Therefore, although at first sight there seems not much to be said for the principle of Epicurus, nevertheless by means of the inversion of making the guiding principle to be found in thought proceeding from Reason, it passes into Stoicism, as even Seneca himself has admitted (_v. supra_, pp. 302, 303); and actually the same result is reached as with the Stoics. Hence the Epicureans describe their wise man in at least as glowing terms as the Stoics do theirs; and in both these systems the wise man is depicted with the same qualities, these being negative. With the Stoics the Universal is the essential principle,—not pleasure, the self-consciousness of the particular as particular; but the reality of this self-consciousness is equally something pleasant. With the Epicureans pleasure is the essential principle, but pleasure sought and enjoyed in such a way that it is pure and unalloyed, that is to say, in accordance with sound judgment, and with no greater evil following to destroy it: therefore pleasure is regarded in its whole extent, that is, as being itself a universal. In Diogenes Laërtius, however (X. 117-121), the Epicurean delineation of the wise man has a character of greater mildness; he shapes his conduct more according to laws already in operation, while the Stoic wise man, on the other hand, does not take these into account at all. The Epicurean wise man is less combative than the Stoic, because the latter makes his starting-point the thought of self-dependence, which, while denying self, exercises activity: the Epicureans, on the other hand, proceed from the thought of existence, which is not so exacting, and seeks not so much this activity directed outwards, as rest; this, however, is not won by lethargy, but by the highest mental culture. Yet although the content of the Epicurean philosophy, its aim and result, stands thus on as high a level as the Stoic philosophy, and is its exact parallel, the two are nevertheless in other respects directly opposed to one another; but each of these systems is one-sided, and therefore both of them are dogmatisms inconsistent with themselves by the necessity of the Notion, that is, they contain the contrary principle within them. The Stoics take the content of their thought from Being, from the sensuous, demanding that thought should be the thought of something existent: the Epicureans, on the contrary, extend their particularity of existence to the atoms which are only things of thought, and to pleasure as a universal; but in accordance with their respective principles, both schools know themselves to be definitely opposed to each other.