Epicurus and the New Philosophy

Abstract

At a time when scurrility and personal abuse were the stuff of controversy, it is refreshing to find that Casaubon habitually preserved in polemic the grave amiability which marks his other writings. To Glanvill, acknowledging Casaubon’s Letter after his bitter pamphlet war with Stubbe, such courtesy all but disarmed criticism:

I thought fit to suppress my Reply [to the Letter]; and was the rather silent, because not willing to appear in a Controversie with a Person of Fame and Learning, who had treated me with so much Civility, and in a way so different from that of my other Assailants.¹

The occasions when Casaubon descends to abuse are few, and more noteworthy for that. In the controversy over the new philosophy, only two figures rouse his passions: Descartes, as already discussed, and Epicurus, the Philosopher of the Garden.