The System of Epicurus

Summary

How miserable is the origin of the proudest of animals!

Pliny

Note on the text

The first version of the Système d'Epicure, entitled Réflexions philosophiques sur l'origine des animaux (Philosophical Reflections on the Origin of Animals), consisting of only thirty-one paragraphs, was published anonymously ‘A Londres, chez Jean Nourse, 1750’, in fact in Berlin and possibly in the previous year. It became, mainly by the addition of further paragraphs and with only minor changes to the existing paragraphs, the Système d'Epicure in La Mettrie's Philosophical Works in 1750, which is the text that is translated here. It is possible, as Falvey surmises in his edition of Anti-Seneca (pp. 65–6), that the additions were made in part because La Mettrie had finally to drop his Anti-Seneca from that volume, as some of the added paragraphs deal with the same themes. This work has only ever been republished in its entirety in the various editions of the Philosophical Works; the Philosophical Reflections were published in Corpus, no. 5/6, 1987.

When I read in Virgil, Georgics, Bk. II:

‘Happy was the man who was able to know the causes of things!’

I ask, ‘who was?’ No, the wings of our genius cannot lift us up to the knowledge of causes. The most ignorant of men is as enlightened in this respect as the greatest philosopher. We see all objects and everything that happens in the universe as a beautiful opera set, whose pulleys and counterweights we do not notice.