m their surface
extremely delicate images of themselves. These are composed of very
fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain
for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable
after a time to distortion. They fly with great celerity through the
void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul,
which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and
apprehends their form.

[379]

The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and
subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.
Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace. They are in number
countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting
them. They are not subject to the passions of humanity. Anger and joy
are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of
strength. They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces. As Cicero
jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so
pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind
could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between
two worlds, for fear of breakage."

[380]

Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general
resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus. The end of
life is pleasure or the absence of pain. He differs, however, from the
Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the
end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we
ought in our conduct to have regard to the future. Further he denies
that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and
quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the
absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive
pleasure. And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily
pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these
characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the
present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the
past. And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack. Better
indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish. In a
similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In
the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life
I write this letter to you. Strangury has supervened, and the
extremest agony of internal {223} p