[2] “... but on coming across the works of Democritus [Epicurus] turned to 
philosophy.” p. 10. 

[4] (Posidonius the Stoic and Nicolaus and Sotion in the twelfth book of the work 
entitled Dioclean Refutations allege)* “... that he put forward as his own the doctrines 
of Democritus about atoms and of Aristippus about pleasure.” p. 11. 

[6] “I [Epicurus] know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of 
taste, [sexual pleasures,] the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form.” 
p. 12. 

[12] “Among the early philosophers ... his favourite was Anaxagoras, although 
he occasionally disagreed with him...’ p. 16. 

[29] “It [Epicurean philosophy] is divided into three parts—The Canon, 
Physics, Ethics” [p. 25.] 

I. The Canon 

[31] “Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations and preconceptions 
(prolepseis) and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans generally make 
perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards.” pp. 25-26. “His own statements 
are also to be found ... in the Principal Doctrines.” p. 26. 

I. “‘...the sensations are true. Every sensation ... 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, neither judge nor deceive.” 

[31-32] “Nor is there anything which can refute sensations: one sensation cannot 
convict another and kindred sensation, for they are equally valid (aequipollentiam); nor 
can one sensation refute another which is not kindred, for the objects which the two 
judge are not the same; nor can one sensation refute another, since we pay equal heed 
to all; nor again can reason refute them, for reason is dependent on sensation. 

? Written in Latin in the manuscript— Ed. 

“And the reality of ... perceptions guarantees the truth of our senses. But seeing 
and hearing are just as real as feeling pain. Between being true and being a reality, there 1s 
no difference.” p. 26. 

“Hence it is from phenomena that we must seek to obtain information about the 
unknown. 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.” p[p]. 
26[-27]. . 

“And the objects presented to madmen as well as presentations in dreams are true, for they ... 
produce movements, which that which does not exist never does.” p. 27. 

II. [33] “By preconception they [the Epicureans] 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. Thus the object primarily denoted by every term is then evident. And we could 
not seek what we do seek, unless we knew it before. ... we could not name anything at all, if we 
did not previously know its form by way of preconception. It follows, then, that preconceptions 
are evident. Mere opinion also depends on a previous evident presentation, by reference to 
which we form a judgment [...]. Opinion they also call ... assumption. They say it is 
sometimes true, sometimes false by something being added to it or taken away from it, or 
by its being confirmed or contradicted as being evident or not. For if it is confirmed or not 
contradicted, it is true, and if it is not confirmed or is contradicted, it is false. Hence the 
introduction of ‘that which awaits’, for example, when one waits and then approaches 
the tower and establishes whether it looks from close quarters as it does from afar.” 
[plp. (27-128. 

“They affirm that there are two feelings: pleasure and pain.... The first is favourable to 
nature, the second hostile; according to these is determined what we must strive after 
and what we must avoid.” [p]p. [28-]29. 

“There are two kinds of inquiry, the one concerned with things, the other with the 
mere word,’ p. 29. 

Epicurus to Menoeceus 

{123] “First believe that God is a ... being indestructible and blessed according to the 
universal notion of God, and do not ascrible to him anything which is incompatible with his 
immortality, or that agrees not with his blessedness....” p. 82. 

“For gods verily there are. For the notion of them is evident” (cf. “the universal 
notion of God”, consensus omnium, c [onsensus] gentium*), “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 believe about them is truly impious. [124] For the utterances 
of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions, but false accumptions; hence 
the multitude believe that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest 
blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods. For being entirely prejudiced in 
favour of their own virtues, they grant their favour to those who are like themselves and 
consider as alien whatever is not so.” p. 83. 

“Accustom thyself to believe that death is nothing to us, for all that is good or bad is 
based on sentience, and death is the loss of sentience. 

* The censensus of all, the consensus of the peoples.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 407 

“Therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes transient life 
worth living, not by adding indefinite time to life, but by putting an end to the yearning 
after immortality. [125] For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly apprehended that 
ceasing to live has no terrors. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears 
death not because it causes suffering when it comes, but because it causes suffering when 
it ts yet to come. For that which causes no annoyance when it is present causes only 
- imaginary suffering when it is expected. Death, which is indeed the most terrifying of all 
evils, is nothing to us since, as long as we are, death is not come, and as soon as death is 
come, we are no more. It is nothing then, either to the living or to the dead, since for the former it 
is not, and the latter are no longer.” pp. 83-84. 

[126] “He who admonishes the young to live honourably and the old to die honourably, is 
foolish, not merely because of the desirableness of life, but also because the striving to live 
honourably and the striving to die honourably are one and the same thing.” p. 84. 

[127] “We must however remember that the future neither depends on us nor is 
altogether independent of us, so that we must not expect it as something which will 
certainly be nor give up hope of it as of something which will certainly not be.” p. 85. 

“some desires are natural, others are vain, and among the natural ones some are 
necessary, others natural only. And among the necessary ones some are necessary for 
happiness (as the desire to free the body of uneasiness), others for very life.” p. 85. 

[128] “An error-free consideration of these things can lead ... to health of body and 
ataraxy of soul, for these are the aim of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to 
be free from pain and not to live in confusion. And when once we have attained this, 
every tempest of the soul is laid, for man no longer needs to seek for something which he still 
lacks or for anything else through which the welfare of the soul and the body will be 
complete. For we need pleasure when the lack of pleasure causes us pain, but when we feel 
no pain, we no longer need pleasure.” p. 85. 

“Wherefore we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of the blessed life. [129] 
We apprehend pleasure as the first and innate good and we proceed from it in all that 
we do or refrain from doing and to it we come back, inasmuch as this feeling serves 
us as the guide-line by which we judge of everything good.” [p]p. [85-]86. 

“And since pleasure is our first and innate good for that reason we do not choose 
every pleasure... 

“All pleasure therefore, because it is suited to us by nature, is a good, yet not every 
pleasure is choiceworthy, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be avoided 
under all circumstances. [130] All these matters must rather be decided by weighing one 
against another and from the standpoint of advantage and disadvantage, for what is 
good proves at certain times to be an evil for us, and conversely what is evil proves to be 
a good.” p. 86. 

“Again we regard independence of outward things as a great good, not so as to be 
satisfied in every case with little, but in order to be contented with little when 
abundance is lacking, being honestly convinced that those who least need luxury 
enjoy it most and that everything which is natural is easy to obtain, while that which 
is vain and worthless is hard to procure.” p. 86. 

[131] “[...] By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble 
in the soul...” p. 87. 

[132] “Of all this the beginning and the supreme good is reasonableness, and hence 
it is more precious even than philosophy, from which all other virtues spring, and they 
teach us that one cannot live pleasantly unless one lives reasonably, honourably 
[and justly], {and that one cannot live reasonably, honourably] and justly without 
living pleasantly. For the virtues are closely connected with pleasant living, and pleasant 
living is inseparable from them.” p. 88. 

[133] “Who, then, in your opinion, is superior to him who thinks piously of the 
gods and is quite fearless of death, who has reflected on the purpose of nature and 
understands that the greatest good is easy to reach and to attain whereas the worst 
of evils lasts only a short time or causes short pains? Necessity, which has been 
introduced by some as the ruler over all things, is not the ruler, he maintains, over that 
some of which depends on chance and some on our arbitrary will. Necessity is not subject to 
persuasion; chance, on the other hand, is inconstant. But our will is free; it can entail 
blame and also the opposite.” p. 88. 

[134] “It would be better to accept the myth about the gods than to bow 
beneath the yoke of fate imposed by the Physicists, for the former holds out hope 
of obtaining mercy by honouring the gods, and the latter, inexorable necessity. 
[135] But he [the wise man] must accept chance, not god as the multitude do ... and 
not an uncertain cause.... He considers it better to be unhappy but reasonable than 
to be happy but unreasonable. It is, of course, better when in actions a good 
decision attains a good issue also through the favour of circumstances.” [p]p. 
[88-]89. 

| “{...] you will never be disturbed, but will live as a god among men. For a man 
who lives in the midst of intransient blessings is not like a mortal being.” p. 89. 

“Elsewhere he [Epicurus] rejects the whole of divination.... There is no divination, 
and even if there is, what happens does not rest with us....” [p. 89]. 

[136] “He differs from the Cyrenaics in his teaching on pleasure. They do not 
recognise pleasure in a state of rest, but only pleasure in motion. But Epicurus admits both, the 
pleasure of the mind as well as the pleasure of the body ... for one can conceive pleasure 
in a state of rest as well as in motion. But Epicurus says ... the following: ‘Ataraxy and 
freedom from pain are sensations of pleasure in a state of rest, joy and delight are seen to be 
effective only in motion.” p. 90. 

[137] “He further differs from the Cyrenaics in this: they hold that bodily pains 
are worse than mental pains ... whereas he holds mental pains to be worse, since the 
flesh is tormented only by that which is present, the mind by that which is past as 
well as by that which is present and that which is coming. So also are the pleasures 
of the mind greater.” p. 90. 

“And as proof that pleasure is the end he adduces the fact that living beings, as 
soon as they are born, naturally and unaccountably to themselves find satisfaction in 
pleasure but reject pain. Instinctively, then, we shun pain....” [pp. 90-91.] 

[138] “And the virtues too are chosen on account of pleasure and not for themselves ... 
he says also that only virtue is inseparable from pleasure, all the rest is separable, for 
instance human things.” p. 91. 

[Principal Doctrines] 

[139] “A blessed and immortal being has no trouble himself nor brings it on anybody 
else; hence he knows no anger or partiality, for the like exists only in the weak.” 
“Elsewhere he says that the gods are discernible by reason alone, not, indeed, being 
numerically distinct, yet through resemblance (as a result of the continuous influx of similar 
images made pricisely for this purpose) human in appearance.” pp. 91-92. 
“The highest peak of pleasure is the exclusion of all pain. For wherever pleasure reigns, as 
long as it continues, there is no pain or grief, nor both together.” p. 92. 
[140] “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living reasonably, honourably and 
| justly, and it is impossible to live reasonably, honourably and justly without living 
pleasantly.” p. 92. 
[141] “No pleasure is in itself an evil, but that which produces certain pleasures 
_ causes manifold disturbances of pleasure.” p. 93. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 409 

{142] “If all pleasure were accumulated and with time had become compact, this 
concentrate would be just as [perfect] as principal parts of nature, and the 
sensations of pleasure would never differ one from another.” p. 93. 

[143] “It is impossible to banish fear over matters of the greatest importance if 
one does not know the essence of the universe but is apprehensive on account of 
what the myths tell us. Hence without the study of nature one cannot attain pure 
pleasure.” p[p]. 93[-94]. 

[142] “If we were not alarmed by the meteors and by death, as to how it might 
in some way or other affect us, and if we were moreover able to comprehend the 
limits of pain and desire, we should need no study of nature.” p. 93. 

[143] “It is useless to provide security against men so long as we are alarmed by 
things up above and things under the earth and in general things in the boundless 
universe. For security against men exists only for a definite time.” p. 94. 

“The same security which we attain by quiet and withdrawal from the multitude 
arises through the possibility of banishing [by moderation those desires which are 
not necessary} and through the very simple [and very easy] attainment of [the 
necessary things].” p. 94. 

[144] “The wealth of nature is limited and easily obtainable, but that which 
arises from vain fancies extends into infinity.” p. 94. 

“Pleasure of the flesh does not increase any more once the pain of privation 
has been removed, it is then subject only to variation.” p. 94. 

“The peak of thought (as far as joy is concerned) in fathoming precisely those 

| questions (and those related to them) which most alarm the mind.” p. 94. 

{145} “Unlimited time contains the same pleasure as the limited if its limits are- 
measured with the necessary discernment.” p. 95. 

“Limits of pleasure are prescribed to the flesh, but the yearning for unlimited 
time has made them recede to infinity; but the mind, which has made clear to itself 
the aim and the limits of the flesh and has extinguished desires concerning 
eternity, has made a complete life possible for us and we no longer need infinite 
time. And it does not shun pleasure, even when circumstances cause a parting from 
life, accepting the end of the best life as a consummation.” p. 95. 

[146] “We must always have before our mind’s eye the set aim to which we 
refer all our judgments; if not, everything will be full of disorder and unrest.” p. 95. 

“If you fight against all sensations, you will have nothing by which to be guided 
in judging those which you declare to be false.” p. 95. 

[148] “Unless on every occasion you refer all your actions to the end prescribed 
by nature, but swerve and (whether in shunning or in striving after something) turn to 
something else, your actions will not be in harmony with your words.” p. 96. 

[149] “Some desires are natural and necessary, others natural [but] not 
necessary, and others again neither natural nor necessary, but the offspring of vain 
fancy.” p. 96. 

[148] “The same knowledge which fills us with assurance that terrors are 
neither eternal nor of long duration enables us to see that in our limited lifetime 
the security of friendship is the most reliable.” p. 97. 

The following passages represent Epicurus’ views on spiritual 
nature, the state. The contract (cuy x7, ) he considers as the basis, 
and accordingly, only utility (cvpgépev) as the end. 

[150] “Natural right is a mutual agreement, contracted for the purpose of 
utility, not to harm or allow to be harmed.” p. 97. 

“For all living beings which could not enter into mutual contracts not to harm 
each other or allow each other to be harmed, there is neither justice nor injustice. 
It is the same, too, with peoples who have been either unable or unwilling to enter 
into contracts not to harm each other or allow each other to be harmed.” p. 98. 

“Justice is not something existing in itself, it exists in mutual relations, wherever and 
whenever an agreement is concluded not to harm each other or allow each other to 
be harmed.” p. 98. 

[151] “Injustice is not in itself an evil, but the evil lies in the fearful anxiety over 
its remaining concealed from the guardians of the law appointed to deal with it... 
For whether he [the transgressor of the law] will remain undiscovered until death, 
is uncertain.” p. 98. 

“In general, the same justice is valid for all (for it is something useful in mutual 
intercourse); but the special conditions of the country and the totality of other possible 
grounds bring it about that the same justice is not valid for all.” p. 98. 

[152] “That which proves to be useful for the needs of mutual intercourse, that 
which is considered just, has the essence of right when the same is valid for 
everyone. If, however, somebody stipulates this, but it does not turn out to be to 
the advantage of mutual intercourse, then it no longer has the essence of justice.” 

. 99. 
: “And when the usefulness which is contained in right has ceased to exist but for 
a certain time continues to correspond to the conception of right, then it has 
nevertheless during that time remained right for those who do not let themselves 
be deluded by empty talk, but take many things into account.” p. 99. 

[153] “Where, without any new circumstances having arisen, that which is 
considered as right proves in practice not to correspond to the conception of right, 
then it is not right; but where, new circumstances having arisen, the same valid right is 
no longer useful, it was indeed formerly right, when it was useful for the mutual intercourse 
of citizens, but later when it was no longer useful, it was no longer right.” p. 99. 

[154] “He who knew how best to gain self-assurance from the external 
circumstances procured for himself that which was possible, as something not alien to 
himself, and considered that which was not possible as alien to himself.” p. 99 

End of the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius? 

Epicurus to Herodotus 

[37] “In the first place ... we must understand what it is that words denote, so 
that we have something to which we can refer opinions or inquiries or doubts, and 
by which we can test them, and so that everything does not slip from us into 
infinity without our having a judgment on it and that we are not left with mere 
empty words. [38] For it is necessary that the original meaning of every word 
should be perceived and need no proof, if we want to have something to which we 
can refer inquiries or doubts or opinions.” pp. 30-31. 

It is significant that Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, makes the same 
remark on the relation of language to philosophising. Since the 
ancient philosophers, not excluding the Sceptics, all begin by 
presupposing consciousness, a firm foothold is necessary. This is 
provided by the concepts presented in knowledge in general. 
Epicurus, being the philosopher of the concept, is most exact in 

* In the manuscript this phrase is in Latin.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 41] 

this and therefore defines these fundamental conditions in greater 
detail. He is also the most consistent and, like the Sceptics, he 
completes ancient philosophy, but from the other side. 

[38] “Further we must observe everything both on the basis of sensations and 
also simply of present impressions, whether of the mind or of any criterion 
whatever, and equally on the basis of actual feelings, so that we have something by 
which we can characterise what is to be expected and what is unknown. Once this is 
done, one must begin reflections on the unknown.” p. 31. 

“[...] the common opinion of the physicists that nothing comes into being 
from not-being [...].” Aristotle, Physics, Book I, Chap. 4, Commentary of Coimbra 
[Jesuit] College, p[p]. 123[-125]. 

“[...] In one sense things come-to-be out of that which has no ‘being’ ... yet in 
another sense they come-to-be always out of ‘what is’. For coming-to-be necessarily 
implies the pre-existence of something which potentially ‘is’, but actually ‘s not’; 
and this something is spoken of both as ‘being’ and as ‘not-being’.” Aristotle, De 
generatione et corruptione, Book I, Chap. 3, Commentary of Coimbra College, p. 26. 

[Diogenes Laertius, X, 39] “[...] the universe was always such as it is now, and 
such it will ever remain.” p. 31. 

“{...] the universe consists of bodies and space.” [p. 32.] 

[40] “[...] of bodies some are composite, others the elements of which these 
composite bodies are made.” p. 32. 

[41] ‘““These [elements] are indivisible and unchangeable ... if things are not all to 
be destroyed and pass into non-existence [...].” [p]p. [32-]33. “[...] the universe is 
infinite. For what is finite has an extremity [...].” p. 33. “[...] the universe is 
unlimited by reason of the multitude of bodies and the extent of the void.” p. 33. 
(“(...] the infinite body will obviously prevail over and annihilate the finite, body....” 
Aristotle, Physics, Book III. Chap. 5, Commentary of Coimbra College, p. 487.) 

[Diogenes Laertius, X, 42] “[...] they [the atoms] ... vary indefinitely in their 
shapes”. p[p]. 33[-34]. 

[43] ‘““The atoms are in continual motion through all eternity.” p. 34. 

[44] “Of all this there is no beginning, since both atoms and void exist from all 
eternity.” p. 35. 

“[...] atoms have no quality at all except shape, size and weight [...].” p. 35. “... 

they are not of any and every size; at any rate no atom has ever been seen by our 
senses.” p. 35. [45] “[...] there is an infinite number of worlds [...].” p. 35. [46] 
“Again there are impressions which are of the same shape as the solid bodies but 
far thinner than what we can perceive.” p. 36. “These impressions we call images.” 
p. 36. [48] “Besides this, ... the production of the images is as quick as thought. For 
the continual streaming off from the surface of the bodies is evidenced by no visible 
sign...” p. 37. 

j aad deve are other modes in which these natural phenomena may be formed. For 
there is nothing in them which contradicts the sensations if we in some way take into account 
what is evident in order to refer the impressions produced on us from outside.” p. 38. 

[49] “But it must also be assumed that when anything streams in from outside, we see 
and apprehend the shapes.” p. 38. 

[50] “Every presentation received either by the mind or through sensation, but 
not judged (non judicata), is true. The illusion and error, whether it is not confirmed or 
is even refuted, always lies in what is added by thought, following a motion in ourselves 
which, though connected with a certain effort of presentation, has its own perception, nreet 
which the error arises.” p. 39. 

[51] “For there would be no error if we did not experience also a certain other 
motion in ourselves which is connected [with the effort of presentation], but has its 
own perception.” p. 39. “It is through this [inner movement which is connected 
with] the effort of presentation, but has its own perception, that, if it is not 
confirmed or is refuted, illusion arises; but if it is confirmed or not refuted, truth 
results.” [p]p. [39-]40. 

[52] “Again, hearing takes place when a current passes from the object which 
emits sounds, etc.” p. 40. 

[53] “Also concerning smell we must assume (as I have said about hearing) ....” 
p. 41. 

[54] “Every quality which is inherent in and proper to them (the atoms), meaning those 
named above (magnitudo, figura, pondus*), is unchangeable just as the atoms also do not 
change.” p. 41. 

[55] “Again one should not suppose that there are atoms of every size, lest this be 
contradicted by phenomena; but some changes in size must be admitted. For if this is so, 
the processes in feelings and sensations will be more easily explained.” 
[plp. (42-143. 

[56] “Besides, one must not suppose that in a limited body there is an infinite 
number of atoms, and of every size [...].” p. 43. 

[60] “[...] one motion must be assumed which must be thought of as directed 
upwards to infinity, and one directed downwards [...].” p. 45. 

See end of page 44 and beginning of page 45, where, strictly 
speaking, the atomistic principle is violated, and an internal 
necessity is attributed to the atoms themselves. Since they have a 
certain size, there must be something smaller than they are. Such 
are the parts of which they are composed. But these are necessari- 
ly to be considered together as a xotvotyg  evuTapyousa .” Thus 
ideality is transferred to the atoms themselves. The smallest thing 
in them is not the smallest imaginable, but is likened to it without 
anything definite being thought of. The necessity and ideality 
attributed to them is itself merely fictitious, accidental, external to 
them. The principle of Epicurean atomistics is not expressed until 
the ideal and necessary is made to have being only in an imaginary 
form external to itself, the form of the atom. Such is the extent of 
Epicurus’ consistency. 

[61] “When they are travelling through the void and meet with no resistance, 
the atoms must move with equal speed.” p. 46. 

Just as we have seen that necessity, connection, differentiation, 
within itself, is transferred to or rather expressed in the atom, that 
ideality is present here only in this form external to itself, so it is 
with motion too, the question of which necessarily arises once the 
motion of the atoms is compared with the motion of the xaté tag 

* Size, shape, weight. — Ed. 
> Permanent community. — Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 413 

auyxpiaetc* bodies, that is, of the concrete. In comparison 
with this motion, the motion of the atoms is in principle absolute, 
that is, all empirical conditions in it are disregarded, it is ideal. In 
general, in expounding Epicurean philosophy and its immanent 
dialectics, one has to bear in mind that, while the principle is an 
imagined one, assuming the form of being in relation to the 
concrete world, the dialectics, the inner essence of these ontologi- 
cal determinations, as a form, in itself void, of the absolute, can 
show itself only in such a way that they, being immediate, enter 
into a necessary confrontation with the concrete world and reveal, 
in their specific relation to it, that they are only the imagined form 
of its ideality, external to itself, and not as presupposed, but rather 
only as ideality of the concrete. Thus its determinations are in 
themselves untrue and self-negating. The only conception of the 
world that is expressed is that its basis is that which has no 
presuppositions, which is nothing. Epicurean philosophy is impor- 
tant because of the naiveness with which conclusions are expressed 
without the prejudice of our day. 

[62] “And not even when it is a question of composite bodies can one be said to be 
faster than the other, etc.” p. 46. “{...] it can only be said that they often rebound until 
the continuity of their movement becomes perceptible to the senses. For what we conjecture 
of the invisible, namely, that periods of time contemplated through speculation 
may also contain continuity of movement, is not true for things of this kind, since 
only all that which is really perceived or is comprehended from an impression by thinking 
is true.” p. 47. 

The question must be considered, why the principle of the 
reliability of the senses is disregarded and what abstracting 
conception is set up as a criterion of truth. 

[63] ‘[...] the soul is a corporeal thing, composed of fine particles, which is 
spread (diffusum) over the whole of the body (corpus) [...].” p. 47. 

Interesting here again is the specific difference between fire 
and air, on the one hand, and the soul, on the other, showing that 
the soul is adequate to the body, analogy being used and 
nevertheless discarded, which is in general the method of imagina- 
tive consciousness; thus all concrete determinations collapse and a 
mere monotonous echo takes the place of development. 

[63] “Further we must keep in mind that the soul is the chief cause of sensation.[64] 
It would not be, if it were not in a manner of speaking enveloped by the rest of the 
mass of the body. The remaining mass of the body, which makes it possible for the soul to be 
this cause, itself shares through the sou] in this quality (yet not in all of what the soul 
possesses). That is why it has no longer any sentience when the sou! has departed. 
For it did not have this ability in itself, but served as an intermediary for it to another 

* Composite.— Ed. 

being which emerged simultaneously with it and which, owing to the ability it had 
achieved to produce immediately a sensation corresponding to the specific stimulation, 
imparted sentience both to itself and to the remaining mass of the body by reason 
of neighbourhood (vicinia) and sympathy.” p. 48. 

We have seen that the atoms, taken abstractly among them- 
selves, are nothing but entities, imagined in general, and that only 
in confrontation with the concrete do they develop their ideality, 
which is imagined and therefore entangled in contradictions. They 
also show, by becoming one side of the relation, that is, when it 
comes to dealing with objects which carry in themselves the 
principle and its concrete world (the living, the animate, the 
organic), that the realm of imagination is thought of now as free, 
now as the manifestation of something ideal. This freedom of the 
imagination is therefore but an assumed, immediate, imagined 
one, which in its true form is the atomistic. Either of the 
determinations can therefore be taken for the other, each consid- 
ered in itself is the same as the other, but in respect of each 
other too the same determinations must be ascribed to them, from 
whichever viewpoint they are considered; the solution is therefore 
the return to the simplest, first determination, where the realm of 
the imagination is assumed as free. As this return takes place in 
regard to a totality, to what is imagined, which really has the ideal 
in itself, and is the ideal itself in its being, so here the atom is 
posited as it really is, in the totality of its contradictions; at the 
same time, the basis of these contradictions emerges, the desire to 
apprehend the thing imagined as the free ideal thing as well, while 
only imagining it. The principle of absolute arbitrariness appears 
here, therefore, with all its consequences. In its lowest form, this is 
already essentially the case with the atom. As there are many 
atoms, each one contains in itself a difference in respect of the 
many, and hence it is in itself many. But that is already contained 
in the definition of the atom, so that the plurality in it is 
necessarily and immanently a oneness; it is so because it is. But it 
still remains to be explained, with regard to the world, why it 
develops freely from a single principle into a plurality. Therefore 
what is to be proved is assumed, the atom itself is what is to be 
explained. Then the difference of the ideality could be introduced 
only by comparison; in themselves both sides come under the 
same definition, and ideality itself is again posited by the external 
combination of these many atoms, by their being the principles of 
these compositions. The principle of this composition is therefore 
that which initially was composite in itself without any cause, that 
is, what is explained is itself the explanation, and it is thrust into 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 415 

the nebulous space of imaginative abstraction. As already said, this 
emerges in its totality only when the organic is considered. 

It must be noted that the fact that the soul, etc., perishes, that it 
owes its existence only to an accidental mixture, expresses in 
general the accidental nature of all these notions, e. g., soul, etc., 
which, not being necessary in ordinary consciousness, are accounted 
for by Epicurus as accidental conditions, which are seen as something 
given, the necessity of which, the necessity of the existence of 
which, is not only not proved, but is even admitted to be not 
provable, only possible. What persists, on the other hand, is the 
free being of the imagination, which is firstly the free which itself 
exists in general, and secondly, as the thought of the freedom of 
what is imagined, a lie and a fiction, and hence in itself an 
inconsistency, an illusion, an imposture. It expresses rather the 
demand for a concrete definition of the soul, etc., as immanent 
thought. What is lasting and great in Epicurus is that he gives no 
preference to conditions over notions, and tries just as little to save 
them. For Epicurus the task of philosophy is to prove that the 
world and thought are thinkable and possible. His proof and the 
principle by which it proceeds and to which it is referred is again 
possibility existing for itself, whose natural expression is the atom 
and whose intellectual expression is chance and arbitrariness. 
Closer investigation is needed of how all determinations may be 
exchanged between soul and body and how either of them is the 
same as the other in the bad sense that neither one nor the other 
is at all conceptually defined. See end of page 48 and beginning of 
page 49: Epicurus stands higher than the Sceptics in that not only 
are conditions and presentations reduced to nothing, but their 
perception, the thinking of them and the reasoning about their 
existence, proceeding from something solid, is likewise only a 
possibility. 

[67] “It 1s impossible to conceive anything that is incorporeal as self-existent, except 
emply space. (The incorporeal is not thought by the imagination, it pictures it as the 
void and as empty.*) And empty space can neither act nor be acted upon, but by 
virtue of its existence makes motion possible for the bodies.” p. 49, “Hence those 
who say the soul is incorporeal talk nonsense.” [p]p. [49-]50. 

It is necessary to study the passage on page 50 and the 
beginning of page 51, where Epicurus speaks of the determina- 
tions of concrete bodies and seems to refute the atomistic principle 
by saying: 

[69] “... that the whole body in general receives its specific being out of all that; 
not as though it were a composite of it, as, for instance, when out of conglomera- 

* This sentence is in German in the manuscript.— Ed. 

tions of atoms themselves a larger formation is made up ... but only that, as stated, 
_ it receives its specific being out of all that. And all these things demand specific 
consideration and judgment, in which the whole must constantly be considered and 
not in any way be separated, but, apprehended as a whole, receives the designation 
of body.” pp. 50 and 51. 

[70] “Again, the bodies often encounter non-specific accidentals, some of which, of 
course, are invisible and incorporeal. Thus, by using this word in the manner in 
which it is most frequently used, we make it clear that the accidentals neither pos- 
sess the nature of the whole to which, as the composite whole, we give the name of 
body, nor that {of the] specific qualities without which a body is unthinkable.” p. 51. 

[71] “[...] we must regard them as that which they appear to be, namely, as 
accidental attributes of the body which, however, neither are in themselves 
concomitants of the body nor possess the function of an independent being; we see 
them such as sensation itself makes their individuality appear.” p. 52. 

It is a matter of certainty for Epicurus that repulsion is posited 
with the law of the atom, the declination from the straight line. 
That this is not to be taken in the superficial sense, as though the 
atoms in their movement could meet only in this way, is expressed 
at any rate by Lucretius. Soon after saying in the above-quoted 
passage: © 

Without this clinamen atomi*? there would be neither “offensus 
natus, nec plaga creata”” {II, 223], he says: 

“Again, if all movement is always interconnected, the new arising from the old in 
a determinate order—if the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new move- 
ment that will snap the bonds of fate, the everlasting sequence of cause and effect — 
what is the source of the free [will]...’’ ((On the Nature of Things,] Book II, 251 ff.) 

Here another motion by which the atoms can meet is posited, 
distinct from that caused by the clinamen. Further it is defined as 
absolutely deterministic, hence negation of self, so that every 
determination finds its being in its immediate being-otherwise, in 
the being-negated, which in respect of the atom is the straight line. 
Only from the clinamen does the individual motion emerge, the 
relation which has its determination as the determination of its self 
and no other. 

Lucretius may or may not have derived this idea from Epicurus. 
That is immaterial. The conclusion from the consideration of 
repulsion, that the atom as the immediate form of the concept is 
objectified only in immediate absence of concept, this same is true 
also of the philosophical consciousness of which this principle is 
the essence. 

This serves me at the same time as justification for giving a 
quite different account of the matter from that of Epicurus. 

? Declination of the atom.— Ed. 
‘Meeting nor collision possible.” — Ed. 

EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY 
Second Notebook 

I. DIOGENES LAERTIUS, BOOK TEN 
II. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS 

II. PLUTARCH, THAT EPICURUS ACTUALLY MAKES 
A PLEASANT LIFE IMPOSSIBLE 

I. DIOGENES LAERTIUS, BOOK TEN, 
COMMENTARY BY GASSENDI 

Epicurus to Herodotus. Continued 

[72] “We must not investigate time as we do the other accidents which we 
investigate in a subject, namely, by referring them to the preconceptions envisaged in our 
minds; but we must take into account the plain fact itself, in virtue of which we speak of 
time as long or short.... We must not adopt any new terms as preferable, but should 
employ the already existing ones; nor must we predicate anything else of time, as if this 
something had the same essence as the proper meaning of the word; ... but we must chiefly 
reflect upon how we associate and measure what is peculiar to it.” [73] “For this also 
requires no proof, but only reflection that we associate it with days and nights and their parts 
and likewise also with feelings and absence of feeling, with movement and rest, conceiving 
a peculiar attribute of these to be precisely that which we call time.” pp. 52-53 
“[...] and all things are again dissolved [...].” p. 53. 

“It is clear, then, that he [Epicurus] also makes the words perishable, since their 
parts are subject to change. He says this also elsewhere.” p. 53. 

[74] “And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same 
Shape, but that they differ from one another.” p. 53. 

“For neither are living things necessarily separated from the infinite, nor have they fallen 
from heaven. [75] ... we must grasp that nature too in many and very different respects follows 
the instruction and pressure of things, and thinking gives greater precision to that which it 
receives from nature and adds new discoveries, in some cases more quickly and in others 
more slowly, requiring for this sometimes more and sometimes less time”. 
[plp. [53-]54. 

See end of page 54 and beginning of page 55, where the 
apyat toy dvoatwy? is discussed. 

[76] “As for the meteors, we must believe that their motion, position, eclipse, [rising and] 

setting and the like do not take place because someone governs and orders or has ordered them, 
who at the same time enjoys perfect bliss” 

(we must compare with this what Simplicius attributes to 
Anaxagoras about the votc > which orders the world) 

? Origin of designations.— Fd. 
> Mind.— Ed. 

15* 

“... along with immortality (77] (for actions and anxieties, anger and favour do not 
accord with bliss, but result from weakness, fear and need, with which they are most 
related). Nor must we believe that the being which has acquired bliss willingly submits to 
these movements, for this is an annoyance and contradictory [to bliss], but we must rather 
maintain all its sublimity by using expressions which lead to such notions as do not give rise to 
any opinions contradictory to sublimity. If we do not agree with this, this contradiction will 
itself produce the greatest mental confusion. Hence we must assume that, with the appearance of 
the world, both the original interception of these conglomerations and the obligatory character 
and periodicity of these movements appeared.” pp. 55 and 56. 

Here we must observe the principle of the thinkable in order, on 
the one hand, to maintain the freedom of self-consciousness, and, on 
the other hand, to attribute to God freedom from any determina- 
tion. 

[78] “[...] that what makes one blissful in the knowledge of the meteors ... [lies] in 
particular in accurate study of what those natural phenomena are which are observed in our 
meteors and what is in some way kindred to them in principle: [Here we have that 
which can be ‘in a plurality of ways’] that which can possibly be and that which is in some 
other way*: but it is rather an absolute rule that nothing which threatens danger, which can 
disturb ataraxy, can ever happen to an indestructible and blissful nature. Consciousness must 
apprehend that this is an absolute law.” p. 56. 

Further, on pages 56 and 57, Epicurus denounces the senseless 
mere wondering contemplation of the celestial bodies as stultifying 
and fear-inspiring; he asserts the absolute freedom of mind. 

[80] “... We must beware of the prejudice that the study of those objects is not thorough or 
subtle enough because it is aimed only at our ataraxy and bliss. Hence we must investigate the 
meteors and all that is unknown, observing how often the same thing occurs within our 
experience.” p. 57. 

[81] Besides all this we must understand that the greatest confusion in men’s minds arises 
through the belief that there are beings which are blissful and indestructible and that at the 
same time have desires, actions and feelings which conflict with these attributes and that 
men somehow foresee eternal suffering and entertain suspicions of the kind fostered by the 
myths (and because in death there is no sensation they also fear to be at some time 
deprived of sensation) and that they are not guided by the correct notions ... so that, 
unless they set limits to their fears, they experience equal or still greater anxiety than 

they would were their imaginings true.” [82] “But ataraxy means to have freed oneself 
from all that....” [p)p. [57-]58. 

“Therefore we must pay attention to all things that are present to us and to the sensations, ta 
general ones in relation to what is general, to particular ones in relation to what is 
particular, and to all the evidence available for every single criterion.” p. 58. 

Epicurus to Pythocles 

Epicurus repeats at the beginning of his discussion on the 
meteors that the aim of this is yywoewg ... atapagia and miottc 

* In the manuscript here, after the semicolon, follows Gassendi’s Latin translation 
of the preceding Greek phrase: (esse [...] id, quod pluribus modis fieri dicitur, et non uno 
modo necesse contingere; et posse alio quoque modo se habere).— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 419 

Bepaia, xadanep xai ni tov Aowav" [X, 85]. But the study of these 
celestial bodies also differs substantially from the rest of science: 

[86] “...nor must.we apply to everything the same theory as in Ethics or in clarifying the 
other problems of Physics, for example that the universe consists of bodies and the 

incorporeal” (quod 6 weyoy>) “or that there are indivisible elements and the like, 
where only a single explanation corresponds to the phenomena.‘ For this is not the case 
with the meteors. These have no simple cause of their coming into being and have more than one 
essential category corresponding to the sensations.” pp. 60 and 61. 

It is important in the whole of Epicurus’ view of things that the 
celestial bodies, as something beyond the senses, cannot command 
the same degree of evidence as the rest of the moral and sensuous 
world. To them Epicurus’ theory of disjunctio¢ applies in practice, 
viz.: that there is no aut aut,< and hence that internal determinate- 
ness is denied and that the principle of the thinkable, the 
imaginable, of accident, of abstract identity and freedom manifests 
itself as what it is, as the indeterminate, which precisely for that 
reason is determined by a reflection external to it. It is seen here 
that the method of consciousness which imagines and represents, 
fights only its own shadow; what the shadow is depends on how it 
is seen, how that which reflects is reflected out of it back into 
itself. As in the case of the organic in itself, when it is substantial- 
ised, the contradiction of the atomistic outlook is revealed, so now, 
when the object itself assumes the form of sensuous certainty and 
of imagining reason, philosophising consciousness admits what it is 
doing. As there the imagined principle and its application are found 
objectified as one, and the contradictions are thereby called to arms 
as the antithesis of the concretised presentations themselves, so 
here, where the object hangs, as it were, over the heads of men, 
where through the self-sufficiency, through the sensuous independ- 
ence and the mysterious remoteness of its existence, the object 
challenges consciousness, so here consciousness comes to acknowl- 
edge its own activity, it contemplates what it does, so as to make 
the presentations which pre-exist in it intelligible and to vindicate 
them as its own: just as the whole activity of consciousness is only 
struggle with remoteness, which, like a curse, shackles the whole of 

* Knowledge ... ataraxy and firm conviction as is also the case with everything 
else.— Ed. 
> That is, void (note by Marx).— Ed. 
© In the manuscript here follows in brackets the last phrase in Gassendi’s Latin 
Disjunction .— Ed. 
© Either — or.— Ed. 

antiquity, just as it has only possibility, chance, as its principle, and 
seeks in some way to establish identity between itself and its object, 
so does it admit this, as soon as this remoteness confronts it in 
objective independence as heavenly bodies. Consciousness is indif- 
ferent as to just what explanation is offered: it affirms that there 
is not one explanation, but many, that is, that any explanation will 
suffice; thus it acknowledges that its activity is active fiction. For 
this reason, in antiquity in general, in whose philosophy premises 
are not lacking, the meteors and the doctrine concerning them are 
the image in which, even in the person of Aristotle, it contem- 
plates its own defects. Epicurus expressed this, and this is the 
service he rendered, the iron logic of his views and conclusions. 
The meteors challenge sensuous understanding, but it overcomes 
their resistance and will listen to nothing but its own ideas of 
them. 

[86] “For nature must be studied not according to empty axioms and laws, but 
as required by the phenomena.... [87] (life [requires]) us to live without confusion.” 
p. 61. 

Here, where the premise itself confronts actual consciousness, 
arousing fear in it, there is no longer any need for any principles 
or premises. The imagination is extinguished in fear. 

Epicurus therefore again formulates the following proposition, 
as though finding himself in it: 

[87] “Everything therefore happens, once it is explained consistently in various 
ways, in conformity with the phenomena, if that which has been credibly established 
in respect of them is maintained. But if we maintain one thing as valid and reject 
another, although it equally conforms to the phenomena, then we are openly 
overstepping the bounds of the study of nature and launching into the realm of 
myth.” p. 61. 

The question now is how the explanation is to be arranged: 

[87] “Certain signs of the processes of the meteors can be taken from the 
processes going on in our experience which can be observed or are present in the 
same way as the phenomena of the meteors. For these can occur in a plurality of 
ways. [88] But one must observe the appearance of every single thing and also 
explain whatever is connected with it. This will not be inconsistent with the fact 
that it can take place in various ways, as happens in our experience.” p. 61. 

For Epicurus the sound of his own voice drowns the thunder 
and blots out the lightning of the heavens of his conception. We 
can gather from the monotonous repetition how important 
Epicurus considers his new method of explanation, how intent he 
is to eliminate the miraculous, how he always insists on applying 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 42] 

not one, but several explanations, giving us very frivolous exam- 
ples of this in respect of everything, how he says almost outright 
that while he leaves nature free, he is concerned only with 
freedom of consciousness. The only proof required of an explana- 
tion is that it should not be ayttyaptupeta Gat? by the evidence of 
the senses and experience, by the phenomena, the appearance, for 
what matters is only how nature appears. These propositions are 
reiterated. 

On the origin of the sun and the moon: 

[90] “For this also is suggested in this way by sensation.” p. 63. 

On the size of the sun and the constellations: 

[91] “{[...] the phenomena here [on the earth] we see ... as we perceive them by the 
senses.” p. 63. 

On the rising and setting of the constellations: 

[92] “For no phenomenon testifies against this.” p. 64. 

On the turnings of the sun and the moon: 

[93] “For all that and what is connected with it does not contradict any of the 
evident phenomena if in separate explanations we always hold fast to what is 
possible and can bring each of them into conformity with the phenomena, without 
fear of the slavish artifices of the astrologers.” [p]p. [64-]65. 

On the waning and waxing of the moon: 

[94] “[...] and in any of the ways by which also the phenomena within our 
experience suggest an explanation of this problem, unless, being in love with some one 
means of explanation, we lightly reject the others or are unable to see what it is possible for a 
man to know and therefore seek to know what is impossible.” p. 65. 

On the species vultus in the moon: 

[95] “[...] in general in any way considered as being in conformity with the 
phenomena.” [96] “For, it must be added, this way must be used in respect of all the 
meteors. For if you fight against what is evident, you will never be able to enjoy genuine 

ataraxy.” p. 66. 

? Disproved.— Ed. 
> Face.— Ed. 

Note particularly the exclusion of all divine, teleological influ- 
ence in the passage on the ordo periodicus,* where it is clearly seen 
that the explanation is only a matter of consciousness listening to 
itself and the objective is a delusion simulated: 

[97] “‘... must be seen as something ordinary which also occurs within our own 
experience, the divinity must not on any account be adduced for this, but must be kept free 
from all tasks and in perfect bliss. For unless this be done, the whole theory of origins 
of the meteors will be rendered senseless, as has already been the case with some 
theoreticians who did not apply a possible explanation, but indulged in idle attempts 
at explanations, believing that it happens only in one way and excluding all other possible 
explanations, and thus arrived at things which are impossible, and were unable to 
understand the phenomena as signs, which one must do, and were not disposed to 
rejoice with God.” p. 67. 

The same arguments are often repeated almost word for word: 
[98] On the varying lengths of nights and days: on the pyxy 
yoxt@y xal NEpdy mapadhatcovta,” p. 67. 

[98] On the éntonpactat,* p. 67. 

[99] On the origin of the yégn,* p. 68. 

[100-101] of the Bpoveat,* of the dotpanat,‘ p. 69; [103] thus he 
says of the xepavyec: 

[104] “And there are several other ways in which thunderbolts may occur. 
Exclusion of myth is the sole condition necessary; and it will be excluded if one properly 
attends to the phenomena and hence draws inferences concerning what is invisible.” 
p. 70. 

(After adducing many explanations of etoytol, terrae motus, he 
adds as usual: [106] “But there are also several other ways”, etc., p. 

71.) 

On the comets: 

[112] “... there are many other ways by which this might be brought about if 
one is capable of finding out what accords with the phenomena.” p. 75. 

De stellis fixis et errantibus': 

[113] “To assign a single cause for these effects when the phenomena suggest 
several causes is madness and an enormity of those who are obsessed by senseless 

; , Periodical order.— Ed. 
> This is the Greek original: of the previous phrase.— Ed. 
© Weather signs.— Ed. 

* Clouds.— Ed. 

© Thunder.— Ed. 

f Lightning — Ed. 

8 Thunderbolts.— Ed. 

» Earthquake.— Ed. 

* On fixed and wandering stars.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 423 

astrology and assign at random causes for certain phenomena when they by no means 
free the divinity from burdensome tasks.” p. 76. 

He even accuses those who simpliciter, adm\@cg? discuss such 
things, 

[114] portentosum quidpiam coram multitudine ostentare affectare= “that applies to 
those who wish to do something to impress the crowd”. p. 76. 

He says in connection with emtonpaciat,> the anticipation of 
tempestas© in animals, which some connected with God: 

[116] “For such folly as this would not possess the most ordinary being if ever so 
little enlightened, much less one who enjoys perfect felicity.” p. 77. 

From this we can see among other things how Pierre Gassendi, 
who wants to rescue divine intervention, assert the immortality of 
the soul, etc., and still be an Epicurean (see, for example, esse 
animos immortales, contra Epicurum, Pet. Gassendi animadvers. in 1. 
dec. Diog. Laert., pp. 549-602, or, esse deum authorem mundi, contra 
Epicurum, pp. 706-725, gerere dewm hominum curam, contra 
Epicurum, pp. 738-751, etc. Compare: Feuerbach, geschichte der 
neuern Philosophie, “Pierre Gassendi”, pp. 127-150), does not 
understand Epicurus at all and still less can teach us anything 
about him. Gassendi tries rather to teach us from Epicurus than to 
teach us about him. Where he violates Epicurus’ iron logic, it is in 
order not to quarrel with his own religious premises. This struggle 
is significant in Gassendi, as is in general the fact that modern 
philosophy arises where the old finds its downfall: on the one 
hand from Descartes’ universal doubt, whereas the Sceptics sound- 
ed the knell of Greek philosophy; on the other hand from the 
rational consideration of nature, whereas ancient philosophy is 
overcome in Epicurus even more thoroughly than in the Sceptics. 
Antiquity was rooted in nature, in materiality. Its degradation and 
profanation means in the main the defeat of materiality, of solid 
life; the modern world is rooted in the spirit and it can be free, 
can release the other, nature, out of itself. But equally, by contrast, 
what with the ancients was profanation of nature is with the 
moderns salvation from the shackles of servile faith, and the 
modern rational outlook on nature must first raise itself to the 
point from which the ancient Ionian philosophy, in principle at 

* Simply, absolutely — Ed. 
> Weather signs.— Ed. 
“ Tempest.— Ed. 

least, begins—the point of seeing the divine, the Idea, embodied 
in nature. 

Who will not recall here the enthusiastic passage in Aristotle, 
the acme of ancient philosophy, in his treatise mept 7g 
guaewg Cwixys,? which sounds quite a different note from the 
dispassionate monotony of Epicurus. 

Characteristic of the method of the Epicurean outlook is the way 
it deals with the creation of the world, a topic in the treatment of 
which the standpoint of a philosophy will always be ascertainable, 
since it reveals how, according to this philosophy, the spirit creates 
the world, the attitude of a philosophy to the world, the creative 
power, the spirit of a philosophy. 

Epicurus says (pp. 61 and 62) "*!: 

{88] “The world is a celestial complex (mEproyy Tig ovpavov), which comprises 
stars and earth and all phenomena containing a cut-out segment (¢NOTOP YY) of 
the infinite, and terminating in a boundary which may be either ethereal or solid (a 
boundary whose dissolution will bring about the wreck of all within it), which may 
be at rest, and may be round, triangular or of any other shape. All these alternatives 
are possible since none of them is contradicted by the phenomena. Where the world 
ends cannot be discerned. That there is an infinite number of such worlds is 
evident....”° 

Anybody will at once be struck by the poverty of this world 
construction. That the world is a complex of the earth, stars, etc., 
means nothing, since the origin of the moon, etc., occurs and is 
explained only later. 

In general every concrete body is a complex, or more precisely, 
according to Epicurus, a complex of atoms. The definition of a 
complex, its specific distinction, lies in its boundary, and for that 
reason, once the world is defined as having been cut out from the 
infinite, it is superfluous to add the boundary as a closer 
definition, for something which is cut out is separated from the 
remainder and is a concrete, distinct thing, and therefore bounded 
in regard to the remainder. But the boundary is what must be 
defined, since a bounded complex in general is not yet a world. 
Further on it is said that the boundary can be defined in any 
way one likes, maytay¢, and finally it is admitted that it is 
impossible to define its specific difference, but that it is conceiva- 
ble that one exists. 

* On the Nature of Animals.— Ed. 
In the manuscript this quotation and the next one on p. 426 are written in 
German .— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 425 

Hence all that is said is that the notion of the return of a totality 
of differences to an indefinite unity, i.e., the notion of a “world”, 
exists im consciousness, is present in everyday thinking. The 
boundary, the specific difference, and hence the immanence and 
necessity of this notion is declared to be not conceivable; that the 
notion exists can be conceived, tautologically, because it is there; so 
that what is to be explained, the creation, the origin and internal 
production of a world by thought, is declared inconceivable, and 
the existence of this notion in consciousness is passed off as the 
explanation. 

It is the same as if one were to say that it can be proved that 
there is a God, but his differentia specifica, quid sit,* the what of this 
determination, cannot be investigated. 

When Epicurus further says that the boundary can be conceived 
as of any kind, i.e., every determination which in general we 
distinguish in a spatial boundary can be applied to it, then the 
notion of the world is nothing but the return to sensuously. 
perceptible unity, which is indefinite and therefore may be 
defined in any way one likes, or more generally, since the world is 
an indefinite notion of half sensuous, half reflecting consciousness, 
the world is present in this consciousness together with all other 
sensuous notions and bounded by them; its definition and bound- 
ary is therefore as multiple as these sensuous notions surrounding 
it, each of them can be regarded as its boundary and hence as its 
closer definition and explanation. That is the essence of all 
Epicurean explanations, and it is all the more important because it 
is the essence of all the explanations of reflecting consciousness 
which is the prisoner of preconceptions. 

So it is also with the moderns in regard to God, when goodness, 
wisdom, etc., are ascribed to Him. Any one of these notions, which 
are definite, can be considered as the boundary of the indefinite 
notion of God which lies between them. 

The substance of this kind of explanation is therefore that a 
notion which is to be explained is found in consciousness. The 
explanation or closer definition is then that notions in the same 
sphere and accepted as known stand in relation to it; hence that in 
general it lies in consciousness, in a definite sphere. Here Epicurus 
admits the weakness of his own and of all ancient philosophy, 
namely, that it knows that notions are in consciousness, but that it 
does not know their boundary, their principle, their necessity. 

* Specific distinction, what he is.— Ed. 

However, Epicurus is not satisfied with having worked out his 
conception of the creation; he performs the drama himself, 
objectifies for himself what he has just done, and only then does 
his creation proper begin. For he says further: 

[89] “Such a world may arise ... in one of the intermundia (by which term we 
mean the spaces between worlds), in a vast empty space ... in a great transparent 
void ... when certain suitable seeds rush in from a world or an intermundium or 
from several worlds, and gradually form compounds or divisions, or, as may 
happen, undergo changes of place, and receive into themselves waterings from 
without as far as the foundations laid can hold the compound. [90] For if a world 
arises in the void, it is not enough that there should be an aggregation or vortex or 
a multitude and that it should meet with another, as one of the physicists says. For 
this is in conflict with the phenomena.” [p. 62.] 

Here, first, worlds are presupposed for the creation of the 
world, and the place where this occurs is the void. Hence what was 
foreshadowed to begin with in the concept of creation, viz. that 
what was to be created is presupposed, is substantiated here. The 
notion without its closer definition and relation to the others, that is 
to say, as it is provisionally presupposed, is empty or disem- 
bodied,* an intermundium, an empty space. How this notion gets 
its determination is presented as follows: seeds appropriate for the 
creation of a world combine in the way necessary for the creation 
of a world, that is, no determination, no difference is given. In 
other words, we have nothing but the atom and the xeyoy,° 
despite Epicurus himself striving against this, etc. Aristotle has 
already in a profound manner criticised the superficiality of the 
method which proceeds from an abstract principle without allow- 
ing this principle to negate itself in higher forms. After praising 
the Pythagoreans because they were the first to free the categories 
from their substrate, and did not consider them as attributes of 
the things of which they are predicated, but as the very substance 
itself: 

“They [the Pythagoreans] thought that the finitude and infinity [...] were not 
attributes of certain other things, e.g. of fire or earth, etc., but were the substance of the 
things of which they are predicated’, 

he reproaches them because 

“they thought that the first subject of which a given definition was predicable was the 
substance of the thing [...]”. [Aristotle,] Metaphysics, Book I, Chap. V. 

* There must have been a slip of the pen here, for the manuscript has verkérper 
(embodied)instead of entkérpert (disembodied).— Ed. 
> Void.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 427 

II. SEXTUS EMPIRICUS 

We now go on to the attitude of the Epicurean philosophy to 
Scepticism, insofar as it can be gathered from Sextus Empiricus. 

But first a basic definition given by Epicurus himself must be 
cited from Book Ten of Diogenes Laertius contained in the 
description of the wise man: 

[121] “[the wise man] will be a dogmatist but not a mere sceptic.” p. 81. 

What Epicurus says about his principle of thinkability, and about 
language and the origin of concepts, makes up an important part 
of his exposition of his system as a whole, defining its essential 
attitude towards ancient philosophy and containing implicite* his 
position in relation to the Sceptics. It is interesting to see what 
Sextus Empiricus says about why Epicurus took to philosophy. 

[IX, 18] “If anybody asks ... out of what chaos originated, he will have nothing to 
answer. And according to some, this was precisely the reason why Epicurus plunged into 
philosophising. [19] For when he was a boy he asked his teacher, who was reading to 
him: [...] out of what chaos arose if it arose first. When the teacher said it was not 
his business to teach that, but the business of those who were called philosophers, 
Epicurus said: ‘I must go to them if they know the truth of things,’” Sext. 
Empiricus, Against the Professors, Geneva, 1621, p. 383. 

(II, 23] “For Democritus says that ‘Man is that which we all know’, etc. [24] For 
this thinker proceeds to say that only the atoms and the void truly exist, and these, he 
says, form the substrate not only of living beings, but of all compound bodies, so that, as far 
as these are concerned, we shall not form a concept of the particular essence of Man, seeing 
that they are common to all things. But besides these there is no existing substrate; so 
that we shall possess no means whereby we shall be able to distinguish Man from the 
other living beings and form a clear conception of him. [25] Again, Epicurus says that 
Man is such and such a shape combined with a soul. According to him, then, since Man 
is shown by pointing out, he that is not pointed out is not a man, and, if anyone points 
out a female, the male will not be Man, while if the female points out a male, she 
will not be Man.” Outlines of Pyrrhonism, p. 56. 

(VIII, 64] “For besides Pythagoras also Empedocles and the Ionians, besides 
Socrates also Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, and perhaps also the Garden 
philosophers, 182 concede that God exists, as the speeches made by Epicurus testify.” 
Against the Professors, p. 320. 

{VIII, 71] “For it cannot be assumed that the souls are carried down below.... 
[72] They are not dissolved, when separated from the bodies, as Epicurus used to say, like 
smoke. For before also it was not the body which held them fast, but they 
themselves were for the body the reason why it held together, but still more for 
themselves.” Against the Professors, p. 321. 

[VIII, 58] “And Epicurus, according to some, concedes the essence of God as far 
as the multitude is concerned, but by no means as concerns the nature of things.” 
Against the Professors, p. 319. 

* Implicitly — Ed. 

[VIl, 267] “The Epicureans [...] did not know that if that which is pointed out is 
Man, that which is not pointed out is not Man. And further such pointing out takes 
place either in respect of a man ... flat-nosed or aquiline-nosed, long-haired or 
curly-haired, or in respect of other distinctive features.” Against the Professors, p. 187. 

{I, 49] “... amongst them we must place Epicurus, although he seems to be 
hostile to the professors of science.” Against the Professors, p. 11. 

[I, 57] “Since, according to the sage Epicurus, it is not possible either to inquire or to 
doubt without a preconception, it will be well first of all to consider what ‘grammar ... 
is....” Against the Professors, p. 12. 

[I, 272] “‘... but we shall find even the accusers of grammar, Pyrrho and Epicurus, 
acknowledging its necessity. [...] [273] Epicurus has been detected as guilty of 
having filched the best of his dogmas from the poets. For he has been shown to 
have taken his proposition that the intensity of pleasure is ‘the removal of 
everything painful’— from this one verse: 

“When they had now put aside all longing for drinking and eating.’ 

“And as to death, that ‘it is nothing to us’, Epicharmus had pointed this out to 
him when he said: 

““To die or to be dead concerns me not.’ 

“So too, he stole the notion that dead bodies have no feeling from Homer, 
where he writes: 

“°Tis dumb clay that he beats with abuse in his violent fury.’”” Against the Professors, 

. 54. 
i (VII, 14] “Side by side with him,” 

(Archelaus of Athens, who divides philosophy into ~% PUoLxoV 
wat Hbtixoy 4) 

“they place Epicurus as one who also rejects logical consideration. [15] But 
there were others who said that he did not reject logic in general, but only that of the 
Stoics.” Against the Professors, p. 140. 

[22] “But the Epicureans proceed from logic: for they investigate first the 
Canonics and create for themselves the doctrine of the visible and the concealed 
and the appearances which accompany them.” Against the Professors, p. 142. 

[I, 1] “Opposition to the representatives of science seems to be common to the Epicureans 
and the followers of Pyrrho, though not from the same standpoint; the Epicureans 
hold that the sciences contribute nothing to the perfecting of wisdom,” 

(this means that the Epicureans consider the knowledge of 
things, as another form of existence of the spirit, to be powerless 
in raising the reality of the spirit; the Pyrrhonists consider the 
powerlessness of the spirit to comprehend things as its essential 
aspect, its real activity. There is a similar relation between the 
dogmatists and the Kantians in their attitude to philosophy, 
although both sides appear degenerate and deprived of the 
freshness of ancient philosophy. The former renounce knowledge 
out of godliness, that is, they believe with the Epicureans that the 
divine in man is ignorance, that this divine, which is laziness, is 
disturbed by understanding. The Kantians, on the contrary, are as 

* Physics and ethics.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 429 

it were the appointed priests of ignorance, their daily business is to 
tell their beads over their own powerlessness and the power of 
things. The Epicureans are more consistent: if ignorance is 
inherent in the spirit, then knowledge is no enhancement of the 
spiritual nature, but something indifferent to the spirit, and for an 
ignorant man the divine is not the motion of knowledge, but 
laziness); 

{1-2] “Or, as some conjecture, because they see in this a way of covering up 

their ignorance. For in many matters Epicurus stands convicted of ignorance, and 
even in ordinary converse his speech was not always correct.” Against the Professors, 

p. 1. 

After quoting some more gossip which clearly proves his 
confusion, Sextus Empiricus defines the difference between the 
Sceptics’ attitude to science and that of the Epicureans as follows: 

[5] “The followers of Pyrrho [opposed the sciences] neither because they did not 
contribute anything to wisdom, for that assertion would be dogmatic, nor because they 
were uneducated.... [6] They had the same attitude to the sctences as to the whole of 

philosophy.” 

(From this it is evident that one must distinguish between 
padnaca* and gthogoyia> and that Epicurus’ contempt for 
pathuata extends to what we call knowledge, and how exactly this 
assertion suo systemati omni consentit.°) 

“For just as they approached philosophy with the desire of attaining truth, 
but, when faced with an anomaly of things resembling contradiction, suspended judgment, 
so also, when they set about mastering the sciences and tried also to attain the truth 
contained in them, they found equal difficulties, which they did not conceal.” p. 6 
[Against the Professors, Book Ij. 

In the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book I, Chap. XVII, the aetiology 
which Epicurus in particular applied is aptly refuted, in such a 
way, however, that the Sceptics’ own impotence is revealed. 

(I, 185] “Possibly, too, the Five Modes of suspension of judgment may suffice as 
against the aetiologies. For either a person will suggest a cause which accords with 
all the trends of philosophy and of scepticism and with the phenomena, or he will 
not. And perhaps it is impossible to assign a cause which accords with all these.” 

(Of course, to assign such a cause which is nothing else at all but 
a phenomenon, is impossible because the cause is the ideality of 
the phenomenon, the transcended phenomenon. Just as little can 
[the assignment of] a cause accord with Scepticism, because Scepti- 
cism is professional opposition to all thought, the negation of 

* Science.— Ed. 
> Philosophy.— Ed. 
© Corresponds to his whole system.— Ed. 

determination itself. It is naive to confine scepticism to gatvopeva *, 
for the phenomenon is the being-lost, the not-being of thought: 
scepticism is the same not-being of thought as reflected in itself, but 
the phenomenon has in itself disappeared, it is only a semblance; 
scepticism is the speaking phenomenon and disappears as the 
phenomenon disappears, it is also only a phenomenon.) 

_ [185-186] “For all things, whether apparent or non-evident, are matters of 
controversy. But if there is controversy, the cause of this cause will also be asked for” 

(that is, the Sceptic wants a cause which itself is only a semblance 
and therefore no cause). 

“And if he assumes an apparent cause for an apparent, and a non-evident for a 
non-evident, he will be lost in the regress ad infinitum” [Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book I], 

(that is, because the Sceptic refuses to get away from the 
semblance and wants to hold on to it as such, he cannot get away 
from the semblance and this manoeuvre can be carried on 
into infinity; it is true that Epicurus wishes to go on from the atom 
to further determinations, but as he will not allow the atom as 
such to be dissolved, he cannot go beyond atomistics, determina- 
tions external to themselves and arbitrary; the Sceptic, on 
the other hand, accepts all determinations, but in the determinate- 
ness of semblance; his activity is therefore just as arbitrary and 
displays everywhere the same inadequacy. He swims, to be sure, in 
the whole wealth of the world, but remains in the same poverty 
and is himself an embodiment of the powerlessness which he sees 
in things; Epicurus makes the world empty from the start and so 
he ends up with the completely indeterminate, the void resting in 
itself, the otiose god). 

[186] “And if at any point he makes a stand, either he will state that the cause is 

valid in respect of the previous admission, introducing the relating-to-something 
while he negates the relating-to-nature,” 

(it is precisely in the semblance, in the appearance, that the 
mp6¢ tt P isthe mpog tHY dary’); 

“or if he accepts something out of a presupposition, he will be stopped.” p. 36 
[Outlines of Pyrrhonism). 

As the meteors, the visible heaven, are for the ancient 
philosophers the symbol and the visible confirmation of their pre- 

* Phenomena.— Ed. 
" Relating-to-something — Ed. 
© Relating-to-nature.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 431 

judice for the substantial, so that even Aristotle takes the stars for 
gods, or at least brings them into direct connection with the 
highest energy, so the written heaven, the sealed word of the god 
who has been revealed to himself in the course of world history, is 
the battle-cry of Christian philosophy. The premise of the ancients 
is the act of nature, that of the moderns the act of the spirit. The 
struggle of the ancients could only end by the visible heaven, the 
substantial nexus of life, the force of gravity of political and 
religious life being shattered, for nature must be split in two for 
the spirit to be one in itself. The Greeks broke it up with the 
Hephaestan hammer of art, broke it up in their statues; the 
Roman plunged his sword into its heart and the peoples died, but 
modern philosophy unseals the word, lets it pass away in smoke in 
the holy fire of the spirit, and as fighter of the spirit fighting the 
spirit, not as a solitary apostate fallen from the gravity of Nature, 
it is universally active and melts the forms which prevent the 
universal from breaking forth. 

Ill. PLUTARCH, PUBLISHED BY C. XYLANDER, 
THAT EPICURUS ACTUALLY MAKES 
A PLEASANT LIFE IMPOSSIBLE 

It goes without saying that very little of this treatise by Plutarch 
is of any use. One need only read the introduction with its clumsy 
boastfulness and its crude interpretation of the Epicurean 
philosophy in order no longer to entertain any doubt about 
Plutarch’s utter incompetence in philosophical criticism. 

Although he may agree with the view of Metrodorus: 

{III, 2] “They [the Epicureans] believe that the supreme good is found in the 
belly and all other passages of the flesh through which pleasure and non-pain 
make their entrance, and that all the notable and brilliant inventions of civilisation 
were devised for this belly-centred pleasure and for the good expectation of this 
pleasure [....]” p. 1087, 
this is minime* Epicurus’ teaching. Even Sextus Empiricus sees the 
difference between Epicurus and the Cyrenaic school in that he 
asserts that voluptas> is voluptas animi.¢ 

[III, 9-10] “Epicurus asserts that in illness the sage often actually laughs at the 

paroxysms of the disease. Then how can men for whom the pains of the body are 
so slight and easy to bear find anything appreciable in its pleasures?” p. 1088. 

4 Least of all.— Ed. 
5 Pleasure.— Ed. 
© Pleasure of the soul.— Ed. 

It is clear that Plutarch does not understand Epicurus’ consisten- 
cy. For Epicurus the highest pleasure is freedom from pain, from 
diversity, the absence of any dependence; the body which depends 
on no other for its sensation, which does not feel this diversity, is 
healthy, positive. This position, which achieves its highest form in 
Epicurus’ otiose god, is of itself like a chronic sickness in which the 
disease, because of its duration, ceases to be a condition, becomes, 
as it were, familiar and normal. We have seen in Epicurus’ 
philosophy of nature that he strives after this absence of depend- 
ence, this removal of diversity in theory as well as in practice. 
The greatest good for Epicurus is atapagia ,* since the spirit, 
which is the thing in question, is empirically unique. Plutarch 
revels in commonplaces, he argues like an apprentice. 

Incidentally we can speak of the conception of the s090¢,” who 
is a preoccupation equally of the Epicurean, Stoic and Sceptic 
philosophies. If we study him we shall find that he belongs most 
logically to the atomistic philosophy of Epicurus and that, viewed 
from this standpoint too, the downfall of ancient philosophy is 
presented in complete objectiveness in Epicurus. 

Ancient philosophy seeks to comprehend the wise man, 
6 9opoc¢, in two ways, but both of them have the same root. 

What appears theoretically in the account given of matter, 
appears practically in the definition of the sogec. Greek 
philosophy begins with seven wise men, among whom is the 
Ionian philosopher of nature Thales, and it ends with the attempt 
to portray the wise man conceptually. The beginning and the end, 
but no less the centre, the middle, is one sogé¢ , namely Socrates. 
It is no more an accident that philosophy gravitates round these 
substantial individuals, than that the political downfall of Greece 
takes place at the time when Alexander loses his wisdom in 
Babylon. 

Since the soul of Greek life and the Greek mind is substance, 
which first appears in them as free substance, the knowledge of 
this substance occurs in independent beings, individuals, who, 
being notable, on the one hand, each has his being in external 
contrast to the others, and whose knowledge, on the other hand, is 
the inward life of substance and thus something internal to the 
conditions of the reality surrounding them. The Greek 
philosopher is a demiurge, his world is a different one from that 
which flowers in the natural sun of the substantial. 

2 Ataraxy.— Ed. 
Wise man.— Ed. 

i net Yreen Cie 1 yo = seep aa 
— S Bue, ee partae a 

Bae fe ee 

PPE VN 2h omty Sates 4 SHA Pap "Tae Analy tog bd Crean nd 
ae Cece a= eae Seedy Se Wie Aylin QE 
aa oe Pra tos Vt av Sy vn 
; aphetnl ia Je I OF eet 
“YAEL \~ ye Sx iS ema a" igo 
fh a en ees Oe i. Son tlh tiie 
HK SEY ig on 
$Lats Bir4 Sie ak hale s 4 3s. Wa Pe ae os 
aig ‘ AcA\~ “Me Ta { po 77 Py 
wit of a he, of: an Dat ar cman 
Kor anak Bc gadis ry rh yoda Te. bos b aay a ee 
» sea ' “4% = 
: 00) Tey OAR may yp 
Wy e sates mk a\y 4r~1: Hs “eta GameOra0 ie 
Bed: - a7*t 
by \ cay Th ZANE wee instante \ tad @ “a Toph i7¥ 
FE Stee ane rien cat yagem phe tee TE ES 

CAKL Yhae 
soe, Fv Ne “al Tr’ 

oy YY Mey pet. 5 
baw \ Na Oe “f PysDK6 SSN Gk Ye Uta a(eay len 
Men Te ete Sphed Spe 

Vater arise ny {ow Nod wang Yow, yy ( 7. +H wh 

, a oe TY Lo 
aed 2 Feb, A ee aL ED ow po Ne 

Oe 
edad 
+) Sets whe gp Nav em ee Y satis “Ne yany 

wai 

Dev 

SE WTC ay wy t xreeVOB ha mig oe ray yer fin pe 
a WAAL ba yov Ga Ov Len’ os ~~ oad \ {- . 
hae oe Wen Te. Sma T 4 ov TH pe aes cog 
G cy | aah oe Ale 
@ Ohagas BAT §A2y, (75 Sahar. ra mets 
uy RTE re AT, over, Usednepn try > ae 

Ve 1045. sae my Ait. 

x. 

Page from Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 

(Second Notebook) 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 435 

The first wise men are only the vessels, the Pythia, from which 
the substance resounds in general, simple precepts; their language 
is as yet only that of the substance become vocal, the simple forces 
of moral life which are revealed. Hence they are in part also active 
leaders in political life, lawgivers. 

The Ionian philosophers of nature are just as much isolated 
phenomena as the forms of the natural element appear under 
which they seek to apprehend the universe. The Pythagoreans 
organise an inner life for themselves within the state; the form in 
which they realise their knowledge of substance is halfway between 
a completely conscious isolation not observed among the Ionians, 
whose isolation is rather the undeliberate, naive isolation of 
elementary existences, and the trustful carrying on of life within a 
moral order. The form of their life is itself substantial, political, 
but maintained abstract, reduced to a minimum in extent and 
natural fundamentals, just as their principle, number, stands 
midway between colourful sensuousness and the ideal. The Eleat- 
ics, as the first discoverers of the ideal forms of substance, who 
themselves still apprehend the inwardness of substance in a purely 
internal and abstract, intensive manner, are the passionately 
enthusiastic prophetic heralds of the breaking dawn. Bathed in 
simple light, they turn away indignantly from the people and from 
the gods of antiquity. But in the case of Anaxagoras the people - 
themselves turn to the gods of antiquity in opposition to the 
isolated wise man and declare him to be such, expelling him from 
their midst. In modern times (cf., for example, Ritter, Geschichte 
der alten Philosophie, Bd. I [1829, pp. 300 ff.]) Anaxagoras has been 
accused of dualism. Aristotle says in the first book of the 
Metaphysics that he uses the votg? like a machine and only resorts 
to it when he runs out of natural explanations. But this apparent 
dualism is on the one hand that very same dualistic element which 
begins to split the heart of the state in the time of Anaxagoras, 
and on the other hand it must be understood more profoundly. 
The wits is active and is resorted to where there is no natural 
determination. It is itself the non ens” of the natural, the ideality. 
And then the activity of this ideality intervenes only when physical 
sight fails the philosopher, that is, the yotg is the philosopher's 
own vous, and is resorted to when he is no longer able to objectify 
his activity. Thus the subjective vot¢ appeared as the essence of 

2 Reason.— Ed. 
> Not-being — Ed. 

the wandering scholar,* and, in its power as ideality of real 
determination, it appears on the one hand in the Sophists and on 
the other in Socrates. 

If the first Greek wise men are the real spirit, the embodied 
knowledge of substance, if their utterances preserve just as much 
genuine intensity as substance itself, if, as substance is increasingly 
idealised, the bearers of its progress assert an ideal life in their 
particular reality in opposition to the reality of manifested sub- 
stance, of the real life of the people, then the ideality itself is only 
in the form of substance. There is no undermining of the living 
powers; the most ideal men of this period, the Pythagoreans and 
the Eleatics, extol state life as real reason; their principles are 
objective, a power which is superior to themselves, which they 
herald in a semi-mystical fashion, in poetic enthusiasm; that is, in a 
form which raises natural energy to ideality and does not consume 
it, but processes it and leaves it intact in the determination of the 
natural. This embodiment of the ideal substance occurs in the 
philosophers themselves who herald it; not only is its expression 
plastically poetic, its reality is this person, whose reality is its own 
appearance; they themselves are living images, living works of art 
which the people sees rising out of itself in plastic greatness; while 
their activity, as in the case of the first wise men, shapes the 
universal, their utterances are the really assertive substance, the 
laws. 

Hence these wise men are just as little like ordinary people as 
the statues of the Olympic gods; ther motion is rest in self, their 
relation to the people is the same objectivity as their relation to 
substance. The oracles of the Delphic Apollo were divine truth for 
the people, veiled in the chiaroscuro of an unknown power, only 
as long as the genuine evident power of the Greek spirit sounded 
from the Pythian tripod; the people had a theoretical attitude 
towards them only as long as they were the resounding theory of 
the people itself, they were of the people only as long as they were 
unlike them. The same with these wise men. But with the Sophists 
and Socrates, and by virtue of éuvayic> in Anaxagoras, the 
situation was reversed. Now it is ideality itself which, in its 
immediate form, the subjective spirit, becomes the principle of 
philosophy. In the earlier Greek wise men there was revealed the 
ideal form of the substance, its identity, in distinction to the 

4 Cf. Goethe, Faust, 1, 3.— Ed. 
> Potentialities.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 437 

many-coloured raiment woven from the individualities of various 
peoples that displayed its manifest reality. Consequently, these 
wise men on the one hand apprehend the absolute only in the 
most one-sided, most general ontological definitions, and on the 
other hand, themselves represent in reality the appearance of the 
substance enclosed in itself. While they hold themselves aloof from 
the moddoi,*? and express the mystery of the spirit, on the other 
hand, like the plastic gods in the market places, in their blissful 
self-contemplation, they are the genuine embellishment of the 
people, to which as individuals they return. It is now, on the 
contrary, ideality itself, pure abstraction which has come to be for 
itself, that faces the substance; subjectivity, which establishes itself 
as the principle of philosophy. Not of the people, this subjectivity, 
confronting the substantial powers of the people, is yet of the 
people, that is, it confronts reality externally, is in practice 
entangled in it, and its existence is motion. These mobile vessels of 
development are the Sophists. Their innermost form, cleansed 
from the immediate dross of appearance, is Socrates, whom the 
Delphic oracle called the sopwtatoy.” 

Being confronted by its own ideality, substance is split up into a 
mass of accidental limited existences and institutions whose 
right— unity, and identity with it—has escaped into the subjective 
spirit. The subjective spirit itself is as such the vessel of substance, 
but because this ideality is opposed to reality, it is present in minds 
objectively as a “must”, and subjectively as a striving. The 
expression of this subjective spirit, which knows that it has the 
ideality in itself, is the judgment of the concept, for which the 
criterion of the individual is that which is determined in itself, the 
purpose, the good, but which is still here a “must” of reality. This 
“must” of reality is likewise a “must” of the subject which has 
become conscious of this ideality, for it itself stands rooted in 
reality and the reality outside it is its own. Thus the position of 
this subject is just as much determined as its fate. 

First, the fact that this ideality of substance has entered the 
subjective spirit, has fallen away from itself, is a leap, a falling 
away from the substantial life determined in the substantial life 
itself. Hence this determination of the subject is for it an 
accomplished fact, an alien force, the bearer of which it finds itself 
to be, the daemon of Socrates. The daemon is the immediate 
appearance of the fact that for Greek life philosophy is just as 

2 Multitude.— Ed. 
b Wisest — Ed. 

much only internal as only external. The characteristics of the 
daemon determine the empirical singularity of the subject, because 
the subject naturally detaches itself from the substantial, and 
hence naturally determined, life in this [Greek] life, since the 
daemon appears as a natural determinant. The Sophists them- 
selves are these daemons, not yet differentiated from their actions. 
Socrates is conscious that he carries the daemon in himself. 
Socrates is the substantial exemplar of substance losing itself in the 
subject. He is therefore just as much a substantial individual as the 
earlier philosophers, but after the manner of subjectivity, not 
enclosed in himself, not an image of the gods, but a human one, 
not mysterious, but clear and luminous, not a seer, but a sociable 
man. 

The second determination is therefore that this subject pro- 
nounces a judgment on the “must”, the purpose. Substance has 
lost its ideality in the subjective spirit, which thus has become in 
itself the determination of substance, its predicate, while substance 
itself has become in relation to the subjective spirit only the 
immediate, unjustified, merely existing composite of independent 
existences. The determination of the predicate, since it refers to 
something existing, is hence itself immediate, and since this 
something is the living spirit of the people, it is in practice the 
determination of the individual spirits, education and teaching. 
The “must” of substantiality is the subjective spirit’s own determi- 
nation expressed by it; the purpose of the world is therefore its 
[the spirit’s] own purpose, to teach about it is its calling. It 
therefore embodies in itself the purpose and hence the good both 
in its life and in its teaching. It is the wise man as he has entered 
into practical motion. 

Finally, inasmuch as this individual pronounces the judgment of 
the concept on the world, he is in himself divided and judged; for 
while he has his roots for one part in the substantial, he owes his 
right to exist only to the laws of the state to which he belongs, to 
its religion, in brief, to all the substantial conditions which appear 
to him as his own nature. On the other hand, he possesses in 
himself the purpose which is the judge of that substantiality. His 
own substantiality is therefore judged in this individual himself 
and thus he perishes precisely because he is born of the substan- 
tial, and not of the free spirit which endures and overcomes all 
contradictions and which need not recognise any natural condi- 
tions as such. 

The reason why Socrates is so important is that the relation of 
Greek philosophy to the Greek spirit, and therefore its inner limit, 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 439 

is expressed in him. It is self-evident how stupid was the 
comparison drawn in recent times between the relation of 
Hegelian philosophy to life and the case of Socrates, from which 
the justification for condemning the Hegelian philosophy was 
deduced. The specific failing of Greek philosophy is precisely that 
it stands related only to the substantial spirit; in our time both 
sides are spirit and both want to be acknowledged as such. 

Subjecivity is manifested in its immediate bearer [Socrates] as his 
life and his practical activity, as a form by which he leads single 
individuals out of the determinations of substantiality to determi- 
nation in themselves; apart from this practical activity, his 
philosophy has no other content than the abstract determination 
of the good. His philosophy is his transference from substantially 
existing notions, differences, etc., to determination-in-self, which, 
however, has no other content than to be the vessel of this 
. dissolving reflection; his philosophy is therefore essentially his own 
wisdom, his own goodness; in relation to the world the only 
fulfilment of his teaching on the good is a quite different 
subjectivity from that of Kant when he establishes his categorical 
imperative. For Kant it is of no account what attitude he, as an 
empirical subject, adopts towards this imperative. 

With Plato motion becomes ideal; as Socrates is the image and 
teacher of the world, so Plato’s ideas, his philosophical abstraction, 
are its prototypes. 

In Plato this abstract determination of the good, of the purpose, 

. develops into a comprehensive, world-embracing philosophy. The 

purpose, as the determination in itself, the real will of the 
philosopher, is thinking, the real determinations of this good are 
the immanent thoughts. The real will of the philosopher, the 
ideality active in him, is the real “must” of the real world. Plato 
sees this his attitude to reality in such a way that an independent 
realm of ideas hovers over reality (and this “beyond” is 
the philosopher’s own subjectivity) and is obscurely reflected in it. 
If Socrates discovered only the name of the ideality which has 
passed out of substance into the subject, and was himself con- 
sciously this motion, the substantial world of reality now enters 
really idealised into Plato’s consciousness, but thereby this ideal 
world itself is just as simply organised in itself as is the really 
substantial world facing it, of which Aristotle most aptly remarked: 

(Metaphysics, I, Chap. IX) “For the Forms are practically equal to—or not fewer 
than —the things, in trying to explain which these thinkers proceeded from them 
to the Form”. 

The determination of this world and its organisation in itself is 
therefore to the philosopher himself a beyond, the motion has 
been removed from this world. 

“Yet when the Forms exist, still the things that share in them do not come into 
being, unless there is something to originate movement [...].” Aristotle, op. cit. 

The philosopher as such, that is, as the wise man, not as the 
motion of the real spirit in general, is therefore the truth-beyond 
of the substantial world facing him. Plato expresses this most 
precisely when he says that either the philosophers must become 
kings or the kings philosophers for the state to achieve its 
purpose. In his attempts to educate a tyrant he also made a 
practical effort on these lines. His state has indeed as its special 
and highest estate that of the learned.’ | 

I wish to mention here two other remarks made by Aristotle, 
because they provide the most important conclusions concerning 
the form of Platonic consciousness and link up with the aspect 
from which we consider it in relation to the sogéc.> 

Aristotle says of Plato: 

“In the Phaedo the case is stated in this way —that the Forms are causes both of 
being and of becoming; yet when the Forms exist, still the things that share in 
them do not come into being, unless there is something to originate movement 
[...].” Aristotle, op. cit. 

It is not only that which is, it is the whole possibility of being 
that Plato wants to bring out into ideality: this ideality is a closed, 
specifically different realm in the philosophising consciousness 
itself: because it is this, it lacks motion. * 

This contradiction in the philosophising consciousness must 
objectify itself to the latter, the philosophising consciousness must 
eject this contradiction. 

“Again the Forms are patterns not only of sensible things, but of Forms 
themselves also: e.g. the genus, as genus of Forms; so that the same thing could be 
both pattern and copy.” (op. cit.] 

Lucretius on the ancient Ionian philosophers: 

“... have certainly made many excellent and divine discoveries and uttered 
oracles from the inner sanctuary of their hearts with more sanctity and far surer 
reason than those the Delphic prophetess pronounces, drugged by the laurel fumes 
from Apollo’s tripod.” Book I, ll. 736-740. 

Important for the definition of the Epicurean philosophy of 
nature is the following: 

* Plato, Res publica, V, 473.— Ed. 
> Wise man.— Ed. 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 44} 

1. The eternity of matter, which is connected with the fact that 
time is considered as an accident of accidents, as proper only to 
composites and their eventis, and hence is relegated to outside the 
material principle, outside the atom itself. It is further connected 
with the fact that the substance of the Epicurean philosophy is that 
which reflects only externally, which has no premises, which is 
arbitrariness and accident. Time is rather the fate of nature, of the 
finite. Negative unity with itself, its internal necessity. 

2. The void, the negation, is not the negative of matter itself, but 
[space] where there is no matter. In this respect too, therefore, 
matter is in itself eternal. 

The form which we see emerge at the conclusion from the 
workshop of Greek philosophical consciousness, out of the dark- 
ness of abstraction, and veiled in its dark garb, is the same form in 
which Greek philosophy walked, alive, the stage of the world, the 
same form which saw gods even in the burning hearth, the same 
which drank the poison cup, the same which, as the God of 
Aristotle, enjoys the greatest bliss, theory. 

EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY 

Third Notebook 

IlI. PLUTARCH, 1. THAT EPICURUS ACTUALLY MAKES 
A PLEASANT LIFE IMPOSSIBLE. 
2. COLOTES