“[...] images of things, a sort of outer skin perpetually peeled off the surface of 
objects and flying about this way and that through the air.” 11.34 ff. 

“Because each particular floating image wears the aspect and form of the object 
from whose body it has emanated.” N.49 £. 

“Similarly the films must be able to traverse an incalculable space in an instant 
of time, and that for two reasons. First, a very slight initial impetus far away to 
their rear sufficed to launch them and they continue on their course. Secondly, 
they are thrown off with such a loose-knit texture that they can readily penetrate 
any object and filter through the interspace of air.” 11.192 ff. 

“... it must be acknowledged that objects emit particles that strike upon the eyes 
and provoke sight. From certain objects there also flows a perpetual stream, as 
coolness flows from rivers, heat from the sun, and from the ocean waves a spray 
that eats away walls round the sea-shore. Sounds of every sort are surging 
incessantly through the air. When we walk by the seaside, a salty tang of brine 
enters our mouth; when we watch a draught of wormwood being mixed in our 
presence, a bitter effluence touches it. So from every object flows a stream of 
matter, spreading out in all directions. The stream flows without rest or intermis- 
sion, since our senses are perpetually alert and everything is always liable to be seen 
or smelt or to provoke sensation by sound.” 11.217 ff. 

‘Again, when some shape or other is handled in the dark, it is recognised as the 
same shape that in a clear and shining light is plain to see. It follows that touch and 

sight are provoked by the same stimulus.” 11.231 ff. 
“This shows that the cause of seeing lies in these films and without these nothing can 
be seen.” 11.238 f. 

“That is how we perceive the distance of each object; the more air is driven in 
front of the film and the longer the draught that brushes through our eyes, the 
more remote the object is seen to be. Of course this all happens so quickly that we 
perceive the nature of the object and its distance simultaneously.” W.251 ff. 

“A similar thing happens when a mirrored image projects itself upon our sight. 
On its way to us the film shoves and drives before it all the air that intervenes 
between itself and the eyes, so that we feel all this before perceiving the mirror. 
When we have perceived the mirror itself, then the film that travels from us to it 
and is reflected comes back to our eyes, pushing another lot of air in front of it, so 

that we perceive this before the image, which thus appears to lie at some distance 
from the mirror.” ll. 280 ff. 

Book V 

“The whole substance and structure of the world, upheld through many years, 
will crash.” Il. 96 f. 
“May reason rather than the event itself convince you that the whole world can 
collapse with one ear-splitting crack!” ll. 109 f. 
“For naturally a whole whose members and parts we see to consist of created 
matter in mortal forms is by the same rule discerned to be likewise created and 
mortal. So .., it is a fair inference that sky and earth too had their birthday and will 

have their day of doom.” Il. 241 ff. 
“... you will see ... temples and images of the gods defaced, their destined span 
not lengthened by any sanctity that avails against the laws of nature.” Il. 307 ff. 

“Again, there can only be three kinds of everlasting objects. The first, owing to 
the absolute solidity of their substance, can repel blows and let nothing penetrate 
them so as to unknit their close texture from within. Such are the atoms of matter, 
whose nature I have already demonstrated. The second kind can last for ever 
because it is immune from blows. Such is empty space, which remains untouched 
and not subject to any impact. Last is that which has no available place surrounding 
it into which its matter can disperse and disintegrate. It is for this reason that the 
sum total of the universe is everlasting, having no space outside it into which the 
matter can escape and no matter that can enter and disintegrate it by the force of 
impact.” ll. 352 ff. 

“It follows that the doorway of death is not barred to sky and sun and earth 

and the sea’s unfathomed floods. It lies tremendously open and confronts them 
with’a yawning chasm.” ll. 374 f€. 

“Already in those early days men had visions when their minds were awake, 
and more clearly in sleep, of divine figures, dignified in mien and impressive in 
stature. To these figures they attributed sentience, because they were seen to move 
their limbs and give voice to lordly utterances appropriate to their stately features 
and stalwart frames. They further credited them with eternal life, because their 
shape was perpetually renewed and their appearance unchanging and in general 
because they thought that beings of such strength could not lightly be subdued by 
any force. They pictured their lot as far superior to that of mortals, because none 
of them was tormented by the fear of death, and also because in dreams they saw 
them perform all sorts of miracles without the slightest effort.” ll. 1168 ff. 

Book VI'} 

As the  yvodg¢? of Anaxagoras comes into motion in the Sophists 
(here the v00¢ becomes realiter> the not-being of the world) and 
this immediate daemonic motion as such becomes objective in the 
daemon of Socrates, so also the practical motion in Socrates be- 
comes a general and ideal one in Plato, and the vodg expands itself 
into a realm of ideas. In Aristotle this process is apprehended 
again in individuality, but this is now true conceptual individuality. 

As in the history of philosophy there are nodal points which 
raise philosophy in itself to concretion, apprehend abstract princi- 
ples in a totality, and thus break off the rectilinear process, so also 
there are moments when philosophy turns its eyes to the external 
world, and no longer apprehends it, but, as a practical person, 
weaves, as it were, intrigues with the world, emerges from the 
transparent kingdom of Amenthes and throws itself on the breast 
of the worldly Siren. That is the carnival of philosophy, whether it 
disguises itself as a dog like the Cynic, in priestly vestments like 
the Alexandrian, or in fragrant spring array like the Epicurean. It 
is essential that philosophy should then wear character masks. As 
Deucalion, according to the legend, cast stones behind him in 
creating human beings, so philosophy casts its regard behind it 
(the bones of its mother are luminous eyes) when its heart is set on 
creating a world; but as Prometheus, having stolen fire from 
heaven, begins to build houses and to settle upon the earth, so 
philosophy, expanded to be the whole world, turns against the 
world of appearance. The same now with the philosophy of Hegel. 

While philosophy has sealed itself off to form a consummate, 
total world, the determination of this totality is conditioned by the 
general development of philosophy, just as that development is 
the condition of the form in which philosophy turns into a 
practical relationship towards reality; thus the totality of the world 
in general is divided within itself, and this division is carried to the 
extreme, for spiritual existence has been freed, has been enriched 
to universality, the heart-beat has become in itself the differentia- 
tion in the concrete form which is the whole organism. The 
division of the world is total only when its aspects are totalities. 
The world confronting a philosophy total in itself is therefore a 
world torn apart. This philosophy’s activity therefore also appears 
torn apart and contradictory; its objective universality is turned 
back into the subjective forms of individual consciousness in which 
it has life. But one must not let oneself be misled by this storm 
which follows a great philosophy, a world philosophy. Ordinary 
harps play under any fingers, Aeolian harps only when struck by 
the storm. 

He who does not acknowledge this historical necessity must be 
consistent and deny that men can live at all after a total 
philosophy, or he must hold that the dialectic of measure as such 
is the highest category of the self-knowing spirit and assert, with 
some of the Hegelians who understand our master wrongly, that 
mediocrity is the normal manifestation of the absolute spirit; but a 
mediocrity which passes itself off as the regular manifestation of 

the Absolute has itself fallen into the measureless, namely, into 
measureless pretension. Without this necessity it is impossible to 
grasp how after Aristotle a Zeno, an Epicurus, even a Sextus 
Empiricus could appear, and how after Hegel attempts, most of 
them abysmally indigent, could be made by more recent 
philosophers. 

At such times half-hearted minds have opposite views to those 
of whole-minded generals. They believe that they can compensate 
losses by cutting the armed forces, by splitting them up, by a peace 
treaty with the real needs, whereas Themistocles, when Athens was 
threatened with destruction, tried to persuade the Athenians to 
abandon the city entirely and found a new Athens at sea, in 
another element. 

Neither must we forget that the time following such catas- 
trophes is an iron time, happy when characterised by titanic 
struggles, lamentable when it resembles centuries limping in the 
wake of great periods in art. These centuries set about moulding 
in wax, plaster and copper what sprang from Carrara marble like 
Pallas Athena out of the head of Zeus, the father of the gods. But 
titanic are the times which follow in the wake of a philosophy total 
in itself and of its subjective developmental forms, for gigantic is 
the discord that forms their unity. Thus Rome followed the Stoic, 
Sceptic and Epicurean philosophy. They are unhappy and iron 
epochs, for their gods have died and the new goddess still reveals 
the dark aspect of fate, of pure light or of pure darkness. She still 
lacks the colours of day. 

The kernel of the misfortune, however, is that the spirit of the 
time, the spiritual monad, sated in itself, ideally formed in all 
aspects in itself, is not allowed to recognise any reality which has 
come to being without it. The fortunate thing in such misfortune 
is therefore the subjective form, the modality of the relation of 
philosophy, as subjective consciousness, towards reality. 

Thus, for example, the Epicurean, [and the] Stoic philosophy 
was the boon of its time; thus, when the universal sun has gone 
down, the moth seeks the lamplight of the private individual. 

The other aspect, which is the more important for the historian 
of philosophy, is that this turn-about of philosophy, its tran- 
substantiation into flesh and blood, varies according to the determi- 
nation which a philosophy total and concrete in itself bears as its 
birthmark. At the same time it is an objection to those who now 
conclude in their abstract one-sidedness that, because Hegel 
considered Socrates’ condemnation just, i.e., necessary, because 
Giordano Bruno had to atone for his fiery spirit in the smoky 

Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy 493 

flame at the stake, therefore the philosophy of Hegel, for 
example, has pronounced sentence upon itself. But from the 
philosophical point of view it is important to bring out this aspect, 
because, reasoning back from the determinate character of this 
turn-about, we can form a conclusion concerning the immanent 
determination and the world-historical character of the process of 
development of a philosophy. What formerly appeared as growth 
is now determination, what was negativity existing in itself has now 
become negation. Here we see, as it were, the curriculum vitae of a 
philosophy in its most concentrated expression, epitomised in its 
subjective point, just as from the death of a hero one can infer his 
life’s history. 

Since I hold that the attitude of the Epicurean philosophy is 
such a form of Greek philosophy, may this also be my justification 
if, instead of presenting moments out of the preceding Greek 
philosophies as conditions of the life of the Epicurean philosophy, 
I reason back from the latter to draw conclusions about the former 
and thus let it itself formulate its own particular position. 

To define the subjective form of Platonic philosophy still 
further in a few features, I shall examine more closely some views 
set forth by Professor Baur in his work Das Christliche im 
Platonismus. Thus we shall arrive at a result by simultaneously 
clarifying opposing views more precisely. 

Das Christliche des Platonismus oder Sokrates und Christus, by 
D. F. C. Baur, Tubingen, 1837. 

Baur says on page 24: 

“According to this, Socratic philosophy and Christianity, considered at their 
starting point, are related to each other as consciousness of self and consciousness 
of sin.” 

It seems to us that the comparison between Socrates and Christ, 
presented in this way, proves precisely the opposite of what is to 
be proved, namely, the opposite of an analogy between Socrates 
and Christ. Consciousness of self and consciousness of sin are, of 
course, related to each other as the general and the particular, 
that is to say, as philosophy and religion. This position is adopted 
by every philosopher, whether ancient or modern. This would be 
the eternal separation of the two fields rather than their unity, 
admittedly also a relationship, for every separation is separation of 
a unity. This means nothing more than that the philosopher 
Socrates is related to Christ as a philosopher to a teacher of 
religion. If now a similarity, an analogy is established between grace 

and Socrates’ midwifery, irony, this means carrying only the 
contradiction, not the analogy, to the extreme. Socratic irony, as 
understood by Baur and as it must be understood with Hegel, 
namely as the dialectic trap through which human common sense 
is precipitated out of its motley ossification, not into self-compla- 
cent knowing-better, but into the truth immanent in human 
common sense itself, this irony is nothing but the form of 
philosophy in its subjective attitude to common consciousness. The 
fact that in Socrates it has the form of an ironical, wise man 
follows from the basic character of Greek philosophy and its 
attitude to reality. With us irony as a general immanent form, so 
to speak, as philosophy was taught by Fr. v. Schlegel. But 
objectively, so far as content is concerned, Heraclitus, who also not 
only despised, but hated human common sense, is just as much an 
ironist, so is even Thales, who taught that everything is water, 
though every Greek knew that no one could live on water, so is 
Fichte with his world-creating ego, despite which even Nicolai 
realised that he could not create any world, and so is any 
philosopher who asserts immanence in opposition to the empirical 
person. 

In grace, on the other hand, in consciousness of sin, not only 
the subject which receives grace, which is brought to consciousness 
of sin, but even that which bestows grace and that which arises out 
of the consciousness of sin are empirical persons. 

If therefore there is any analogy here between Socrates and 
Christ, it must consist in the fact that Socrates is philosophy 
personified and Christ is religion personified. But here it is not a 
question of a general relation between philosophy and religion; 
the question is rather in what relation personified philosophy 
stands to personified religion. That they have some relation to 
each other is a very vague truth or rather the general condition of 
the question, not the particular basis of the answer. In this striving 
to prove the existence of a Christian element in Socrates, the 
relation between the two persons, namely Christ and Socrates, is 
defined no further than as the relation in general of a philosopher 
to a teacher of religion; the same vacuity is revealed when the 
general moral division of Socrates’ Idea, Plato’s Republic, is placed 
in relationship to the general division of the Idea, and Christ as a 
historical personality in relationship mainly to the church? 

If Hegel’s pronouncement, which Baur accepts, is correct,’ that 
in his Republic Plato asserted Greek substantiality against the 
irrupting principle of subjectivity, then Plato is diametrically 
opposed to Christ, since Christ asserted this element of subjectivity 
against the existing state, which he characterised as only worldly, 
and therefore unholy. The fact that Plato’s Republic remained an 
ideal, whereas the Christian church achieved reality, was not the 
real difference but was expressed reversed in Plato’s Idea follow- 
ing reality, whereas that of Christ preceded it. 

In general it is far more correct to say that there are Platonic 
elements in Christianity rather than Christian elements in Plato, 
particularly as the earliest Fathers of the Church proceeded 
historically in part from Platonic philosophy, e.g., Origen, 
Irenaeus. From the philosophical point of view it is important that 
in Plato’s Republic the first estate is that of the learned or the 
wise. It is the same with the relationship of Platonic ideas to the 
Christian logos (p. 38), the relationship of the Platonic recollection 
to the Christian restoration of man to his original image (p. 40), 
and with Plato’s fall of souls and the Christian falling into sin 
(p. 43), myth of the pre-existence of the soul. 

Relation of the myth to Platonic consciousness. 

Platonic transmigration of souls. Connection with the constella- 
tions. 

Baur says on page 83: 

“There is no other philosophy of antiquity in which philosophy bears so much 
of a religious character as in Platonism.” 

This must also follow from the fact that Plato defines the “task 
of philosophy” (p. 86) asa hdstc, amadhayy, yoptonos> of the 
soul from the body, as a dying and a yehetay anodvyioxety.< 

“That this saving force in the final resort is ascribed,to philosophy is, to be sure, 
the one-sidedness of Platonism [...].” p. 89. 

On the one hand, one could accept Baur’s pronouncement that 
no philosophy of antiquity bears so much the character of religion 
as the Platonic. But it would only mean that no philosopher had 
taught philosophy with more religious inspiration, that to no one 
philosophy had to a greater extent the determination and the 
form, as it were, of a religious cult. With the more intensive 

philosophers, such as Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel, their attitude itself 
had a more general form, less steeped in empirical feeling; but for 
that reason Aristotle’s inspiration, when he extols tewpta* as the 
best thing, to vdtatov xai dototov,> or when he admires the 
rationality of nature in his treatise Tmepi tS poems Ewixns,* and 
Spinoza’s inspiration when he speaks of contemplation sub specie 
aeternitatis,? of the love of God or of the libertas mentis humanae,° 
and Hegel’s inspiration when he expounds the eternal realisation 
of the Idea, the magnificent organism of the universe of spirits, is 
more genuine, warmer, more beneficial to a mind with a more 
general education, for that reason the inspiration of Plato culmi- 
nates in ecstasy while that of the others burns on as the pure ideal 
flame of science; that is why the former was only a hot-water 
bottle for individual minds, while the latter is the animating spirit 
of world-historical developments. 

Hence even if it may be admitted, on the one hand, that in the 
Christian religion, as the peak of rel[igious] development, there 
must be more points of contact with the subjective form of 
Platonic philosophy than with that of other early philosophies, it 
must equally be asserted on the same grounds that in no 
philosophy the opposition between the religious and _ the 
philosophical could be expressed more clearly, for here philosophy 
appears in the character of religion, while there religion appears 
in the character of philosophy. 

Further, Plato’s pronouncements on the salvation of the soul, 
etc., prove nothing at all, for every philosopher desires to free the 
soul from its empirical limitation; to draw an analogy with religion 
only shows a lack of philosophy, namely, to consider this as the 
task of philosophy, whereas it is only the condition for fulfilling 
that task, only the beginning of the beginning. 

Finally, it is no defect of Plato, no one-sidedness, that he 
ascribes this saving force in the last resort to philosophy; it is the 
one-sidedness which makes of him a philosopher and not the 
teacher of a faith. It is not the one-sidedness of Plato’s philosophy, 
but that by which alone it is philosophy. It is that by which 
he negates again the formula—which has just been de- 
nounced—{[namely, the formula] of a task of philosophy which 
would not be philosophy itself. 

“In this, therefore, in the striving to provide what has been cognised through 
philosophy with a basis independent of the subjectivity of the individual [i.e., an 
objective basis], lies the reason why Plato, precisely when he expounds truths which 
are of the greatest moral and religious interest, at the same time presents them in a 
mythical form.” p. 94. 

Is anything at all explained in this way? Does not this answer 
include as its kernel the question of the reason for this reason? 
The question that arises is: why is it that Plato felt the desire to 
provide a positive, above all mythical, basis for what is cognised by 
philosophy? Such a desire is the most astonishing thing that can be 
attributed to a philosopher, for it means that he does not find the 
objective force in his system itself, in the eternal power of the 
Idea. That is why Aristotle calls mythologising kenologising.'*’ 

On the surface of it, the answer to this can be found in the 
subjective, namely dialogic, form of the Platonic system and in 
irony. What is the pronouncement of an individual and is asserted 
as such in opposition to opinions or individuals, needs some sup- 
port through which the subjective certainty becomes objective truth. 

But then a further question arises: why is this mythologising to 
be found in those dialogues which mainly expound moral and 
religious truths, whereas the purely metaphysical Parmenides is free 
from it? The question is: why is the positive basis a mythical one 
and a reliance on myths? 

And here we have the answer to this riddle. In expounding 
definite questions of morality, religion, or even natural philos- 
ophy, as in Timaeus, Plato sees that his negative interpreta- 
tion of the Absolute is not sufficient; here it is not enough to sink 
everything in the one dark night in which, according to Hegel, all 
cows are black; at this point Plato has recourse to the positive 
interpretation of the Absolute, and its essential form, which has its 
basis in itself, is myth and allegory. Where the Absolute stands on 
one side, and limited positive reality on the other, and the positive 
must all the same be preserved, there this positive becomes the 
medium through which absolute light shines, the absolute light 
breaks up into a fabulous play of colours, and the finite, the 
positive, points to something other than itself, has in it a soul, to 
which this husk is an object of wonder; the whole world has 
become a world of myths. Every shape is a riddle. This has 
recurred in recent times, due to the operation of a similar law. 

This positive interpretation of the Absolute and its mythical- 
allegorical attire is the fountain-head, the heartbeat of the 
philosophy of transcendence, a transcendence which at the same 
time has an essential relation to immanence, just as it essentially 
breaks through the latter. Here we have, of course. a kinship of 

Platonic philosophy with every positive religion, and primarily with 
the Christian religion, which is the consummate philosophy of 
transcendence. Here we have therefore also one of the viewpoints 
from which a more profound relationship can be established 
between historical Christianity and the history of ancient philos- 
ophy. It is in connection with this positive interpretation of 
the Absolute that Plato saw in an individual as such, Socrates, the 
mirror, so to speak, the mythical expression of wisdom, and called 
him the philosopher of death and of love. That does not mean 
that Plato negated the historical Socrates; the positive interpreta- 
tion of the Absolute is connected with the subjective character of 
Greek philosophy, with the definition of the wise man. 

Death and love are the myth of negative dialectic, for dialectic is 
the inner, simple light, the piercing eye of love, the inner soul 
which is not crushed by the body of material division, the inner 
abode of the spirit. Thus the myth of it is love, but dialectic is also 
the torrent which smashes the many and their bounds, which tears 
down the independent forms, sinking everything in the one sea of 
eternity. The myth of it is therefore death. 

Thus dialectic is death, but at the same time the vehicle of 
vitality, the efflorescence in the gardens of the spirit, the foaming 
in the bubbling goblet of the tiny seeds out of which the flower of 
the single flame of the spirit bursts forth. Plotinus therefore calls 
it the means of the soul’s &mdwotc.* of its direct union with 
God,'*? an expression in which death and love and at the same 
time Aristotle’s tewpta, are united with Plato’s dialectic. But as 
these determinations in Plato and Aristotle are, as it were, 
presupposed, not developed out of immanent necessity, their 
submergence in the empirical individual consciousness in Plotinus 
appears as a condition, the condition of ecstasy. 

Ritter (in his Geschichte der Philosophie alter Zeit, Part I, Hamburg, 
1829) speaks with a certain repulsive moralising superiority about 
Democritus and Leucippus, in general about the atomistic doctrine 
(later also about Protagoras, Gorgias, etc.). There is nothing easier 
than to rejoice in one’s own moral perfection on every occasion, 
easiest of all when dealing with the dead. Even Democritus’ learning 
is made a subject of reproach (p. 563); mention is made of 

“how sharply the higher flight of speech, simulating inspiration, must have 

contrasted with the base attitude which underlies his outlook on life and the world.” 
p. 564. 

Surely that is not supposed to be a historical remark! Why must 
precisely the attitude underlie the outlook and not rather the 
other way round, the definite outlook and discernment underlie 
his attitude? The latter principle is not only more historical, it is 
also the only one according to which a philosopher’s attitude may be 
considered in the history of philosophy. We see in the shape of the 
spiritual personality what is expounded to us as a system, we see, 
as it were, the demiurge standing alive at thecentre of his world. 

“Of the same content is also the proposition of Democritus that something 
primary, which did not come into existence, must be assumed, for time and infinity 
did not come into existence, so that to inquire after their origin would mean to 
seek the beginning of the infinite. One can see in this only a sophistical denial of 
the question of the origin of all phenomena.” p. 567. 

I can see in that assertion of Ritter’s only a moral denial of the 
question concerning the basis of this Democritean determination; 
the infinite is posited in the atom asa principle, it is contained in the 
definition of the atom. To inquire after the basis of the defini- 
tion would, of course, be to negate his definition of the concept. 

“Democritus ascribes to the atom only one physical property, weight.... One can 
again recognise here the mathematical interest which seeks to save the applicability 
of mathematics to the calculation of weight.” p. 568. 

“Hence the atomists deduced motion also from necessity, conceiving the latter 
as the causelessness of motion receding into the indeterminate.” p. 570. 

[IX, 19] “Democritus, however, holds that certain images approach (meet) men; 
some of these have a beneficial effect, others a harmful one?*; for this reason also 
he prays that only images endowed with reason should meet him. But 
these are big and gigantic and indeed very hard to destroy, but not indestructible; 
he says they foretell men the future, are visible and emit sound. Proceeding from 
the notion of these images, the ancients conjectured that there is a god [....]” 
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, p. 311. 

(20-21] “Now Aristotle said that the notion of god arose in men from two 
factors, from the processes in the soul and from the heavenly phenomena. From 
the processes in the soul because of the divine inspiration of the soul in sleep and 
because of the prophecies. For, he says, when the soul in sleep becomes 
independent, it discards its own nature, has premonitions and foretells the 
future.... For this reason, he says, men have surmised that god is something which 
in itself resembles the soul and the most intelligent of all. But also from the 
heavenly phenomena.” op. cit., pp. 311 f. 

[25] “Epicurus believes that men derived the notion of god from the visions of 
fantasy which appear during sleep. For, he says, since in sleep big images 

resembling human beings appear, they assume that in reality also there are some 
such gods resembling human beings.” op. cit., p. 312. 

[58] “[...] Epicurus, some say, admits the existence of God as far as the 
multitude is concerned, but not as far as the nature of things goes.” op. cit., p. 319. 

a) Soul, p. 321. Against the Professors [Book IX]. 

[218] “[...] Aristotle asserted that God is incorporeal and the limit of heaven, 
the Stoics that he is a breath which permeates even through things foul, Epicurus 
that he is anthropomorphic, Xenophanes that he is an impassive sphere.... [219] 
Epicurus declares that ‘what is blessed and incorruptible neither feels trouble itself 
nor causes it to others’.” Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book III, p. 155. 

[219-221] “But to Epicurus, who wishes to define time as the accidental of 
accidentals (cup mTwLe GVENTwWATwV), can be objected, besides many other things, 
that everything which behaves as substance belongs to the substrates, to the 
underlying subjects; but what is called accidental possesses no consistency, since it is 
not separate from the substances. For there is no resistance (4vtttvmia) except the 
bodies which resist, no making way (eEtc) (yielding) except that which yields and 
the void, etc.” [Against the Professors, Book 1X, p. 417.1? 

[240-241] “Hence Epicurus, who says that a body must be thought of as a 
composition of size, and shape, resistance and weight, forces us to think of an existing 
body as consisting of non-existing bodies.... Hence, in order that there may be time, 
there must be accidentals; but in order that there may be accidentals, there must be an 
underlying condition; and if there is no underlying condition, neither can there 
be time.” 

[244] “So if this is time,—and Epicurus says its accidentals are time” 

(by this avtéy> one must understand ypépa, v5E, apa, xivyote, 
wovn, matec, anatera,© etc.), 

“then according to Epicurus, time will be its own accidental.” Against the 
Professors [Book IX], pp. 420 and 421. 

If, according to Hegel (see Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 14, p. 492), the 
Epicurean philosophy of nature deserves no great praise when 
judged by the criterion of objective gain, from the other point of 
view, according to which historical phenomena do not stand in 
need of such praise, the frank, truly philosophical consistency with 
which the whole range of the inconsistencies of his principle in 
itself is expounded, is admirable. The Greeks will for ever remain 
our teachers by virtue of this magnificent objective naiveté, which 
makes everything shine, as it were, naked, in the pure light of its 
nature, however dim that light may be. 

Our time in particular has given rise even in philosophy to evil 
phenomena, guilty of the greatest sin, the sin against the spirit and 
against truth, inasmuch as a hidden intention lurks behind the 
judgement and a hidden judgment behind the intention.