Epicurus
(341-270 BCE)
Letter to Menoeceus
Epicurus to Menoeceus, greetings:
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he
has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that
the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying
that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and
young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may
be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that,
while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which
are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that
be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards
attaining it.
Those things which without ceasing I have declared unto you, do them, and exercise yourself
in them, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being
immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of
mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his
immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness. Believe about him whatever may uphold
both his blessedness and his immortality. For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is
manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly
maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods
worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes
about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true
preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked
and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are
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always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like themselves, but
reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.
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.
But in the world, at one time men shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time
choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise man does not deprecate life nor does he
fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life
regarded as an evil. And even as men choose of food not merely and simply the larger
portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and
not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old
to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but
because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who
says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass quickly through the
gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It would be
easy for him to do so once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in jest, his words are
foolishness as those who hear him do not believe.
We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither
must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the
natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary
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desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness,
some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will
direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind,
seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free
from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid;
seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to
look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When
we are pained because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of
pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our
first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it
we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.
And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every
pleasure whatsoever, but will often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance
ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the
pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all
pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is should be chosen, just as
all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one
against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these
matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary,
as a good.
Again, we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use
little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that
they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is
natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as
much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain of want has been removed, while bread
and water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To
habituate one's self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies all that is needful for
health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it
places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us
fearless of fortune.
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When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the
prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through
ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain
in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and
of revelry, not sexual lust, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious
table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every
choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take
possession of the soul. Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is wisdom. Therefore
wisdom is a more precious thing even than philosophy ; from it spring all the other virtues,
for it teaches that we cannot live pleasantly without living wisely, honorably, and justly; nor
live wisely, honorably, and justly without living pleasantly. For the virtues have grown into
one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a man? He holds a holy belief concerning the
gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed
by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained,
and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Fate, which some introduce
as sovereign over all things, he scorns, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity,
others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys
responsibility and that chance is inconstant; whereas our own actions are autonomous, and it
is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends
of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have
imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while
the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god,
as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause,
though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men
so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil.
He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better,
in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of
chance.
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Exercise yourself in these and related precepts day and night, both by yourself and with one
who is like-minded; then never, either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will
live as a god among men. For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of
immortal blessings.
Principal Doctrines
1. A blessed and indestructible being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any
other being; so he is free from anger and partiality, for all such things imply weakness.
2. Death is nothing to us; for that which has been dissolved into its elements experiences no
sensations, and that which has no sensation is nothing to us.
3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When such 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 bodily pain does not last long; instead, pain, if extreme, is present a very short
time, and even that degree of pain which slightly exceeds bodily pleasure does not last for
many days at once. Diseases of long duration allow an excess of bodily pleasure over pain.
5. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it
is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever
any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he
lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.
6. In order to obtain protection from other men, any means for attaining this end is a natural
good.
7. Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves secure
against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have attained a natural
good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature's own
prompting they originally sought.
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8. No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail
disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.
9. If every pleasure had been capable of accumulation, not only over time but also over the
entire body or at least over the principal parts of our nature, then pleasures would never differ
from one another.
10. If the things that produce the pleasures of profligate men really freed them from fears of
the mind concerning celestial and atmospheric phenomena, the fear of death, and 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 from every source and would
never have pain of body or mind, which is what is bad.
11. If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by fears
about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires, we should have had no
need of natural science.
12. It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he
doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without
the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.
13. There is no advantage to obtaining protection from other men so long as we are alarmed
by events above or below the earth or in general by whatever happens in the boundless
universe.
14. Protection from other men, secured to some extent by the power to expel and by material
prosperity, in its purest form comes from a quiet life withdrawn from the multitude.
15. The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required
by vain ideals extends to infinity.
16. Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been,
are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life.
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17. The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost
disturbance.
18. Bodily pleasure does not increase when the pain of want has been removed; after that it
only admits of variation. The limit of mental pleasure, however, is reached when we reflect
on these bodily pleasures and their related emotions, which used to 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 flesh receives as unlimited the limits of pleasure; and to provide it requires unlimited
time. But the mind, intellectually grasping what the end and limit of the flesh is, and
banishing the terrors of the future, procures a complete and perfect life, and we have no
longer any need of unlimited time. Nevertheless the mind does not shun pleasure, and even
when circumstances make death imminent, the mind does not lack enjoyment of the best life.
21. He who understands the limits of life knows that it is easy to obtain that which removes
the pain of want and makes the whole of life complete and perfect. Thus he has no longer any
need of things which involve struggle.
22. We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, 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 sensations which you claim are false.
24. If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to distinguish between
opinion about things awaiting confirmation and that which is already confirmed to be present,
whether in sensation or in feelings or in any application of intellect to the presentations, you
will confuse the rest of your sensations by your groundless opinion and so you will reject
every standard of truth. 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 avoid error, as you will be
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maintaining the entire basis for doubt in every judgment between correct and incorrect
opinion.
25. If you do not on every occasion refer each of your actions to the ultimate end prescribed
by nature, but instead of this in the act of choice or avoidance turn to some other end, your
actions will not be consistent with your theories.
26. All desires that do not lead to pain when they remain unsatisfied are unnecessary, but the
desire is easily got rid of, when the thing desired is difficult to obtain or the desires seem
likely to produce harm.
27. Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life,
by far the most important is friendship.
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 in the limited evils of this life nothing
enhances our security so much as friendship.
29. Of our desires some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary; and
others are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to groundless opinion.
30. Those natural desires which entail no pain when unsatisfied, though pursued with an
intense effort, are also due to groundless opinion; and it is not because of their own nature
they are not got rid of but because of man's groundless opinions.
31. Natural justice is a pledge of reciprocal benefit, to prevent one man from harming or
being harmed by another.
32. Those animals which are incapable of making binding agreements with one another not
to inflict nor suffer harm are without either justice or injustice; and likewise for those peoples
who either could not or would not form binding agreements not to inflict nor suffer harm.
33. There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual
dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or
suffering of harm.
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34. Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which is associated
with the apprehension of being discovered by those appointed to punish such actions.
35. It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or
be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped
ten thousand times; for until his death he is never sure that he will not be detected.
36. In general justice is the same for all, for it is something found mutually beneficial in
men's dealings, but in its application to particular places or other circumstances the same
thing is not necessarily just for everyone.
37. Among the things held to be just by law, whatever is proved to be of advantage in men's
dealings has the stamp of justice, whether or not it be the same for all; but if a man makes a
law and it does not prove to be mutually advantageous, then this is no longer just. And if
what is mutually advantageous varies and only for a time corresponds to our concept of
justice, nevertheless for that time it is just for those who do not trouble themselves about
empty words, but look simply at the facts.
38. Where without any change in circumstances the things held to be just by law are seen not
to correspond with the concept of justice in actual practice, such laws are not really just; but
wherever the laws have ceased to be advantageous because of a change in circumstances, in
that case the laws were for that time just when they were advantageous for the mutual
dealings of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to be just when they were no longer
advantageous.
39. The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the
creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he
finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes
them from his life.
40. Those who possess the power to defend themselves against threats by their neighbors,
being thus in possession of the surest guarantee of security, live the most pleasant life with
one another; and their enjoyment of the fullest intimacy is such that if one of them dies
prematurely, the others do not lament his death as though it called for pity.
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