=The Place of Virtue in Epicureanism.= Epicurus agreed with the strictest Greek moralists that virtue and happiness go together. His opponents had to testify to the beneficial effects of his teaching upon the character of his disciples. Yet his conception of the place of virtue in life is in direct conflict with Stoicism. He felt that the Stoic conception of virtue for its own sake is an ideal so imaginary that it lacks all incentive to action. Pleasure, on the other hand, seemed to him to be a concrete and real object. It can be given a definite content. Virtue had for Epicurus a value only as a means to happiness. Moreover, virtue by itself is not necessarily accompanied by happiness, but only when it is employed as a condition to happiness. Thus wisdom may be employed to gain the pleasure of liberation from the fear of the gods; self-control may be employed in order to get the maximum of happiness. =The Epicurean Wise Man.= To what classes of people could this Epicurean ideal appeal? Is it an ideal possible only to the favorites of fortune, wealth, and rank? As presented by Epicurus it was not conditioned by external circumstances of any sort and its aim was to transcend all conditions. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the theory was restricted to those who had the desire to adopt it. On the whole, the unreflecting common people of that time were not as a matter of fact influenced by the Epicurean philosophy. The proof of this is the ease with which it was degraded into a simple pleasure theory without an ideal. Epicureanism as presented by its author was not an excuse for the voluptuary or the prodigal, although it was easily corrupted into that. It was, however, a philosophy of the individual. The individual must rely upon his own common sense as to what among the particular satisfactions will give him independence of the world. Sometimes repose is attained by the satisfaction of all wants; sometimes the satisfactions needed are few because the wants are few. True pleasure is possible to all reflective souls. “When you come,” says Seneca, “to the gardens where the words are inscribed: Friend, here it will be well for you to abide; here pleasure is the highest good;――there will meet you the keeper of the place, a hospitable kindly man who will set before you a dish of barley porridge and plenty of water and say, Have you not been well entertained? These gardens do not provoke hunger, but quench it; they do not cause a greater thirst by the drinks they afford.... In this pleasure I have grown old.” Man can use much, but he does not need much. Even life itself under extreme circumstances is not necessary. The pleasures to be sought are the permanent and gentle. In one place Epicurus says with a somewhat forced sentiment that the Wise Man on the rack will smile in the midst of torture and say, “How sweet!”