Epicurus
341-270 B.C.E. - Wrote in Greek
Principal Doctrines
Written (Date Pending)
Translated by Robert Drew Hicks
Principal Doctrines
By Epicurus
1. A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no
trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger
and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness.
2. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been
resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling
is nothing to us.
3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal
of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted,
there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both
together.
4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on the
contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time, and even that degree
of pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the body does not last for many
days together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasure
over pain in the body.
5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living
wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well
and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking,
when, for instance, the person is not able to live wisely, though he lives
well and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant
life.
6. In order to obtain security from other people any means
whatever of procuring this was a natural good.
7. Some people have sought to become famous and renowned,
thinking that thus they would make themselves secure against their fellow-humans.
If, then, the life of such persons really was secure, they attained natural
good; if, however, it was insecure, they have not attained the end which
by nature's own prompting they originally sought.
8. No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce
certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures
themselves.
9. If all pleasure had been capable of accumulation, --
if this had gone on not only be recurrences in time, but all over the frame
or, at any rate, over the principal parts of human nature, there would
never have been any difference between one pleasure and another, as in
fact there is.
10. If the objects which are productive of pleasures to
profligate persons really freed them from fears of the mind, -- the fears,
I mean, inspired by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death,
the fear of pain; if, further, they taught them to limit their desires,
we should never have any fault to find with such persons, for they would
then be filled with pleasures to overflowing on all sides and would be
exempt from all pain, whether of body or mind, that is, from all
evil.
11. If we had never been molested by alarms at celestial
and atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects
us, nor by neglect of the proper limits of pains and desires, we should
have had no need to study natural science.
12. It would be impossible to banish fear on matters of
the highest importance, if a person did not know the nature of the whole
universe, but lived in dread of what the legends tell us. Hence without
the study of nature there was no enjoyment of unmixed
pleasures.
13. There would be no advantage in providing security against
our fellow humans, so long as we were alarmed by occurrences over our heads
or beneath the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless
universe.
14. When tolerable security against our fellow humans is
attained, then on a basis of power sufficient to afford supports and of
material prosperity arises in most genuine form the security of a quiet
private life withdrawn from the multitude.
15. Nature's wealth at once has its bounds and is easy to
procure; but the wealth of vain fancies recedes to an infinite
distance.
16. Fortune but seldom interferes with the wise person;
his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed
by reason throughout the course of his life.
17. The just person enjoys. the greatest peace of mind,
while the unjust is full of the utmost disquietude.
18. Pleasure in the body admits no increase when once the
pain of want has been removed; after that it only admits of variation.
The limit of pleasure in the mind, however, is reached when we reflect
on the things themselves and their congeners which cause the mind the greatest
alarms.
19. Unlimited time and limited time afford an equal amount
of pleasure, if we measure the limits of that pleasure by
reason.
20. The body receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure;
and to provide it requires unlimited time. But the mind, grasping in thought
what the end and limit of the body is, and banishing the terrors of futurity,
procures a complete and perfect life, and has no longer any need of unlimited
time. Nevertheless it does not shun pleasure, and even in the hour of death,
when ushered out of existence by circumstances, the mind does not lack
enjoyment of the best life.
21. He who understands the limits of life knows how easy
it is to procure enough to remove the pain of want and make the whole of
life complete and perfect. Hence he has no longer any need of things which
are not to be won save by labor and conflict.
22. We must take into account as the end all that really
exists and all clear evidence of sense to which we refer our opinions;
for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and
confusion.
23. If you fight against all your sensations, you will have
no standard to which to refer, and thus no means of judging even those
judgments which you pronounce false.
24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation without
stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation
between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in
sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you
will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless
belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If
in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits
confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error,
as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of
judging between right and wrong opinion.
25. If you do not on every separate occasion refer each
of your actions to the end prescribed by nature, but instead of this in
the act of choice or avoidance swerve aside to some other end, your acts
will not be consistent with your theories.
26. All such desires as lead to no pain when they remain
ungratified are unnecessary, and the longing is easily got rid of, when
the thing desired is difficult to procure or when the desires seem likely
to produce harm.
27. Of all the means which are procured by wisdom to ensure
happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is the
acquisition of friends.
28. The same conviction which inspires confidence that nothing
we have to fear is eternal or even of long duration, also enables us to
see that even in our limited conditions of life nothing enhances our security
so much as friendship.
29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary others
are natural, but not necessary; others, again, are neither natural nor
necessary, but are due to illusory opinion.
30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when not
gratified, though their objects are vehemently pursued, are also due to
illusory opinion; and when they are not got rid of, it is not because of
their own nature, but because of the person's illusory
opinion.
31. Natural justice is a symbol or expression of usefullness,
to prevent one person from harming or being harmed by
another.
32. Those animals which are incapable of making covenants
with one another, to the end that they may neither inflict nor suffer harm,
are without either justice or injustice. And those tribes which either
could not or would not form mutual covenants to the same end are in like
case.
33. There never was an absolute justice, but only an agreement
made in reciprocal association in whatever localities now and again from
time to time, providing against the infliction or suffering of
harm.
34. Injustice is not in itself an evil, but only in its
consequence, viz. the terror which is excited by apprehension that those
appointed to punish such offenses will discover the
injustice.
35. It is impossible for the person who secretly violates
any article of the social compact to feel confident that he will remain
undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand times; for right
on to the end of his life he is never sure he will not be
detected.
36. Taken generally, justice is the same for all, to wit,
something found useful in mutual association; but in its application to
particular cases of locality or conditions of whatever kind, it varies
under different circumstances.
37. Among the things accounted just by conventional law,
whatever in the needs of mutual association is attested to be useful, is
thereby stamped as just, whether or not it be the same for all; and in
case any law is made and does not prove suitable to the usefulness of mutual
association, then this is no longer just. And should the usefulness which
is expressed by the law vary and only for a time correspond with the prior
conception, nevertheless for the time being it was just, so long as we
do not trouble ourselves about empty words, but look simply at the
facts.
38. Where without any change in circumstances the conventional
laws, when judged by their consequences, were seen not to correspond with
the notion of justice, such laws were not really just; but wherever the
laws have ceased to be useful in consequence of a change in circumstances,
in that case the laws were for the time being just when they were useful
for the mutual association of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to
be just when they ceased to be useful.
39. He who best knew how to meet fear of external foes made
into one family all the creatures he could; and those he could not, he
at any rate did not treat as aliens; and where he found even this impossible,
he avoided all association, and, so far as was useful, kept them at a
distance.
40. Those who were best able to provide themselves with
the means of security against their neighbors, being thus in possession
of the surest guarantee, passed the most agreeable life in each other's
society; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy was such that, if
one of them died before his time, the survivors did not mourn his death
as if it called for sympathy.
THE END
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