ains, yet resisting these has been
my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the
past."

[381]

We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much
with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought
for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with
contemplation. They were essentially connected with bodily
experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future,
bodily pleasures. For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with
Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily
processes. Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily
experience preceding it. Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined
the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has
good hope that it will continue so." Directly or indirectly,
therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus,
to one's belly at last.

[382]

This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial
self-indulgence. If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental
apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in
this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper
restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for
filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or
sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train. But (Epicurus argues)
this is far from being the case. Moreover there are many pleasures
keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the
remembering. And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the
highest parts of our nature. What those 'highest parts' are, and by
what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does
not say. He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the
widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and
hope, of conception, of sight and hearing.

Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural
and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as
the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such
as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man
will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his
freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily
that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we
cannot enjoy many things, we