EPOCHS OF PHILOSOPHY STOIC AND EPICUREAN BY R. D. HICKS, M.A. FELLOW AND FORMERLY LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE CARORNA HRO CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS PREFACE THE philosophical systems of Zeno and Epicurus may profitably be studied together. For, in spite of obvious differences, over which their adherents for centuries waged internecine warfare, it is easy to discern the fundamental similarity between them. Both schools sought by devious paths one and the same goal. Both exalted practice above theory, and conceded to sense and experience their full right. Both, in short, were crude forms of realism, which for the time (and not for that time alone) had come into its inheritance and held full sway over the minds of men. The temper of the age favoured such a reaction from extreme intellectualism. The success of the new schools, if not immediate, was assured from the first, reaching its height when Hellenistic culture was taken up by the practical Romans. My exposition of these two parallel systems of thought is primarily based on independent study of the original authorities. In this department of the history of philosophy much good work has been done in the last quarter of a century. I have made it my business to compare the results of recent investigation with the sources themselves, now rendered accessible, as they never have been before, through the labours of such competent scholars as Diels, Wachsmuth, Usener, and von Arnim. Even with these welcome aids, the task of research is by no means easy, owing to the scantiness and the peculiar nature of the materials which time has spared. To take the early V Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus; much of the evidence is derived from opponents who were naturally more alert to detect and expose inconsistencies than careful to state impartially the doctrines they impugned. When ampler means of information become available, new difficulties arise; for while it is certain that the Stoics of Cicero's time had diverged from the standards of orthodoxy prescribed by their predecessors, it is not equally certain wherein precisely this divergence consisted. Thus Cicero puts into the mouth of Cato a lucid exposition of Stoic ethics, but what particular Stoic was Cicero's authority, and how far this authority reproduced or modified the original doctrine of Zeno and Chrysippus, is matter of dispute. Nor are these difficulties removed by consulting Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, the authors whom we know at first hand and in fullest detail. It is difficult to see how, from a mass of precepts, exhortations and moral reflections the underlying structure of dogma can be inferred with such clearness and precision as readily to serve for comparison with other authorities. The most careful inquiry must, therefore, leave room for doubt, on questions of grave importance. In the first three chapters of this work the reader will find a nucleus of fact, well attested by documentary evidence, and my constant endeavour has been to bring him, wherever possible, face to face with the utterances of the Stoics themselves, so that he may judge for himself of the correctness of my interpretation. In the fourth chapter I have followed substantially the same course, availing myself of the excellent versions of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius by Long and Rendall. Seneca, on the other hand, though still popular in France, has with us of late fallen into neglect. Even of his epistles we have no standard translation, a fact which well deserves the attention of English and American scholars. The rival school of Epicurus has been more fortunate. Not only have we the summaries of its founder, but the task of reconstruction is rendered comparatively easy by the poem of Lucretius, which the English reader can study for himself in the admirable prose version of H. A. J. Munro. Here, while reserving the right to form my own judgment from the evidence, I have, in the main, followed the guidance of Munro and Giussani. Some points of detail are obscure, but on the whole no ancient system is more easily comprehended or appraised. In my sixth chapter I have tried to render adequately one valuable Epicurean document, the letter to Herodotus, and occasional illustrations and parallels have been added to make its meaning clearer. In dealing with Epicurean theology in the seventh chapter, we quit the region of ascertained fact for dubious speculation and ingenious conjecture. Caution is therefore necessary, since the promised exploration of Herculaneum may some day bring to light the missing clue to this puzzling riddle. Not the least noteworthy feature in these two philosophies is the long duration of their exclusive, if divided, supremacy. In the school of Epicurus there are no changes to record. Everything goes to show that the doctrine of the founder was guarded intact as he had left it. Even the genius of Lucretius did but enshrine it in an imperishable memorial. It was far otherwise with Stoicism, which provoked fierce opposition and was continually modified by pressure from without and within. No narrative of its rise and development would be complete which |