FORE:25"It is very good of you to say so," Bruce murmured feebly.
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FORE:"From Louvain!"Epicureanism allotted a far larger place to friendship than to all the other social virtues put together; and the disciple was taught to look to it not only for the satisfaction of his altruistic impulses, but for the crowning happiness of his life. The egoistic basis of the system was, indeed, made sufficiently prominent even here; utility and pleasure, which Aristotle had excluded from the notion of true friendship, being declared its proper ends. All the conditions of a disinterested attachment were, however, brought back by a circuitous process. It was argued that the full value of friendship could not be reaped except by those whose affection for each other went to the extent of complete self-devotion; but the Epicureans were less successful in showing how this happy condition could be realised consistently with the study of his own interest by each individual. As a matter of fact, it was realised; and the members of this school became remarkable, above all others, for the tenderness and fidelity of their personal attachments. But we may suspect that formal precepts had little to do with the result. Estrangement from the popular creed, when still uncommon, has always a tendency to draw the dissidents together;151 and where other ties, whether religious, domestic, or patriotic, are neglected, the ordinary instincts of human nature are likely to show themselves with all the more energy in the only remaining form of union. Moreover, the cheerful, contented, abstemious, unambitious characters who would be the most readily75 attracted to the Epicurean brotherhood supplied the very materials that most readily unite in placid and enduring attachments. A tolerably strict standard of orthodoxy provided against theoretical dissensions: nor were the new converts likely to possess either daring or originality enough to excite controversies where they did not already exist.
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- Justine Goliyad
- Justine Goliyad
- Justine Goliyad