The original design of the system of Epicurus was to found a commonwealth of happiness and goodness in opposition to the purely intellectual aristocracy of Plato and Aristotle. Men were beginning to tire of speculation and dialectics, and to long for a philosophy built upon human feeling and sensibility. As a touchstone of truth, it was proposed to substitute sensation for intellect. Whatever was pleasing to the natural and healthful senses was to be taken to be true. The pursuit of happiness was to be the chief aim of the devotees of this system. The avoidance of mental pain and physical suffering, as well as the cultivation of all pleasurable emotions, were to be the leading features of every Epicurean programme. In the beginning, Epicureanism inculcated principles of virtue as a means of happiness. The mode of life of the first followers of Epicurus was simple and abstemious. Barley-bread and water are said to have been their ordinary food and drink. But in time this form of philosophy became identified with the coarsest sensuality and the most wicked lust. This was especially true after it was transplanted from Greece to Italy. The doctrines of this school met with a ready response from the pleasure-seeking, luxury-loving Roman people who were now enriched by the spoils and treasures of a conquered world. "This philosophy therefore became at Rome a mere school of self-indulgence, and lost the refinement which, in Greece, had led it to recognize in virtue that which gave zest to pleasure and in temperance that which prolonged it. It called simply for a continuous round of physical delights; it taught the grossest sensuality; it proclaimed the inanity of goodness and the lawfulness of lust. It was the road--sure, steep and swift, to awful demoralization."