The Teaching of Epictetus

Certain bodily conditions were, however, regarded as objects in themselves, and partaking of the nature of the absolutely good; and all entanglement in human relationships was discountenanced for the disturbance and distress which such relationships were liable to cause. These doctrines were put in practice by their teacher in inuring himself to a hermit-like simplicity and abstemiousness of life; and his life was philosophically consistent with his doctrines, for it is clear that the end of Pleasure will be most surely gained by him who has fewest wants to gratify. But though the lives of Epicurus and his immediate followers were exceptionally sober and strict, the total effect of his doctrine could not but have been evil. They were purely egoistic in this tendency--they centered each man's activity and interest upon himself alone, they bade him take no thought for any other earthly or heavenly thing, and taught him that this ideal of indifference was realized in its full perfection by the Gods, who dwelt apart in divine repose while blind necessity had its way with human destiny. Pyrrho of Elis, a rather earlier teacher than Zeno or Epicurus, who is said to have studied philosophy under Indian Gymnosophists and Chaldean Magi, was the originator in European thought of a great and permanent philosophic movement. His school was inspired by the _Geist der stets verneint_, and the term Skeptic was first devised to describe its attitude. Its strength is in a discovery which inevitably takes place when men begin to reflect upon their own mental operations--the discovery, namely, that, given a perceiving mind and a perceived object, it is always possible for the former, if it has the power of introspection, to doubt whether it has received a really true and faithful impression of the latter. How can we be assured that external objects are as we perceive them?…