Epictetus, the Discourses as reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments/Book 2/Chapter 20

by Epictetus

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CHAPTER XX

Against Epicureans and Academics^[1]

The propositions which are true and evident must of necessity be employed even by those who contradict them; and one might consider as perhaps the strongest proof of a proposition being evident the fact that even the man who contradicts it finds himself obliged at the same time to employ it. For example, if a man should contradict the proposition that there is a universal statement which is true, it is clear that he must assert the contrary, and say: No universal statement is true. Slave, this is not true, either. For what else does this assertion amount to than: If a statement is universal, it is false? Again, if a man comes forward and says, "I would have you know that nothing is knowable, but that everything is uncertain"; or if someone else says, "Believe me, and it will be to your advantage, when I say: One ought not to believe a man at all"; or again, someone else, "Learn from me, man, that it is impossible to learn anything; ⁵it is I who tell you this and I will prove it to you, if you wish," what difference is there between these persons and—whom shall I say?—those who call themselves Academics? "O men," say the Academics, "give your assent to the statement that no man assents to any statement; believe us when we say that no man can believe anybody."

So also Epicurus, when he wishes to do away with the natural fellowship of men with one another, at the same time makes use of the very principle that he is doing away with. For what does he say? "Be not deceived, men, nor led astray, nor mistaken; there is no natural fellowship with one another among rational beings; believe me. Those who say the contrary are deceiving you and leading you astray with false reasons." Why do you care, then? Allow us to be deceived. Will you fare any the worse, if all the rest of us are persuaded that we do have a natural fellowship with one another, and that we ought by all means to guard it? Nay, your position will be much better and safer. Man, why do you worry about us, why keep vigil on our account, why light your lamp, why rise betimes, why write such big books? Is it to keep one or another of us from being deceived into the belief that the gods care for men, or is it to keep one or another of us from supposing that the nature of the good is other than pleasure? ¹⁰For if this is so, off to your couch and sleep, and lead the life of a worm, of which you have judged yourself worthy; eat and drink and copulate and defecate and snore. What do you care how the rest of mankind will think about these matters, or whether their ideas be sound or not? For what have you to do with us? Come, do you interest yourself in sheep because they allow themselves to be shorn by us, and milked, and finally to be butchered and cut up? Would it not be desirable if men could be charmed and bewitched into slumber by the Stoics and allow themselves to be shorn and milked by you and your kind? Is not this something that you ought to have said to your fellow Epicureans only and to have concealed your views from outsiders, taking special pains to persuade them, of all people, that we are by nature born with a sense of fellowship, and that self-control is a good thing, so that everything may be kept for you? Or ought we to maintain this fellowship with some, but not with others? With whom, then, ought we to maintain it? With those who reciprocate by maintaining it with us, or with those who are transgressors of it? And who are greater transgressors of it than you Epicureans who have set up such doctrines?

¹⁵What, then, was it that roused Epicurus from his slumbers and compelled him to write what he did? What else but that which is the strongest thing in men—nature, which draws a man to do her will though he groans and is reluctant? "For," says she, "since you hold these anti-social opinions, write them down and bequeathe them to others and give up your sleep because of them and become in fact yourself the advocate to denounce your own doctrines." Shall we speak of Orestes as being pursued by the Furies and roused from his slumbers? But are not the Furies and the Avengers that beset Epicurus more savage? They roused him from sleep and would not let him rest, but compelled him to herald his own miseries, just as madness and wine compel the Galli.^[2] Such a powerful and invincible thing is the nature of man. For how can a vine be moved to act, not like a vine, but like an olive, or again an olive to act, not like an olive, but like a vine? It is impossible, inconceivable. Neither, then, is it possible for a man absolutely to lose the affections of a man, and those who cut off their bodily organs are unable to cut off the really important thing—their sexual desires. ²⁰So with Epicurus: he cut off everything that characterizes a man, the head of a household, a citizen, and a friend, but he did not succeed in cutting off the desires of human beings; for that he could not do, any more than the easy-going^[3] Academics are able to cast away or blind their own sense-perceptions, although they have made every effort to do so.

Ah, what a misfortune! A man has received from nature measures and standards for discovering the truth, and then does not go on and take the pains to add to these and to work out additional principles to supply the deficiencies, but does exactly the opposite, endeavouring to take away and destroy whatever faculty he does possess for discovering the truth. What do you say, philosopher? What is your opinion of piety and sanctity? "If you wish, I shall prove that it is good." By all means, prove it, that our citizens may be converted and may honour the Divine and at last cease to be indifferent about the things that are of supreme importance. "Do you, then, possess the proofs?" I do, thank heaven. "Since, then, you are quite satisfied with all this, hear the contrary: The gods do not exist, and even if they do, they pay no attention to men, nor have we any fellowship with them, and hence this piety and sanctity which the multitude talk about is a lie told by impostors and sophists, or, I swear, by legislators to frighten and restrain evildoers." Well done, philosopher! You have conferred a service upon our citizens, you have recovered our young men who were already inclining to despise things divine. ²⁵"What then? Does not all this satisfy you? Learn now how righteousness is nothing, how reverence is folly, how a father is nothing, how a son is nothing." Well done, philosopher! Keep at it; persuade the young men, that we may have more who feel and speak as you do. It is from principles like these that our well-governed states have grown great! Principles like these have made Sparta what it was! These are the convictions which Lycurgus wrought into the Spartans by his laws and his system of education, namely that neither is slavery base rather than noble, nor freedom noble rather than base! Those who died at Thermopylae died because of these judgements regarding slavery and freedom! And for what principles but these did the men of Athens give up their city?^[4] And then those who talk thus marry and beget children and fulfil the duties of citizens and get themselves appointed priests and prophets! Priests and prophets of whom? Of gods that do not exist! And they themselves consult the Pythian priestess—in order to hear lies and to interpret the oracles to others! Oh what monstrous shamelessness and imposture!

Man, what are you doing?^[5] You are confuting your own self every day, and are you unwilling to give up these frigid attempts of yours? When you eat, where do you bring your hand? To your mouth, or to your eye? When you take a bath, into what do you step? When did you ever call the pot a plate, or the ladle a spit? If I were slave to one of these men, even if I had to be soundly flogged by him every day, I would torment him. "Boy, throw a little oil into the bath." I would have thrown a little fish sauce in, and as I left would pour it down on his head. "What does this mean?" "I had an external impression that could not be distinguished from olive oil; indeed, it was altogether like it. I swear by your fortune." "Here, give me the gruel." ³⁰I would have filled a side dish with vinegar and fish sauce and brought it to him. "Did I not ask for the gruel?" "Yes, master; this is gruel." "Is not this vinegar and fish sauce?" "How so, any more than gruel." "Take and smell it, take and taste it." "Well, how do you know, if the senses deceive us?" If I had had three or four fellow-slaves who felt as I did, I would have made him burst with rage and hang himself, or else change his opinion. But as it is, such men are toying with us; they use all the gifts of nature, while in theory doing away with them.

Grateful men indeed and reverential: Why, if nothing else, at least they eat bread every day, and yet have the audacity to say, "We do not know if there is a Demeter, or a Kore, or a Pluto"^[6]; not to mention that, although they enjoy night and day, the changes of the year and the stars and the sea and the earth and the co-operation of men, they are not moved in the least by any one of these things, but look merely for a chance to belch out their trivial "problem," and after thus exercising their stomach to go off to the bath. But what they are going to say, or what they are going to talk about, or to whom, and what their hearers are going to get out of these things that they are saying, all this has never given them a moment's concern. I greatly fear that a noble-spirited young man may hear these statements and be influenced by them, or, having been influenced already, may lose all the germs of the nobility which he possessed; ³⁵that we may be giving an adulterer grounds for brazening out his acts; that some embezzler of public funds may lay hold of a specious plea based upon these theories; that someone who neglects his own parents may gain additional affrontery from them.

What, then, in your opinion is good or bad, base or noble? This or that? What then? Is there any use in arguing further against any of these persons, or giving them a reason, or listening to one of theirs, or trying to convert them? By Zeus, one might much rather hope to convert a filthy degenerate than men who have become so deaf and blind!

Footnotes

1. The essential position of the philosophers of the New or Middle Academy as exemplified by Arcesilaus and Carneades, which Epictetus attacks here, was the denial of the possibility of knowledge, or of the existence of any positive proof, and the maintenance of an attitude of suspended judgement.
2. Priests of Cybele who mutilated themselves in frenzy.
3. That is, unwilling to think matters through to a logical end. The meanng of the expression comes out clearly in the following section.
4. The Athenians twice abandoned their city, once in 480 B.C., and again in 479 B.C., rather than submit to the Persians.
5. There is an abrupt transition here from the Epicureans to the Academics.
6. Demeter and Kore represent agriculture and the "corn-spirit." Pluto is added as the personification of the darkness of earth out of which the plants spring, and as the spouse of Kore, or else, possibly, because he suggests the death of the grain of com before the new shoot appears. Cf. I. Corinth. xv. 36: "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die."