=The Epicureans.= The Epicurean body was a guild or sect that seemed to have been little affected by the vicissitudes of time. The Epicureans proselyted vigorously, closely organized their society, and extended it throughout Greece. It was a state within a state. With a fixed constitution it was held together by itinerant preaching, correspondence, and material assistance. It had an _esprit de corps_, and like religious communities it brought together into one organization the individuals that had been scattered by the breaking up of political institutions. The School had special protection from the Roman emperors and existed as late as the fourth century A. D., having outlived all the other systems. It had some famous literary representatives,――Metrodorus, Colotes, Philodemus,――but especially the Roman poet Lucretius, who popularized the doctrine for the Romans. Amafinius introduced Epicureanism into Rome during the middle of the second century B. C., and the teaching was received with great favor. Its numerous disciples in all antiquity changed the doctrine only in its unessentials. The charges of immorality and licentiousness are not true of the teaching or of the practices of the founder or of the early members of the School. =Some Types of Hedonism,――Aristippus, Epicurus, and Rousseau.= Epicureanism was not a philosophy of pleasure for people without ideals or who were merely seeking indulgence. The question that Epicurus asked was this: What enduring pleasure is possible to a man in these days of turmoil? He tried to give a rational answer to those of his day who wished to live and enjoy. His aim was to free man from responsibility in his share of the world’s work and to provide for him a life of serenity. The pleasure theory of Aristippus, the Cyrenaic, was very different. Aristippus, a voluptuary in a luxurious city, presented a pleasure theory for the few who have fortunes. It is hardly more than a grading of pleasures and the setting up of a criterion of their selection. Epicurus goes deeper than that. His pleasure theory is for the few, not because they are fortunate, but because they are wise; not because they have fortunes to gratify their passions, but because they are independent of all fortune. The Cyrenaic was a man of the world; the Epicurean was in the world, but not of it.