Epicurus was an Athenian, and one of the greatest philosophers of his age. He is reported to have written three hundred books; but of these none are extant; and the particulars of his philosophy, which have come down to posterity, are chiefly found in the writings of Lucretius, Diogenes, Laertius, and Cicero. His system, for which he is said to have been almost wholly indebted to Democritus, consisted of three parts: canonical, physical, and etherial. The canonical regarded the 'rules of judging or reasoning. Epicurus was without the analytical method of division and argumentation, and is therefore censured by Cicero, who was attached to the modes and formation of the stoics. Soundness and simplicity of sense, assisted with some natural reflections, constituted all the method of Epicurus. His search after truth proceeded only by the senses, to the evidence of which he gave so great a certainty that he considered them as the first natural light of mankind.

In the second part of his philosophy he described atoms, space, and gravity, as the first principles of all things. The Deity he described as a blessed, immortal being, whose providence was rather general than particular.

With respect to the ethics or practical part of this philosophy, it has already been mentioned as the leading feature of the whole, that it places the supreme good in the enjoyment of pleasure. It follows, that the thing principally to be shunned is pain. Nature itself, said Epicurus, teaches us these truths, and prompts us from our birth to procure whatever gives us pleasure, and avoid what gives us pain. The wise man, he added, must be happy as long as

he is wise; for pain, if it does not deprive him of his wisdom, cannot take away his happiness. It is in the meanings allowed to the words pleasure and pain, thus used, that every thing which is important in the morals, and doubtful in the history, of the Epicurean system is contained. According to Gassendus, the pleasure of Epicurus consisted in the highest tranquillity of mind, united with the most perfect health of body; blessings enjoyed only through the habits of rectitude, benevolence, and temperance: but Cicero, Horace, Plutarch, and several of the fathers of the Christian Church, represent the system in a very different point of view, The disagreement, however, is easily reconciled, if we believe one side to speak of what Epicurus taught, and the other of what many of his followers, and still more of those who took shelter under his name, were accustomed to practise.

PHILOSOPHY, experimental, that philosophy which proceeds on experiment and observation, and thence deduces the laws of nature and the properties and powers of bodies, and their actions upon each other. The business of experimental philosophy is to enquire into the various appearances or phænomena of nature; and to make the truth or probability thereof obvious and evident to the senses, by plain, undeniable, and adequate experiments, representing the several parts of its grand machinery and agency.

In our enquiries into nature, we are to be con→ ducted by those rules and maxims which are found to be genuine, and consonant to a just method of physical reasoning; and these rules of philosophiz, ing are thus enumerated by Newton, the great master of science:

1. More causes of natural things are not to be admitted than are both true and sufficient to explain the phænomenon; for nature does nothing in vain, but is simple, and delights not in superfluous causes of things; and therefore,

2. To natural effects of the same kind, the same causes are to be assigned, as far as the same may be done; as of respiration in man and beast, of the descent of stones in Europe and in America, of light in a culinary fire and in the sun, and of the reflection of light in the earth and in the planets.

3. The qualities of natural bodies which cannot be increased or diminished, and which agree with all bodies in which experiments can be made, are to be reckoned as the qualities of all bodies whatsoever: thus because extension, divisibility, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, the vis inertia, and gra vity, are found in all bodies which fall under our cognizance or inspection; we may justly conclude they belong to all bodies whatsoever, and are therefore to be esteemed the original and universal proprieties of all natural bodies.

4. In experimental philosophy, propositions collected from the phænomena by induction are to be deemed, notwithstanding contrary hypotheses, either exactly, or very nearly, true; till other phænomena occur, by which they may be rendered either more accurate, or liable to exception. This ought to be done, lest arguments of induction should be destroyed by hypotheses.

These four rules of philosophizing are premised in the third book of the Principia, and more particularly explained in the Optics, where is also exhibited the method of proceeding in philosophy, the

first part of which is as follows: as in mathematics, so in natural history, the investigation of difficult things, by way of analysis, ought always to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induc... tion (i. e. reasoning from the analogy of things by natural consequence), and admitting no objections against the conclusions, but what are taken from experiments or certain truths, and although the arguing from experiment and observation, by induction, be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of arguing that the nature of things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger by how much the induction is more general; and if no exception occur from the phænomena, the conclusion may be pronounced generally but if at any time afterward any exception shall occur from experiments, it may then be pronounced with such exceptions. By this way of analysis, we may proceed from compounds to ingredients, and from motions to the causes producing them and, in general, from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more general ones, till the argument ends in the most general. This is the method of analysis; and that of synthesis, or composition, consists in assuming causes, discovered and established as principles, and by them explaining the phænomena proceeding from them, and proving the explanations. See ELECTRICITY, HYDROSTATICS, MECHANICS, OPTICS, PNEUMATICS, VOLTAISM, &c.

PHILOSOPHY, mechanical, the same with the corpuscular, and which explains the phænomena of

nature on the principles of mechanics; that is to say, the motion, gravity, figure, arrangement, disposition, &c. of the parts which compose bodies, To this end, the mechanical powers are applied.

PHILOSOPHY, mental: that science which teaches us the laws of our mental frame, which shews us the origin of our various modes and habits of thought and feeling; how they operate on one another, and how they are cultivated and repressed, is called mental philosophy, or the philosophy of the human mind. The well directed study of it calls into action and improves the highest intellectual faculties, and while it employs the powers of the mind, it suggests the best means for their culture, and the best mode of their direction. It enables us to trace the intricacies of our own hearts, and points out the proper discipline for their correction. Pur sued with proper views, and in a proper manner, it lays the best foundation for the highest degrees of intellectual, moral and religious improvement, An admirable view of this interesting topic will be found in Nicholson's British Encyclopedia.

PHILOSOPHY, moral, or Ethics, is the science which teaches men their duty, and the reasons on which it is founded. It contemplates human nature, its moral powers and connections, and from these it deduces the laws of action; it is therefore the science of manners or duty, which it traces from man's nature and condition, and shows how it terminates in his happiness. It is denominated an art, as it contains a system of rules for becoming virtuous and happy: it is called a science, as it deduces those rules from the principles and connections of our nature, and proves that the observance