Letter to Herodotus
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~6,950 words · 33 passages
Cite this work
- APADiogenes Laertius. (n.d.). Letter to Herodotus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/diogenes-laertius/letter-to-herodotus
- MLADiogenes Laertius. "Letter to Herodotus." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/diogenes-laertius/letter-to-herodotus.
- ChicagoDiogenes Laertius. Letter to Herodotus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/diogenes-laertius/letter-to-herodotus.
What it is about
Epicurus's Letter to Herodotus, as it reached us: inside Diogenes Laertius.
Context and history
Epicurus wrote three hundred scrolls and not one survives. This letter exists because Diogenes Laertius copied it out in full in book X of his Lives of the Philosophers, in the third century. That is why it is filed under Diogenes and not Epicurus: **this is the actual source**, and anyone citing it should cite it that way. It is Epicurus's own summary of atomist physics, made for students who could not read the complete work.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
For those who are unable to study carefully all my physical writings or to go into the longer treatises at all, I have myself prepared an epitome of the whole system, Herodotus, to preserve in the memory enough of the principal doctrines, to the end that on every occasion they may be able to aid themselves on the most important points, so far as they take up the study of Physics. Those who have made some advance in the survey of the entire system ought to fix in their minds under the principal headings an elementary outline of the whole treatment of the subject. For a comprehensive view is often required, the details but seldom. To the former, then—the main heads—we must continually return, and must memorize them so far as to get a valid conception of the facts, as well as the means of discovering all the details exactly when once the general outlines are rightly understood and remembered; since it is the privilege of the mature student to make a ready use of his conceptions by referring every one of them to elementary facts and simple terms. For it is impossible to gather up the results of continuous diligent study of the entirety of things, unless we can embrace in short formulas and hold in mind all that might have been accurately expressed even to the minutest detail. Hence, since such a course is of service to all who take up natural science, I, who devote to the subject my continuous energy and reap the calm enjoyment of a life like this, have prepared for you just such an epitome and manual of the doctrines as a whole. In the first place, Herodotus, you must understand what it is that words denote, in order that by reference to this we may be in a position to test opinions, inquiries, or problems, so that our proofs may not run on untested ad infinitum, nor the terms we use be empty of meaning. For the primary signification of every term employed must be clearly seen, and ought to need no proving; this being necessary, if
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