good. He placed wealth not in
great possessions, but in few wants. He sought to widen the domain of
pleasure and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of
life as the highest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from
misery, as the Buddhists think. Epicurus has been much misunderstood,
and his doctrines were subsequently perverted, especially when the arts
of life were brought into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism
was the great feature of society. Epicurus had much of the spirit of a
practical philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a
religious man. He himself led a virtuous life, because he thought it
was wiser and better and more productive of happiness to be virtuous,
not because it was his duty. His writings were very voluminous, and in
his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study and enjoyment. His
followers, and they were numerous, were led into luxury and
effeminacy,--as was to be expected from a sceptical and irreligious
philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever is pleasant
should be the object of existence. Sir James Mackintosh says:--

"To Epicurus we owe the general concurrence of reflecting men in
succeeding times in the important truth that men cannot be happy without
a virtuous frame of mind and course of life,--a truth of inestimable
value, not peculiar to the Epicureans, but placed by their exaggerations
in a stronger light; a truth, it must be added, of less importance as a
motive to right conduct than to the completeness of moral theory, which,
however, it is very far from solely constituting. With that truth the
Epicureans blended another position,--that because virtue promotes
happiness, every act of virtue must be done in order to promote the
happiness of the agent. Although, therefore, he has the merit of having
more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, yet
his doctrine is justly charged with indisposing the mind to those
exalted and generous sentiments without which no pure, elevated, bold,
or tender virtues can exist."

The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they
added nothing to the domain of thought,--they created no system, they
invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological
inquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical; and since ethics are a
great part of the system of Greek philosophy, the Stoics are well worthy
of attention. Some of the