SOURCE: William Wallace, "General Aspect of the System" and "The Chief Good," in Epicureanism, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1880, pp. 85-94, 125-69.

Wallace, a British scholar who taught at Oxford, published his extensive volume on Epicureanism as the philosopher's reputation was beginning to revive after some centuries of general rejection in England. The excerpt that follows provides, first, a synopsis of Epicureanism in general and, second, a delineation of Epicurus's notion of ethics. Wallace begins with a refutation of myths and misperceptions; he concludes with an image of Epicurus as "modern" in his notion of the individual's relationship to the state.

General Aspect of the System

The popular conception of an Epicurean has varied at different times, but at no time has it been either very fair or very favourable. To the writers of the Roman classical period the charges against Epicureanism were drawn from its denial of...