"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee. Thou, father, art discoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, O glorious being, in like manner, feed from out thy pages upon all the golden maxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed, and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake, nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round. Nature too supplies all their wants, and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind." Horace is so saturated with Epicureanism that it is hard to select any one of his odes as more expressive of it than another. His ode on the "Philosophy of Life" perhaps presents it in as short compass as any. He asks what he shall pray for? Not crops, and ivory, and gold gained by laborious and risky enterprise; but healthy, solid contentment with the simple, universal pleasures near at hand. "Why to Apollo's shrine repair New hallowed? Why present with prayer Libation? Not those crops to gain, Which fill Sardinia's teeming plain, "Herds from Calabria's sunny fields, Nor ivory that India yields, Nor gold, nor tracts where Liris glides So noiseless down its drowsy sides. "Blest owners of Calenian vines, Crop them; ye merchants, drain the wines, That cargoes brought from Syria buy, In cups of gold. For ye, who try "The broad Atlantic thrice a year And never drown, must sure be dear To gods in heaven. Me--small my need-- Light mallows, olives, chiccory, feed. "Give me then health, Apollo; give Sound mind; on gotten goods to live Contented; and let song engage An honoured, not a base, old age." For a lesson from the new Epicurean testament we cannot do better than turn to the sensible pages of Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics." "The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness. To see this it needs but to contrast one whose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being with one whose regardlessness of self has brought its natural results; and then to ask what must be the contrast between two societies formed of two such kinds of individuals.