At this point, the Epicurean theory connects itself most intimately with the conditions of virtue; for virtue is more concerned with averting mischief and suffering, than with multiplying positive enjoyments.
Bodily feeling, in the Epicurean psychology, is prior in order of time to the mental element; the former was primordial, while the latter was derivative from it by repeated processes of memory and association.

But though such was the order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the two as constituents of happiness to the formed man, the mental element much outweighed the bodily, both as pain and as pleasure.

Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the present; when not felt, it is nothing.

But mental feelings involve memory and hope--embrace the past as well as the future--endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of sight, to a great degree, at our discretion.
This last point is one of the most remarkable features of the Epicurean mental discipline.

Epicurus deprecated the general habit of mankind in always hankering after some new satisfaction to come; always discontented with the present, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been.