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having no affairs of his own to take care of, ami above mcddhngwith those of others. As to his ethics, lie made the supreme goodof man to consist in pleasure, and consequently supreme evil inpain. Nature itself, says he, teaches us this truth; and promptsus from our birth to procure whatever gives us pleasure, and toavoid what give? pain. To this end he proposes a remedy again-tthe sharpness of pain: this was to divert the mind from it, by turn-ing our whole attention upon the pleasures we have formerly en-joyed. Ife held that the wise man must be happy, as long as heis wise: the pa n, not depriving him of his wisdom, cannot deprivehim of his happiness. Gassendus pn tends, that the pleasure, in» w hich this philosopher has fixed the sovereign good, was nothingelse but the highest tranquillity of mind, in conjunction w ith themost perfect health of body; butTulIv, Horace, and Plutarch , aswell as almost all the fathers of the church, give us a very differ-ent representation: indeed the nature of this pleasure, in whichthe chief happiness is supposed to be seated, is a grand problemin the morals of Epicurus. Hence there were two hinds of Epi-cureans , the rigid and the remiss: the first were those who under-stood Epicurus ’s notion of pleasure in the best sense, and placedall their happiness in the pure pleasures of the mind, resultingfrom the practice of virtue: the loose or remiss Epicureans , tak-ing the words of that philosopher in a gross sense, placed all theirhappiness in bodily pleasures, or debauchery.

EPICURUS, the greatest philosopher of his age, was born atGgrgettium in Attica, about 15. C. 340, in the lOpth Olympiad,lie settled at Athens in a fine garden he had bought; where helived with his friends in great tranquillity, and educated a greatnumber of disciples. They all lived in common with their mas-ter. 'Pile respect which his followers paid to Ids memory is ad-mirable: his school was never divided, hut his doctrine was fol-lowed as an oracle. His birth-day was still kept in Pliny ’s time;the month he was horn in was observed as a continual festival; andthey placed his picture every where. He wrote many hooks, andvalued himself upon making no quotations. He raised the ato-mical system to a great reputation, though he was not the inven-tor of it, but had only made sonic change in that of Democritus .As to his doctrine concerning the supreme good or happiness, itwas very liable to tie misrepresen'ed. and some ill effects proceed-ed from thence, which discredited his sect, lie was charged withperverting the worship of the gods, and inciting men to debauch-ery; but lie did not forget himself on this occasion: he publishedhis opinions to the world: he wrote some hooks of devotion; re-commended the veneration of the gods, sobrietv, and chastity;and it is certain that he lived in an exemplary manner, and con-formably to the rules of philo-ophical wisdom and frugality. Ti-mocrates, a deserter of his sect, spoke very scandalously of him.Gassendus has given us all lie could col'ect from the ancients con-cerning the person and doctrine of this philosopher, lie died ofa suppression of urine, aged 72.

EPICYCLE, l_t3n and in the ancient astronomy, a lit-

tle circle whose centre is in the circumference of a greater circle ;or it is a small orb, or sphere, which being fixed in the deferent ofa planet, is carried along with it ; and yet, by its own peculiarmotion, carries the planet fastened to it round its proper centre.It was by means of epic ycles that Ptolemv and his followerssolved the various phenomena of the planets, but more especiallytheir stations and retrogradations. The great circle they calledthe eccentric or deferent, and along its circumference the centreof the epicycle was conceived to move ; carrying with it the pla-net fixed in its circumference, which in its motion downwards pro-ceeded according to the order of the signs, hut, in moving up-wards, contrary to that order. The highest point of a planet’sepicycle they called apogee, ami the lowest perigee. See A roc k kand Perigee.

EPICYCLOID, [umc/iiXm'V] in geometry, a curve generatedby the revolution of the periphery of a circle, ACE, Plate LIV.fig. 17, along the convex or concave side of the periphery ofanother circle, DGIi. The length of any part of the curve, thatany given point in the revolving circle has described, from thetime it touched the circle it revolved upon, shall he to double theversed sine of half the arch, which all that time touched the circleat rest, as the sum of the diameter? of the circle?, to the semidi-uwieter of the resting circle, if the revolving circle moves upon theconvex side of the resting circle; but if upon the concave side, asthe difference of the diameters to the semi-diameter of the resting

circle. In the Philosophical Transactions , No. 218, we have a ge-neral proposition for measuring the areas of all cycloids and epi-cycloids, viz, The area of any cycloid or epicycloid is to the areaot the generating circle, as the sum of double the velocity of thecentre and velocity of rlie circular motion, to the velocity of thecirculai motion : and, in the same proportion, are the areas of seg-ments of those curves to those of analogous segments of the gene-rating circle.

EPIDAURUM, EPIDAURUS , or EPITAU11UM, in an-cient geography, a town of Dalmatia , on the Adriatic.

Epiisacrus, in ancient geography, a town of Argolis, in Pelo-ponnesus , on the Saronic bay, S. of the promontory Spiramm';called sacred, because off the religious veneration-paid to zEscula-pius, wiiose temple stood five miles from the town.

EPIDEMIA , in Grecian antiquity, festivals kept in honour ofApollo and Diana, at lhe stated s'eason?, when those deities, whocould not he present every where, were supposed to visit differentplaces, in order to receive the vows of their adorers.

EPIDEMICAL, or EPIDEMIC, [>. and V©',] in ge-neral, denotes a spreading disorder, which, as is supposed, arisesfrom some corruption or malignity in the air, and attacks greatnumbers of people at certain seasons. Mankind have always beenmore inclined to search for the most distant causes, in order to ex-plain physical events, rather than to avail themselves of thosewhich are within their roach. Tims the yellow-fever, which in1703 ravaged the city of Philadelphia , was doubtless generated bytlie immense quantities of damaged collet, and other putresciblesubstances, exposed in the heat of summer on the muddy hanksof the river, in like manner the plague, which formerly destroyedgreat numbers in London , was not always imported, but probablyoriginated at home, where, in those ages, cleanliness was not ?ogenerally attended to as it is :.t present. Hence this domesticvirtue has guarded us against many epidemics, to which other lesscleanlv nations have been subject. But there is stdl great occa-sion for improvements, especially in the houses of the narrowcourts and alleys of the metropolis.

EPlDENIiRUM, a genus of the diandria order, and gynan-dria class of plants ; natural order, Orchidea-. Nectary turbinate,obli(|ue, rctlex ; corolla spreading; spur none. There are 124species. This numerous genus is obscure in its character, dif-ferences, and synonyms; ior the liowers in dried specimens canliardiv be unfolded. These plants are natives of America , andthe East Indies.

EPIDERMIS, [_isrtiij(Ai{,] the same with cuticle. See Ana-tomy and Cutis .

EP1D1CAS1A, among the Athenians . Daughters inheritingtheir parents e.-tale, were obliged to marry their nearest relation ;which gave occasion to persons of the same family- to goto layv withone another, each pretending to lie more nearly allied to theheiress than the rest. The suit was called onhxm-nas Jocn , and thevirgin, about whom the relation? contested, ,

EPt DOT.-K, deities who presided over the growth of children ;worshipped by the Lareda'monians, ami invoked by those rvliosuppo-ed themselves persecuted by ghost?, &c.

EPIG.KA, in botany, a genu? of the immopynia order, and de-eandria class; natural order, Biconies. Calyx, outer three leaved;inner live-parted; corolla salver-form ; capsule five-celled. Tyvospecies, viz. E. repens, creeping epiga-a, or trailing arbutus, and E.cordifoiia, heart-leaved epiga-a ; the former is a native of Virginiaand Canada, and the latter of Guadaloupe .

EPIGLOTTIS, one of the cartilages of the larynx or wind-pipe. See Anatomy.

EPIGRAM, [lanfjnwia-t, ] originally signifies inscription. Epi-grams derive their origin from those inscriptions placed by the an-cients on their tombs, statues, temples, triumphal arches, Sec.These, at fir-t, yverc only simple monograms: aftenv;>.rds increas-ing their length, they made them in verse, to be the more easily re-tained. II erudotus, and others, have transmitted to us several ofthem. Such little poems retained the name of epigrams, evenafter the design of their first institution yvas varied, and the peoplebegan to use them for the relation of little facts and accidents, thecharacterizing of persons, Sec. The point is a quality much in-sisted on bv the critics, who require llie epigram constantly toclose with something poignant amt unexpected, to which all therest of tlie composition is onlv preparatory ; while others, on thecontrary exclude the point,- and require tlie thought to be equally

diffused