but above all a society of friends.

Thirdly, the Epicurean ideal of pleasure tended rather towards a
negative than a positive conception of it. It was not the state of
enjoyment that they aimed at, much less the excitement of the
feelings. Not the feverish pleasures of the world constituted their
ideal. They aimed rather at a negative absence of pain, at
tranquillity, quiet calm, repose of spirit, undisturbed by fears and
{360} anxieties. As so often with men whose ideal is pleasure, their
view of the world was tinged with a gentle and even luxurious
pessimism. Positive happiness is beyond the reach of mortals. All that
man can hope for is to avoid pain, and to live in quiet contentment.

Fourthly, pleasure does not consist in the multiplication of needs and
their subsequent satisfaction. The multiplication of wants only
renders it more difficult to satisfy them. It complicates life without
adding to happiness. We should have as few needs as possible. Epicurus
himself lived a simple life, and advised his followers to do the same.
The wise man, he said, living on bread and water, could vie with Zeus
himself in happiness. Simplicity, cheerfulness, moderation,
temperance, are the best means to happiness. The majority of human
wants, and the example of the thirst for fame is quoted, are entirely
unnecessary and useless.

Lastly, the Epicurean ideal, though containing no possibility of an
exalted nobility, was yet by no means entirely selfish. A kindly,
benevolent temper appeared in these men. It is pleasanter, they said,
to do a kindness than to receive one. There is little of the stern
stuff of heroes, but there is much that is gentle and lovable, in the
amiable moralizings of these butterfly-philosophers.

{361}

CHAPTER XVII

THE SCEPTICS

Scepticism is a semi-technical term in philosophy, and means the
doctrine which doubts or denies the possibility of knowledge. It is
thus destructive of philosophy, since philosophy purports to be a form
of knowledge. Scepticism appears and reappears at intervals in the
history of thought. We have already met with it among the Sophists.
When Gorgias said that, if anything exists, it cannot be known, this
was a direct expression of the sceptical spirit. And the Protagorean
"Man is the measure of all things" amounts to the same thing, for it
implies that man can only know things as they appear to him, and not
as they are in themselves. In modern times the most noted sceptic