ecture, as the Peripatetics (the school
of Aristotle) from the little knot of listeners who followed their master
as he _walked_. Epicurus's school were known as the philosophers of
'the Garden', from the place where he taught. The 'Old Academy' were the
disciples of Plato; the 'New Academy' (to whose tenets Cicero inclined)
revived the great principle of Socrates--of affirming nothing.]

If Epicurus was wrong in placing Happiness

"In corporal pleasure and in careless ease",

no less wrong are they who say that "honour" requires pleasure to be added
to it, since they thus make honour itself dishonourable. And again, to say
with others that happiness is tranquillity of mind, is simply to beg the
question.

Putting, then, all such theories aside, we bring the argument to a
practical issue. Self-preservation is the first great principle of nature;
and so strong is this instinctive love of life both among men and animals,
that we see even the iron-hearted Stoic shrink from the actual pangs of a
voluntary death. Then comes the question, What _is_ this nature that
is so precious to each of us? Clearly it is compounded of body and mind,
each with many virtues of its own; but as the mind should rule the body,
so reason, as the dominant faculty, should rule the mind. Virtue itself is
only "the perfection of this reason", and, call it what you will, genius
or intellect is something divine.

Furthermore, there is in man a gradual progress of reason, growing with
his growth until it has reached perfection. Even in the infant there are
"as it were sparks of virtue"--half-unconscious principles of love and
gratitude; and these germs bear fruit, as the child develops into the man.
We have also an instinct which attracts us towards the pursuit of wisdom;
such is the true meaning of the Sirens' voices in the Odyssey, says the
philosopher, quoting from the poet of all time:

"Turn thy swift keel and listen to our lay;
Since never pilgrim to these regions came,
But heard our sweet voice ere he sailed away,
And in his joy passed on, with ampler mind".[1]

It is wisdom, not pleasure, which they offer. Hence it is that men devote
their days and nights to literature, without a thought of any gain that
may accrue from it; and philosophers paint the serene delights of a life
of contemplation in the islands of the blest.

[Footnote 1: Odyss. xii. 185 (Worsley).]

Again, our minds can never rest. "Desire for action grows with