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The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy, recognized and conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries preceding the Christian era, and during the century or more following. Among these four sects, the most marked antithesis of ethical dogma was between the Stoics and the Epicureans. The Stoical system dates from about 300 B.C.; it was derived from the system of the Cynics.
The glory of the Stoics is to have built up a religion of extraordinary nobleness; the glory of the Epicureans is to have upheld an ideal of sanity and humanity stark upright amid a reeling world, and, like the old Spartans, never to have yielded one inch of ground to the common foe.
The chief good, the painless happiness of the Epicureans, was forever lost to those burdened by such guilt. And during the hours of the day and evening? Ay, then she would be free to heap pleasure on pleasure. But for whom were the festivals to be celebrated; with whom could she share them? For many a long year no banquet, no entertainment had given her enjoyment without Mark Antony.
There are crowds of arguers who contradict this; and those not only Epicureans, whom I regard very little, but, somehow or other, almost every man of letters; and, above all, my favorite Dicæarchus is very strenuous in opposing the immortality of the soul: for he has written three books, which are entitled Lesbiacs, because the discourse was held at Mitylene, in which he seeks to prove that souls are mortal.
T. Well, I didn’t say it did: but still you can tell me who Atticus was. C. A great friend of Cicero’s. T. Did he take much part in politics? C. No. T. What were his opinions? C. He was an Epicurean. T. What was an Epicurean? C. is silent, then, Epicureans lived for themselves. T. You are answering very well, sir; proceed.
Epicurus, on the contrary, considers intellectual pleasure to be the higher one; for sensual enjoyment, which he believes free to every one, can be experienced only in the present, while intellectual delight extends to both the past and the future. To the Epicureans the goal of life, as has already been mentioned, is to attain the chief blessings, peace of mind, and freedom from pain.
The convent was burned, and several nuns perished among others Teresa; and with her all chance of knowing the story of my birth: tragic by all accounts it must have been." "Raro antecedentem scelestum, or, as I may here say, scelestam," said Oldbuck, "deseruit poena even Epicureans admitted that. And what did you do upon this?" "I remonstrated with Mr. Neville by letter, and to no purpose.
The Epicureans did not perceive that the head of the school had left them; the violins continued playing all night long. Fouquet, on leaving his house for the second time that day, felt himself less heavy and less disturbed than might have been expected. He turned towards Pelisson, who was meditating in the corner of the carriage some good arguments against the violent proceedings of Colbert.
Very quickly after his Academica, in B.C. 45, came the five books, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, written as though with the object of settling the whole controversy, and declaring whether the truth lay with the Epicureans, the Stoics, or the Academics. What, at last, is the good thing, and what the evil thing, and how shall we gain the one and avoid the other?
As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e. g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the Providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans, who argue that what is Divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.
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