers it. Gentleness and modesty are qualities at once the most indispensable to a teacher, and the most rarely possessed by him. It was these that won the ears of the Athenian youth to Socrates, and it is these,” inclining to the master, “that will secure them to Epicurus.”

“Could I accept your praise, my daughter, I should have no doubt of the truth of your prophecy. For, indeed, the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener, as the truth itself. It is as hard to receive the words of wisdom from the ungentle, as it is to love, or even to recognize virtue in the austere.” He drew near the table as he spoke. Often during supper were the eyes of Theon riveted on the face of this female disciple. Such grace! such majesty! More than all such intellect! And this — this was the Leontium Timocrates had called a prostitute without shame or measure! And this was the Epicurus he had blasted with names too vile and horrible to repeat even in thought! And these — continuing his inward soliloquy as he looked round the board — these were the devoted victims of the vice of an impious master.

“You arrived most seasonably this evening,” cried Sofron, addressing the philosopher; “most seasonably for the lungs of two of your scholars.”

“And for the ears of a third,” interrupted Leontium. “I was fairly driven into exile.”

“What was the subject?” asked Epicurus.

“Whether the vicious were more justly objects of indignation or of contempt: Metrodorus argued for the first, and I for the latter. Let the master decide.”

“He will give his opinion certainly; but that is not decision.”

“Well: and your opinion is that of ––––.”

“Neither.”

“Neither! I had no idea the question had more than two sides.”

“It has yet a third; and I hardly ever heard a question that had not. Had I regarded the vicious with indignation, I had never gained one to virtue. Had I viewed them with contempt, I had never sought to gain one.”

“How is it,” said Leontium, “that the scholars are so little familiar with the temper of their master? When did Epicurus look on the vicious with other than compassion?”

“True,” said Metrodorus. “I know not how I forgot this, when perhaps it is the only point which I have, more than once, presumed to argue with him; and upon which I have persisted in retaining a different opinion.”

“Talk not of presumption, my son. Who has not a right to think for himself? Or, who is he whose voice is infallible, and worthy to silence those of his fellow men? And remember, that your remaining unconvinced by my argument on one occasion, can only tend to make your conviction more flattering to me upon others. Yet, on the point in question, were I anxious to bring you over to my opinion I know one, whose argument, better and more forcible than mine, will ere long most effectually do so.”

“Who mean you ?”

“No other than old hoary Time,” said the master, “who, as he leads us gently onwards in the path of life, demonstrates to us many truths that we never heard in the schools, and some that, hearing there, we found hard to receive. Our knowledge of human life must be acquired by our passage through it; the lessons of the sage are not sufficient to impart it. Our knowledge of men must be acquired by our own study of them; the report of others will never convince us. When you, my son, have seen more of life, and studied more men, you will find, or, at least, I think you will find, that the judgment is not false which makes us lenient to the failings — yea! even to the crimes of our fellows. In youth, we act on the impulse of feeling, and we feel without pausing to judge. An action, vicious in itself, or that is so merely in our estimation, fills us with horror, and we turn from its agent without waiting to listen to the plea which his ignorance could make to our mercy. In our ripened years, supposing our judgment to have ripened also, when all the insidious temptations that misguided him, and all the disadvantages that he has labored under, perhaps-from his birth, are apparent to us — it is then, and not till then, that our indignation at the crime is lost in our pity of the man.”

“I am the last,” said Metrodorus, a crimson blush spreading over his face, “who should object to my master his clemency towards the offending. But there are vices, different from those he saved me from, which, if not more unworthy, are perhaps more unpardonable, because committed with less temptation; and more revolting, as springing less from thoughtless ignorance than calculating depravity.”

“Are we not prone,” said the sage, “to extenuate our foibles, even while condemning them? And does it not flatter our self-love, to weigh our own vices against those of more erring neighbors?”

The scholar leaned forwards, and stooping his face towards the hand of his master, where it rested on the table, laid the deepening crimsons of his cheek upon it. “I mean not to exculpate the early vices of Metrodorus. I love to consider them in all their enormity; for the more heinous the vices of his youth, the greater is the debt of gratitude his manhood has to repay to thee. But tell me,” he added, and lifted his eyes to the benignant face of the sage, “tell me, oh, my friend and guide! was the soul of Metrodorus found base or deceitful; or has his heart proved false to gratitude and affection?”

“No, my son, no,” said Epicurus, his face beaming with goodness, and a tear glistening in his eye. “No! Vice never choked the warm feelings of thy heart, nor clouded the fair ingenuousness of thy soul. But, my son, a few years later — a few years later, and who shall say what might have been! Trust me, none can drink of the cup of vice with impunity.” But you will say, that there are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, as to place the man that is governed by them out of the pale of communion with the virtuous. Malice, cruelty, deceit, ingratitude — crimes such as these, should, you think, draw down upon those convicted of them, no feelings more mild than abhorrence, execration, and scorn. And yet, perhaps, these were not always natural to the heart they now sway. Fatal impressions, vicious example, operating on the plastic frame of childhood, may have perverted all the fair gifts of nature, may have distorted the tender plant from the seedling, and crushed all the blossoms of virtue in the germ. Say, shall we not compassionate the moral disease of our brother, and try our skill to restore him to health? But is the evil beyond cure? Is the mind strained into changeless deformity, and the heart corrupted in the core? Greater, then, much greater will be our compassion. For is not his wretchedness complete, when his errors are without hope of correction? Oh, my sons! the wicked may work mischief to others, but they never can inflict a pang such as they endure themselves. I am satisfied, that of all the miseries that tear the heart of man, none may compare with those it feels beneath the sway of baleful passions.”

“Oh,” cried Theon, turning with a timid blush towards Epicurus, “I have long owned the power of virtue, but surely till this night I never felt its persuasion.”

“I see you were not born for a stoic,” said the master, smiling, “Why, my son, what made you fall in love with Zeno?”

“His virtues,” said the youth, proudly.

“His fine face and fine talking,” returned the philosopher, with a tone of playful irony. “Nay! don’t be offended;” and he stretched his hand to Theon’s shoulder, who reclined on the sofa next him. “I admire your master very much, and go to hear him very often.”

“Indeed!”

“Indeed? Yes, indeed. Is it so wonderful?”

“You were not there.” — Theon stopped and looked down in confusion.

“To-day, you mean? Yes, I was; and heard a description of myself that might match in pleasantry with that in ‘The Clouds’ of old Socrates.

Pray don’t you find it very like?” He leaned over the side of the couch, and looked in Theon’s face.

“I — I” — The youth stammered and looked down. “Think it is,” said the sage, as if concluding the sentence for him.

“No, think it is not; swear it is not,” burst forth the eager youth, and looked as he would have thrown himself at the philosopher’s feet. “Oh! why did you not stand forth and silence the liar?”

“Truly, my son, the liar was too pleasant to be angry with, and too absurd to be answered.”

“And yet he was believed?”

“Of course.”

“But why then not answer him?”

“And so I do. I answer him in my life. The only way in which a philosopher should ever answer a fool, or, as in this case, a knave.”

“I am really bewildered,” cried Theon, gazing in the philosopher’s and then in Leontium’s countenance, and then throwing a glance round the circle. “I am really bewildered with astonishment and shame,” he continued, casting down his eyes, “that I should have listened to that liar Timocrates! What a fool you must think me!”

“No more of a fool than Zeno,” said the sage, laughing, “What a philosopher listened to, I cannot much blame a scholar for believing.”

“Oh, that Zeno knew you!”

“And then he would certainly hate me.”

“You joke.”

“Quite serious. Don’t you know that who quarrels with your doctrine, must always quarrel with your practice? Nothing is so provoking as that a man should preach viciously and act virtuously.”

“But you do not preach viciously.”

“I hope not. But those will call it so, aye! and in honest heart think it so, who preach a different, it need not be a better, doctrine.”

“But Zeno mistakes your doctrine.”

“I have no doubt he expounds it wrong.”

“He mistakes it altogether. He believes that you own no other law — no other principle of action — than pleasure.”

“He believes right.”

“Right? Impossible! That you teach men to laugh at virtue, and to riot in luxury and vice.”

“There he believes wrong.”

Theon looked as he felt, curious and uncertain. He gazed first on the philosopher, and, when he did not proceed, timidly round the circle.

Every face had a smile on it.

“The orgies are concluded,” said Epicurus, rising, and turning with affected gravity to the young Corinthian. “You have seen the horrors of the night; if they have left any curiosity for the mysteries of the day, seek our garden to-morrow at sun-rise, and you shall be initiated.”

"Oh monstrous," cried the young Theon, as he came from the portico of Zeno. "Ye Gods! and will ye suffer your names to be thus blasphemed? How do ye not strike with thunder the actor and teacher of such enormities? What! will ye suffer our youth, and the youth of after ages, to be seduced by this shameless Gargettian? Shall the Stoic portico be forsaken for the garden of Epicurus? Minerva, shield thy city! Shut the ears of thy sons against the voice of this deceiver!"

Thus did Theon give vent to the indignation which the words of Timocrates had worked up within him. Timocrates had been a disciple of the new school; but, quarreling with his master, had fled to the followers of Zeno; and to make the greater merit of his apostacy, and better to gain the hearts of his new friends, poured forth daily execrations on his former teacher, painting him and his disciples in the blackest colours of deformity; revealing, with a countenance distorted as with horror, and a voice hurried and suppressed as from the agonies of dreadful recollections, the secrets of those midnight orgies, where, in the midst of his pupils, the philosopher of Gargettium officiated as master of the cursed ceremonies of riot and impiety.

Full of these nocturnal horrors, the young Theon traversed with hasty steps the streets of Athens, and issuing from the city, without perceiving that he did so, took the road to the Piraeus. The noise of the harbor roused him to recollection, and, feeling it out of tune with his thoughts, he turned up the more peaceful banks of the Cephisus, and, seating himself on the stump of a withered olive, his feet almost washed by the water, he fell back again into his reverie. How long he had sat he knew not, when the sound of gently approaching footsteps once more recalled him. He turned his head, and, after a start and gaze of astonishment, bent with veneration to the figure before him. It was of the middle size, and robed in white, pure as the vestments of the Pythia. The shape, the attitude, the foldings of the garment, were such as the chisel of Phidias would have given to the God of Elocution. The head accorded with the rest of the figure; it sat upon the shoulders with a grace that a painter would have paused to contemplate — elevated, yet somewhat inclining forward, as if habituated gently to seek and benevolently to yield attention. The face a poet would have gazed upon, and thought he beheld in it one of the images of his fancy embodied. The features were not cast for the statuary; they were noble, but not regular. Wisdom beamed mildly from the eye, and candor was on the broad forehead, the mouth reposed in a soft, almost imperceptible smile, that did not curl the lips or disturb the cheeks, and was seen only in the serene and holy benignity that shone over the whole physiognomy: it was a gleam of sunshine sleeping on a lucid lake. The first lines of age were traced on the brow and round the chin, but so gently as to mellow rather than deepen expression: the hair indeed seemed prematurely touched by time, for it was of a pure silver, thrown back from the forehead, and fringing the throat behind with short curls. He received benignly the salutation of the youth, and gently with his hand returning it — "Let me not break your meditations; I would rather share than disturb them." If the stranger's appearance had enchanted Theon, his voice did now more so; never had a sound so sweet, so musical, struck upon his ear.

"Surely I behold and hear a divinity," he cried, stepping backwards, and half-stooping his knee with veneration.

"From the groves of the Academy, I see," said the sage, advancing, and laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.

Theon looked up with a modest blush, and, encouraged by the sweet aspect of the sage, replied, "No; from the portico."

"Ah! I had not thought Zeno could send forth such a dreamer. You are in a good school," he continued, observing the youth confused by his remark, "a school of real virtue; and, if I read faces well, as I think I do, I see a pupil that will not disgrace its doctrines."

Theon's spirit returned; the stranger had that look, and voice, and manner, which instantly give security to the timid, and draw love from the feeling heart. "If you be man, you exert more than human influence over the souls of your fellows. I have seen you but one moment, and that moment has laid me at your feet."

"Not quite so low, I hope," returned the sage, with a smile; "I had always rather be the companion than the master."

"Either, both," said the eager youth, and, seizing the half-extended hand of the sage, pressed it respectfully to his lips.

"You are an enthusiast, I see. Beware, my young friend! Such as you must be the best or the worst of men."

"Then, had I you for a guide, I should be the best."

"What! do you, a stoic, ask a guide?"

"I, a stoic! Oh, would I were; I yet stand but on the threshold of the temple."

"But, standing there, you have at least looked within and seen the glories, and will not that encourage you to advance? Who that hath seen virtue doth not love her, and pant after her possession?"

"True, true; I have seen virtue in her noblest form—alas! so noble, that my eyes have been dazzled by the contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno with admiration and despair."

"Learn rather to look with love. He who but admires virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced — not with fear, but with confidence —not with awe, but with rapture."

"Yet who can gaze on Zeno, and ever hope to rival him?"

"You, my young friend: Why should you not? You have innocence; you have sensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition. With what better promise could Zeno begin his career. Courage! courage! my son! stopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his hand on Theon's head, "we want but the will to be as great as Zeno."

Theon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but this action and the look that accompanied it, changed the sigh to a smile. "You would make me vain."

"No; but I would make you confident. Without confidence Homer had never written his Iliad. No, nor would Zeno now be worshiped in his portico."

"Do you then think confidence would make all men Homers and Zenos!"

"Not all; but a good many. I believe thousands to have the seeds of excellence in them, who never discover the possession. But we were not speaking of poetry and philosophy, only of virtue — all men certainly cannot be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous."

"I believe," returned the youth with a modest blush, "if I might walk with you each day on the borders of Cephisus, I should sometimes play truant at the portico."

"Ye gods forbid," exclaimed the sage, playfully, "that I should steal a proselyte! From Zeno, too? It might cost me dear. — What are you thinking of?" he resumed, after a pause.

"I was thinking," replied Theon, "what a loss for man that you are not teacher in the gardens in place of the son of Neocles."

"Do you know the son of Neocles?" asked the sage.

"The gods forbid that I should know him more than by report! No, venerable stranger; wrong me not so much as to think I have entered the gardens of Epicurus. It is not long that I have been in Athens, but I hope, if I should henceforth live my life here, I shall never be seduced by the advocate of vice."

"From my soul I hope the same. But you say you have not long been in Athens. You are come here to study philosophy."

"Yes; my father was a scholar of Xenocrates; but when he sent me from Corinth, he bade me attend all the schools, and fix with that which should give me the highest views of virtue."

"And you have found it to be that of Zeno."

"I think I have: but I was one day nearly gained by a young Pythagorean, and have been often in danger of becoming one of the academy."

You need not say in danger: for, though I think you choose well in standing mainly by Zeno, I would have you attend all the schools, and that with a willing ear. There is some risk in following one particular sect, even the most perfect, lest the mind become warped and the heart contracted. Yes, young man! it is possible that this should happen even in the portico. No sect without its prejudices and its predilections."

"I believe you say true."

"I know I say true," returned the sage, in a tone of playfulness he had more than once used; I know I say true; and had I before needed evidence to confirm my opinion, this our present conversation would have afforded it."

"How so!"

"Nay, were I to explain, you would not now credit me; no man can see his own prejudices; no, though a philosopher should point at them. But patience, patience! Time and opportunity shall right all things. Why, you did not think," he resumed, after a short pause, "you did not really think you were without prejudices? Eighteen, not more, if I may judge by complexion, and without prejudices! Why, I should hardly dare to assert I was myself without them, and I believe I have fought harder and somewhat longer against them than you can have done."

"What would you have me do!" asked the youth timidly.

"Have you do? Why, I would have you do a very odd thing. No other than to take a turn or two in Epicurus' garden."

"Epicurus' garden! Oh, Jupiter!"

"Very true, by Juno."

"What! To hear the laws of virtue confounded and denied? To hear vice exculpated, advocated, panegyrised? Impiety and atheism professed and inculcated? To witness the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery? Ye gods, what horrors has Timocrates revealed!"

"Horrors, in truth, somewhat appalling, my young friend; but I should apprehend Timocrates to be a little mistaken. That the laws of virtue were ever confounded and denied, or vice advocated and panegyrised, by any professed teacher, I incline to doubt. And were I really to hear such things, I should simply conclude the speaker mad, or otherwise that he was amusing himself by shifting the meaning of words, and that by the term virtue, he understood vice, and so by the contrary. As to the inculcating of impiety and atheism, this may be exaggerated or misunderstood. Many are called impious not for having a worse, but a different religion from their neighbors ; and many atheistical, not for the denying of God, but for thinking somewhat peculiarly concerning him. Upon the nocturnal orgies of vice and debauchery I can say nothing; I am too profoundly ignorant of these matters either to exculpate or condemn them. Such things may be, and I never hear of them. All things are possible. Yes," turning his benignant face full upon the youth, "even that Timocrates should lie."

"This possibility had indeed not occurred to me."

"No, my young friend; and shall I tell you why? Because he told you absurdities. Let an impostor keep to probability, and he will hardly impose. By dealing in the marvelous, he tickles the imagination, and carries away the judgment; and, judgment once gone, what shall save even a wise man from folly?"

"I should truly rejoice to find the Gargettian's doctrines less monstrous than I have hitherto thought them. I say less monstrous, for you would not wish me to think them good."

"I would wish you to think nothing good, or bad either, upon my decision. The first and the last thing I would say to man is, think for yourself. It is a bad sentence of the Pythagoreans, 'The master said so.' If the young disciple you mentioned should ever succeed in your conversion, believe in the metempsychosis for some other reason than that Pythagoras ‘taught it.’"

"But if I may ask, do you think well of Epicurus?"

"I meant not to make an apology for Epicurus, only to give a caution against Timocrates — but see, we are in the city; and, fortunately so, for it is pretty nigh dark. I have a party of young friends awaiting me, and, but that you may be apprehensive of nocturnal orgies, I would ask you to join us."

"I shall not fear them where I have such a conductor," replied the youth, laughing.

"I do not think it quite so impossible, however, as you seem to do," said the sage, laughing, in his turn, with much humor, and entering a house as he spoke; then throwing open with one arm a door, and with the other gently drawing the youth along with him, "I am Epicurus."

Right now if I knew a young person who was confused and wanted a model of what it would mean to be an Epicurean I would be at a loss to draw such a picture. I might refer them to read "A Few Days In Athens" and of course if they were old enough I might suggest the DeWitt book, but those are not adequate to provide the vision necessary to convey the full picture.

I don't know if Eikadistes would be interested in commenting here but this is related to the artistry of being able to capture the essence in pictures / music / poetry etc.

To repeat the allusion, even the gods would have needed models to create worlds.

Elli from what source does that come?

Ok I am feeling a little better and just read the most recent posts. I don't think any of us think that many of the details of the stories of the gods acting childishly are relevant or useful, other than maybe at most in the way that various stories in the Bible (David / Bathsheba?) add depth to the full story.

But it does seem clear to me that

(1)Epicurus thought that healthy aspirational images of living deathlessly and pleasurably and without pain can come from the gods, regardless of whether we today want to consider those images as emanating from real beings or from anticipatory constructs of the mind.

(2) Mental pictures of a type which represent actual attainable examples of living that sort of highest life are useful and necessary not only to children, but to adults, for many reasons, not the least of which is so that we can communicate intelligibly about what we consider to be the highest sort of life available to humans.

Epicurus through Lucretius said that without a model the gods could not have created worlds, and I think it is safe to say that without a model it is not possible to visualize, work for, or obtain the highest Epicurean life.

That as much as anything is what I object to about the modern obsession with "absence of pain" - it is a disembodied ghost - an unattainable abstraction no more intelligible than the "trinity."

I want to think more about this before I go too much further. At this moment I am acutely reminded that I am not an Epicurean god because I think I have an allergy attack going on, and when my mind is not clear I cannot receive those clear images as data from which to discuss this!

Unless you purge your mind of such conceits, and banish them your breast, and forebear to think unworthily of the gods, by charging them with things that break their peace, those sacred deities you will believe are always angry and offended with you; not that the supreme power of the gods can be so ruffled as to be eager to punish severely in their resentments, but because you fancy those beings, who enjoy a perfect peace in themselves, are subject to anger and the extravagances of revenge: and therefore you will no more approach their shrines with an easy mind, no more in tranquility and peace will you be able to receive the images, the representations of their divine forms, that form from their pure bodies and strike powerfully upon the minds of men: From hence you may collect what a wretched life you are to lead.

Another link for more pictures.

I think he's immediately off track with his title - "Understanding good vs bad desires." He explains the general principle to some degree, but the larger point is that desires are not good and bad in themselves, only in the consequences in terms of pleasure and pain that they bring. So he ends up defaulting to the standard "live simply" result without really making any progress in understanding the larger issues as to why simplicity is often (but not always) the best choice. If you start off thinking that anything can be good or bad in itself without reference to pleasure and pain, you've given up the game before you start.

Quote from elli

I prefer a god acting as human being than a god acting like an ascetic unnatural being.

Yes, I do too. I think this is a very important subject to discuss.

Aside from Epicurus' statement that "gods" exist, what is more primary about how we discuss anything than "that which has no sensation is nothing to us" as part of PD2?

If a subject cannot be considered in terms of sensations, then it seems to me that the subject can have no relevance at all. Which means to me that if the subject of the best and highest life cannot be considered in terms of sensations that are intelligible to us, then the subject is essentially nothing to us.

So you can take that and go in two directions:

(1) You can say that since "gods" do not appear immediately in front of us and interact with us the subject has no relevance at all, just like being dead.

(2) Or you can say that "gods" conveys a manner of living which is intelligible to all of us in the form of our picture of human-like beings experiencing the best possible sensations - "living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain."

If Epicurus stood for anything, he stood on the position that the soul cannot survive absent the body, and therefore all that is good must be experienced from birth to death. (Cited by DeWitt as encapsulated in VS 42. "The same time produces both the beginning of the greatest good and the dissolution of the evil." Or, as DeWitt translates it: "The same span of time includes both the beginning and termination of the greatest good." (p 219)

All this appears to mean that the greatest good has to be experienceable by humans in a way that humans can understand, and humans can't understand anything which is not understandable in terms of sensation. And what better way is there to convey anything than to describe by analogy how a thing "feels" to us?

Torquatus again in On Ends: "Further, every mental presentation has its origin in sensation: so that no certain knowledge will be possible, unless all sensations are true, as the theory of Epicurus teaches that they are. Those who deny the validity of sensation and say that nothing can be perceived, having excluded the evidence of the senses, are unable even to expound their own argument. Besides, by abolishing knowledge and science they abolish all possibility of rational life and action."

Also, and even more to the point from Diogenes Laertius: " For all our notions are derived from perceptions, either by actual contact or by analogy, or resemblance, or composition, with some slight aid from reasoning.

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So in my view, do we have to convey the meaning of godhood with a picture of Zeus? No. But we have to convey the image of godhood with something, and in the absence of better alternatives in the form of images that mean more to us, then I would think continuing to use Zeus and the rest makes as much sense for at least some of us today as it did for ancient Epicureans.

LD let me ask you that question I am discussing -- If you were trying to visualize the highest and best life you could live, what kind of imagery would you visualize?

I think this is a good question for anyone studying Epicurus. The Epicurean world is real - it's this one, between birth and death - and whatever goal we set for ourselves also has to be real, and therefore should be something we can visualize.

Thanks for the detailed commentary. I've been thinking about this recently too, and incorporating some of the imagery in several graphics more as a discussion starter than anything else.

As you know LD from my prior posting, I am one who takes the position that Epicurus was serious about "gods" as he defined them existing. But for the moment that is not the part on which I would like to focus.

The reason I am comfortable incorporating Greek imagery into my graphics is that regardless of the "real" angle, I believe that Epicurus thought that the gods were useful as images of perfect happiness toward which to aspire. Certainly he rejected the myths about them doing all sorts of crazy things, but I suspect that even after rejecting that aspect he still found it useful to discuss the issue of how gods would be perfectly happy by personifying them. I am not aware that Epicurus spoke about "god" or in generic terms, rather than using the standard names - but of course I know the record is difficult to assess.

There is of course the call to live as "gods among men," and it is apparent that he embraced the public festivals, and did not argue at all (to my understanding) that they were disembodied spirits.

It appears to me, consistent with the reference to using the Phaeacian imagery from Homer as an example of the best life, that Epicurus believed it was useful to visualize the best life as one not altogether unlike the Greeks pictured the gods as living on Olympus, without all the childish melodrama.

To take this further, as you also know I believe that it is worse than useless to define the best life as "absence of pain." I believe that description applies only to the "limit of quantity" for the reasons discussed elsewhere. I also believe that anyone challenged to visualize what "absence of pain" means in realistic terms will end up visualizing an experience that any ordinary human being can understand in sensual terms, and not as a non-sensual abstraction.

Therefore I believe that Epicurus intended that his students incorporate godlike imagery as visualizations of the best life, such as described by Torquatus:

"The truth of the position that pleasure is the ultimate good will most readily appear from the following illustration. Let us imagine a man living in the continuous enjoyment of numerous and vivid pleasures alike of body and of mind, undisturbed either by the presence or by the prospect of pain: what possible state of existence could we describe as being more excellent or more desirable? One so situated must possess in the first place a strength of mind that is proof against all fear of death or of pain; he will know that death means complete unconsciousness, and that pain is generally light if long and short if strong, so that its intensity is compensated by brief duration and its continuance by diminishing severity. Let such a man moreover have no dread of any supernatural power; let him never suffer the pleasures of the past to fade away, but constantly renew their enjoyment in recollection, and his lot will be one which will not admit of further improvement."

To me, there is nothing wrong, and much that is right, and perhaps a lot that is inevitable, in visualizing this picture in human form much as Zeus or any other idealized Greek god might appear. Of course I don't mean to particularize this to Greece or Rome and to exclude other nations and ethnicity, as they will likely have their own equivalents that is perfectly appropriate for them to use.

But Epicurus spoke of the "enemies of Hellas," and I do not believe he would think it appropriate to abstract out to ideal form a "human" stripped of all background, family, friends, and culture. So use of the Greek/Roman imagery among those of us who follow in that heritage (which very likely includes everyone reading this, no matter what nation they may currently reside) seems very appropriate to me.

This is an excellent thing to discuss and I have an open mind as to the basic point.

DeWitt's commentary, which cites the section from Cicero above:

It's not clear to me that the cite in Tusculan Disputations is quite as specific as this comment from DeWitt suggests, but it's clearly relevant. You'd probably need a study of the original text from Cicero to sort out exactly what specifically Cicero was talking about.

For comparison and for future study, here is the part of Tusculan Disputations where Cicero criticizes Plato in particular, and seemingly the Stoics, and seems to praise Epicurus' position:

https://archive.org/details/cicero…ceuoft/page/156

Thank you Elli for correcting me! Strike what I said above about "impossible - Epicurus . net is wrong - the word is DIFFICULT according to this source -- https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…rOWsEsRSQzQNUvK

Substituting difficult for impossible helps a lot - we would still need to be careful with whether the issue is "sex" or "too prone" or "leans most keenly" -- in other words whether the issue is sex itself, or excessive / imprudent ways of indulgence in it.

“You tell me that the stimulus of the flesh makes you too prone to the pleasures of love." Also, if this is a correct translation, note the "too prone." That doesn't seem to be an absolute prohibition either, but a reference to *excessive* indulgence.

Epicurus' Warning To the Young Man Who Was "Too Prone To The Pleasures Of Love"

Looking further at the conclusion of this quote (Vatican Saying 51) , I see that it says that " it is impossible not to come up against one or other of these barriers" << I would particularly scrutinize any attribution to Epicurus where he allegedly says that something in human affairs is "impossible." Given that there is no "fate," and that humans have "free will," can anyone cite another instance besides this where Epicurus says that something is "impossible"? Remember we are talking **ethics** here - not something like death that derives from the unchanging properties and qualities of the elements. Death (except for the gods) is impossible to avoid for elemental reasons, because all bodies that come together eventually break apart. But is there any reason that it should be "impossible" to prevail over the dangers of sex? Remember - is there any backup beyond Vatican Saying 51 to confirm this phrasing? Do we even have a copy of the original text of the Vatican list to confirm it?

G: What about that one mention to the young fellow by epicurus' about sex? I think it went something like not to break any customs or hurt others and if you can do this then do it if not they don't. Do you know what I am referring to?

Cassius:

"“You tell me that the stimulus of the flesh makes you too prone to the pleasures of love. Provided that you do not break the laws or good customs and do not distress any of your neighbors or do harm to your body or squander your pittance, you may indulge your inclination as you please. Yet it is impossible not to come up against one or other of these barriers, for the pleasures of love never profited a man and he is lucky if they do him no harm.”"

That one can be explained in large part, as Epicurus says, by presuming it was written to someone who was in intoxicated overdrive and taking risks that were not warranted by the potential gain. If you do approach sex prudently, then you can greatly reduce or eliminate those potential pains that Epicurus was warning about.

Now as to the last part about "never profited" I think we would want to scrutinize the translation and the context (which we probably don't have). "Never profited" cannot mean "never pleasured" or "was never desirable" because we know that all pleasure is desirable from other Epicurean texts. Was he referring to intoxicated pursuit of "the pleasures of love" - maybe so and that would be consistent, if that is what the context shows. We know from other texts that Epicurus advised the daughter of Metrodorus to get married, and the texts also seem to say that he recommended marriage when appropriate. If he had advised against all marriage and all sex you can be sure we would have more clear texts on that point.

So I think this is one of those texts that has to be weighed against the rest, and if you do then you don't let this one overrule the rest, which are more consistent with the whole. Was it Epicurus or this text that appears to have a problem. My bet is that this text has a problem that would be explained if we had the original or more context or both.

And of course there is the lengthy discussion of all this in Lucretius.

In general Epicurus doesn't say that you can eliminate all risk or all pain, but you can't do that in the rest of life either. Just like in any pleasurable activity, you can reduce risks and pain to a manageable level if you act prudently in pursuing that pleasure. Some particular choices in pursuing pleasure cost more in pain than they are worth, but at the same time (1) pleasure is the goal of living, and (2) even if the worst happens, pain that is intense doesn't last long, and pain that is less intense is manageable.

No one can make particular choices for you -- and it is impossible that they could, because if they could that would mean there is fate and/or some kind of mechanical determinism, which there is not in these issues.

You might find this prior discussion interesting https://newepicurean.com/love-marriage-…e-modern-world/

Epicurus Principal Doctrine Two: “Death is nothing to us; for that is dissolved is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.”

If there is any one doctrine that is absolutely clear and which distinguishes Epicurus from most other philosophers, it is that death is the end of “us” as we know it. Epicurus held that this single present lifetime is the only one that we will ever have, and the ethical implications of this are expanded in numerous sayings.

Leaving aside the extended implications, even the fundamental point of what Epicurus meant by “death is nothing to us” is not without controversy. (1) Does this mean that “dying” is of no relevance to us? Or does it mean that “the state of being dead” after we depart from life is nothing to us? (2) Does this doctrine mean that it makes no difference how long we live? Or is it perfectly sound Epicurean doctrine to want to live as long as we can continue to live happily?

My personal answers to these questions are: (1) The doctrine is focused on the state of being dead, not on the act of dying. We will not exist after death to have any concerns at all, but we certainly are concerned **during life** both by our manner of death (how much pain we will encounter in dying, as well as by the thought of what will happen to those we leave behind after we die. (2) This doctrine does *not* mean that we are unconcerned with how long we live. Life is desirable (and Epicurus clearly says so in the letter to Menoeceus). Even though we are not “gods” who can life forever, it is desirable for us to experience as much happiness as we can during this life, our only opportunity to experience pleasure. All other things being equal, it seems to me that an Epicurean should prefer to live fifty years of happiness rather than five.

Questions like this deserve a lot of thought. Please comment on the text and consider sharing the thread. Lucretius gives us many word pictures from which to prepare graphics, but can you compose a graphic that would better illustrate this Epicurean point? Please add your own version to this thread, and we will use these in the future to help spread the ideas of Epicurus on the internet.

Epicurus in his letter to Menoeceus: "Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer."

Lucretius mirroring Epicurean doctrine in “De Rerum Natura”:

Death, then, is naught to us, nor does it concern us a whit, inasmuch as the nature of the mind is but a mortal possession. And even as in the time gone by we felt no ill, when the Poeni came from all sides to the shock of battle, when all the world, shaken by the hurrying turmoil of war, shuddered and reeled beneath the high coasts of heaven, in doubt to which people’s sway must fall all human power by land and sea; so, when we shall be no more, when there shall have come the parting of body and soul, by whose union we are made one, you may know that nothing at all will be able to happen to us, who then will be no more, or stir our feeling; no, not if earth shall be mingled with sea, and sea with sky.

And even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather together our substance after our decease and bring it back again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even now we care not at all for the selves that we once were, not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them. For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in between lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered everywhere far astray from sense. For, if by chance there is to be grief and pain for a man, he must needs himself too exist at that time, that ill may befall him. Since death forestalls this, and prevents the being of him, on whom these misfortunes might crowd, we may know that we have naught to fear in death, and that he who is no more cannot be wretched, and that it were no whit different if he had never at any time been born, when once immortal death hath stolen away mortal life.

And so, when you see a man chafing at his lot, that after death he will either rot away with his body laid in earth, or be destroyed by flames, or the jaws of wild beasts, you may be sure that his words do not ring true, and that deep in his heart lies some secret pang, however much he deny himself that he believes that he will have any feeling in death. For he does not, I trow, grant what he professes, nor the grounds of his profession, nor does he remove and cast himself root and branch out of life, but all unwitting supposes something of himself to live on. For when in life each man pictures to himself that it will come to pass that birds and wild beasts will mangle his body in death, he pities himself; for neither does he separate himself from the corpse, nor withdraw himself enough from the outcast body, but thinks that it is he, and, as he stands watching, taints it with his own feeling. Hence he chafes that he was born mortal, and sees not that in real death there will be no second self, to live and mourn to himself his own loss, or to stand there and be pained that he lies mangled or burning. For if it is an evil in death to be mauled by the jaws and teeth of wild beasts, I cannot see how it is not sharp pain to be laid upon hot flames and cremated, or to be placed in honey and stifled, and to grow stiff with cold, lying on the surface on the top of an icy rock, or to be crushed and ground by a weight of earth above. “

And this is only the beginning of the section! The full extended discussion of death can be found at the end of book three of Lucretius: https://epicureanfriends.com/wiki/doku.php?id=bailey_3

The current gallery of graphics for PD2 is here: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/wcf/gallery/in…e-list/189-pd2/

This post is currently in the General Discussion forum here: Visualizing Principal Doctrine Two

Jefferson's statement there was probably informed partially by the arguments Thomas Cooper later included in The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism"

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, December 11, 1823.

TO DR. THOMAS COOPER

MONTECELLO, DEC. 11, 1823.

DEAR SIR:

I duly received your favor of the 23rd old ult. as also the two pamphlets you were so kind as to send me. That on the tariff, I observed, was soon reprinted in Ritchie’s Enquirer. I was only sorry he did not postpone it to the meeting of Congress, when it would have got into the hands of all the members, and could not fail to have great effect, perhaps a decisive one. It is really an extraordinary proposition that the agricultural, mercantile, and navigating classes should be taxed to maintain that of manufacturers.

That the doctrine of Materialism was that of Jesus himself was a new idea to me. Yet it is proved unquestionably. We all know it was that of some of the early Fathers. I hope the physiological part will follow; in spite of the prevailing fanaticism, reason will make its way. I confess that its reign at present is appalling. General education is the true remedy, and that most happily is now generally encouraged. The story you mention as gotten up by your opponents, of my having advised the Trustees of our University to turn you out as Professor, is quite in their style of barefaced mendacity. They find it so easy to obliterate the reason of mankind that they think they may enterprise safely on his memory also; for it was the winter before the last only, that our annual report to the Legislature, printed in the newspapers, stated the precise ground on which we relinquished your engagement with our Central College. And, if my memory does not deceive me, it was own your own proposition, that the time of our setting into operation being postponed indefinitely, it was important to you not to lose an opportunity of fixing yourself permanently; and that they should father on me too, the motion for this dismission, than whom no man living cherishes a higher estimation of your worth, talents, and information. But so the world goes. Man is fed with fables through life, leaves it in the belief that he has known something of what has been passing, when in truth he has known nothing but what has passed under his own eye. And who are the great deceivers? Those who solemnly pretend to be the depositories of the sacred truths of God himself! I will not believe that the liberality of the State to which you are rendering services of science which no other man in the Union is qualified to render it will suffer you to be in danger from a set of conjurers.

I note what you say of Mr. Finch; but the moment of our Commencement is as indefinite as it ever was. Affectionately and respectfully,

Yours,

TH. JEFFERSON