Greek Texts & Translations

Hegesianax.

Of Human Life, four books.

Of Just Dealing.

Neocles : dedicated to Themista.

Symposium.

Eurylochus : dedicated to Metrodorus.

Of Vision.

Of the Angle in the Atom.

Of Touch.

Of Fate.

Theories of the Feelings - against Timocrates.

Discovery of the Future.

Introduction to Philosophy.

Of Images.

Of Presentation.

Aristobulus.

Of Music.

Of Justice and the other Virtues.

Of Benefits and Gratitude.

Polymedes.

Timocrates, three books.

Metrodorus, five books.

Antidorus, two books.

Theories about Diseases (and Death) - to Mithras. ^note Callistolas.

Of Kingship.

Anaximenes.

Correspondence.

The views expressed in these works I will try to set forth by quoting three of his epistles, in which he has given an epitome of his whole system. I 10.1.29 will also set down his Sovran Maxims and any other utterance of his that seems worth citing, that you may be in a position to study the philosopher on all sides and know how to judge him.

The first epistle is addressed to Herodotus and deals with physics ; the second to Pythocles and deals with astronomy or meteorology ; the third is addressed to Menoeceus and its subject is human life. We must begin with the first after some few preliminary remarks ^note upon his division of philosophy.

It is divided into three parts - Canonic, Physics, Ethics. 10.1.30 Canonic forms the introduction to the system and is contained in a single work entitled The Canon. The physical part includes the entire theory of Nature : it is contained in the thirty-seven books Of Nature and, in a summary form, in the letters. The ethical part deals with the facts of choice and aversion : this may be found in the books On Human Life, in the letters, and in his treatise Of the End. The usual arrangement, however, is to conjoin canonic with physics, and the former they call the science which deals with the standard and the first principle, or the elementary part of philosophy, while physics proper, they say, deals with becoming and perishing and with nature ; ethics, on the other hand, deals with things to be sought and avoided, with human life and with the end-in-chief.

They reject dialectic as superfluous ; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things. ^noteNow in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth ; the Epicureans generally make perceptions of mental presentations ^note to be also standards. His own statements are also to be found in the Summary addressed to Herodotus and in the Sovran Maxims. Every sensation, he says, is devoid of reason and incapable of memory ; for neither is it self-caused nor, regarded as having an external cause, can it add anything thereto or take anything therefrom. Nor is there anything which can refute sensations or convict them of error : 10.1.32 one sensation cannot convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid ; nor can one sensation refute another which is not kindred but heterogeneous, for the objects which the two senses judge are not the same ^note; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is wholly dependent on sensation ; nor can one sense refute another, since we pay equal heed to all. And the reality of separate perceptions guarantees ^note the truth of our senses. But seeing and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Hence it is from plain facts that we must start when we draw inferences about the unknown. ^note 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. And the objects presented to madmen ^note and to people in dreams are true, for they produce effects - i.e. movements in the mind - which that which is unreal never does.

By preconception they mean a sort of apprehension or a right opinion or notion, or universal idea stored in the mind ; that is, a recollection of an external object often presented, e.g. Such and such a thing is a man : for no sooner is the word "man" uttered than we think of his shape by an act of preconception, in which the senses take the lead. ^note Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then plain and clear. And we should never have started an investigation, unless we had known what it was that we were in search of. For example : The object standing yonder is a horse or a cow. Before making this judgement, we must at some time or other have known by preconception the shape of a horse or a cow. We should not have given anything a name, if we had not first learnt its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions are clear. The object of a judgement is derived from something previously clear, by reference to which we frame the proposition, e.g. "How do we know that this is a man?"