The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since in their view these did not contribute to happiness.  The subject of their inquiries was happiness, not truth.  What will promote this? was the subject of their speculation.  Epicurus, born 342 B.C., contended that pleasure was happiness; that pleasure should be sought not for its own sake, but with a view to the happiness of life obtained by it.  He taught that happiness was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments should be limited.  He was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded contentedness with a little to be a great good.  He placed wealth not in great possessions, but in few wants.  He sought to widen the domain of pleasure and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of life as the highest.  Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from misery, as the Buddhists think.  Epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines were subsequently perverted, especially when the arts of life were brought into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism was the great feature of society.  Epicurus had much of the spirit of a practical philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a religious man.  He himself led a virtuous life, because he thought it was wiser and better and more productive of happiness to be virtuous, not because it was his duty.  His writings were very voluminous, and in his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study and enjoyment.  His followers, and they were numerous, were led into luxury and effeminacy,—­as was to be expected from a sceptical and irreligious philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever is pleasant should be the object of existence.  Sir James Mackintosh says:—­

“To Epicurus we owe the general concurrence of reflecting men in succeeding times in the important truth that men cannot be happy without a virtuous frame of mind and course of life,—­a truth of inestimable value, not peculiar to the Epicureans, but placed by their exaggerations in a stronger light; a truth, it must be added, of less importance as a motive to right conduct than to the completeness of moral theory, which, however, it is very far from solely constituting.  With that truth the Epicureans blended another position,—­that because virtue promotes happiness, every act of virtue must be done in order to promote the happiness of the agent.  Although, therefore, he has the merit of having more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, yet his doctrine is justly charged with indisposing the mind to those exalted and generous sentiments without which no pure, elevated, bold, or tender virtues can exist.”

The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they added nothing to the domain of thought,—­they created no system, they invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological inquiries.  Their inquiries were chiefly ethical; and since ethics are a great part of the system of Greek philosophy, the Stoics are well worthy of attention.  Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered among them,—­like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.  The philosophy they taught was morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated.