insofar as the gods exist, they must be made of atoms, like everything else; they did not create the world, they play no part in its governance and they take no interest in us. Epicurus argues that certain moral truths follow necessarily from these scientific facts. No one can rationally pursue anything other than his own pleasure. Epicurus is thus in the strict sense a hedonist. However, he places a fairly low value on pleasure as the homme moyen sensuel or man in the street is likely to conceive it.
