MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81317- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the . „ "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.** If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of **fair use,*' that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: MALLOCK, W. H. (WILLIAM HURRELL) TITLE: LUCRETIUS PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE: 1883 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT mm TOCRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Restrictions on Use: ; 87L96 Mallock, <.illia-i Hurrell, 1849-1923. Lucretius, by V; . H. I.!allock. Ncv; York, John B. Alden, 1883 . 156 p. a.^ii 15j en 1 ^o<;c7 v^^ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE:___l}fll__-^--^— REDUCTION RATIO: IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA \^ IB HB - . r DATE FILMED:..!^/^^.. INITIALS__1.1:a:1" — FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE, CT \\< ^\ _a r Association for information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliniliiii III rrr Inches I I I I 5 6 iliiijliiuliiul 1 8 iliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiil TTTT7 TTT .0 I.I 1.25 9 10 uluiiijiuu n 12 13 14 15 mm liiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliii T llllllllllllllllllllllll ILm 1 2.8 ■ 5.0 ' 2.5 IM^^ la i^ 2.2 1^3 *■ 3.6 U. = ■f |||_^ 2.0 li. •- u l-ki.. 1.8 1.4 1.6 MONUFRCTURED TO fillM STRNDRRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE, INC. '*p-r -!f:""^#'' m\ »? I' nr»i Columbia ^nitiersiitp LIHRxVRY Gift of President Nicholas Murray Butler T'i . Ji ■ 'I- 41 #,#, "■V iiiiiililMWHIMliii ■^ LUCRETIUS ;f| \ 1 BY W. H. MALLOCK ri NEW YORK JOHN B. ALDEX, PUBLISHER 1883 ^ f 'C^ • — ) ^ i>» jIk. GIFT OF !40M 1 6 1937 NOTE. The pro^e tr^nsliitions from Lucretius are taken in the main, with hut very sliglit aUerulions, from the version of Mr. Muuro. The verse translalious are my own. W. H. M, COS^TENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 7 II. The Dawn of Physical Science 16 III. The SoieutitiL- System of Lucretius- Sec. I. The Analysis of Matter 27 Sec. II. The Formation of the Universe 33 Sec. in. The Interaction of Material Substances 48 Sec. IV. The Origin of Life and Species 45 Sec. V . The Nature of Life and Consciousness 50 Sec. VI. Lucretius's Theory of Vision 53 Sec. VII. The Mind and Sense 60 Sec. VIII. The Mortality of Mind and Soul 65 Se^'. TX. The Imperfection and MortaUty of the Uni- verse 68 Sec. X. The History of Human Progress 71 IV. The Poem of Lucretius- Book I 78 Book II 88 Bookin 98 Book IV 107 BookV 115 Book VI 125 V. Lucretius as a Poet 131 VI. Lucretius and Modem Thought 152 LUCRETIUS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. As WE look back upon the worka of the great writers of the past— works and writers with which, in a certain sense, we are quite familiar, and which in a certain sense' are as famous now as ever— it will sometimes give us a strange, and almost painful shock, if we realize how very few of these can be still said to live. They have their immortality, it is true; but they have passed to it through the grave and gate of death. Their forms are still heroic; but they are heroes without blood, and shadowy; and we seem to meet them in a dim Elysium, not in the world around us. Or else we may compare them to bodies embalmed with spices, hidden away un- derground, and to be studied only at intervals, in the crypts of literature. A few, a few only, such as Horace ami Shakespeare, still keep their fleshly life in them, are able to push their way towards us through the dis- tractions and cares surrounding us, to parley with these, and to show us how to meet them, and, standing close beside us. assail us with living voices. Amongst this small minority Lucretius certainly can claim no place. When his own language was still living, 8 LUCRETIUS. wlien men in the extent of their knowledge and their ways of thought were still the same as he himself knew them, not even then does lie seem to have been popular or influential And men, since he knew them, have grown and changed. Knowledge has widened in ways he never dreamed of; new tones have grown into human sentiment; all the lights and shadows of life have shift- ed; and its whole surface has been dyed with different colors. Naturally, we then— wt of the modern world — as far as any direct influence goes, are quite beyond his reach. His voice is not as our voice; it is of a different substance. We can make no direct response to it. At his note our minds and feelings rouse to no movement. It comes to us like a "horn of elf- land faintly blowing," and we know that it was meant for other ears than ours. But the case of Lucretius is in some w^ays a singular one; and this very remoteness may give him, in these days, a sharp and vivid interest for us. that has long gone from poetry to which in many ways we are far nearer. How this is, we shall see readily when we consider the work he did. We shall see why he had as little interest as he had for his own epoch, and why he has as much as he has for ours. Of his life next to nothing is known for certain, beyond the fact that he was a Roman of probably noble family, that he died in the prime of his manhood, about half a century before the birth of Christ, and that a legend ascribes his death to the effects of a maddening love-philtre. What his fame rests on, what makes his name known to us, is a single poem — or, speaking of it as a whole, it may be perhaps more just to say, a single treatise in verse. For the main subject of this poem is not poetical; nor, in composing it, was poetry the author's first object. INTRODUCTOUT. Primarily, and before all things, the work is a scientific treatise — as strictly scientific (at least in the author's in- temion) as a modern treatise on optics, or geology, or the origin of species; and, except as far as metre goes, it has in many places as little of poetry as these have. Poetry, it is true, there is in it — poetry in abundance; and some of this is the loftiest in all Roman literature. Continually, too, when we do not get poetry, we are still conscious that we are listening to a poet. All this we shall come to see by-aud-by. But it will be well first to consider the work only in its primary character, that of a book of science; for here is the foundation of its special interest for ourselves; and our interest in it, under its other aspects, is largely based on this. Lucretius called his book "An Essay on the Nature of Things." And he designed it to be a complete scien- tific explanation of the universe, and the relation of man to it, as a part of itself. He applies the same method to the investigation of mind and matter; of human and animal life; of organic and inorganic nature; and he describes the way in which the latter has risen out of the former. He traces the evolution of the present uni- verse out of its original elements; he tells us how the earth became fit gradually to sustain life on its surface; he explains the origin of the existing species of animals, man included, together with the nature of consciousness and the grounds of knowledge. And, finally, he gives us a history of human progress and civilization, from the rudest to the most advanced stages, explaining the origin Of language, of the state, of law, and the development of the various arts. And he does not do this as a poet might have been expected to do it. This is the thing of all others that he most seeks to avoid. He wishes to d^l m 110 broad effective generalities, no picturesque 10 LUiJUETlC>^. metaphor. He seeks to drowu no homely details by de- vices of artistic chiaroscuro. He bids all poetic imag- ination, as a tempter, get behind him. One l.y c>iie,with all the method he can master, he goes into the questions that are before him. confusing the matter with lu. oi na mental metaphors. He is a strict utilitarian in hisehoice of language. He cares not how prosaic he is. 11 1> great aim is to explain facts, and to show convincingly that his explanations are the true ones. Judged of as an exposition of what really is, the science of Lucretius is of course conipletcly valuele>s. And yet there are two things about ii which, for the present generation, must give it a peculiar interest. One of these things is that very valuelessness, that strange, grotesque difference to all our modern teaeli- ing. But such a difference by itself would not creaie an interest. There is a second point about it, just as noticeable as the first, and which, indeed, alone mak.s the first worth noticing— and this is tlie stran-e likeness to our modern teaching that runs tluough all this dif- ference. Couched under otlier forms, arriv. d at by other courses, the first principles of Lucretius, and many of his last conclusions, are the same, or are all but the same, as those which are now startling the world as new revelations—revelations so new and so startling that we can as yet only half accept them. In the first place, his mission and his attitude, to view the matter broadly, are entirely analogous to those of our modern physicists. He comes forward just as tin y do, as the champion of natural science, claiming that by' it, and by it alone, we are to understand man's life. and to explain the universe. It is his doctrine, just as it is theirs, that no event can occur either in the outei world about ne, or in the innor world of our own cox\. TNTBODUCTORY. n sciousness, that is not connected with some material change, and is not conceivably explicable in terms of matter. And he makes this claim for science, just as it is made now, against all theology, and against all religion. To these he ascribes, just as is done by some modern thinkers, a large part of the ills men suffer from. To a certain extent, too, he professes the belief, so often now held out to us, that when once religion, with its blighting influence, is exterminated, there are pros- pects of "a better, and, above all, a happier state of existence." for the human race. Indeed, so like is much of his general language to what we hear continu- ally in our own day, so inspired does it seem to be with just the same animus, that we might at times almost fancy he w^as Professor Tyndall, or one of the two Mills, confuting the arguments of Paley or of Butler, or deriding the narratives of the book of Genesis. But it is not in his general attitude only that he is so like the moderns. With less exactness, but in perhaps a far singular manner, he seems to anticipate many of their most special individual doctrines. The evolution of the present universe, the indestructibility of matter, tlie struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest, the origin of language, of religion, of the state, of law, and the progress of society generally— on these, as well as on numerous other points, the teachings of Lucretius are in strange accordance with much of what we are being taught now. To us these things are being told as en- tirely fresh tidings— as facts and theories that have now for the first time dawned on the human spirit. And to a certain extent there is a truth in this; but to a certain extent only. The same thoughts and the same theories were the property of Lucretius or of his teacher; and 12 L VCRETIVS. they have now come back to the world, not as differ- ent things, but iis the same things changed. Here is tliat double fact about Lucretius which gives him his special interest for us— the Hlicness of his thoughts to much of the thought now. and also the difference. When we study liini, we are brought face to face with two combatants— science and theology. When we look about us now, we are brought face to face with two combatants— science and theology. At first these two pairs seem so unlike each other, that we hardly class them together, or make any comparison between them, or their modes of warfare. If we look at them a little longer, we shall see they are the same; and then for the first time shall we fully realize their unlikeuess, just as we tir^ fully what the years have done for a man's face, when we connect it with what it once was when a boys. In the days of Lucre- tius, materialism and theism were eacli. as it were, in their boyhood; and. armed with simple weapons, they fought a boyisli Ijattle. If we look l)ack a little on what they then were, it may help us better to realize what they now are,— how each lias been changed by tlie knowledge of new perplexities— how each, armed now with weapons so far more formidable, and so far more skilful in the use of them, seems less confident of a final victory— how the faces of eacli have lost their old rasli confidence, and are marked by deeper lines of thought and of anxiety. In making this comparison, the form of Lucretius's work will itself be of some assistance to us. Were a similar work to be written in our time in a similar form, it might create much surprise, but could not com- mand much attention; and even that of Lucretius, when first given to the world, seems, as has been INTRODtTCTORT. 13 already said, never to have been really popu ar We may perhaps gain some notion of the general iteTary effect of it if we conceive Mr. Tennyson, instead of writing his "Arthurian Idylls," to have devoted hi TaLts'to versifying Mr. ^'^^'^^'^^'^ ^'^^'^^^^^^^^^ and *' Descent of Man," using the views of that philoso- pher as a text for a passionate invective against Angli- can orthodoxy and the doctrine of ongmal sm^^^^^^^^ passionate protest that when we were ^-^^J^^^/^^^^^^^ superstitions, the complexion of our whole life would change and human society become a nobler thing. In such a 'composition there could not fail to be passage of powerful and lofty poetry; and ^^u^^^^ ^^^^/^^^^^' hand we should be sure to trace everywhere. But how- ever clearly it might be the work of a poet, it would viry certainly not be a successful poem. 0-r -^m^ tion for the author's power might be great; but our Xret for his waste of it would be greater. But as r - • ^'as Lucretius, our feelings are somewhat d.f^ TlR-cientitlc svMem he undertook to expound was to comprise the whole circle of the sciences and was o unravel the whole riddle of existence with a rapidity nd on^pletenessthat no one now so much as di.ams^ of From a poet's standpoint, therefore, his subject, iud.ed as a whole, possessed a sort of epic grandeur. t"to him seemed compatiV>le with the ^tnctest sc^i. tific accuracy. At the same time, n its details and m the sort of reasonings they were founded on and sup loned by there was a simplicity that made them less Tufi than we should imagine to be expressed in verse. Inflc the form in which Lucretius gave the world his ^s m i^ tself singularly typical of how far a.c.i^ scence is removed from ours, and is the liveliest illus- t It on possible of the sort of gulf that is between them. 14 LVCIIETIV'^. But the formttiat Lucrethis gave Ins wod. is va.u^ able and instructive for another reasori than his 1 he poem has a secondary character, >vith ^vhl(■h its fonn i8 in more natural keeping, and of ^vlnch it is a >et more special expression. Primarily, a. h.^ .. ■ . >a h i Lucretius wrote as a man of science, lo Huloctnnnh men with science, with accurate science, was h.s .nam object. But it was not with ^v\r^^.o for it. .wn sake. It was for the sake of the cilVci ii wa> i. ■• .ve upon their lives, upon their hopes, their joys, ihnr pr.-.rtical conduct, their happiness. What tln> effect u ,>s to be he seems to think in a lar-e measure self evident. At any rate, it did n >! need the same elaborate exposUion as the reasoning winch led up to it. But stiil at the same time he i< perpetually referrinir to it. perpetually calling the attention of his readers to it; showing ihem that it-it alone-i<. thote-li not the main subject of his work, at anv rate llie main object of it. ^^ hat is man I whv is he here? what h(.pe lias he in this worMv wIkU are'tlie sources of his joy< ami sorrowsV how shall he choose the first of the.^^e, an.l avoid the latter*? what thincrs are here worth livii.- U^v- and. what worth w there in even the best of iliese? Tliese are the ultimate que'^tioiis tliat really concern men; and science has no general value, save as pr.'parin- (nir minds to meet them. And. as Lucretius views it, science give -- 'his preparation in one single way. It^ work i< t.. .- .ate life; tosliowus lliat life is self-centred, self-bouiuled, and*, in so far as it is sufficient at all. self-sutlieient. Till life is thus isolated, it is the earnest, the tierce belief of Lucretius, that we shall never have it at its best; it will be full of miseries and solicitudes which need not exist, but which we. tlirough cur f< -lly and headstrong ignorance, create ourselves, for our own torment. What INTRODUCTORY. 15 • .. hP regarded life when thus iso- nmnner of possession ^^ legam ^^^ ^^, -, ^^uld lated. what l^^f ^^^^.^^^^^^C 'f equal interest for us be able to yield -^^^^^^^^.^ and suggests an as the character o ^^^^^^J^^^ ^-^.^ ,ue thought of our equally significant compai on ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ own time. Much K s v ^1^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^ ,er leal treatment of his su c ^^ ^ ^^^^^^ tuough he ims not -^ ^^wla poet, and looked at system; and the ^-^,^ ^^U give to these opinions life with a great poet, vision, wu fe a special value and ^^^""f' ^^ :,, h is a work that la examining his wo W, th ^, th .^^^^^^^ .0 longer ^P-^-^^^u^ o^mP-^ ^^ ^ ^"^ ^^" any of our ways of tlm^^^ |,, ,,,,,Uning some- fragment of ^^"«^^^^^-';;'' for us than belongs to a tuing that has --- ^^^^^^^^ ^ ,e examining a dis- luere curious antiquiy. i^ere of our own day tant landmark, to wKich the at^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ i3 giving a new ^'^^^"^f ^f'' '^,,i^as have travelled^ far in twenty centuries men s nun ^^^^^^^ .^ ^^^^.^ ^^, travelled along two ^^«^^f.''^, ^ .^pernatural theories; planation of life by ^^^^^^^/^^J^^,^ ^f, practical teaching the other is their sentiments and their p vith regard to life when ^-Pl^^ ,, ,,, ^ork of Thus, in -^^^^^XVl^^^^^ Lucretius, our ^-^ ^f ,';, Jrefore. without refer- iato two parts. Let us 1 1 , understand ence to the literary -^ J^^^^us nUhods of obser^ accurately his --"f ^^f^^r^onclusions. general and vation and reasoning, and the c ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ particular, that he amved at J ^^^. ^^^ ^^ ,^^ lue main message was that he wi.hea .^^^^^^ -^'''- }''' " iToef " andX refractory . ^^- ^ ,w> "iiow, as a poei, n« ^'^^ 16 irCRETIUS. THE DAWN OF FUY^ICAL ^CIEyCE. 17 ject; jmd how, in prcxiaijiiinii- mid illustrating its rela- tions to huinau life, aiul to human passion, he made it leati up to and suggest poetry. We shall so be brought to understand what his teacliing was. and what he him- self seemed to feel were the results of it. Then we may be led on to dwell In-ietly on the chief points of differ- ence between him and ii>, — thouirh in making such a comparison we must each of us do uruch for ourselves. And further, we may consider Inietly— though this is the matter that will have lea>t int.-'rpst fr.r tiq — tlie "Essay on the Nature of Tiiinus." i.. ,.. _ not as philosophy, but simply us a lileraiy [)rodiielioii, as a poem, as a work of art in language, that is dislingui^hed as such by certain technical defects and excellences. What then we shall now Ix-gin with C'n^iMering is the scientific system that Lucretius aims... ; .pounding to u.s — what it w.as. and how he came to master it. To understand this, however, it will be necessary to go a little further back in liistory. and try to realize as best we may the nature of the scienlitic systems that had gone before it, and that it at once grew out of aud superseded. CHAPTER II. THE DAWN OF PIIYSK AI. SCIENCE. " The impreL'-' ' ' position of Science." says one pf our latest and mubi. celebrated scientitic teachers, "may be stated in a few words. We claim and we shall wrest from theology the entire domain of cosmolodcal theory." The earliest claim aud the earliest aim of science was identical with this, its latest. The same words are truQ of it, in its birth and in its maturity. The birth of Science, using the word iu the sense now popularly aud specially attached to it, is not an event so vague as one might expect to find it. It is an event which, so far as we know, we can give with accuracy both a date and place to. In the Greek city of Miletus, about six hundred years before Christ, there tiourished a certain thoughtful mau named Thales. He it was who, so far as we know, was the tirst man of science. He caught the first distinct glimmer of a scientific con- ception of things, and revealed as best he could this new light, to others. This event was a momentous one. The details of it are far remote: we have but few and scanty records of it. But let us do our best to realize what its nature was. The race that Thales came of, and amongst whose ideas he was nurtured, was a race singularly keen, in- quiring, intellectual, and imaginative. They fell, there- fore, the wonder of the world, and the need for an ex- planation of it. But for a long time tiiey were con- tented with a very simple answer. In one point, we must remember, they were very unlike ourselves. One of the ideas which weighs most heavily on the modern consciousness is the sense of our own separation from nature, often of our antagonism to it. But the Greeks, amongst whom natural science took its rise, were con- scious of no such separation. They felt they were a part of nature, akin to it, in harmony with it. They were indeed themselves but one of nature's forces. Now, of many of nature's phenomena, they felt that they were themselves the causes and the controllers. But besides these, there were others which they could neither cause nor control. Here was their first problem: how should the;, explain these? The answer was obvi- ous. These were the workings of beings like them-" 18 LUlRETlUs. selves, only ludefiuitely wiser and iiulefinitely more powerful. All the phenomena of naluie iliey at once accounted for, so far as they realized that any accour;t was required of them, by an anthropomorphic polytlu'- isni; or in other words, as Mr. Matthew Arnold mii^h' express it. all that was done in the world, that was not done by ourselves, was done and condueled by a race of "mtignified and non-natural men.' As, however, this svstem <»f theoloiiy became m«>re detinite, and more burdened wilii detail, it began to jar at length u}>on finer and more reflecting minds. And such — Thales being the first of them — sought to find an escape from it in some simpler and nnn-e sedate conception. The first tran.>ition lo this — the first bp'/iiuiing of the change from theology to science — isa. ... L.uri(jus one. It took this form. Tlitdes wu^ discontentei! with the tlieory that represented all the changes and f-i^t^ of the universe as due to the manip- ulation of a ;..vv of divine animals. It was a theory lliat was arbitrary grotesque, and inharmonious. It needed to be simj)lified Accordingly discarding the divine animal- altogether, he suppo.-ed tlie universe to be a divine animal itself, living, moving, breathing as men b-'M'ved fact>> of things. The mnteiiai world, or in ;...r words matter, being conceived (.f us itself alive, imd as a single living thmi- *''" v...- rv of the shapes ■ uj^d^^UtattjjjtgagjftSj ■;N,i;i.,,,vji,v.,,.iipi|!ij^i/'iinin|;i;;;ii;.;Ni':i.,.. 20 LUCRETIUS Tim DAWN OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 10 it took had to be conceived of as apparent only, not real — or, at any rate, all equally reducible to some common unity. Observation of facts supplied many cases that seemed to .show that this was so. Yapors condensed themselves into water; ice melted into water; snow^ melted into water; and conver.sely water, or moisture, which seemed near akin to it, was absorbed into plants and animals, and sustained their life. Life, again, was seen to depend on respiration; and thus life and living bein_ med, from one point of view, to be a mode of air. Similarl}', fire seemed to be pos- sessed of a like protean power. Heat, fire's primary quality, was seen to be associated with life; nearly every substance could l)e burnt, and reduced to fire; and so all things, it was argued, had originally been composed out of it. Such were the natural obeserva- tions of the first physicists. — one confining his attention lo one set of phenomena, another to another, being guided in his choice by no assignable reason. Thus one of them taught that everything was really water; another that everything was really air; another that everything was really fire; another that every- thing was really some unqualified substance, that had the power of giving itself a number of contrary qualities. These various speculators form together the first scientific school ; and in spite of their various differences, they agree in one fundamental point. They agree in substituting for an explanation of the universe that was complicated and unverifiable, one that was simple, and was at least in some degree capable of verification, and in some degree founded upon observation. They made the power of nature a single power, contained within herself, and immanent everywhere; they taught THE DAWN OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 21 20 LUCRETIUS THE DA WX OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 21 that this power was material imd accessible to observa- tion, and they tried to analyze it into its simplest form. Science remained in this stage for about a hundred years—that is, thinkers for about that time treated "matter as though it was endowed with life, and tried to explain the universe by ascribing to it the powers and the character of an animal But all the while this school of thought bore within itself the seeds of change; and gradually and insensibly its exponents were car- ried beyond it. The conception of the world acting as an animal, insensibly died into, or got confused with, that of its acting under law as an automaton. Thus Anaximander, who was born not thirty years after Thales. though basing his speculations, like Thales. on the supposed vitality of matter, still shows a tendency to rise out of this conception, or at least to merge it m another He it was who taught that the real substance of all things was a vague uniform substance, living, but without qualities; but capable, by virtue of its life, of taking different qualities to dif- ferent parts of itself. Thus, he teaches, the elemen- tary contraries, warm and cold, moist and dry, were first separated. Up to this point he seems to have thought of matter as acting like a living thing. After this he seems to change his view of it. and to treat its movements as those of a blind and dead necessity. From the conflict of these contraries, he teaches, there arose an eternal motion, out of which the present universe gradually shaped itself, including men, and gods also, these last being thus the product of natural action, not the producers of it. The earth, he further teaches, was once fluid, and has been evolved slowly into its present state. Life at length was developed on « * its surface through the interaction of heat and moisture, and at tirst existed only in the water, which at a former epoch covered everything. Gradually much of these waters dried up, and a number of living creatures were left on land. These organisms slowly adapted themselves to their environment, and the land animals acquired their present form. In these doctrines we see certainly the germ at least of a more advanced conception of things. The first scientific conception has already given birth to a new and antagonistic one. A little later on this antagonism becomes yet more marked; and it grows quite plain that this early school of science is divided against itself. We see this very clearly in the cases of Heracleitus* aiTd Empedocles. Both of these still look for the first cause of things as they are, in a certain living will, in a certain personal character that inheres in matter. It is this that in the first place sets things in motion; but when once the motion has begun, they seek to explain the direction of it by essentially inanimate and imper- sonal causes. Thus Empedocles, as his principles of movement, postulates two quasi personal forces, Strife and Love. But having started with these, he at once ceases to be personal : and analyzing all substances, not into water, air, or fire, or a vague and illimitable mat- ter, but into a combination of all of these— into what, in fact, we still are accustomed to call the four ele- ments—he tries to show how things of necessity evolved themselves out of manifold and long-continued combinations of these. * Heracleitus has received much attention in Germany as a metaphysician, as well as a man of science last character that he is here alluded to. It is only in this on J.LrliETirS. THE DAWN OF PHYSICAL ^ClEyCE. 23 ircRETirs. nil:: DAwy of phw^ical .science. 23 As n spocimcn of the way in wliicli Empecoclcs Avorked out his tin it may he menlioned that his ucToinit of the origin of species is to a great extent the same MS that of 3Ir. Darwin. All sorts of living crea- tures, lie taught, 111 si appeared o\\ the earth, raany of them unable to defend or to reproduce themselves, and thus perished in the inevitable struggle for existence. The fittest alone survived by this proce natural selection, and these ju*e tlie races of men and animals that are now living. Here, then, is a picturesqui' illustration of the growing inr< )iisi<; with itself of the first school of science. We hive Strifeaud^Love to explain the Ifegitiuing of motion, and a crude Diirwin: ism to explain the results of it. The inconsistency thus indicated was due to the growing distinctness of T parate ideas, which men still tried to identify, and onlv ended bv ronfusiuc: them. This confusion was llrst reduced to order l)v *^ mother thinker of t. .me period, who may be said to h >en the precursor of the second school of science, by expressing the double idea that was implicit in tlie tirst. lie no longer treats the world as an animal, or matter as living, and leavened with such alTeetioi mid hale. The matter there was to be i .. and tlie force there was to move it, he first expressly teaclies. are two distinct things. "Matter," he said, as an epitome of this teaching, " was originally without form and void— all its par°ts were confused together: then Mind came, and wrought it into form and order." But not only was this general prin- cipal an advance on what had been before; he made a great step al-o in tlie working out of it, through his new analy^ ,-. This, he taught, consists of an infinite number of minute eleinentary [larticles, of a % vast variety of kinds, — such as wuiiM be prudiiced could we turn all the wood in the world to sawdust, grind all tlie stone in the world to powder, file all llie inetals in the world into the same condition, and treat all the other substances we >ee about us in a like man- ner. And the present onit r of things was produced by the gradual cohering toi;<.'tli!.'r of like panicles, the elementary stone dust becoming stone, wood-dust wood, iron-dust iron, ;ind s(» oii. Tiiis proe> bs, he taught, as has been said before, was not initiatcil by the i>articles themselves, or any principle inunanent in ihem, but by an intelligent and designing Mind, independent of and external to them. But in his appliealiuti of this theory, Auaxagoras uses his 3Iind only lo account for the beginning of a mechanical movement of the particles, and he then leaves these to do all tii'- rt -^t for them- selves. That mechanical niovemeiil Ix ^un as a revo- lution of the particles at a single point. Then gradu- ally ever-increasing m: .- < . were diiwii into this vortex, which is still extendin- further and further into the infinite realm of matler; and out of this movement, without any succeeding intervention of Mind, the universe as we know it has evolvcti itself. Anaxagoras flourished only a century after Thales. Cetus see how tar, in this short time, the mind had w^andered away from, and advanced bejond. its original crude theological explanation of things. First, as we liave seen already, men regarded the universe as worked and ordered by a race of divine animals, who wero themselves an essential part of it. Next, they regarded the universe as a single divine animal in itself. Next, from reflecting more systenuitically on this animal's ways, they came insensibly to change their conception of it, and to aseri!>e to its movements, in a great meae^ 24 LUCRETIUS. ure, a certain blind and essentially impersonal neces- sity. Ntixt they c;inie to realize that they were really entertaining the idea of two principles, and consciously and expliciily lliey learnt to distinguish between and to 8e{Kirate them. The universe was once more not a living thing fur them; its jihenomena were now caused no longer by a set of beings of like passions with ourselves, and of like ways of acting, but by a single supreme intelligence, passionless and bodiless, which, though the origuial cause of all we m c around us, did not cause or interfere with anything of this directly. All it was supposed to have done was to have given matter, in the first phi -hove, and after tljat, as Goethe says, "to sit apart, and watch the world go-" This stage formed a new point of departure. The conception now arrived at is this, of the universe on the one hand, as a machine in motion, and of an active intelligence on the other, to wiioni in some way tlie motioul is attrit:)utable. But there is tliis important point to notice. Mind, accordin- !.• this theory, did not itself form the univer^' into the niacliine it is,' still less is it at the ])reseiil time turning tlie handle. All it did was to give matter an original impetus. l)v which matter was itself enabled to form itself into a n'lachine. and a machiu- iuing within its. If thenceforward its own principle of motioi]. 3Iii!d am] matter being thus distinctly separated, and the connection betwee^n the two being made so vague, and to all appearance so tem- porary, the ne.xt step in scientitlc thought was to dis- card this Mind altogether, and to endow matter with the power of starting its own movement, as well as of continuing it. Thus Mind, Design, and Life. ; s prin- Ciples of things, disappeared altogether, and came back T .i*^"' THE DAWN OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 25 in au entirely changed position. The case indeed was simply reversed. Henceforward, instead of the motion of matter being looked upon as the effect of a self-de- pendent life, life was looked upon as the product of the self-dependent motion of matter. The conception of this general theory formed a new epoch in science. Nor was it only as a general theory that it was in advance of what had gone before. Its exponents at once began to work it out in a more exact way. They reduced these various doctrines to a com- plete system ; and not only this, but they did their best to test them, and to raise them from the state of as- sumptions to that of verified facts. The father of this new school was Democritus, who flourished a generation later than Anaxagoras, and about a century and a half after the death of Thales. A century later still, this system of science was pro- pounded afresh, and given fresh currency to, by Epi- curus, who also introduced into it some slight modifica- tions. And it is this system that Lucretius learned from Epicurus, and that we are about to consider at length, as set forth by him. Before going on to do this, there are one or two points to remember. All the scientific progress we have just been speaking of was confined to the Greek world, and not even amongst the Greeks were its teachings univer- sally accepted. With the general public, theology and polytheism continued to hold its own, and the allegiance of the world of thought was divided between it and metaphysical systems, which, though equally opposed to the popular theology, can yet not be called science at all. Outside the Greek world, this advanced thought had for a long while little influence. Rome for centu- ries felt nothing of it, but lay buried in what to the eyes of a great philosopher would have seemed savage I 26 LUCRETIUS and dL4)asing superstition. By the time of Lucretius, Greek culture was extending, and witli it there was be- ginning a gradual dawn of scepticism over the Roman world. But the mass of men as he found them were still under the dominion of the old errors— still had their minds darkened by a faith more or less fervent in the old supernatural theory of things. The aim of Lu- cretius was to preach to them a new gospel, which should once and for all clear their mental vision, and give them a new and a healthier view of life. Such a gospel he conceived himself to have found in the scientific system of Epicurus, and in his practical de- ductions from it. It was rliis that he set himself to preach to the Roman people, for tlieir lil)cration and their new birth to lil)erty; and he w ■ in the power of it, not liecause it was plaii\v they criticised the systems whicli they .; should get blood out of stones, milk out of grass, ami tire out of wood with- out igniting it. People say that the rubbing of boughs in a forest produces fire; and this, Lucretius admits! is quite true. But that is not because fire, ready made, is latent in the wood, but because the arrangement of atoms is changed, and, like the rearrangement of the letters of a word, produces a new result. Atoms and void, then— to these two things every- thing that is. is reducilile. These are the substance of everything, the only things that really exist. What- ever can be named, is either a property or an accident of these two things. The properties of atoms are such thmgs as their siiape and weight, whicli they cannot lose unless they lose their own existence. All things else, such as " slavery, poverty, riches, war, concord/' —these are but accidents, one and all, of atoms and of void. "Time, also." adds Lucretius, "exists not by itself; but simply from the things wliich happen, the sense apprehends what has been done in time past, as well as what is present, and what is to follow after."' Further, atoms and void are both infinite in quantity because, in the first place, it is inconceivable that they should not be so; and, in the second place, unless they were so, it is plnin for many reasons that tliey would not liave produced the results tliey have done The first of these arguments is simple enough. Let us make the bounds of thin vast as we will, there nrust still be something or other outside them. The second set of arguments will appear presently. .Jma,tW»UiliaMai assss ISCIEMIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 33 SECTION U. THE FORMATION THE UNIVERSE. The original state of thinus was, according to Lucre- tius, not unlike an inlinilc Miowstoi-m. Infinite atoms were continually falling and falling through an infinite space. They fell tlius in virtue of one of their inalien- able properties, namely weight, which for ever bears them downwards. Though of different >izes, the veloc- ity of their downward motion was .-till the same, for they fell through an unresisting medium. With us heavy things fell faster than very light ones, simply because of the resistance of the air which they have to overcome. The universe was formed by the collision and coherence of these f idling bodies. But how did this collision first take place? All the bodies Avere fall- ing at an equ:d velority, and so ihey cnuld not over- take each other; and if they fell straight downwards— i.e., in parallel courses— they could not jostle against each other. Evidently, therefore, in their downward course, says Lucretius, they must tend at uncertain times, and at uncertain points, to swerve a little, but only a very little— not enough to be called a lateral movement. It was owing to this slight and incal- culable swerving that the first collision of atoms took place. This collision at once jiroduced a rebound, and this rebound again produced fresh collisions; and there was thus begun an ever extending clashing and confu- sion amongst them, like that of motes in sunbeams, which we may see, says Lucretius, "in never-ending confiict, skirmish and give battle, contending in troops, and never halting, driven about in frequent meetings and partings; so that you may guess from this what it 84 Li'rllL^ is for first beginnings of things to be ever tossing aboin In llie great void." In this war of at. lus, some, wlieu they clashed, bounded oil etich other, so as to I^ave large spares lietweeo them; others bounded otT >o as only to le mall s[ -— the ft»rmer kind producing such things as air and bunligiit, the latter such things as stooe and iron. This different behavior of the different atoms is due to their various shapes. sr«nie being round and smooth, some round and rough, some forked or pointrd, — and so on. Tlie denser substances are formed of forked atoms, which cannot touch without becoming entan- gled witli eacli other, and are so unable to boimd back to any great distance. The rarer and more siibtk- sub- stances are formed of smooth and tine atoms. And this same atomic movement wiiich was ilie be- ginning of things, still continues to keep tliem what they are. It is a movement that has gone on from everlasting, and will alwavs continue. Eveiv ol)ject about us is in motion within itself, though we see it as a wiiole to be entirely still ; for this atomic movement is infinitely far beneath the ken of the senses. We may conceive its nature, however, and its possibility, by tlie analogy of a distant flock of sheep, or the evolutions of tw^o distant armies. The sheep, though in reality frisking, and buttiniT each other, seem to us but a stationary si^ot of wliit. the two armies, though engaged in combat, ai)i)ear to us but a stationary glitter. The tendency, too. of ever\ tiling is still downwards, ever downwards; and tlie upward tendency of certain things arises only, in some cases, from a rebound; in others, as in the case of tlame, from the substance in question being squeezed upwards by the pressure of other substances. .. SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 35 It will now be apparent yet further, that matter and cnq)ty space must both be infinite. For if space were not iutinite, the atoms, ahvays falling, would be by this time lying in a solid mass on the floor of space; and if matter were not infinite, that infinity of combinations could not have been produced, of which the existing order of things is a survival of the fittest. And it is partly from thi,^ conclusion that Lucretius disproves a doctrine that was current amongst some thinkers in his time, — a doctrine which nearly ap- proaches the modern theory of gravitation, and was allied also with a conception of the sphericity of the earth, and the existence of life all round it. " Some teach," Lucretius says, "that all things press to the centre of the sum; that heavy bodies under the earth press ui)wards and are at rest on the earth, turned topsy-turvy, like the images of things in water; and that living things walk head downwards, and cannot tumble out of the earth into those parts of heaven below them." This theory of things he thus dismisses. The universe being infinite, there can be no centre to it. Secondly, even were there a centre, still space every- where would yield to heavy bodies, and they could never come to rest upon void, be that void centre or no centre. We liave already seen that the atoms are conceived of as having different shapes. It is further demonstrable, according to Lucretius, that the number of their shapes is finite. For if there were an infinite variety of shapes, some atoms would have to be of an infinite bulk, since linuled bodies do not afford room for an infinite variety of detail in their form. Also, were the number of shapes of atoms infinite, there could be no fixed order in nature, but it w^ould go on either infinitely improving or in- t > jiA MhrifJtJkih fcCf ■J-f.mufcwuML'Mfc Jl.. j*- . ,,>a>rtml»lu>.*«Jjl m LUCRETIUS. finitely degenerating. But though the difference of forms is fiiiite, of atoms of v:\ch form there is an infinite number; for l!ie sum being mfinite, and the number o! parts finite, there must be an infinite variety of eacli kind, else the sum would be finite. Here then we have an infinity of atoms of a finite variety of shapes; which, though they are thus far qualilied, and are possessed also of gravity, have yet no properties individually that can appeal to the human ^ Phev have, for instance, no color; and this statement Lucretius takes great pains to verify. Objects, he says, cliange tlicir color, but none of the properties of atoms changes; therefore color cannot belong to the atoms. Nor can such colors as change into others be the product of a number of atoms of various colors. Look at blue bright sea- water, li and you will see that its changes of color are evidently not such as could be produced l)y any mixture of variously-colored par- ticles. Fin-tlKT— and here he comes to a deeper kind of reasoning— colore cannot exists without light,— nay, colors change with the way in which liglit falls on them, as in the case ot the down on a dove's neck. lie then goes on to analyze color into a particular kind of blow given to the pupil of the eye, the nature of which varied with the shapes of the atoms that composed the colored objects. Thus the s. n-e of color is but a par- ticular form of the sense of touch, and i< no quality in the atoms them . l»ut is an accident of tlieir shape. It is curious hi tind that Lucretius having given this explanation, in wliicli tliere is really implied a profound truth, supplements it by the shallow and untrue obser- vation that color can be further proved notto reside in atoms, because the more yon tear up a thing the fainter does the color appear. At any rate, having thus estab- ■ -»li** UrflTlU- ^ * t, ' MWlttMhliWJfclMIB'*A«flrit i!hi.^.flflJafj SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 37 lished the fact that atoms have no color, he goes on more summarily to show that they are without all other sen- sible qualities as well. All bodies are not vocal, all bodies are not odorous, all bodies do not possess cold or heat; and therefore atoms can have in themselves neither sound nor smell nor temperature. It is only by a series of infinitely complex combinations that the pri- mal materials of things " step by step issue forth to the senses." The exact stages in this evolution of the universe Lucretius does not profess to describe accurately, but he gives a general sketch of them which, in some points, is very like what is given us by the most advanced modern speculators. It was a long time, he says, before the war of atoms produced anytliing like what we see now. As imagination penetrates back to the first conceivably visible state of things, it discerns nothing but a " strange and stormy medley" — the cosmic vapor of our modern theorists — In perpetual mov^ement, massing itself to- gether now in some parts, now in others, and leaving and filling up various shifting interspaces. At last " the parts began to fly asunder, and like to join like and mark off the members of the world, and everyone of its mighty parts — i.e., to separate high heaven from earth, and let the sea spread itself out apart, and also let the fires of the ether spread apart, pure and unmixed." This process began as soon as the heavy bodies of earth "first met together, and took up the lowest posi- tions." Having thus met in virtue of tlieir special shape they w^ent on binding themselves together in a closer union, and forming a denser mass. In this process a large (plant ity of smoother particles w^ere squeezed out of the earth, and these formed tlie sea, the sun, thestars, and the vault of heaven. First of all there issued out a Z8 LCCUETICS. fiery ether, which went up as we see mists going up now. and this formed itself into a vast colieriug rilni, which encompasses and bounds our univer^', atui which we call the heavens. xVfter this, .squeezed out in like man- ner from the solidifying earth, followed the nuiiments of the sun and moon, wliieli gradually funned them- selves into their itresent sliapcs. and lurn ruuiul in air. midway between earih and heaven. bec:iu>e •• they were neither heavy enough to ^ink. nor liirht enough lo glide along to the uppermost borcKrs." C'oui^ilieling Lucre- tius's notions of the inherent weight, an.l musequent downward tendency, of all atoms. ihi> at lir.l s-unds a Utile strange. He apparently means, liowtvcr, lliai ihry were of such weight that the stpieezing i)w\ver of the earth could only avail to project them to a certain height. When the material of the h. ^ and llie heavenly bodies was thus withdrawn, an inunediate change took place upon the earth'.-, >arface, which was at this time completely covered with water. In consequence of the amount of matter that liad gone from it, there was in various places a sudden svd)sidence of the ground. In the hollows and depressions thus formed, the waters were at once collected, and the dry land appeared. Tlie same sort of process slill continued. l)iit now with uu added agency. "Tlie heal of ether, and the rays of the sun. ever more and nu)re b\ verieuied blows compressed and buffeted the earth, - ler parts were beaten down into phiins. and its haiiler jiarls. which couhl not be thus beaten down, remained a- hills; and thus the earth's surface assumed its present form. '"tiUcretius. it will thus be seen, conceive d our universe as a kind of azure bubble, ihrown of!" by the earth, and headed with stars, the earth itself being the centre, and ;«!E5|S't:pB^^^^^^^^^ pi«!!S=!i'3'!E?' W^:' SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS, 39 occupying probably far the larger part of the space en- closed by it; whilst the sun and moon swam, as it were, in the air, which tilled all the intervening space between the earth and heaven. It is this entire system which Lucretius called the \\ox\d. He conceived the number of such worlds to be infinite, and he held that they were all falling for ever downwards, in much the same way as the atoms did in the beginning. The knowledge of a large part of this universe he confesses to be far from exact. Of the movements of the heavenly boibes, especially, he can only give con- jectural explanations; but one or other of those he offers, he feels certain must be the true one— for prac- tical purposes, it does not much matter which. On one point. Ik. w ever, he professes that he has attained exactitude. His .<^( ience has revealed to him the true size of the lieavenly bodies. This, he says, is almost identical with that which it appears to us to be. This statement, absurd and iudeed unmeaning as it is, if we were to consider ii seriously. Lucretius yet arrived at by what may be called a shadow of true scientific method. He could not measure the size of the heavenly bodies directly, but there were other bright bodies whose size he could measure. He observed a variety of fiames. iiol icing their size close at hand; he then retired to various distances, and noted them from thence; and the result of these observations, he fancied, was. that however far he retired from a lumin- ous'object its size never seemed to diminish. Thus, to produce the etfect they do upon us, the actual size of the sun and moon need be no greater than what we see it to be. At the same time, however, he seems to think that extreme distance may have some very small etfect in such cases; and thus, with respect to the size 40 irCRETIi's. of the stars, our vision may mislead us somewhat, '• but only to a very -ni;il! dc-rt c" The sun, small as it ^ive the light and heat it does, from bein«r. as it \v(>iv, a well-head, AvheDce lidit aud heat ffii^h out: or llie h»at mav not dwell dh-ectly in itself, hut it m;iy inflame the air when in a susceptible state, as branches make a conflagration; or the sun may liave about him a quantity of invisible heat, unaccompanied by tire, aud this heat may increase the stroke of his ray- Night is caused either by the sun. "when he strikes the uttermost part of heaven." having " blown out all his tires," or because *' the same force w hich has carried his orb above the earth, compels it to pass below the earth." Morning is caused either by the reappearance of the same sun, or "because tires meet together, and many seeds of heat are accustomed to stream together at a fixed time, which cause new sunlight to be born every day." Strange to say, he seems to think this singular theory, if anything, more probable than the former one. He gravely says that •* from the summits of Ida it is re- ported that scattered tires are seen to appear at day- break, and gradually collect them>elves into an orb." And if, he adds, this is really what does happen, it is only in strict analogy wit ii many of the most familiar phenomena of nature. Trees blossom at tixed times; rain and lightniug are not very irregular; and at tixed times boys change their teeth. In the same way, a new moon may be born every- day, figured according to its various phases. Or the moon may revolve like a spherical ball, of which one half is self-luminous and one half dark. Or it may bo luminous all over, either of itself or by the light of the SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 41 sun ; and its phases may be caused by its carrying with it an invisible satellite that is perpetually eclipsing it. The eclipses of tiie sun. too, may be accounted for in the same way; or " the sun may be able, quite exhausted, to lose his fires at certain tixed times." Such in broad outline is the Lucretian universe — the outcome of atoms that have in themselves no sensible qualities. Let us see now, more in detail, how Lucre- tius accounts for all the variety of substances into which we find they have combined themselves. This variety, and the results of it. are due to the various shapes and sizes of the atoms, and their various ways of mixing. "There is nothing," says Lucretius, "which is apparent to &in\^Q. that tonsists of one kind of first beginnings. Tliere is nothing which is not formed by a mixing of seed." As an obvious instance and proof of this, we have the earth, which must con* tain within itself the seeds of all the things that spring out of it, such as. water, fire, and vegetation. For each thing is what it is in virtue of being a combination, a mixture, a clinging together of atoms of certain various shapes, in certain various proportions. It is these various combinations of various atoms that give to things their different textures and properties; for " since seeds differ, there must be a difference in the spaces between the passages, the connections, the weights, the blows." This hypothesis, says Lucretius, will explain all the facts of nature, and will be verified by them. Light, for instance, passes through horn ; but rain is thrown off. Why? The atoms comprising horn leave in that substance spaces of a certain size and shape. The atoms that compose light are very small, and can pass through these spaces. The atoms that compose water are larger, and cannot. Again, wines flow through a strainer, l)ut i^imi "MiLiaa aaag' iWlWh I snTTTXTTrrr, sVsTF:u OF LUCRETIUS, 4S 42' lUiUt^TIUS. oil will not. This is because the elements of oil are larger, or more hooked and tangled, and m- canuut he 80 easily separated. To put the matter generally, hard substances, such as diamonds and iron, are composed mainly of atoms that have many hooks, by which, the iustaut they touch each other, ihcy are held together; fluid substances, such as water, aie composed mainly of atoms without hooks, wliieh can nu-Vf \vith more or less freedom about each other; and ga>eous substances are composed entirely of at :" a tiuer and smaller nature still. The various ta mells, sound-, and temperatures of things are due, loo, to the .-hapcs of the atoms that compose tliem. llur>h ia>Les come from substances made up of rough, pointed, or hooked att)ni>, pleasant tastes, from substance- u tde up of smoolii atoms. The atoms of honey and nulk, for instance, are smooth; those of wormwood rough. The creaking of a saw is made of rough atoms; beautiful music of >maU atoms; and so on. More light will be thrown on i; neeption of things, when we come t further wiiai is lAicretiu>"a theory of sensation, and iiow he reduces all our percep lions to modes of touch. In tlie foregoing analysis of of matter, the incousisi - and incoinplclent -> .ue i.f course obvious. It will be enough, in passing, to men- lion the two most striking of ihese. One is, that though it is one of his great points that the af<e*Mi> continually to speak of them as though they could individually by by their shape affect, or be detected, by the senses. The other is, that this application of the atomic theory quite fails to explain one of the chief phenomena of iKiture — that is, the change of qualities that takes place iu a ij.1..-^. -^jbii^%-i jih>fhjft.h< SCIENTIFIC' srsTE.U OF LUCRETIUS. 43 single substance, hot things becoming cold, sweet things ranciil. and gaseous and fluid things solid. This, how- ever, by the way. What we have now to do is to examine tiie theory of Lucretius, not to criticise it SECTION III. THE INTERACTION OF MATERIAL StJBSTANCES. We have thus far seen liow the universe as it is, was evolved out of its original elements, and the few simple laws of which this evohitiou was the result. We have next to consider the more complex question of how it is maintained in \\< present state, with all its varioui movements ami innuniendjle changes, and the constant uriforni relation of its larger parts. We have seen how atoms behaved in forming sub* stances; we must now see why substances behave as they do when formed. Lucretius explains this by a doctrine we have already mentioned,— that nothing, however much appearances may say the contrary to us, is really at r.>t. We are to conceive of everything in constant motion— solids, fluids, and gases,— in motion within themselves, even when they are at rest relatively to other objects. It is in this way that the heavens are sustained above us from falling on the earth, and the earth sustained from falling on the heavens below; for the entire space between the two is pervaded by air in ceaseless motion, the particles of which are perpetually- bounding and rebounding, striking against the earth on the one hand and the heavens on the other, and thus keeping the whole in place. It might, Lucretius seems to think, appear doubtful how. according to his theory of the downward tendency of everything, air could sustain the earth. He thereforo 44 LVRj-rrirs. takes pains to empliM-i/c <;speci:t]ly tlie \)o\\iv that is in air, fine though its atoms be. Life, which, as we shall see soon, he eon-iii'i's to l)e atomic, can hold the body together, he s:ivs; und the living body does uot feel the weight of its separate members. Our feet, for instance, are conscious of no pressure from above, in the same way air prevents the earth from having any weight with reference to the universe. But we must not only conceive of all bodies as having within themselves tlii^ nrnMctual motion of their parti- cles; we must al^ . <. ;.vi all sulistanees as being, as it w^ere, In a perpetual state of evaporation. Minute particles of ther^^'^elves are for ever streaming otT tli-ir surface. That this is .su. wc r;in tell in many i- y practical ex|>eriments; and we may thus infer that it is so in every case. We can tell that water is per- petually giving off a certain i)art of its own elements, by ob-erving how clothes, stretched out to dry on the sea-shore, get saturated with a salt moisture. As we walk by the sea, loo, a salt taste comes into our mouths. Scents, likewise, are instances of the s:une perpetual Btreamiug off of atoms; and so also is color, as we may Bee plainly where the sun shines through red or blue canvas, and show^s us those colors projected on what- ever objects the light falls on. Thus there is throughout nature a variety of wholly un perceived agencies at work, secretly affecting what- ever we can observe to happen, and, as we shall see presently, enabling us to observe and be conscious of it. An illustration of what Lucretius means by this doctrine, and of the use he made of it in explaining nature, is to be found in his account of tlie magnet, wdiich he says attracts iron for this reason. From lln^ magnet there proceeds perpetually a stream of atoms ' i • SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 45 stronger and more violent than from most other bodies. This stream is perpetually creatmg a vacuum about the magnet. As soon as iron is placed in the neighborhood of this vacuum, the air which is in the pores of the iron tries to rush to the vacuum, and fill it up. The iron, however, is of so tough and ~ liard a nature, that tlie air cannot escape from it, and therefore carries the iron into the vacuum along with it. The magnet does not attract gold, because gold is too heavy for the air to move it; nor again does it attract wood, because wood is so porous that the air rush- ing to the vacuum can escape of itself, without taking the wood with it. Thus the whole universe is what it is, in virtue of this occult movement of everything. All matter is more or less porous, and every substance is ever being permeated and filtered through by emanations from other substances. "One thing," says Lucretms, "is seen to stream through stones, another through gold, another still to go out through silver and brass. Form is seen to stream through this passage, heat through that; and one thiui? is seen to pass through by the same way' more quickly than other things. The nature of the passages compels it to be so. varying in manifold wise, owing to the unlike natures and textures of things." SECTION IV. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE AND SPECIES. Nature, as we have considered it thus far, has been simply inorganic unconscious nature. We must now see the relation that life bears to this. Life and con- sciousness, accordmg to Lucretius, are the products of a certain combination of substances, interacting on each LUCRETIUS. other by a certain infinitely complex process of atomic movement. " Whatever things we perceive to have sense," he says, " ylied; and in this struggle tho.se animals were eliminated tliat were not able to defend themselves. "For." says Lucretius, "in the . .f all things which go on breathing the breath of life, either craft or courage, or else speed, has from the beginning of its existence protected and preserved each particular race."^ The only exception is in the case of domes- tic animals, which, though thev may iu some wavs be SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 49 weakly themselves, have survived through man's pro- tection. This theory of the origin of species, it will be seen, is in one of its main features identical with the Dar- winian. It attributes exactly the same results to the struggle for existence. But in another point it is en- tirely and expressly opposed to it. According to the Darwinian theory, ail life began in a single simple form, which slowly differentiated itself, through an unexplained tendency of each organism, not only to reproduce its own likeless in its offspring, but also to reproduce this likeness with slight incalculable varia- tions. In this way varieties of organisms kept increas- ing, all having sprung from the same parent stem, and spreading out into separate branches, which would, if left to themselves, be for ever branching out anew\ The rigors of climate, the difficulty of obtaining food, and so on, acted like a force that stripped from such a tree all its weakly twigs, and broke its unsound branches, leaving those only growing that were strong enough to withstand it. Iu various places this force Taried, and various textures and forms of branches were thus in various places left growing, and destroyed by it. The innate tendency to variation in animals, which the Darwinian theory thus postulates, was con- ceived of dimly by some of the earliest Greek pliiloso- phers, who held that animals only developed legs, and various other parts of their bodies, wdien the waters dried up that originally covered the earth, and they were thus forced to adapt themselves to a life of land. But all tendency to variation in species is wiiat Lucre- tius expressly denies. "All living things," he says, 'go on after their own fashion, and all preserve their distinctive differences according to a fixed law of na- 50 LUC HE TICS. lure."' It will thus be seen th:it the Darwinian theory is an advanee on, and dilTtTS from, Hk' Luereiian mainly and essentially in thi • ■ ' iu which the variety i^ produced which is the ..ut.j. ci of the selecting process common to both systems. SECTION V. THB KATURE OF LIFE AND <0: -NESS. The vital principle, though not identical wiih the body, is demonstrably itself as truly materitd :\> i\u ' ' • Tlie close connection of the tw.. is a pro..}' ol un^.. For the mind moves tlie limb>, rousc^s the body friun slee].. and alters the countenance. I'he mind, loo. >utTer> with the 1)0(1 V. A wound will often < h»<^ of ro!i sciousuess, for instance; and that thi:i.^ mu-l be ma- terial which is thus allected by material ]>\o\\<. The vital principle, aecordiiig to Lucretius, con^i-ts of two kinds of ether of surpassing subtlety, diffused through the entire body, and closely connecied with each other. Considering how quick are all our thoughts and im- pulses, the atoms of which these ethers ai uposed must be perfectly spl 1 and smooth, and exceedingly small. The entire volume of it must also weigh very little, as after life has left the body, the body does not perceptibly weigh less, any more than wine does when it has lost its flavor or its bouquet. We are not, however, to suppose that the nature of this ether is single, says Lucretius. It cati. en the con- trary, be readily analyzed into four parts. " For"— 80 his words run— "a certain subtle spirit mixed with heat quits men at death, and then the spirit d. aws air along with it,— there being no heat which has not air too mixed with it; for since the nature of heat is rare, • SCIKM'IFIC SYsri-M OF LUCllETrVS. 51 many fir>t beLiitmimis of air must move about through it." Tiiu> the nature of the vital principle is found to betlneefold {ij\, there is the certain "subtle spirit," beat, and air). And yet these things altogether are not sufficient to produce sense, since the fact of the case does not admit that any of tlie.^e can produce sense- giving motions, and the thoughts which a man turns over in his mind. Thus some fourth nature must be added to these. This is altogether without a name. There is nothing exists more nimble or more hne, or of smaller or smoother elements. It first transmits the sense-giving motions through the frame,— for it is first stirred, made ui> as it is of small particles. Next, the heat, and the unseen force of the spirit, receive the mo- tions; then the air; then all things are set in motion, the blood is stirred, and every part of the flesh is filled with sensation. The mutual connection of these four elements of the vital principle, Lucretius admits that it is very hard to explain. All he says he can do is to illustrate it bv an amdnuv. "As in the flesh of any living creature there is a smell and a heat and a savor, and yet out of these there is made up one single bulk of hotly, so the heat and the air, and the unseen forces of the spirit, mixed together, produce a single nature, to- gether with that nimble force, which transmits to them from itself the origin of motion, by means of which sense-giving motion first takes its rise through the fleshy frame." The effects of these various elements are perpetually being visible in the actions and the characters of living thinirs. An anurv fire flashes from the eyes in virtue of the elements of lieat. Fear is due to the operation of a spirit, which is of a low temperature. A calm 50 LUCRETIUS. cheerfuluess is due to a prepouderance of the element of still air. Thus luissionate auimals, such as lions, have in them moi'e of the lieat principle. Shuddering, fearful animals, like >!ag>. have more of the chilly principle. Oxen luive ui.^rt' of still air. Men have all these element* more equally mixed in them. It is true that thev inherit various tendencies which tliey can- not utterly eradicate; hut the bent giveu us by our parents is so small, that practically we may overcome it. Such is the vital principle, and though dwelling in the body and permeating the body, it is not, says Lu- cretius, as some contend, a mere liarmonious working together of the body. For the body is often sick, whilst the mind is enjoying pleasure: often tlie reverse IS the case. Then, too. whilst the body is lyiug sense- less in sleep, our mind is often awake, and is feeling joy and sorrow. Further, life still stays in the body when many limb^ have been lopped off; " and yet the same life, when a few bodies cf heal have been dis- persed al)r(>ad, and some air has been forced out through the mouth. al)andons at once the veins, and quits tlie bones. And thus we hat all bodies do not alike uphold existence, but rather that those seeds which constitute wind and heat cause life to stay in the limbs." This vital ether, whicli has been analyzed into four constitueikt elements, from another point of view di- vides Itself into two — viz., the Mind and Soul, which, however, do but " nudie up a single nature." The mind is the directing principle, and has its seat in the heart. " All the rest of the soul disseminated through- out the body obeys and moves at the beck and muve- meut of the mind." SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 53 '•The mind has more to do with holding the fast- nesses of life, and has more sovereign sway over it, than the power of the soul. For without the under- standing and the mind, no part of the soul can main- tain itself in the frame for the smallest fraction of time. The mind alone, itself, knows for itself, and rejoices for ilself, at times when ,he impression does not move cither the soul or the body together with it. But when the mind is excited by some vehement apprehension, we see the whole soul feel in unison through the limbs; the eheeks turn pale, the skin sweats, and often the whole body faints away." It will thus be seen that Lucretius, though he does not seem to have elaborated his entire conception of the matter into perfect clearness, conceives of the vital principle as a kind of ether, pervading the body, with a nucleus of a special and peculiar sensitiveness, which had its special seat in the breast. This nucleus was extremely sensitive to any appulse from without; it was capable also of spontaneous movement. Its move- ments, when not violent, it could conline to itself; but if they passed a certain limit, they at once communi- cated 'themselves to the rest of the ether, and this in its turn affected the parts of the body through which it was diffused. We shall, however, understand the matter better when we have examined more in detail the way in which Lucretius conceives the outer world to reach this ether, and produce in it the sensation of consciousness. SECTION VI. LrCRETlUS's THEORY OF VISION. We have seen clearly that Lucretius reduces all the senses to modes of toucli. Taste, smell, and sound 54 L UCRETIUS. are touches more or less violent of particles of matter, driven in various ways against our bodies, and pene- trating in various places into them. We have seen also in what a perpetual war and turmoil he conceives all material things to be; so that it is impossible for us to move anywhere, or in any direction, without walking. as it were, through a cloud of dust, that beats perpet- ually on us from every side. Sounds, smells, and tastes are therefore ever beating on us. and finding their way into us, each at its appointed door. This is easy enough to comprehend. That vision is produced in an exactly similar way, may not at first be comprehended quite so easily. Such, however, is the theory of Lucretius. Just as smells stream ofif some bodies, and tastes off others, or as from some smells and tastes stream off together, so from all bodies alike there is yet another kind of emanation that is per- petually proceeding. Nothing visible exists that is not perpetually shedding off from its surface a picture or image of itself. Such pictures " are like films, and may each be named a rind." These films are perpetually being shot forward, in every direction, following one after another with extraordinary rapidity, each film being a complete picture in itself, and inflicting a separate blow on any object in its way. They are of extreme thinness and fineness of texture, and as soon as ever they touch any rough substance, such as stone or wood, they are instantly dashed to pieces. This is the reason why such substances are opaque. There are other substances, such as glass, whose vacant spaces are of such a shape that the films can pass unbroken through them; and this is the reason why such substances are transparent. There are, again, other substances at once very smooth and very hard, such as mirrors, through which the filmg SCIEMIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 55 cannot pass, and which yet cannot break them up and destroy tliem. By a sort of a rebound, therefore, they are sent back again. This is the explanation of the phenomenon of reflection. As to the laws by which these films move, there seems to have been some confusion in the mind of Lucretius. The obvious fact that we cannot see round corners, must have led him to conceive of their general move- ment being only m a straight line; and he had studied the matter with sufficient accuracy to show him that "nature," as he expresses it, "constrains all things, when they are carried back and recoil from things, to be given back at angles equal to that at which they impinged." But, in spite of this, he imagines there are certain films that wander about in tortuous courses, ap- liarently under the control of no law, straying far away from the objects from which they originally proceeded; and other films, he imagines, which have no correspond- ing objects at all, and which have not emanated from the surface of anything. The movement of all these films is extremely rapid, as one may prove in a moment by observing how, " as soon as the brightness of water is set down in the open air, if the heaven is starry, in a moment the clear radiant constellations of ether imaged in the water correspond to those in heaven." It is the breaking of these films against the eye that produce vision. They are driven against it one after another, packed together as though they were the pages of a picture-book. Did they merely come one at a time, they are so fine that no one could see them; but when '* thrown off constantly and repeat- edly, they yield a visible image." As to the structure of the eye, and the way these films are received by it, Lucretius says nothing. He 56 LrcRi:Tirs. treats the eye as he treats the palate. The two organs each suflicienlly explain and illustrate the other. As it is the nature of the one to taste, it is the nature of the other to see. Between, however, what the eyes really show us. and whit we may fancy they show us, he distinguishes with an accuracy and acuteness that in later tiirn s the worlil was long in recovering. Tli^ ^. he says, do not see distanc(\ All tliey show us aiv cntain shnpes and colors, as though they were all jiainted on a tlat >heet (tf paper, and thus without solidity. Tlie perception of distance is an act not of sight but of unconscious inference. It is produced in this way. Every film, as it is , ■brushes the e\'^s as it enters tliem. and srt |>:i>ses through. The consequence is, that we see how far disiant each thing is. And the greater the (luantity of air that is driven on before it, and the larger the current that brushes our tyes. the more distant each different thing is seen to be." Nor must \vc wonder that we only sec a single object when the sight of it is produced by a continuous number of films striking our eyes. "For thus when wind too beats us with successive stroke-, and when piercing cold streams, we are not wont to feel eacii single particle of the wind or cold, but rather the whole result; and then we perceive blows take effect upon our body, just as if something or other were beating it, and giving us a sensation of its body out- side." We shall realize this whole theory more vividly if we examine the wav in which Lucretius uses it to explain SCIENTIFIC i>YSTEM OF LVCRETICS. O i the pbenomeua of reflection, and in especial the reason ^vhy we seem to see objects iiuide mirrors or reflecting surfaces. "The case," he says, "is really merely the same as when we see things in their reality beyond a door." That vision, as will be plain enough, is caused by two separate airs, the air inside the doorway and the air outside it. Supposing there is a doorway twenty feet from us, and through the doorway we see a man standing twenty feet beyond it. The films, or images of the doorway, and the leaves of the door, carry to our eyes in reaching us the intervening air that is withm the room; and from the volume of that, we infer mstinc- tively that the doorway is at its actual distance from us. The films, or images of t?lie man beyond the doorway, carry to our eyes also a similar amount of the air that is within the room; but. in addition to this, they carry also an equal amount of the air from out of doors, and from this we infer instinctively that the man is at as great a distance from the door as the door is from ourselves. In the same way, two airs of different volume make us sen reflected objects as though they were inside the surface that reflects them. It happens thus: Suppose a mirror to be twenty feet from us, the image of the mirror car- ries an air to our eyes, from the volume of which we at once infer the distance. The instant after we have felt this air. our pupil receives the image. We see the mir- ror, and we know how far off it is. Meanwhile an image of ourselves has been carried to the surface of the mirror, and in another instant rebounds back again to ourselves, and is received by the eyes. The image carries with it. as the image of the mirror did, another air and an air of exactly the same volume, which fol- lows the former air so closely, that the sensations pro- duced by the two are practically united ; and our first 58 L UCRETIUS. inference that the mirror was twenty feet from us. is Bupplemented now by the inference that our own form reflected in it is forty feet from us,— in otlier words, that it is as far inside the mirror as we are outside it. " And now," says Lucretius, " to explain the other phenomena of reflection. The right side of our bodies is seen in mirrors to be on the left, because when the image comes and strikes on the plane of the mirror, it is not turned back unaltered, but is beaten out in a right line backwards, just as if you were to take a plaster mask before it is dry and dash it over a pillar or beam, and it forthwith were to preserve the lines of its features imdis- turbed in front, and were to strike out an exact copy of itself straight backwards. The result will be, that the eye which was right will now be left, and conversely the left become the right. An image may also be so transmitted from one mirror to another that five or six images are often produced. And thus all the things that bask in the dimmest corners of a house may yet all be brought out through winding passages by the aid of a number of mirrors, so unfailingly does the image reflect itself from mirror to mirror; and when the left side is reflected it be- comes the right side in the new image; then it ia changed back again, and turns round to what it was. Moreover, all mirrors which form little sides possessing a curvature resembling our sides, send back to us images with their right, corresponding to our right, for one or other of two reasons; either because the image is transmitted from one side to another, and then, after it has been twice struck out, flies to us; or, it may be, because the image, when it has come to the mirror, wheels round, be- cause the curved slope of the mirror teaches it to turn itself as we are turned. Again, you would think images step out and put down their feet at the same time with us, and mimic our actions. This happens because, from before whatever part of a mirror you move away, from that part forthwith no images can be reflected, since nature constrains all things, when they are carried back and recoil from things, to be given back as angles equal to those at which they impinged." The sun, Lucretius says, blinds the eyes, because the images of it " are borne Ihrougli the clear air with great downward force from on high, and strike the eyes, and disorder their fasten! ugs." SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LVCUETIUS 59 We can see light things out of the dark because " when the black air first lia.> ti.Un possession of the eyes the light air enters in afterwards, and cleanses the black shadows of the other air; for this is a ^eat deal more nimble and subtle and efficacious." We cannot, however, see dark things out of the light, "because the grosser air of darkness follows behind and quite fills all the openings, and blocks up the passages of the eyes, not letting the images of any things at all be thrown into the eyes to move them." „ , . • When " all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye, this is because " greenish-yellow seeds stream from the man's body, and meet the images of things; and many. too. are mixed up in the eyes." When distant objects look blurred and hazy to us— when square towers, for instance, seem to be round, and to lose all their angles-" this is because, whde the im- ages are borne in through much air. the air by repeated collisions blunts the stroke." In spite however, of these, and many other optical delusions, we must not admit that the eyes can in any way deceive us. The deception is due to another cause A few familiar instances will explain to us the real nature of the case. When we are sailing, the coasts .eem to move away from us. not we from them. The stars, which are really in constant movement ^^em .' -<: watch them on a clear night, to be complete y a rest and acuin it we watch them on a cloudy night, through the cWv ng rack, they seem to he moving far faster than they do But in these cases it is not the eyes that cheat us; it is the mind that makes wrong i-f^^^^^es from the data given by sight. " It is the provmce of the eyes " sajs Lucretius, ■' to observe in what spot soever 60 lA'CUETU >. ligiii iuidc ail ; bill wIr'IIrt llie lighls are still the same or not, aint whether "t is the same shadow w liich was in this spot that is now passing to that, tliis tliu reason of the mind, and only it, has to determine; nor can the eyes know the nature of things." Light and shade— it is this, and this alone, we can be reallv said to .t: - Distance and solidity— in a word, the real figure and the real position of anything — this we do not see, but we infer. And if we could seek for the source of optical delusions, we must seek it only in " the menial suppo^inons which we add of ourselves, taking those tiling. .. seen which the senses do not see. For nothing is harder than to separate manifest facts from doubtful, which the mind straightway adds on of itself." SECTION VII. THE MIXD AXD SENSE. Closely connected with his theory of vision is Lu- cretius's explanation of the chief phenomena of the mind, and especially the will and tiie imagination. Images of things, as we have seen, he conceives to be wandering about everywhere; and these, as has been observed before, are of various kinds. Those we have been just considering are apparently conceived of as dis- charged exclusively in straight lines, and gradually dis- solving after they have travelled a certain distance. But besides these, there are others of " a far thinner texture than those that take possession of the eyes.* Of such thin images the air is full. They are floating hither and thither in incalculable courses; and when they meet, they continually get entangled with each other, "like cobwebs, or i)ieces of gold-leaf." Hence IJ .i«-.ailJI*J.Jk»i«»aMl*ll>iMttlllll>MllMm ^fcuUiUlute SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 61 they are each made up of countless actual things; but taking each as a whole, it is usually a thing with no ex- isting counterpart. Some of these composite imago? are forms of po.ssible though not of actual things; others of things lli^t are in their very nature impossible, such as centaurs, or satyrs, chima?ras, which are formed from the chance combinations of images of men, and horses, and goats, and other animals. " That this must be so," says Lucretius, "it is easy enough to see. For so far as one result is like another, that which we see with the mind and with the eyes must be produced in a like way. And since I have show^n that we perceive a line, for instance, by means of films or imagest hrown off its surface, you may see that the mind is moved by a pre- cisely similar cause, with only this one difference, that it perceives much thinner images." Here we have the explanation of dreams. In sleep the mind only wakes; and, undisturbed by those thicker images to which the eyes are sensitive, it is beset by wandering multitudes of the thinner kind that has been just described- images, for the most part, probably, fantastic an aiiemiou to (for. be they never so plain, if we do not attend lo them, " it u just the same as if they were far away and distant"), so the mind, unless it pays attention to tluse thin images, cau m our waking moments perceive none of them. When, however, the mmd v. • > , to imagine a certain thing, what happens is this: n iuains its pow- ers to see images of a certain kind; ;ind such images are, according to the Lucreiian theory, ahva; 'out us in mnumerable muhituiles. If we want to imagine a lion, for instance, there are always lion-images in our neighborhood. Our mind need bu; " nd to them, and it will at once see them. This j^ Liie reason why, *'wheu the will has occurred to any one to think of a thing, the mind does on the instant think of that very thing." "And now," says Lucretius. ''Twill explain how it come.s to pass that we are able to step out w hen we please, and how it is given us to move about our limbs, aw\ wliat caus;- is wont to Bend forward the g,r*'a\ load of our Ijody. 1 say that i uf walking first present themselves to our min [. as we suil beture. Then the will arises: for no one wills to do anything' until his mind tias first determine- 1 what it wills. From the v.tv fact that it first determines sucli a thint;, there is an irn i-- of that filing. When, therefore, the mind bestirs itself in sueh a way us to will MJ>jf.±i ^ i-^.af''- -■■' -■ si'lKyriFlC SYSTEM OF LUCRKTIVS. 6^ to walk and step out. it strikes at the same moment the force of the soul, which is spread over the whole body, throughout the limbs and frame; and tliis is easily done, since the whole is held m close union w ilh the mind. Next, the soul in its turn strikes the bxly, and thus the whole mass by degrees is set in motion. Besides this the body becomes rarefied, and the air enters in, in great quantities, througli the opened pores, and is thus distrib- uted into the most minute parts of the body. In this way, then, by liiese two causes artiug iu two different ways, the body after til.- fa>hi. 'u of ships is carried on by sails and wind. Aud herein it need n(»t excite any surjtrise that such very minute bodies cau steer bodies that are so heavy, and turn them about; for wind, though of a fine aud subtle body, can push on a large ship, aud one hand cau direct it to any point you hke." It will be seen from the above passage that the entire theory of Lucretius on these points betrays a certain confusion of thought. Will, he says, arises in the mind on a certain image being presented to the imagination. But lie holds it to be also equally true that each act of imagination must be preceded by will. What is the cause, then, of that initial act? The answer to this question is one of the most curious things in his whole system. Though in treating of the will and the imagination he seems to conceive of the latter as solely the producer of the former, yet in an- other place he fully recognizes the fact that the former is also the producer of the latter; and he ascribes to it, in this capacity, all the altril)utes of absolute and unde- termined freedom. Theluiman will is self-determining; it is the producer of succeeding circumstances: but to a great extent, at least, it is not the product of preceding circumstances. It is a " man's own will." he says, " that makes for each a beginning." And again, " The power has been wrested from tlie Fates, by which we go for- ward whither the will leads e:\(h." Thus eager horses on the race-course cannot leap forward so quickly as the u Lvcimrivs. SCIENTIFIC SY:STEM OF LUCRETIUS. 65 mind desires. Here the that cause is the mind. It is from the miud that the motion is transmitted through the body. Such cases as these are plainly quite distinct from those in which we are propelled onwards by a blow from without. '*For do you not perceive," he says, "that though in this case there is an out- ward force that pushes men on, there is yet some- thing in our breast sutticienl to struggle against and resist it? And when this something chooses, the store of matter is impelled sometimes to change its course through the frame, and after it lias been forced forward is reined in." Hence, Lucretius argues, it is evident that all "motion cannot be linked together, nor a new motion alw;i\ s sjiring from another in fixed order." The mind is atomic, and therefore this free- dom of the mind is the result of a certain freedom from conditions in atomic movement. *• Tliere must, besides blous and weights, be another cause of motion, from which thi^ power of free action has been begotten in us." This cause is none other than that tendency of the atoms, ^^ hich in the very beginning he was obliged to postulate, to deflect continually a little, here and there, from their downward course; without which, as we have seen, they would never have jostled against each other, but would have gone on falling to all eter- nity in parallel lines, and at their original distances. It certainly seems at first sight that, according to Uieoi-y, not the mind only would be delivered fr»m natural law, but that there would be no uniformity iii nature anywhere. And Lucretius aowliere oilers any direct exi>lauation of this ditikulty. It seems not im- probalile, however, that could we get to the bottom of his conception, we should find that, the mind being ac- cording to him the subtlest and most mobile of all ma- . • terial things, the atoms composing it were able to re- tain the whole of their original freedom; whilst in the case of all other substances, it had been overcome by their weight and their coarser texture. SECTION VIII. THE MORTALITY OP MIND AND SOUL. We have seen how closely mind and soul are in the Lucretian theory connected with the body. From this theory Lucretius deduces further, that mind and soul cannot live as soon as that connection is severed. The vital principle is not the body, but it is held by tlie body, and it grows and changes with the body's capaci- ties for holding it. Under some of its aspects, though he never says as much, Lucretius seems to have con- ceived of this principle as a kind of subtle and power- ful secretion of the body,— a sort of potent gas or ether, generated by the flesh and blood, and reacting on it. The following are the various arguments by which he seeks to demonstrate that, if the mind and soul are essential to the life of the body, the body is also essen- tial to the life of mind and soul, and that all conse- quently perish and are dissolved together. In the first place, mind and soul being, as has been shown, made up of the smallest atoms, tliey will be spilt abroad as water is when the body — the vessel that contains them — is broken. Also, we see mind makes it first appear- ance when the body does; it grows with the body, it •declines with the body, and therefore, according to all analogy, it will perish with it. The mind is subject to pain as the body is; therefore, according to all analogy, It will ha subject to death also. Diseases of the body, drink, and other excesses, disorder the mind, and the w L UCBETIUS. mi ml is often healed by ivieaicine as the body is. Here is auotlier symptom nf ilie mind's mortality. Further, we see men die piecemeal— the vital soul leaviug the limbs one by one. Were the soul immor- tal, it would mass itself iu the unaffected parts. Tlds. however, it evidently does not do; for, if it did, such parts would manifest a greater amount of sense. The mind has its seat in a particular part of a man's body, just as hearing has its seat iu the car. But if the car be cut off, it mortifies; aod so, in like manner, when the body goes will the mind decay. At death, if the mind was immortal, " it would not so much complain of dissolution as of getting ri.l of its vesture, like a snake, or of being turncM (.ut of doors." Again, if the soul be immortal, "and can feel when separated from the body, we must suppose if to be pro- vided with live senses. But neither . , nor nose, nor hand, nor tongue, nor ears, can exi^ for the >nul by themselves, or perceive anything apart from the body." Here is another fact to notice. Men in various ways —in fighting, for instance— lose their limbs, and go on with their occupation, if violently excited, without i)er- ceiving their loss. Meanwhile the limbs lie on the grountl quivering. Because they quiver, it is evident that they retain something in them of vital principle. But it is impossible to think that in each piece there is remaining an entire soul, for in that case a man would have many souls. The soul or vital principle has there- fore been cut up and divided; but that which can be cut up cannot be immortal. Again, if the soul is iumiortal, and comes into our body at birth, as some hold it does, why cannot we re- member its former existence? If between our two ex- istences there has been such a break of consciousness, i SCIhWTIFJO SrsiEM OF LITRETIVS. 67 this is equal to death, and in no sense can the two ex- istences be called the same. So we must admit that the soul which was before has perished. Again, if the mind were wailing ready-made to join our bodies at the instant of birth, it would not be dis- persed, as it is, overall the body, "so that even our very teeth seem to have life in them, but it would be in a den apart by itself." Or if, on the other hand, it oozes in from without, and so blends itself with all the limbs in that way, much more wall it be mortal; for, says Lucretius, whatever oozes iu through another thing is dissolved and therefore dies." Again, we observe that living creatures, such as w^orms, spring out of dead bodies. It is plain from this that fragments of the soul are left in the body after death, therefore the soul is not immortal. For it is im- possible to believe that these worms have each of them a separate and newly-made soul, that builds for itself a place to dwell in. We must consider this also. The character of the various species of animals could not remain constant as it does, if ready-made souls could at random find their way into bodies. Some meet this by saying that souls are altered by the bodies they live in. But this, says Lucretius, is false, for this reason, "that whatever is changed is dissolved, and therefore dies." But if men say that human souls always cling to human bodies, and so on, " how is it that a soul can change from wise to foolish, and that a child has no discretion?" Men will say that a soul grows weakly in a weakly body. But even if this be so, it must, from this very fact, be all the more admitted that the soul is mortal, since "changed so completely through the frame, it loses its former life and sense " 68 ( -' - • 1,/^. LVCnETIV>. Q wbat can be more ri.liculous than the picture rwi ^.vi:! have to present to itself if it con- ; gep'iraie existences, before their , arc prfn'ir''l t-. receive them, than a 1 • r rr.Tvflu)^ It each br.'ly as soon as it 1 „,. ..... aigglingteir'-r ndnu^.ion into it? ,,,;i!v,iiK-analogyofaUnat. hat nothing can live hut in iH own c-'pecitil r-k^rnent, or surrounded l',^. j^^ „,,,., .,.- ,.,..1 roTHlitions. Trees cannot live in the ,'' - ,,r ii~.. .w ;. . . , •■ <"*i" ^^'f ^^^ hhMy<\ in stones. • in ake mariner ihe'nature of i;utia cannot come iiUo being alotie without boily. nor exist fur away from the fcinews and blood." SECTION IX. THE IMPERFECTION AND MORTALITY OF THE OflVKRSE. Such then, is the Liicrctian conception of the uni- verse of niiud and matter, or rather of matter organic and inorganic, animate and iuuninuite— the joint work of chance and of necessity, without purpose% without a mind to guide it. , • • Even without anv scientific knowledge of the origin „f thin" - T.ucretius. the manifold and manifest defects m uii. univrr.e would at once make it ch-ar to us thai it was the work of no divine creator. Much of the eaith. for instance, is wastefully occupied by mountains an ■ ' • ' and seas. Extremes of climate make nianv reuiuu:. unfit for human habitation. ^ hat- ever of the land is left f.)r tillage, only yields its fruit grudginclv. when compelled by incessant toil and labor. And theii. even when the fruits of the earth have sprung up. heat and storm and frost often cast them down untimely. Much of the earth is also infested by • V • •t W " SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS, G9 wild beasts, whose existence can fidfil no possible end. Children, too — the 3'oung of the noblest and chief of living creatures — nre born miserable, wailing, and help- less; while the young of the lower animals grow up without any of the care that is needed by us, and na- ture yields to them all their food ungrudgingly. What the beginning of this universe was we have already seen. As it is clear that it had a beginning, 80, says Lucretius, it is equally clear that it will also have an end. Everything, in his eye, points to this conclusion. Fire, water, earth, and air, " out of which this sum of things is seen to be formed, do all consist of a body that had a birth, and is mortal. The whole world, therefore, must be reckoned of a like body. I see that the chiefest members and parts of the world are begotten and destroyed anew; I may accordingly be sure that for heaven and earth as well there has been a time of beginning, and there will be a time of destruc- tion." Let us consider the four elements separately. Earth is visibly mortal, because it is broken by the tread of men into dust, which is carried off by the winds; and water also eats away and dissolves it. Water is visibly mortal, because, though seas and rivers are al- ways full, they are yet always losing their waters by- evaporation, and also by absorption into the eartli. Air is visibly mortal, because "it is changed over its whole body every hour, in countless ways. For whatever ebhs from things, is always borne into the great sea of air; and unless it in return were ever in many places ceasing to be air, and were also in re- turn giving back bodies to things, all things would now have been dissolved and changed into air." The same, too, is the case with light and fire, which is for ever being supplied, and for ever wasted. All jjBa^liiihiitWfiidMiii itf Ml I sif'Trr XTTvn ♦ w tq tttm htp t irn r> vvrTrc »»< 70 Ln'nHT[r\ lumiuous things, the sun and the stars in heaven and the lamps andlires of earth, are ahv.ys losing tlK-ir sub- stance by each fresh emission of light, and are conse- quently being recruited from some otlicr element. Nor is imy substance so solid that it does not waste away. Stone towers gradually waste and crunible. Rocks tumble off the tops of mouiiiaiii«^. Even iron and brass are corroded, and gra. a- we have seen, a kind of azure bul)ble, with the earth in the middle of it. It is one only of an inluiite numl)er of similar worlds, which are all for ever falling downwards through the infinite void. It must l)e possible, there- fore, according to the Lucretian theory, that between two or more universes there may at any moment be a collision. It is, however, to causes from within that Lucretius seems chiefly to look for the final dissolution of things. Nor does he seem to tliink tliat tliis dissolution is an event that promises to be very distant. lb' conceives the world to have taken not many cut mi. > in bringing itself to its present condition; and he bases this opinion m 'SHS!!KfPPf!P?"W^^^^^^^^^^ iy all. and amassed l»y some. Thus a new factor, a new ])ovver, was introduced into life — the source of half life's ])resent mi.?ery. Kiches— a false aim— had now ari>en to lure men on; and the possession of riches now gave more power than the possession of intellect. Thus all things were turned upside down— the criterion of personal merit, and the general idea of what is happy or desiraljle in life. Two things now remain for us to consider— the rise of language, and the rise of religion, both of which were wanting to the earliest races of men. As to language Lueretiu';. the popular notion that it was invented by some particular man, who ut a certain time invented a name for evirv thine:, is nothine: but sheer folly. For "why," he asks, "should this particular man be able to denote all things by words, and to utter the various sounds of the tongue, and yet at the same time others be supposed not to have been able to do so? Again, if others, as well as he, had not made use of words amongst themselves, whence was implanted in this man the previous conception of its use? or IW}^ C<^"^d one man constrain qnd force many BCIENTTFTC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 75 to learn the names of things, or, when learnt, to use them?" Far from having been taught in this way, language shaped itself slowly, and in the most ordinary course of nature. "Nature impelled men to alter the various sounds of the tongue, and use struck out the names of things, much in the same way as the inability to speak is seen to drive some children to the use of gestures, when it forces them to point with the finger at the things that are before them." Nor is there any- thing strange in this, " since dumb brutes," says Lucre- tius, "and wild beasts, are accustomed to give forth distinct and varied sounds, when they have fears and pains, and when joys are rife." Thus dogs give quite distinct barks, when enraged, or when feeding their whelps, or when giving an alarm at the approach of thieves. The same is the case, too, with all other animals. "Therefore, if different sensations compel creatures, dumb though they be, to utter different sounds, how much more natural is it that men in those times should have been able to denote dissimilar things by many different words? Whilst as for music and poetry, and every kind of musical modulation, this they learnt from the birds; "whilst the whistlings of the zephyrs through the hollow reeds first taught peas- ants to blow into hollow stalks." And now, in conclusion, let us see what the Lucre- tian account is of the rise of religion. Man at first, as has been observed already, he says explicitly, had no trace of it. Modern theorists seek its origin in the wonder of early man at the phenomena of nature, and lirst amongst these, at the movements and effects of the sun. This, strangely enough. Lucretius seems to anticipate, and contradicts explicitly. "Never," he says, "would the early race of man with loud wailing % LVCnETIUS. call for the dayliglit and the sun, wandering terror- stricken over the lields in the shadows of night, hut silent and burietl m sleep would they wait till the sun with rosy touch had carried light into heaven; for, ac- customed as they had been from childhood always to see darkness and night begotten in succession, never Svould any wonder come over them, nor any misgiving that never-ending night would cover the earth, and the liglit of the sun be witlidrawn for evermore." Reli- gion was the result, Lucretius thinks, of a deliberate and a later-developed kind of reflection,— though he hardly distinguishes this with sufficient clearness from tlie sort of wonder he here denies man to have ex- perienced. In time, he says, men observing that the system of heaven and tlie seasons came round in regular succession, tried and failed to find out by what causes this was brought about; and at length were compelled to postulate tlie existence of gods, to whose action these phenomena were to be attributed. But besides this, religion had another origin yet. "Men would see in waking mind glorious forms, and they would see them in sleep of yet more marvellous size of body. To these then they would attribute sense, because they seemed to move their limbs and to utter lofty words suitable to their glorious aspect and surpassing powers. And they would give them life everlasting, because their face would ever appear before them, and their form abide; and because they could not believe that beings possessed of such powers would lightly be overcome by any force; and they would be pre-eminent in bliss, because none of them was ever troubled with the fear of death, and because at the same time, in sleep, they would see them per- SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF LUCRETIUS. 77 form many miracles, yet feel, ou their part, no fatigue from the effort." The meaning of this singular passage will be ex- plained if we remember the theory of wandering films, or images, which has been described already, and will lead us up to Lucretius's theology, with which we may fitly close our account of his scientific system. The glorious forms just alluded to are nothing but wandering films,— some of the finer sort, only per- ceived by the mind; some of the coarser sort, that excite vision. What, then, was their origin? They are not things that have no such counterpart. They have been thrown off by actual bodies. But by what bodies? By the bodies of a certain race of beings which, with a certain amount of fitness, may be called gods, as being superior in happiness and in beauty to ourselves, but who have no care or power over us or over the universe; and who are just as much a product of the collision of atoms as it or we. These beings dwell in the spaces between the various worlds or universes,— though how they can breathe there, or what they can rest on, or sub- Bist on, or do to promote their supposed enjoyment, or what shape the world can be that they inhabit, Lucretius does not tell us. There, however, he suffers them to exist,— a gratuitous superstition it must seem to us— a surviving rudiment of a former system, answering no purpose in his own, and only introducing into it in- congruity and difficulty. And not only does he suffer these gods to exist, but some of the films thrown off by their bodies to wander hither into this world of ours, and to delude those that see them into supposing them to be the actual personal presence of powers that guide and have formed the universe. We have now ended our survey of the scientific 78 L UCRETTUS. system that Lucretius wished to expound, and to en- force upon the world. We will now go on to take a survey of the poem itself, which he thought the fittest form in which to embody it; and we shall then see not only how" he handled in verse a thing so refractory as his main subject, but what were the sort of uses lie designed the exphination of it to subserve, and his views of that human life and nature which he w^as so anxious that his discoveries should illuminate. CHAPTER IV. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. " Ay, but I meant not thee ; I meant not her, Whom ail the i)ines of Itla shook to see Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad; Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept Her Deity false in human -amorous tears; Nor whom her beardless apple-nrbiter Decided fairest. Rather. O ye Gods, Poet -like, as the i?reat Sicilian called Callioi>e to jrrace his polden verse- Ay. and this Kypris also--did I take That popiilai- name of thine to shadow forth The all-f^eneratiii;,' jt.nvers and penial heat Of Natiu-e. when she strikes througrh the thick blood Of cattle, and lipht is large. an herds feel thee; and the wild fleet races Bound oVr the fields, that smile in the bright weather, And swim the streaming floods in fordless places, Led by thy chain, and captive in thy tether. At last through seas and hills, thine influence passes, Through field and flood and all the world together. And the birds' leafy homes; and thou dost fire Each to renew his kiml with sweet desire. Wherefore, since thou, O lady, only thou Art she who guides the world upon its way; Nor can aught rise without tliee anyhow Up into ilie clear borders of the day, Neither can aught without thee ever grow Lovely and sweet— to thee, to thee I pray— Aid and be near thy suppliant as he sings Of nature and the secret ways of things." For I have set myself, he goes on, to expound these as best 1 may to my dear friend, the son of the Memmii, 80 LVCRKTWS. TEE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. ei in this very poem; and for ray affection to him, I would have every charm given to my verses. And do thou, my Mem mi us, so far as thou canst in these pres- ent troublous times, give an attentive ear to me, for 1 am going to explain to you tlie whole system of things; and out of wh:it first elements the world, and men, and gods have all alike arisen. I have a teacher— Epicurus-- who has explained all these things to me; and his teachings when first given to men made a new era in their history. " When hiuimii life, a shame to human eyes, Lay sprawling in the mire in fovil estate. A cowfMin^' thing without the strength to rise. Held down by fell Religion's heavy weight— Keligion scowling downward from the skies, With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate- First did a man of Greece presume to raise His brows, and giv»' tlie monster gaze for gaze. Him not tlie tales of all the gods in heaven, Nor the heaven's lightniners, nor the menacing roar Of thunder daunted. He was only driven. By these vain vauntings, to desire the more To burst through Nature's gates, and rive the unriven Bars And he gaine«l th^ day: and, conqueror. His spirit broke beyond our world, and past Its flaming walls, and fathomed all the vast. And back returning, crowned with victory, he Divulged of things the hidden mysteries. Laying quite bare what can and cannot be. How to each force is set strong boundaries. How no power raves unchained, and nought is free. So the times change; and now religion lies Trampled by us; and unto us 'tis given Fearless with level gaze to scan the heaven. Yet fear I lest thou haply deem that thus We sin, and enter wicked ways of reason. Whereas 'gainst all things good and beauteoua 'Tis oft religion does the foulest treason. » ' Has not the tale of Aulis come to us. And those great chiefs who, in the windless season, Bade young Iphianassa's form be laid Upon the altar of the Trivian maid? Soon as the fillet round her virgin hair Fell in its equal lengths down either cheek,— Soon as she saw her father standing there. Sad, by the altar, without power to speak. And at his side the murderous mmister, Hiding the knife, and many a faithful Greek Weeping— her knees grew weak, and with no sound She sank, in speechless terror, on the ground. But naught availed It in that hour accurst To save the maid from such a doom as this, That her lips were the baby lips that first Called the king father with their cries and kiss. For round her came the strong men, and none durst Refuse to do what cruel part was his; So silently they raised her up, and bore her, All quivering, to the deadly shrine before her. And as they bore her, ne'er a golden lyre Rang round her coming with a bridal strain; But in the very season of desire, A stainless maiden, amid bloody stain, She died— ft victim felled by ifs own sire- That so the ships the wishei r..r wind might gain, And air puff out their canvas. Learn Ihou, then, To what damned deeds religion urges men." Yes (Lucretius continues), and you too, Menunius, even you, will some time or other seek to fall away. and cower under the terrors of this false religion. And, indeed, what safeguard have you? How will you steel yourself against the terrors of the priests, who have ever a life to come with which to threaten you, and in which torments everlasting may, as they say be yours? Did you know that death was death indeed, then you might keep a stout heart, and brave b .laftaa. ■ jhulhaiLitayMLkj J'* iHi::Jufe.!.v.>jirfji 8« LVCRETirS. Ihem. But DOXY what do men know of the soul? They know neither its nature nor its origin— neith.-r whence it cjune nor wliilher it is going. How shall they know, then, what may not br in >h.ie for itV What shall we do then? Our only hoi»c* U in this: Let us grasp first the principles of things; let us learn by what laws the stars and the sun move; how tin- earth was formed, and how all things live and grow upon it. And ab(»ve all, let us liud out by reason what the soul and mind consists of. and what an- the laws of those things whenre all our fears arise— imauination. and dreams, and madness. Hard it is in Latin verses to expound the teachiii'js of the Greeks. Our tongue is poor nnd wanting. N<> one lias used it yet to treat such then 'he-e. And yet for your sake, and the [deasure ^ 'ir sweet friendship, I will not be daunted. I wiil essay to do my best. This darkness, then, this terrible darkness, in which the human race is at ])resent cowering, can be di^ pelled. not by any sunlighi, nor the lucid darts of day, but by the aspect and the law of N •• For fear takes hold upon the human breast. When we see many thing's by Nature done. Whereof tlie ways and means are known to none." And accordingly we ascribe these phenomena to the gods. One thing, therefore, at starting. I wiH tell you fii-st— how that nothing can be produced from nothing. And when you are once made certain of that, you shall see clearly how all things can be produced and done without the hand of gods. Lucretius then goes on. in the next two hundred verses, to explain Ihaf n\on^- W things aro BlEJjIlHtiUMllSMiiJJflli'J^af.jVA^ J.'Kr! ■irAKja^jB THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 83 rdoms and void, su{)porting his theory by arguments that have been described alreadv. Atoms and void are both alike eternal. All composite things may pass away, but these remain from everlasting. Nothing can be born from nothing; and nothing, when born, can go back to nothing: " Things seem to die, but die not. The spring showers Die on tli.' txtsmn of the motherly earth, But risf a^'uiii in fruits ami leaves and flowers, And every death is nt)thiug but a birth." Atoms, then, and empty space, he goes on — these, my friends, are all that really is. You can name nothing that is not a property of these, or else an accident: " That is a property which cannot be Disjointed from a thing and separate Witliout the said thing's death. Fluidity Is thus a property of water; weight Is of a stone. Whilst riches, poverty, Slaver\ . fr«»e(loni. concord, war and hate. Which clumge, and not inhere in things of sense, We name not properties, but accidents." The Trojan war, for instance, w^as simply an acci- dent of atoms and empty space; nor, but for these, would it ever have come to pass — " For had things no material substance thus, Nor void to move in. never had the fire Out of the fairest cldld of Tyndarus Lit in the Phrygian's breast the fell desire. And put the torch to war; nor Pergamus Had seen the dumb and lifeless steed draw nigh her, Ont of whose flanks the nu'diiight warriors came, Who ended all, and wrapt the towers in flame." Remember then, I again tell you, that here are the two things that alone really are, infinite space and atoms — %nt LUCRETIUS. atoms indivisible, indestructible, that have endured, and that will endure for ever. Wherefore, they who held fire to be the one substance of things, and the sum to have been formed out of the fire alone, are, of all philosophers, furthest from the truth. Chief of this band is Heraclitus, a declarer of dark sentences, and a Juggler with words. "More famous he with babbling men and vain, Amongst the Greeks, than those that strive to know The truth indeed. For fools are always fain To measure meanings by the gaudy show Of twisted words that hide thera. And a strain That fills their ears with honeyed overflow Of phrase and music, is at once decreed Surely to hold the very truth indeed." Lucretius then goes on to give the reasons why the theory of Heraclitus is untenable, and how it contra- dicts the very premises that he himself starts with. Nor any wiser are those who hold that things have four first beginnings, though some of those who have taught this, have been wise — wise above measure in other ways. "Chief of these Is he of Agrigent, Empedocles. Him in its three-shored bounds that isle of yore Reared, which the wild Ionian water laves, Round curving bays and headlands, evermove Splashing the brine up out of its green waves. Here does the racing sea withhold the shore Of Italy; and here Charybdis raves; And here does rumbling ^tna moan and strain For strength to lighten at the skies again. Fair Is that land, and all mpn hold it fair; Its sons who puanl its soil are fierce and free. And all rich things, and gladsome things are there; Yet nothing ever was there, nor shall be, THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 85 More glorious than this preat philosopher- More holy, marvellous, and dear than he: Yea, and with such a strength his mighty line Shouts through the earth— he seems a voice divine." And yet, says Lucretius, in spite of all this, he has gone astray about the first beginnings of things, as did also Anaxagoras and all the rest, partly from their wrong conceptions of matter, partly because they denied the reality of empty space. And all these faults of theirs he points out in a way that we have already analyzed. And now mark (he goes on) what remains to be known, and hear it more distinctly. For my mind does not fail to perceive how dark these things are; but yet, despite all difficulties— " Yet my heart smarting with desire for praise. Me urges on to siug of themes like these, And that great longing to pour forth my lays Constrains uie, and the loved Pierides, Whose pathless mountain-haunts I now explore, And glades where no man's foot has fallen before. Ah sweet, ah sweet, to approach the untainted springs, And quaff the virgin waters cool and clear, And cull the flowers that have been unknown things To all men heretofore 1 and yet more dear When mine shall be the adventurous hand that brings A crown for mine own brows, from places where The Muse has deigned to grant a crown for none, Save for my favored brows, and mme alone." Kor am I vain, Memmius. in such vaunts as these; for I am struggling to teach great things, and to release the human mind from the fetters of religious fear; and dark as my subject is. my song is clear and lucid, and over the crabbed things I teach, I lay the Muses charm. R6 LCCIiETirs. THE POEM OF L UCRETIUS. 87 And now thus far I have taught you how solid hodies of matter fly about ever unvauquished through all time. I have next another thing to teach you. I must show you there is no limit to the sum of these atoms, and likewise that there is no limit to the space they move in. As to space, I need but ask you, how- can that be bounded? For whatever bounds it, that thing must itself be bounded likewise; and to this bounding thing there must be a bound again, and so on for ever and ever throughout all immensity. Suppose, however, for a moment, all existing space to be bounded, and that a man runs forward to the uttermost borders, and stands upon the last verge of things, and then hurls forward a winged javelin, --suppose you that the dart, when hurled by the vivid force, shall take its way to the point the darter aimed at, or that something will take its stand in the path of its flight, and arrest it? For one or other of these things must happen. There is a dilemma here that you never can escape from. Place your limit of things as far away as it shall please you, I will dog your steps till you have come to the utmost borders, and I will ask you what then becomes of your javelin. Surely you must see what the end of this must be : " The air bounds off the hills, the hills the air; Earth bounds the ocean, ocean bounds the lands; But the unbounded All is everywhere." Lucretius here adds various other proofs of the in- finity of empty space, and the infinite number of the atoms, all of which have been already stated. Such then, he exclaims, again reiterating his teaching — ** Such is the nature then of empty space. The void aboi'e, beneath us, and around. That not the thunderbolt with pauseless pace. Hurtling for ever through the uiiplumbed profound Of time, woiild find an ending to its race, i Or e'er grown nearer to the boundless bound. So huge a room around, beneath, above. Yawns, in which all things being, are and move." The chance to which our world owes itself needed infinite atoms for its production, infinite trials, and infinite failures, before the present combination of tilings arose. •' For blindly, blindly, and without design, Did these first atoms their first meetings try; No ordering thought was there, no will divine To guide them ; but through iufinite time gone by Tossed and tormented they essayed to join, And clashed through the void space tempestuously, Until at last that certain whirl began. Which slowly formed the earth and heaven and man." And now my Memmius, Lucretius goes on, be far from trusting those that say all things press towards the centre, and that there are men beneath the earth, walking with their heads downwards. For the uni- verse l)eing infinite, how can there be any centre to it? And even grant that it had a centre, no heavy body could abide there; for everything that has weight must be for ever and for ever falling, unless some rebound send it upw^ards. Space, then, I have already proved to be infinite; and space being infinite, matter must be infinite also; Jest, after the winged fashion of flame, the walls of the world break up suddenly, and fly along the mighty void, and the heavens fall upon the earth, and the earth break up from beneath the heaven, and the whole great universe in a single moment " Melt and be gone, and nothing take its place But. vieviiess atoms and deserted space," 88 LUCRETICd BOOK II. The second book opeus thus: " 'Tis sweet when tempests roar upon the sea To watch from laud auothers deep distress Amongst the waves-his toil and misery: Not that his sorrow makes our happiness. But tliat vsome s\veetn^-ss rliere must ever be Watching what sorrows we do not possess: So, too. 'tis sweet to safely \'iew from far Gleam oer th'» plain-* the savage ways of war. But sweeter far to look with pui-ged eyes Down from the battlements and topmost towers Of learning, those high bastions of the wise. And far below us see this world of ours. The vain crowds wandering blindly, led by lies, Spending in pride and wrangling all their powers, So'far below— the pigmy toil and strife, The pain and piteous rivah-ies of life. O peoplrs misKriibif. < » luois and blind: What night you cast o'er all the days of man, And in that night before you and behind What perils jtrowl ' But you nor will nor can See that the tretisure of a tranquil mind Is all tliat Nature pleads for, for this span. So that between our birth and grave we gain Some quiet pleasures, and a pause from pain. "Wherefore we see tliat for the body's need A pause from pain almost itself suffices. For only let our life from pain be freed. It oft itself with its own smile entices. And fills our healthy hearts with joys indeed. That leave us small desire for art's devices. Nor do we sigh for more in hours like these. Rich in our wealth of sweet simplicities. 'What though about the halls no silent band Of golden boys on many a pedestal Dangle their hanging lamps from outstretched hand. To tiare along the midnight festival— THE POEM OF LUCRETlVS. 89 [I Though on our board no priceless vessels stand, ' Nor gold nor silver fret the dazzUng wall, Nor does the soft voluptuous air resound From gilded ceilings with the cithern's sound; The grass is ours, and sweeter sounds than these, As down we couch us by the babbling spring, And overhead we hear the branching trees That shade us, whisper; and for food we bring Only the country's simple luxuries. Ah. sweet is this, and sweetest in the spring. When the sun goes through all the balmy hours, And all the green earth's lap is filled with flowers I" These, Memmius, these are this life's true enjoy ments; not the seduciug pleasures given by wealth and- art. Will you get rid of a fever more quickly if you toss under a purple coverlet than under the blanket of a poor raanV Just then as treasures, and high birth, and the pomp of kiugly power, minister nothing to the body's health, push thy thought but a small step further and you will see ihey minister nothmg to the mind also: unless, indeed, you find that looking on the proud array of war, and the strength of obedient Wions, your mind grows and swells with a haughtier strength also, and the scruples of religion are at once scared avvav from it, and the fears of death grow faint as you realize your own power and greatness. But if ^ve*see that to talk like this is folly, and that the fear of death cares nothing for human arms and armies, but that it and all other sorrows stalk menacing and un- abashed through courts and palaces, and flinch nothing at the glitter of gold and purple, how can you doubt but that reason alone can daunt them? For what is all this life of ours? It is a struggle in the dark, and m this dark men are as children. They quake and quiver at tUey know not what, and start aside at objects which U nat.jJj'ju^Mj wadMi. ..-it- jutahv ■ m L UCRETIUS. in the daylight Ihey would only laugh at. Light then. more light, —this is the thing we need for the liberation of man; but it is not outer light, it is the inner light of reason — *' Of reason searching Nature's secret way, And not the sun, nor lucid darts of day." And now mark, and I will explain to you the mo- tions of the bodies of matter: how things are begotten and broken up again, and with wliat speed they go moving through the great void. For verily in move- ment all things about us are perpetually wearing away, perpetually re-begotten. Some nations wax, others wane, and in a brief space the races of living things are changed, and, like runners, hand over the Xamp of life. Here Lucretius goes on to explain more in detail the everlasting motion of the atoms, the way they strike, the way they rebound, and the ways in which they l>e- come intertangled. They move, he says, as the motes move in a sunbeam, which you may see streaming through a dark chamber, and in the apparent void mingle in the light of the rays, and, as in never-ending conflict, skirmish and give battle, combating in troops and never halting, driven about in frequent meetings and partings, so that you may guess from this what it 18 for first beginnings of things to be forever tossing about in the great void. So far as it goes, a small thing may give an illustration of a great thing, and put you on the track of knowledge. Now how swiftly these atoms move, Memmius, you may learn from this: *' When first the morning sprinkles earth with light, And In the forest's lone heart everywhere The birds awaken, and with fluttering flight Four out their flutiugs on the tender air;" THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 91 —at such a time we see how in a moment, in a single moment, the sun, fnr off thoui^h he be, darts his light through the whole creation, and clothes everything with his brightness. But the sUn's rays have to travel through air, and the air retards their course; and there- fore they move slowly when compared with the atoms, which move only througii pure and empty space, and which hurry on and on, not held back by anything. But some, ignorant of the nature of matter, say that Avithout the providence of the gods the world could not have come to be what it has, nor the seasons vary in such nice conformity to the ways of men. Wan- derers they from the true course of reason. For even if I did not know what first beginnings were, I cowld still maintain that the earth and heaven were never the work of any divine intelligence,— so great are the defects with which they stand encumbered. All which, Memmius, I will by-and-by make clear to you; but we will now go on to explain what is yet to be told of motions. Lucretius now goes on to deal with the primary downward tendency of atoms, and to account for the upward courses they take, through blows and rebound- ings, and being squeezed upwards out of solidifying substances. Next he explains that uncertain sideways movement, which is the one respect in which the uni- formity of atomic movement is broken, and which he here proclaims to be the origin, and the only possible origin, of the free-will of living beings. Then he goes on to explain that the laws of maUer have been the same for ever; that it is the nature of matter to be for ever moving; and that though things seem to be now at rest, their atoms are still as unresting as they were at the beginning. Nor need you wonder n lA rui-TlVs. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS 98 at this, lie says; for \v hen niighly legions fill iu llu-ir courses all the places of the plains, in the inimicry of war. the glitter of them lifts itself up to the sky, and the whole earth about glitters with brass, and a noise is made beneath by the trampling of the mighty ones and the mountains smitten by the shouting hurl the voices upward to the stars of licaven, and all the wheel- ing horsemen scour the plains, and make them tremble with the charge: "Yet some place is there in the far-oflf hills Whence all this storm of chargers seems to rest. A still light brooding on the broad plain's breast." Lucretius now goes on to show that the atoms must be of various shapes, the kinds of things produced by them are so different, — fluids, solids and airs, tastes and smells. Were not the seeds of different shapes, and each special substance made of special seeds, how could the species of animals remain alike, and never vary? or how could parent transmit to child that special something by which the two mutually recognize each other? For this we see that even the beasts can do; and they are just as well known to each other as humai* beings are. "Thus oft before our pillared sanctuaries, Whi-n tlie lit altars lift their fragrant blaze, A calf pours forth its warm life's blood, and dies; But she, the mother, in her lone amaze Goes through the fields, and still can recognize Her own one's cloven footfalls in the ways. And looks to find it, and her eyes grow wild With wondering for her unreturning child. Then from her mouth breaks forth the desolate moan Through all the leafy groves, and she gives o'er Her search, only she oft goes back alone To that bleak stall her child shall know no more; Nor tender willows, nor lush grasses grown Sweet with the dew- fall, nor clear streams that pour With brimming lips their waves along the plain, Can tempt her mouth, nor ease her breast of pain." Bemember then, says Lucretius, that the atoms have various shapes; but the number of such shapes is finite, though of atoms of each shape the number must be infinite: for since the difference of shape is finite, those Which are like are infinite, or the sum of matter will be finite. All this he draws out at length, urgmg all the arcruments that have been described already. And thus, he says, out of infinite matter, and through infinite space, things as they are continue, for ever being destroyed and for ever again renewed ; nor can death-dealing motions keep the mastery always, nor entomb existence for evermore, nor. on the other hand, can the birth and increase-giving motions of things pre- serve them always after they are born. " Thus from the depths of all eternity The unwearying atoms wage a dubious war; And now with surging life doth victory lie, And now anon is death the conqueror; And with the funeral wail, the baby's cry Blends, as it opes its eyes on daylight's shore: Nor ever morning broke that failed to hear ^ The infant's bleatings and the mourner's tear. And herein, Memmius, it is most fit you should re- member that there is nothing that is known by sense Tarconsists of one kind of seed; all is formed by a mixture of divers atoms. And when a thing has mat.y properties, you must know it is a compound of seeds of many Bhapes. Such a compound is the great earth we Tve on for her properties, as we can all see, are many^ For she brings forth fires, and the great seas and Trops and joyous trees, and the bodies of livmg th.ngs, -, ^W>f ?-*ttat-^»f jLlL'flJIto J.. .JA uh . t JIU*uii :553ii3 ■g^-B 94 I LUCRETIUS. THE POEM OF LUCRE! lUS. 95 Wherefore, of gods, and men, and beasts, she ;.1 --r^ has been named the mother. Of her the Greek nou. ...a- that borne on her towering chariot, she comes (h ivim^ a yoke of lions. They have yoked to Iier car the hea.ts° to show that nature, howev, r ^avacrc. sliould be sofr' ened f)y the care of parents. Thev have crowned her head with a mural crown, l>ecanse, fortified in strong positions, she sustains eities. Phrygian har-ds esc<.n her. for in Phrygia tlie story is that the first co,„ ^rew and Galli, too. are her guardians, to show that^hey who have done violence to the divinity of the mother are unworthy to bring a living offspring to the daylight! "The tig:ht stretched timhrel<; fhundor roinul her way The sounding cy ni bals clash, and crv Prepare : ' The threatening,' horns with tir.arser music bray, And hollow pipes are loud upon the air; And swonls are l.orne before her. .sharp to slay- Emblems of rape to thankless smd.s that dare Negrlect the Que*^n: til] holv f...'ir has birth Of the great 3rother over all the rarth. Therefore when first she slowly comes progressing Through mi?hty cities, and with soundless tonr and her train there falls A snowstorm of soft-setthng rose-petals." But all tliiB escort and proirress are onlv svmholism It IS heantifnlly told and well .set forth, bnt; it is very far removed from tru^. n. For the natnre of the gods must enjoy supreme repose, and know neither care or labor; for no pain mars it. nor cm au-d.t we do appease it or make it amrry. Aud if anv one'choose to call the sea Neptune, and corn Ceres, and would rather use the word Bacchus tlian the word wine, let us suffer him to say in this sense tliat the earth is mother of gods, if he only foriiears in earnest to sully his soul with the stain of foul religion. " For all this while the earth is blind and dumb, It neither knows, nor thinks, nor hears, nor feels. But blindly in it various seeds unite, And blindly these break forth, and reach the light." But though all things, Lucretius goes on, are composed of many seeds, it is evident that these combinations fol- low some laws, and only certain set combinations are possible by the nature of things. The uniformity of nature shows us this; and you may learn it, too, from considering what the atoms are themselves. You must know, too, that first beginnings have themselves no sensible qualities. In especial, you must remember that they are without color. Lucretius gives many rea- sons for this,— more particularly, that color cannot exist witliout light, and that it varies according to what w^ay the light falls upon it. "After this fashion does the ringdove's down Change in the sun, and shift its plumy sheen; Now all a poppy's dark vermilion, Now coral, glimmering over emerald green. So too the peacock, saturate with sun O'er all its sweep of trailing tail, is seen To quiver in the liixht with \arying dyes. And all the hues iucuustant iu its eyes." And now Lucretius goes on with his reasons why atoms cannot have either voice, or smell, or sense, or any sensible qualities whatsoever. Life has arisen out of the lifeless, :.s we see even now worms arising out of clods, though .n the case of the higher animals the life- less matter has to go through many stages; and only through special combinations of circumstances can it wSbiii 96 L UCRKTIVS. t'o ' ^ at last break forth into life and consciousness. But if any one sliall say that sense may be so far begotten out of no sensation, by a process of change, or by a kind of birth, all we have to show to such a man is, that this change and birth can only happen in obedience to fixed laws, and under fixed conditions. Above all, the senses cannot exist in any body, till the living nature of that body has been begotten; for till then, the atoms that will make up the principles of life and feeling are wandering far and wide— in air and earth, in flowers and trees and rivers. Common-sense will tell you that all this must be so. For did the atoms live, what then? Think of the picture you would have to form of them. *• Sure, had they life, these seeds of things, why then Each separate particle would laugh and ciy By its small self, and speculate like men— ' What were ray own first seeds, and whence am I?' " Wherefore be assured, Memmius, that we have all arisen out of lifeless things— "And leara That what of us was taken from the dust Will surely one day to the dust return ; And what the air has lent us, heaven will bear Away, and render back its own to air." For death is not an extinction of matter,— it is a change and a dissolution only. The atoms are like the letters of an alphabet, for ever shifting their places, and clus- tering into new words, and these words again cluster- ing into new verses. And now. we entreat you, apply your mind to reason. For a new matter struggles earnestly to gain your ears; and remember this, that the simplest thing, if new, is at first hard to be realized; and the hardest thing grows easy when we have known it long enough. 4 I « I \U^ THE POK}f OF LUCRETIUS 97 P ipU' '* Lift up your eyes, consider the blue sky, And all the multitudes oH wandeiing sigus It holds within its hollows; mark on high How shines the sun, and how the clear moon shines. Supposing this great vision suildenly Broke on the gaze of man, my soul divines That to the astonished nations it would seem A mist, a fancy, a desire, a dream." And yet how little, it is so familiar, do we now heed it! Wonder not, therefore, if I lead your spirit on a further and a more adventurous voyage, and carry you past the w^alls of heaven and the bounding blue, and show you what is there, far yonder, in the bottomless unplumbed depths, to which the spirit ever yearns to look forward, and to which the mind's inner self reaches in free and unhindered flight. There then, in the space beyond, where the atoms are for ever flying, are other worlds than ours, woven as ours was out of flying atoms, and the blind clash of them. Our uni- verse is but one out of a countless number. As a man is but one amongst many men, so is our universe but one amongst many universes. And through all these runs a single law. They have risen in the same way, they are sustained in the same way; nnd in the same way, and by a like necessity, they will all one day pei^ ish. Do but realize this, and the whole scheme or things will grow clearer to you, and you will see how — '* Rid of her haughty masters, straight with ease Does nature work, and willingly sustains Her frame, and asks no aid of deities. For of those holy gods who haunts the plains Of Ether, and for aye abide in Deace, I ask, could such as they aw hold the reiua Of all the worlds, or in their courses keep The forces of the immeasurable deep? H^WWRffiSfSSS-' i^ LUCRETIUS. Whose are the hands could make the stars to roll Through all their courses, and the fruitful clod Foster the while with sunlight, always whole, A naultiplied but undivided god; And strike with bellowing thunders from the pole, Now his own temples, now the unbend -ng sod; And now in deserts those vain lightnings try That strike the pure, and pass the guilty by?" Aud this too, Memniius, you must know as well. Each of these countless universes has growu from small (o greater, and the bulk of them hiis been added to by seeds dropped down upon them out of the boundless space; and, in like manner, they are diminished and divided, for their seeds get loose, aud the boundless space receives them back again. And us plants and animals are born, increase in stature and in strength, and then wax old and die, so is it with the worids also. And this world of ours, as many a sign shows us, is now well stricken in years, and the time of its dissolution is drawing nigh. With each return of its reasons its strength gets more feeble. Once goodly crops and grasses sprang from the teeming soil without labor. Now, labor as we will, but a scant reward is. yielded. And now the aged ploughman shakes his Iiead, and sighs to think of the earth's exuberance in the days when he was young. Aud tl*e sorrowful planter com- plains of his shrivelled vines, and wearies heaven with liis prayers, and comprehends not that all things .are gradually wasting away, m\d passing to tlie grave, quite worn out by age and length of days. BOOK III. Lucretius opens this book with an invocation to Epicurus, his revered master f » - t THE POEM OF L UCRETIUS. " Thou who wert first in drowning depths of night To lift aloft so clear a lamp, whose rays Strike along life, and put the shades to flight— Thee, thee, chief glory of the Grecian race, I strive to follow, humbly and aright. And my feet in thy very footprints place; Not that thy rival I would dare to be, But that I love, and loving follow thee. Thy rivar : Nay: can swallows rival swans? Or thunder-footed steeds competitors Find 'mongst the she-goat's gamb'ling little ones? Oh, first aud best of all discoverers. We are but bees along the flowery lawns, Who rifle for our food thy fields of verse, Aad on thy golden maxims pause and prey— All-gold, and worthy to endure for aye. For lo! no sooner does thy powerful line Loud through the world the scheme of Nature sing, Than the mind hears, and at that note of thine Its flocks of phantom terrors take to wing. The world's walls roll apart, and I divine With opened eyes the ways of everything. And how through Nature's void immensity Things were not, were, and are, and cease to b«. And lo: the gods appear, the immortal races, Visible in the lucent windless air That fills their quiet blest abiding-places, Wliieh never noisy storm nor storm-clouds dare To trouble, where the frost's tooth leaves no traces, And downwards no white falhng snowflakes fare, But on their lips the laughters never cease, Nor want nor pain invades their ageless peace. But on the other hand we search in vain. For those swart forms, the fearful deities Of Hell. Our vision roams the whole inane, But aught like Acheron it nowhere sees. And I, when I to this high view attain. Feel on my soul a maddening rapture seize, Aud next a trembling, that thy hand should dare Thus to the quick to lay all Nature bare " 99 100 LUCBETIUS. TEE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 101 Aud now, says Lucretius, since I have shown wliat atoms are, their number, their shape, and tlieir nioiions, and how all things can be produced out of ihcni. I will next reveal the nature of the mitid and soul, that Ihe dream of Acheron may be once anti all dispelled, which at present troubles life to its inmost depth, casts a chill aud deathly shade over our whole existence, liiid leaves a taint and a bilteriies> in cvny pleasure. True it is that we often hear men vaiiui liial they have no fear of deatb, and that the ills and haniships of life arc all they really tlineh from. But thes<- are merely boasters. Bring them into any trouble* or danger, and you will see liow they betake theni>elves to their knees, whining to their gods, and forgetful of all their bravery. Such fearless tirmness as tiiese men feigu to have, can Ije given only by knowledge and calm reason. Listen to me, then, aud 1 will lead you to it: "First, then. I say the mind, which often we Call also understanding, wherein dwells The power that rules our whole vitality, Is part of man, as is wliatever else Goes to make up his frame, as hands, feet, knees; Nor is it, us a foolish Greek school tells, A harmony of all the men-! i>read As health is, t-very wliere from teet to head." But it resides in one particidar i)lace, just as sight, hearing, and smell do. Lucretius here goes on in detail to explain the nature of the mind, how it is connected with the vital soul, and how the two are connected w iili the body, how they govern it aud are contained by it, how the former is seated in the heart, and how the latter pervades the whole frame. He then describes how the mind touches the soul and moves it, and liow the soul in its turn touches the bodv; and from this he * 1 * • t • argues that they must of necessity be corporeal, fof where there is no corporeality, there is no touch. With first beginnings, then, he says, interlaced from their earliest birth, are mind aud body fashioned, and gifted with a life of joint partnership; and it is plain that the faculty of the body and of the mind cannot feel sepa- rately, each alone without the power of the other, but sense is kindled throughout our flesh and blown into a flame between the two, by joint motions on the part of boili. And now (he goes on) I will show you that mind and soul are mortal; and in what I have now to say, remem ber that I still use the words mind and soul iud^fferenllv, aud that what I say of the one will apply in the same way to the other, since both make up one thing, and are one single substance. First of all, then, remember of how fine a substance I have sho wu the soul to be, and how far more sensitive than any other thing,— " More than a drifting smoke, or ductile river; For even shapes of mists and smoke in dreams, Soon as they touch the mind will make it quiver, As when in sleep the votive altar steams Before our sight; for even dreams like these Come from the touch of films and images." Well, then, since you see that water is scattered when the vessel that held it is broken, and the mists melt away into the air, how can you doubt that the soul will one day do likewise when its body goes to pieces? Again, we see that the mind is born with the body, grows strong with the body, and also with the body once more grows frail and feeble: " It follows then that when this life is past, f It goes an outcast from the body's door. And dies like smoke along the driving blast. 102 LUCRETIUS. THE PO/Or OF LUCBRTIUS. 108 We with the flesh beheld it born and rise To strength; and with the flesh it fades and dies." And now consider this too. Tlie body is subject to many diseases, and with many of tliese the soul is affected also. Often the reason wauilers. often the reason is for a time quite slain. Such 1()>^ of reason comes from the powers of the mind and soul being dissevered, and riven and forced asunder by the same baneful malady as the body is. What shall we thmk then? "Even in the body thus the soul is tioubJed, And scarce can hold its flutterin- frame together; How ehould it e then, when, witli foiv^- redoubled. Naked it fee the air ami an-:-v weaili.T?" Again, Lucretius goes on (after having added a number of other arguments which have been already given in a former chapter), seeds of the soul are evidently left in the body after death, because worms and living things are bred out of it. And a soul that can be thus divided cannot be immortal. For it is impossible to think that each of these worms lias an immortal soul of its own, Ihat immediately at the birth of its body makes its way into it, and that thus many thousands of souls nuei to- gether in a place from which one has l)een withdrawn, and either find bodies ready made for them, or set each about making a body for itself. This is glaringly absurd ; " For why should souls, if they can cast away Their mortal carcasses, and still live on. Thus toil to build themselves a den of clay? Since when with bodies they are clothed upon They straight grow heirs to sickness and decay, • And through them all the body's >?rief has prone. Nor for themselves could souls contrive t. > build Such priaon-pens, how much soe%'r tli» y vvilloygone times when Carthage came To battle, we and oui-s were troubled not, Nor heeded though the Avhole earth's shuddering frame Reeled with the stamp of armies, and the lot Of things was doubtful, to which lords should fall The land and seas and all the rule of all; So, too, wlien we and ours shall be no more. And there has come the eternal separation Of flesh and spirit, whioh, conjoined before. Made us ourselves, there will be no sensation; We should not hear were all the world at war; Nor shall we, in its last dilapidation. When the heavens fall, and earth's foundations flee. We shall nor feel, nor hear, nor know, nor see." 104 I UCEETIUS. And even— if for a moment we may imagine tlie im- possible—even should the soul still •survive the body, what is that to us? For we are neither soul nor body. but we are a single being fashioned out of the wedlock of the two. Nor, again, if lime should gatiirr up our matter after death, and again remould it into the vt-ry beings we now are, that is nothing to us, wlienonce the chain of our consciousness l. squandered, why seek to re-begin the weary round, ami to gather what again thou wilt w a-ie and squander as before? For hope not to find anything new. There is no other pleasure that 1 can contrive or discover for thee. "For though thy life he frt-sh within thy frame, Nor years have yet tliy bodily strength al)ated. You would find all things alway still the same, Ni>r f'er diseovpi- iiii>> thing titnv created Nor shouldst thou live till all m^-n's liv.-^ be done. For there is no new thing beneath the sun." Think, too, of the bygone antiquity of tlie everlasting time before our birth, how that was m.ihing to ns F-.r nature holds up to us the time !li:it was he fort' i a vision of the future time ihat i~ .me after u.s. "Look in th^^ glass theji s iv w hi; shape is there? Appears there aught of terrib! id? Does not the imag^ ' > ou gaze at seem Even gentler tlian .. ,., ^, with.nit a dream." Sure enough, however, the terrors men dread after death are not all vain imaginings. Birds truly eat a way into Tityos; Sisyphus rolls his stone up-hill for ever. But he is ft Tityos, who, as he grovels in hist. is eaten up by anguish like a vulture; and he is a Sisyphus who is forever asking honors of the people, and is for ever going hack disappointed. The tor- ments that we dreamed of in the future have their real being here, and men inflict them on themselves, in this very life around us. Ah! might men only see the real cause of their .^or row8, how salvation would then dawn on them! The man who igsick of home liurries forth from hi< loidly pQr*icoidders from the mountains torn, By which the sun's dimmed face is overcast: And now some mighty beast comes on amain With packs of other storm-clouds in its train." And now I will go on to show with what ease and celerity the images or idols that I spoke of are begotten, and how mcessantly they flow and fall away from things. Hereupon he e.xplains more minutely the nature of these emanations, how fine their substance is, and consequently with what swiftness they are capable of moving; THE POK.V OF LUCRETIUS. 109 'For \s*' ol sor\^> that things of little weight A.re ev.i- sw it't to move, of the which kind Tlie sunlight is, which does not hesitate, Ever pressed on by fresh light from behind, To force its way, and tiiiu' .ly penetrate Through all the space of air." And these idols or images of things are in their move- ments as swift as sunliglit, and can pass through air as readily.— nay, they must be even swifter; for the stars are further fnmi us than the sun, and yet *" No sooner is the shine of water spread In the night air,^H'iieath heaven's glittering plain. Than instantly to every star oerhead A star within the wave responds again." Therefore, again and again. I repeat, you must admit that bodies, capable of striking the eyes and provoking vision, are constantly travelling through the air with ;i marvellous velocity But l>ecause we can see with the eyes alone, the consequence is, that to whatever point we turn our sight, then all the same things meet and strike u^ with their shape and color. Lucretius now goes on to explain the manner in which we infer the distance of things, and then the action of mirrors, and the real nature of tiie reflection in them. He then passes to optical delusions, and the various ways iu which it seems that our eyes deceive us: " Now for this cause the far towers of a towTi Reach us as round, when they indeed are square; The angles of their lUins are quite worn down In drifting towards us through the length of air: And when thev mert us those strong things of stone Seem smooth and circular, as though they were Turned in a lathe; but vaguely thus appear, And like a shadowy sketch of round things near.'* no LUCRETIUS. } Aii'l there are immbcTless other like cases as well, but tliey eaii be all explained satisfactorily, and we must 'never for a moment admit that our eyes deceive us. The frailty, the sense of deception, is really in the mind. Do but think of the following instances, and you will see that this is so: *' The ship in which we sail seems standinpr still, The ship tliat riiles at aiu'lior drift inif by; And as we hold to j^eaward, tield and hill Seem to drop far astern ; and in the sky The stars we steer by seetn immovable. And yet go movintr on assiduovslj, Since each clear liody has its hour to rise. And its long road to rest across the skies. And as we watch the sun and moon, their light Seems also tlxed, yet still moves on we know: And when on deck we watch with straining sight, Up from the sea line shado\^y mountains go. Into one solid isle their shapes unite, And yet we know huge straits between theni flow, And ways for fleets. And giddy children view. When they stop turning, all things turning too." So, too, the sun seems near us when it rises, and yet illimitable lands and seas and unknown people lie be- tween. A puddle of not a finger's depth seems to con- tain the whole great heaven. As we pass on liorseback in a river-ford, the river seems to be standing still, and ourselves to be carried violently up the stream. A portico is supported on equal pillars, and yet as we look through it their height seems to be dwindling, and the floor seems to be rising, till they meet in a vanish- ing-point. Ours we know to be straight ; and yet dip them in the water, and their submerged part will seem to be bent and broken : TUi: FOEM OF LUCRETIUS. Ill " So, too, we seem when chained in sleep profound To move in daylight, footing field and hill, Sailing new seas, and treading alien ground; And when the earnest night is deep and stiU. Our ears are loud with many a fancied sound." And many other marvellous things are there, which would seek to shake the credit of the senses: but in vain- for it is not the senses that deceive us, but we who' deceive ourselves, by wrongly interpreting what they rightly tell us. Again— *' If a man hold that nothing can be known, He knows not whether he can know this even. Since he admits the things he knows are none. He stands with head on earth, and feet in heaven. And I decline to talk with such an one." No-such scepticism as this is utterly suicidal. The senses are all we can take our stand on, and they are unerring guides. , . ., And now. says Lucretius, I will explam the action of the other senses. Sounds, in the first place, are streams of atoms, whose shape varies with the quality of the sound: " Nor are the first beginnings of like form Which pierce the eai-s in crabbed sounds and sweet. As when in air the braying trumpets storm. Which rouse barbarian nations to their feet, And when its carol comes from the wild swan - Over the headlong floods of Helicon." When we speak, we force our voices out of the depth of our bodies, and the tongue gives their shape to them iust asthev are leaving our lips. Words travel a cer- tain distance keeping their clear shape: gradually this becomes obliterated. No sooner is a ^o«^« ""^/^J^ than it starts asunder ioto mm voices; and this is the a^-n-jfalW A-Jrt Ltld.-frto Li J. *it ^ tiht ait J 112 LUCRETIUS. THE POEM OF LUCREriUS, 118 way in wliicu a whole sisseml>1y liears the words of a single speaker. Voices whicli do ut>l strike directl}^ on I he ear are carried away and lost, or else striking on something solid are thrown buck again: " Which knowing, you may to yourst'lf e.\i)lain. And to j^our friends the explaiiatimi tt-H. How it is that the rocks give back ipuu Our syUaliles in many a lonely dfl!; And how. whfu in the dusk wt.' call in \ :iii For our strayed frit-nds, the hills grow voluble, And their fiimiliar names are tossed al»t)ut From slope to slope in many a lipless shout. I have seen ]tlaces uliere to one such call. Straight MX .jill always leave you craving. For its sake young men waste their slrengtli and ruin them- selves, and their whole life is passed at the beck of an- other: " Meanwhile their substance Avastes and mus away, Turned into coverlets from Babylon; Their duties are neglected day by day, And all their noble name is quite undone. Meanwhile upon her brow green emeralds play, Glancing in gold, and shoes from Sicyon Deck her ehistic feet; and teare and traces Are on her crumpled robe of love's embraces. And all the wealth their good sires toiled to gain Changes to head-gear, and rich anadem, And Cean robes with trailing sweep of train. And feasts, and goblets thick with many a gem. And unguents, games, and garlands. All in vain ! They have their canker m the heart of them, ■ - ^.ffl-g : •*■* i 1 imtJU"i'T I -c I mE POEM OF JJrnnKTTTTfi 11ft 114 LVCHKTli'S. A b'tter soiiiethiug. in the niiduiost hours Of joys starts up, and stings amongst the flowers. Either because thfv bur they In foul embraces and t-lleuimate Slaj Iheir .nvii selves, and waste their strength away; Or else iht' dainty lijis "n uii.im their fate Hangs, soiiip slight wor.: iV)tfid meaning say. Which stings their heart like flre; or so<>n or late They think lier eyes are roaming, to beguile Others, and calch the tootprints of a smile." And these evils are the evils of love when it is siicee:;s- ful. How mucli greater are those of love that is crossed aod hopeless! So that it is best to watch heforebaud, that you be never entangled in the snare. And yet even when you are entangled you may escape, iinle.-s you stand in youx own way, and ref u>e resolutely i<» observe all those vices of niimi atid body which you may be quite sin-e will abound in her, woo whom you ■will. For this is wluit men do for Mhe ni(»st part. blinded by passion, and attribute to their loved ones beauties that are not really theirs. " Muddy complexions have a dusky sj^ell, A lover says. A slut's a natural creature, A romping hoyden seems a slim gazelle; A sharp tongued spitfire dazzles like a meteor. See, in yon slow and cumbrous movements dwell A queenly pride; that face, without a feature. Is strangely touching; and this fat plump chit Is, top to toe, the very soul of wit." Lucretius goes on, something in the temper of Pope, to describe bow different is " Cynthia at her toilet's greasy task, To Cynthia fragrant at an evening masque." And draws a humorous contrast between the scene a tUe toilet indoors, when the lady is putting the lait I iiWilliliMkiiiiiMMiAlimiiMaiMBiMWiMatMAjaBtfBM 116 L VCUETIUS. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 116 delicate stroke to her charms, with her maid behind her tittering at the whole j)rocess, and the lover outside at the threshold fid) of yearning for the adored one, and thinking sacred for her sake the very house that holds her. And yet, snys Lucretius in conclusion, it is not all love that is thus vaiu and deluding: some women have a genuine passion for their lovers or their husbands; and often a wife, thotigh of but small beauty, will by her gentle manners win the heart of a man, and cus tom will ha})ituate him to pass his life with her, and love will set its mark on his heart at last, as dripping water wili at last make a hole in a stone. BOOK V. Here again the book opens with the praises of Epicurus: " Where is the bard whose verse avails to tell Of themes like these of Nature's ways sublimef Or who sliall .so the power of verse compel As fitly to resound his praise in rhyme. Who all those spoils, that to his own hand fell, Hath left us as an heirloom for all time, Making us u i>e {<>r ever? Truly none, Unless indeed it l)e a god alone. For Memmius, if 'tis pleasing in thine eyes To si)eak the plain unvarnished truth of things, The author of these greal discoveries— , He was a K'>d of gods, a king of kings. For first through him men grew what men call wise. And from him every rule of prudence springs. Who towed our life out of the storms and night, And moored us in the tranquil calm and light." What, compared to his discoveries, are those of other discoveries? Ceres, it is said, gave corn to us, and THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 117 116 L UCliETIUS. Baccliiis wine. But we coiiid have lived on happily without either of these, and many a nation does so even now. Bu* unless the l)reast is clear, no life can be happy; and hence he. Epicurus our mighty muster, is rightly held a god by us, since from him come those sweet mental solaces which are even now spreading in the world, and sootliiug the hearts of men. •* Yea, and our master therefore did far im >re Than vaunted Hercules. For how sliould we Fear the Neriiean lion's rai?e and roar. Or that great V>ull it) C'r^tp hpyond the sea. Or all the bristles of ti^- Arc;idi;iii Itoar. Or what to us could snaky hydras hv'f Or how wouM Gorgon fight us from his gloom. Or those Styinphalian birds w iih l)razen plume? Or that great dragon which for ever keeps The shioiiiL' friiita^'ecf the Hesp*nides, With tier." -tud vigilant fx e tliat u»'ver sleeps. Couched "neatii the shadow of the eharmetl trees. Whilst rouod the midmost stem his huge coil creeps — How should be hami us b}' his far-off seas. The Atlantic shore, and the abhorred waves Which even the wild barbarian never braves*" And all the other m3n<5tr'rs of like kind that have been conquered, what harm, I ask, could they do us were they even now living' Xcih', metliinks — neither these, nor the like of these. But luiless the breast is cleared, it itself is full of monsters; rather let us be afraid of them, and honor and glorify him who put them first to rout. Wlietefop 'king in his footsteps, I will tell you in order liow the world arose, and what laws it obeyed in rising. I will show you tliat it had a birth, and that death is also in for it. I will tell you how the heaven is formed, and the eartli also, the moon and n. tM Jfafajfjyj. iPtM^fj r ...^atJL lJ^j-^ ■ .j . j ji.^. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 117 stars, aiul how living creatures emerged out of lifeless matter: and I will show you how all things are held and fettered bv immutable laws and bounderies: "Well, not to dally more with things unproven, Look round you, on the heaven, the earth, the sea, The triple threatl of which the world is woven, Three l)odies, Memmius, such a different three. A day shall come when these shall all be cloven, And all the things that are shall cease to be. And blown Uke dust upon a stormy wind. The whole world melt, nor leave a wrack behind." If you doubt how this can be, consider the power of earthquakes, and how in a few moments all things near are shattered by them: " But these may fortune banish from our path. Nor with such signs see tit to assure our faith." But before I go on to sing you the sure oracle, the doom and the destruction that await this whole uni- verse. I will again pause a moment and sustain your trend)ling mind, lest religion should still make you think that the world will endure for ever, and that all who should seek to prove otherwise shall .suffer punish- ment, like a fresh race of Titans laboring to under- mine the world. For what life or sense is there in the .sea, the sun. the moon, that they should heed or hear what men say about them? How can they possibly have any life or passions in them? For we liave seen what life is. It cannot exist without a fleshly body; and even in that body it can live only in a certain part. Then, too, you cannot possibly believe that the gods exist in any parts of the world. Their fine nature is far withdrawn from our senses; the mind itself hardly 118 irCREl'irs:. sees them. We cannot touch them; and how then, I ask you, shall they touch us? What folly, too, to say that the gods have maile the world, and set it in order, and arranged it for the use of man? In the first place, what could possibly induce them to take such trouble?— "What could they gain from such a race as ours? Or what advantaere could our gratitude Yield these iuuu<>rtal and most blessed powers. That thej in aught should labor for our good?" Or what new incident could have broken in upon them, and made them desirous to change their former life? Or even if they wmiiIc d lo make a world, where did they find any pattern to work by, and how did they set about the business? or liow. again, did they ascertain the world-making capabilities of the atoms, unless Nature herself, motlier of tlie gods, had shown the gods all that she herself could do? •* But even had the science ne'er been mine Of first beginnings, and how all began. I could show clearly that no power divine Helped at the work, and made the world for man; So great tlit- bliindtMs in i\\<- \.i.st design, So palpa!i!> is ail wit hour a plan. For if 'twert' made for us. its structure halts In every member, full of flaws and faults. Look at the earth: mark then, in the first place. Of all the ground tlie rounded sky bends over» Forests and mountains fUl a mighty space, And even more do wasteful war.^rs ('over. And sundering seas; then the suns deadly rays Scorch part, and over part the hard forests hover; And Natiuv all tlie rest with weeds would spoil, Unless man ihwarted her with wear.ying toil. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 119 Mark, too, the babe, how frail and helpless, quite Naked it comes out of its mother's womb, A waif cast hither on the shores of light, Like some poor sailor, by the fierce sea's foam Washed upon land; itJies in piteous plight, Nor speaks, but soon, as it beholds its home, Bleats forth a bitter cry-oh meet presage Of its life here, its woful heritage I But the small youngling's of the herds and flocks Are strong, and batt.-n uu the grass and dew. They need no playthings, none their cradle rocks Nor ask they with the seasons garments new. They have no need of walls, and bars, and locks To guard their treasures: but for ever true To them, the earth her constant bounty pours Forth at their feet, and never stints her stores." Lucretius now goes on to point out in detail the con- tirmal waste of everything that is visibly going on in tlie world around us. and to argue from this that of the whole there must be one day a like dissolution. Earth i.s for ever being dis-solved in water, or broken into dust and being whirled away in air; water in its turn is being for ever driuik up by the sun; and the sun itself is for ever ^vasting its substance in swift emission of ravs. "So you may see at night such earthly tire, As hanging lamps, and torches blazing bright. Darting their flames out, as with keen desire,— Desire, I say. to feed the wasting light, 'Wliich travelling, still doth on its path expire. And would if not renewed be broken quite; But to the dying rays succeed fresh rays, And on the wall the light unpausing plays." Again, too. you may see that even stones are con- quered by time, high towers moulder and fall down 120 LUCRETIUS. crashing, aud eveu liic mountain-summits crumble to decay. Tliiuk of this, too.— if the world was ever bom, so surely will it perish. Aud it must have had a birth" ijay—it cannot have been from everlasting, or else some record would have come to us of times before the Theban war and the fall of Pergamus. Again, as I have showu that nothing is solid but the atoms, and that void is mixed up with all things, and that void aud atoms alone can resist all force and art- indestructible, you may be certain, you surely can no longer doubt, that the grave and gate of death is gaping for the whole universe. Again, I have just shown you how all the elenitnls of the w^orld are enga^;ed continually in a tierce in- testine war; and to this -struggle there must some day be an end, — either water, tire, or air will one day get the mastery, and then there will be the beginning (tf the end. Twice, indeed, even already, they feign tiiat the battle has been well nigh ended, and that water once was all but master; and once again that tire w;is. when Phaethon was whirled aloft in the sun's chariot— " And the boy's hands let go the dangling reins. And the team tore across the ethereal jtlains. But theahnighty father, seized with ire. Launched at the boy the all dreaded thunderstone; And as he fell, the ^un, the Sun his sire. With rapid hand, from lit-adlong Phaetliou Snatched the world's lamp of ever-burning fire. And gathered up tlie reins, and one by one He tamed the trembling steeds, aud once again Mounted his car, and gave new life to men." And now, says Lucretius, I will tell you in what -order the present world evolved itself. And he goes iMdhMMMMHWIIMttiil THE POEM OF LtTCnETIUS. 121 on to describe the first chaotic atom-storm, and the gradual massing together of the earth, and how it cast off from itself the blue heaven, as a kind of husk or covering, and then threw out the fires that make the moon, and stars, and all the other lights that are in the lirmament. First an igneous ether, he says, went up from the earth's surface, which, sweeping round as lire, gradually formed the heavens. '• And this same ether rising, in its wake Full many a seed of vivid fire up-drew. Thus when we see the low red morning break Along the grasses rough and gemmed with dew. Does a gray mist go up from off the lake. And from the clear perennial river too; And even at times the very meadows seem From their green breast to breathe a silvery stream." He now adds a number of details as to the formation of the earth's surface, which have been described already; and again refers to the onward changeless sweep of the ether, which keeps on its even way, unheeding all the turmoil and the storms in the lower air, between the earth and it. " Onward it ever drives in changeless sweep; And how it still can so hold on and on The Pontic sea may teach you, which doth keep Ever due on, nor turns, for any force. Its icy current and compulsive course." Upon this follows a long series of speculations on the motions of the sun and moon, the rest of the heavenly bodies, and the laws which govern the regu- lar recurrence of the seasons, and the changmg dura- tion of the hours of light and darkness. And now, he says,"since I have explained m wha way everything m/^A^^^ on throughout the blue vault 122 ircRETirs. 4 of heaven. I will go back to tlie infancy of the world, and the tender age of the fields, and show what, in their first attempts at child-bearing, they tried to raise: "Up to the shores of li;:;lit, and gave them there Into the keeping of the wandering air. In the beginning, then, the clods gave forth All kinds of herbage, and a verdant sheen Was glossy on the hills; and tlowery earth Laughed over all her meadows glad and green: Then buslies next m.d tr^^f*! of greater girth. Orderly rising seen; Which things came forth spontaneous everywhere, Like a bird's feathers or a horse's hair." Then gradually, iu the manner that has been described already, the earth gave birth to men, and animals, of the kinds that are now with us: "But hardier far than we were those first races Of men, siuo' earth lierself did them produce, And braced them with a firmer frame than braces Us now, and strung their arras with mightier thews. Nor sun nor rain on them left any traces, Nor sickness. And they never learned the use . Of arts, for ages: but like beasts they ran Wild in the woods—the early race of man. Their strong arms knew not how to guide the plough. Or how to plunge the spade and till the plain, Or from the trees to lop the falling bough. But what the sun had given tiiem. and the rain, They took, and det- m*'d it luxury vuow. Nor knew they y«-r the fatal greed of gain. But in the woods they sought their simple store. And stripped the trees, and never asked for more. For thick the acorns in th >t grew. And arbute-trees woull yield the berried prize, Which in the winter wears a scarlet hue; And the earth bore thes.- then of larger size; \ THE POEM OF LUCRETTUS. And manj^ another suchlike berry too, It, from its yet unfliiish*-d grnnane;*, Gave gladly forth, mure than sufficing then To appease the dawning wants of those poor men. And like wild herds they clustered to the sound Of falling waters, loud la many a dell, To slake their thirst; and as they roamed, they found The nymph-' /: > eu litunts, and theri- began to dwell; For there sweet waters gushed from out the ground In living streams, and on the damp rocks fell— The damp rocks, green with many a mossy stain- Then shpt away, and babbled to the plain. And they knew naught of fire, nor thought to fling The skins of beasts about their nakednt'ss; But the wild-wood's roof was their covering, Or rugged mountain cave; and they would press Into the brushwood, from the buffeting Of rain and storni, and all the weather's stress. And nothing yet of rule or law they knew. Nor how to keep the weal of all in view. Whatever fortune threw^ in each man's way. That each bore off and hoarded as his own. To grasp and clutch it as his proper prey, Aloof, and living for himself alone. And naked in the woods the lovers lay; And by her lust or his each girl was won; Or else by force; or bribed, she heard his suit, By little gifts of acorns or ripe fruit. And trusting in their strength of hands and feet. They would outstrip the wild beasts in the wood; And some to death witli i)ondt'r(>us clubs would beat. And hide from fiercer ones, who sought their blood: And just where night, with noisless step and fleet, O'ertook them, like the dull sow's bristly brood, Down on the ground without a thought they lay, And burrowing in the leaves slept sound till day. 123 ■><<«■ .aajwiiiiah"-"---":;::::**::;^^ 124 LUCRETIUS, THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 125 124 LUCRETIUS, And never waking in the dark, with fright Would they cry out, amazed for all the shade. And beg the sun to bring them back the light. But stolid they would sleep, and undismayed. Till rosy morning pleased to climb the height Of heaven; for they, who from their birth surveyed The light and dark alternate rise and fall, Trusted the world, nor feared the end of all." But this state of things did not last for ever. Protr- less begun, and Lucretius liere at length describes its advancing stages— tlie gradual discoveries of fire, of the use of the metals, of bouses, of law. of niouogauiy, and all the other elements and influences of civilizu. tiou. And he then goes on to account for the risi- of religion, attributing it, as has been already said, lo two different causes — the sight of the wandering images of the gods' forms, and also to ignorance of the hidden forces of nature. Then when once this concep- tion of the gods was formed — "They gave them dwellings in the heavenly light. Far off and calm; because for aye ajipear Through the high heaven to roll the moon and night. Moon, day, and night, and all night's stars austere. And trailing meteors, vagrant things of light. And flying fires that wander far and near; And because snows and hail and wind are there. And the hoarse threats that thunder through the air." O hapless race of men, exclaimes Lucretius, when first they taxed the gods with having anything to do with this world of ours and its management! Little knew they the terror of the chains they were binding about themselves ; what wounds, what tears they were preparing for their children's children' For still as we gaze at the vast world around us. the importunate f( :.r will at times steal into our soul, that the power of ili,' TEE POEM OF LUCRETIUS, 125 gods may be unlimited; and religion begins to raise its reawakening head. Having made this digression, Lucretius again returns to his account of human progress, describing the rude, simple pleasures of our earliest ancestors, and warning us that luxuries, though inevitably found out one after one, and inevitably making us discontented with what went before, have made us no better pleased with the present, though they have made us displeased with the past, and that with splendor and refinement have come envy and discontent, from which the simple savage early woiid was free. Mankind, he says, therefore, ever toils vainly and to no purpose, and wastes life in groundless cares, because men have never learnt what is the true end of getting, and up to what point true pleasure waxes. This by slow degrees has carried life out into the deep sea. and stirred up from their lowest depth the mighty billows of war. And now all has been told,— how time by degrees brings each several things before men's eyes, and reason raises it up into the borders of the light; for things in their due order must be thus advanced and brought forward, until they have arrived at the sum- mit beyond which they can go no further. BOOK VL We now come to the last book of the poem; and this, again, opens with another celebration of Epi- curus: '• Athens it was, Athens, most famous name, Who first gave corn to us, sick sons of earth; And taught us countless arts, and how to frame La« s; but she gave her gift of chiefest worth. 126 LUCRETIUS. When unto life she sent that man of fame Out of whose mouth • r.is of truth welled forth. Wherefore his plory rhruu^'ii i iie world is spread, Ana still he speaks though dumb, and lives being dead. For when he saw that each most sore distress And craving of the flesli was satisfied. And men forbore front wri>nirand lawlessness, And iife became secure, and pomp and pride And pleasures multiplied, jet none the less Each heart in secret ache reach, and the narrow track lliaf led to if. And lie showed that the ills that plague men in this mortal life were ills that came from oat in e— from a blind chance or force, call it what we will. Foi- the terror that heretofore had field men in bondage, and indeed still holds very many of them, is to be dispelled by reason, and by reason only: " *^"*^ ' sliowii tlie ethereal plains Of heaven ar. ij, and the .•arth helow, And of all thin^^ timt : tains The life and rnovenienL i have su : ,w Tlie goal dra\v8 near. But soniethii.^- ; ct remains To tell. I have another mile to go 128 LUCRETIUS. THE POEM OF LUCRETIUS. 127 And In the 3Iuse*s car must mount on Ingh. 'Mid storms and winds, and tell jou how they fly. For foolish mortals, one and all together, Say that the calm In'gh gods, by each caprice Of fretful temper swayed, ordain the weather, Venting their ra^e m storms; and when they cease From rage, releuiiu;^ wit), a cloudless ether." But in order that rea-on may drive from us the very remendiranee of such t^ld-wives' tales as these, and the unmanning and senseless fear that they would still, if they could, beget in us, I will sing to you of the law and aspect of heaven, and of the birlh of the storms and thunders, and of the bright lightnings, that you mav see how all coes on by a ti.xed unbending law, tfiaj has no thought of man, nor any care about him; and that you may spare your pains, and never look to the skies for omens, nor heed a jot from what quarter the volant tire has fallen. Thunder, in the tir^t place, is the produce of clash- ing clouds, which either flap in the wind like canvas stretched and tossing over theatres, or. filled full of wind inside, burst suddenly as a distended bladder does. U lightens, too, when the clouds have struck out by their collisions many seereath That thanked them for their kindness piteously.** _lud at length so great was the mortality, so many were the bodies in vain < rying for buriid, that the old rites of sepulture contiiuicd no more in tlie city, with which pious folk of old had been always wont to be buried: for everything was confusion and dismay, and eacli man would sorrowfully bury his own. in any way the pri'vcni moment allowed, " And many a direful deed did men do then. Urged on by sudden want and poverty; For on the funeral pyres of other meu They thrust their own poor kin uproariously; And wrangling- tlieir blood they'd shed, Dogged, and dying ere liiey d leave their dead." And with these lines the poem of Lucretius ends. CHAPTER V. LUCRETIUS AS A POET. Something has now been seen of what Lucretius did, under both its aspects. We have examined each of the two things he gave to the world, and for which the world remembers him — his system of natural science, and the poem in which he set that system forth. It now remains to us to glance back over both of these, and to take some general view of them, that we may form some estimate of the place their author held both as a poet and a man of science; and also — which is a matter of deeper interest — how he stands, when com- pared with us, in relation to the deeper and the more perplexed questions of life. AVe will consider him first iu the character under which he is most generally known and spoken of, — the character simply of a poet. And here the first and most obvious remark to make is, that though Lucretius was by his genius most un- doubtedly a great poet, yet, judging of his work as a whole, he has very certainly not written a great poem. We must say in this case, as Ottilia's 'tutor says in Goethe's novel, "We presume capabilities; we require accomplishments." And the " Essay on the Nature of Things" is not an accomplished poem. The very sub- ject itself, and still more the sort of treatment that, for his own purposes, Lucretius thought essential to it, shut out all possibility of its ever being this. By far the larger number of his verses are devoted to explain- ing facts which not only afford naturally no material 132 L rrimnus. LUCRETIUS AS A POET. 138 for poetry, but which can only be approached fitly in the absence of all poetical excitation. Instead, there- fore, of putting poetry into the phenomena he lias to deal with, Lucretius has, in tiie bulk of Iiis work, to root out all that man has already put there. Man, and man's passions, and the human sense of beauty —without these there can be no poetry. Nature is poetical only as connected with these. And when Lucretius deals with nature, it is his great aim to lull passion, fancy, and all emotion to rest, and coldly and calmly to see things as they really are. Much poetry, as we all know, has been written about the moon, and we know well enough the sort of moods of which most of this poetry is the outcome. But when Lucretius writes of the moon, no such moods are his. The moon to him is simply a phenomenon, to be observed coldly, and with no passion, till the secret of its movements is explained, and every trace of mystery stolen from it. So, too, with all tlie rest of nature— the sun, the stars, the lightning, the thunder, the storm, the clouds, light, vision, and finally human life, and human passion itself —all is to be treated coldly and dispassionately: inter- rogated and cross-questioned in the pure spirit of prose, though committed nfter wards into a form of verse. But it is a form only— a form that cannot deceive us. The voice is still Jacob's voice, though the hands are the hands of Esau. But it is enough to say that Lucre- tius, in the bulk of his work, writes as a man of science; and in that is said conclusively that he cannot be writ- ing as a poet. The poet and the man of science may both be dealing with the same object; but the poet, when he deals with nature, tries to raise the common- place into the region of the mysterious ; the man of science tries to bring down the mysterious to the level of the commonplace. And even when the tw^o come to the same conclusion about the same thing, they "vvould no more speak the same words or think the same thoughts about it, than would a lover and a physician who were watching the same girl dying. Considering, therefore, that a good four fifths of the work of Lucretius is intentionally, and in its very essence, nothing but pure prose — only prose versified — it is hardly to be expected that it will, as a whole, give us the pleasure of a poem, or indeed leave us with the impression that we have been reading one. Poetry, how^ever, runs everywhere through it, like metallic veins in an ore; and this poetry is of a very high and a very varied quality though the scattered state in which it has thus been given to us has done much to hinder its popularit}^ and apparently made its author merely a poet's poet amongst the ancients, as it has left him a scholar's poet amongst the moderns. For many reasons this is much to be regretted, so great and powerful, as a poet's, his genius was; and not this only, but so versatile. Few poets of antiquity show such a range of power and feeling, such a com- bination of humor with gravity, and of tenderness with indignation. Of all these qualities specimens have been given, and though little justice can be done to them in translation, something of their nature will be suflS- ciently obvious to the reader. There are one or two others that it may be less superfluous to dwell upon. First of these is the rude fierce vigor of his imagina- tion, which will not be content with a hazy presenta- tion of anything, but will have it dragged close before us, solid, bare, and naked, — as when, in discussing whether the universe be infinite, he bids us picture its bound, if any bound there be to it, and asks what will 134 LUCliETli^. [V LVCIIKTIUS AS A POET. 185 H'C happen then if we were to liurl a jtivcliii iuto iliu s]. beyond. Iq this quality of keen - xteniul observalioii, this attention to the niateriul a>{iict of things, tliis habit of conceiving cverythin- in s(»nie imaginable or picturable form, he seems to have surpassed all tlie ancient poets, and not iiDfrequeutly puts us in mind of Dante. And he has in virtue of this a (luality which makes him, in one particular way, seem to us not so much an ancient as a modern,— that is, his manner of describing scenery, and all the changing aspects of the outer world Of all ancient poets, indeed, he is per- haps the most picturesciue. The early aspect of morn- ing, the low sunlight striking along the dewy grasses, the gray mist going up from the Likes and rivers— these, and things like these, he describes almost as Words- worth might have described them. There are other pictures, too, equally vivid— such as that of the square towers of a town, which, as we ajiproach them, look rounded in the haze of distance ; or that of the colored awnings flapping above the crowded theatre with tho bright-colored sunlighl, pouring down through them. Then, again, there arc descriptions of storms and storm- clouds, their shapes, their movements, their slow weird changes, which are not unlike the verse of Shelley or the pictures of Turner, and to which no counterpart can be found in ancient literature. There are, too, a number of lesser touches — such as his mention of the way in which, as we walk at morning, our faces are brushed by the dewy threads of the aniirs, or by floating balls of thistle-down. Whilst to heighten the efifect of these, and to fill it in. we have peri)etual allusion to the way in Avliich our other that of sight, are touclied by tho (uiter tinngs of miture; how our nostr' *" a- inst aice, are met with a pungent smell as soon as a night-light is extinguished suddenly; or now the air by the seashore breathes on our faces salt, with the moist l)rine. In fact, Lucretius, more than any other of the great ancient poets, seems to bring back to us the atmo^ihere of the past. We seem, as we read him, to l)e actually breathing the air that he breathed, to be smelling the same smells, and hearing the same noises, and to see the skies, and seas, and hills, through the same liquid distance. We must be careful, however, not to read our own sentiments into Lucretius; nor to think that, though lie gives us all the pictures of storm, and cloud, and sunsliiue, of sea and valley, as accurately, and with as much care, as a modern poet might, that he was like a modern poet in his feeling about them. The case is quite otherwise. In his descriptions of nature, Lu- cretius is a utilitarian, not a sentimentalist. His de- scriptions are not pictures :o l)e looked at for them- selves; they are diagrams to illustrate the text of his scientific discotirses. Some pleasure, no doubt, even as pictures, they did give to him; but this pleasure was secondary, and in many cases he would seem to be hardly conscious of it. Only dimly, and in the phape of the animal quickening of the spirits brought about in the spring-time, or in the sensuous pleasure of f^'ing on green grass and feeling the cool shelter of trees, does he seem to have realized what joy a man may have in the world's outer beauty. And in this he was like all the other ancient, as contrasted with the modern poets. But tlie ancient poets as a rule not only felt less for nature than we do, but they also said less about it, and therefore the contrast between them and us is less striking. But though Lucretius did not, as Wordsworth ©r im LUCRETIUS. Slielley did, nor even as Aiisoniiis, Claudian, and the later Latiu poets, feel the beauty of nature as a spec- tacle, moving them by its varied outlines and its ever- changing shades and colors, he did feel to the full the sublimity of it, as a vast immeasurable force, revealing itself indiscriminately now in this way, now in that — in the earthquake, m the thunderstorm, or the power of turbulent waters. This feeling, however, we must remember is very different from that which prompted such lines as these: ** There are two voices— one is of the sea, And one is of the mountains— both divine; They were iby chosen music, Liberty." Nature is the hero of the poem of Lucretius; but it is not a hero that has any sympathy witli man, or can be anythmg to man, excepting in so far as man can use it. For ihe rest it is celebrated as a thing of boundless power and, as such, a thing sublime and awful, but a thing as well of boundless -impotence, that is exalted by the poet, only to be again dragged down by him, and which hs would teach man to look at with fearless and equal eyes. Lucretius has no desire to worship Nature, sublime as, in its potver, he feels it to be. He feels rather a sense of still greater sublimity in achiev- ing the splendid victory over his own impulse to wor- ship it, and the same impulse in other men, by which he knows that tliey too are tormented. This is the one notion that runs through his whole poem; he is man's champion, as against all other forces. He tilts like a knight-errant against every form of terror, one by one unhorsing them, and leaving them disarmed and prostrate; charging first at the most im- portunate and the most formidable, and then, having LUCRETIUS AS A POET. 137 cleared the ground li^^^"^ him, demolishing at his leisure the ligiiter and nu»n- scattered squadrons. And thus though his poem, as we have said, is com- posed so largely of what is properly speaking pure prose, if we look at it by the light of the writer's in- tention, instead of what he has actually accomplished, we shall come to see in it the outlines of a true poetic whole. We shall see that there is in it something epic; we shall see in it one single purpose being worked out to its end without pause — and this purpose an heroic one — the destruction by a mortal man of all the terrible immortals, and the robbing the whole frame of things of their immemorial menace. We shall see that in the arrangement of the argument there is poetic art also, as it gradually rises in the middle to the demoli- tion of that stronghold of religion, the immortality of the soul, and then slowly brings us to confront lighter difficulties, as though a storm were slowly drifting away from us, and letting a gradual sunlight in on us through the clearing skies. Of course, in view of this, it may be contended by some that the ''Essay on the Nature of Things" must take rank, as a whole, as a great complete poem. To a certain extent disputes of this kind are disputes of words merely, and there is little good in pursuing them. Perhaps we shall gain the best notion of the true poetic character of the poem of Lucretius as a whole by comparing it to the history of Herodotus, which has, as a whole, a fully equal title to be con- sidered poetry. There is in Herodotus the same epic treatment, the same ^w^.^/ artistic massing of materials, the same constant presence of potential poetry, the same constant presence of actual prose. But in the fate of the two writers there has been this difference, that 188 LUCRETIl LUCRETrrs AjVD modern thought. 189 whereas the poetry of Herotlotus has been as wings to his prose, the prose of Lucretius has been a dead wei^dit on his poetry; aud in addition to this, there is yet another misfortune to be meotioued— tliat tlie poetry of Lucretius has been also a dead weidit uu liis science. CHAPTEPt VL LUCRETIUS AND MODEKN TIIOUiiHT. A DEEPER consideration now remains for us. We have seen what Lucretius was as n man of scieuw. We have seen also what he w ; a piut. In Ids first capacity, if he is judged on ii a merits, id.s work will seem to us but an anti(iue curiosily— a laeee of scientific bric-a-brac. Judged of as a jiort , w <■ may each give him what place we will. But the sj.. rial tastes, neither of the antiquary nor of tiie literary critic, are tastes of the first importance, or of any universal interest. Books were made for men. not men for books. Art and poetry are valual-lc only if they can be absorbed into life: life is not valuable because it can be absorbed into art and poetry. And thougli Lucretius, as a distinct subject of study, may ail"ord keen fileasure to some of us, and seem a matter of really very grave moment, we should recollect, to the world in general, how trivial such mer ienfs interests arc. Looking on Lucretius, however, in another light, not a- >(:]]o!ars. or as critics, or as literary epicures, it is possible to connect him with other interests that are of really vital moment— interests to the house of which science, and art, and Uterature, are jiroperly only doorkeepers. And yet, even looked upon in this way, he will suggests i thought, rather than dictate it. To many of us, how- ever, he can hardly fail of being very suggestive. To begin then. We have already seen m some detail what his science was. Let us now briefly oonr~] pare that science, aud the methods it was founded on, with the science of our own dav. If we consider the various datails of his theory of things, and judge of these by the exact form which he gave to them, it is, of course, plain at a glance how remote they are from what we now hold to be true. It will be seen, to a certain extent, that this could not be otherwise, if we merely consider what his conception was of the size and shape of the universe — a conception which he seems to have adopted wdtli but small reflection, and the truth of which he took but small pains to verify. But his science difT<^rs from ours in a deeper way than in any such superficial grotesqueness of detail. The entire foundation of his system is essentially defective and insecure. His first principles are crude, loose, and puerile. Such, for instance, is his conception of grav- ity, and this conception is the corner-stone of his whole edifice. Weight, as he explains it (weight with him being the one motor power in the universe), and the tendency of every substance to be forever falling down- wards, is, .strictly speaking, unthinkable. How, in in- finit}^ can there be either an ?/;)or down? Starting with a premise like this, it is clearly impossible that he can know anything .scientifically of the laws of motion. It is evident then, even if we go no further, from the very nature of the case, what a want there will be in any explanation he can possibly have to offer us. And there are many more wants of a like kind — an absence of many conceptions which we now see to be essential to a true understanding of almost anything. 140 I VCRETIUS. %;■■ Chief amongst these is his incapacity to conceive of the propagation of energy without the propagation of mat- ter. Of how things can interact on each otlier from a distance by means of waves, of tremors, of vibrations, he knows nothing, he dreams nothing. All material interaction is conceived of by him in tlie crude form of material projection. A word, for instance, is a body witli a definite shape, which strikes our ears as a stone miglit . Our sight of a door is produced by the whole of that door's surface striking our eyes, as a stone might. And all kindred phenomena are explained in a like way. With so narrow and incomplete a conception of the powers that matter might possess, and of the aspects under wliich it was necessary to study and observe it, it is evident that under no circumstances could he have arrived at any real truth about things. And even on his own showing his own first principles are quite inadequate, and he is perpetually mak- mg to them certain vague and unacknowledged addi- tions. To take, for instance, his theory of vision, and the perpetual emanation of films from the surface of things, he makes no attempts to explain why this emanation takes place. Matter, according to him, tends to always fall, unless forced upwards by other matter, or unless rebounding off it. If this be the only tendency of matter, it is clearly inexplicable why the surface of everything should be for ever flying off from it, at an incalculable velocity, —not downwards only, but upwards and sideways also. Again, he seems often to have a momentary glimpse of laws, with which, as if by accident, he explains some single phenomenon, and then forgets and never again recurs to them. Thus he seems to have some notion that the velocity of falling bodies will be in some pro- \ LUORETIxrs AND MODERN THOUGHT. 141 portion to the .listance .hey have to fall. It is in this S he explains the exfen>e heat of the m.d .lay sun ; e fiUns of the sun, he says, have so far to fall tha ,vhen they reach us they strike us very forc.hly. But Tf the property of l.o.lies that this explanatton really implies, he takes no further notice whatsoever Again, many of his explanations are actually no ex planations at all. In his theory of vision, foi instance he make, no attempt of any kind to explain why e eyes are sensitive, and they alone, to the ac ion o the vSalfihnsof things. In his account of the b.rh of the first human beings from the earth itself, Le simply states a number of facts v^hicli, even had they been true would have need of explanation themse ves, just a, much as the thing they purported to explain ; and a-rain there are a number of other cases in which he only becomes more definite by deserting altogether his own first principles, and supplanting them, for the time being with those of the earlier physicists, and attnbut- i„. to Inanimate matter the qualities of a living organ- sm. He thus, as an explanation of the movements of some of the heavenly bodies, says that they possibly luder pasturing through the fields oMieaven e '^ one seeking after its own proper food. And he thinks rke^se ;;t he has explained the appearance o vege^ tation on the earth's surface, by saying that i g.ew from it as hairs do from the skins of some animals, and fpathers from the skins of others. ^Thls is a subject that can only be touc.^d on here in the briefest and most cursory way. That Lucietms did mtle to explain the actual truth of tbmgs.sev.den enough, without any comment at all. And enough has nowLn said to show that even had he possessed far better means for investigating the facts of nature, he ■^Ipiii^ii**' 142 iMCBKnrs. would have hvan siill unable to explain them, from his confused and limited notiou of the ways in which that explanation was to be sought. The aim of science is to simplify as far as possible the multiplicity of phenomena.— to trace in them the actions of common lawa and princii)les, and thus to reduce the mystery of existence to a minimum, if not lo do away with it altoi^-ether. And this Lucretius tloes not do. lie states his princii)les clearly, and he continually employs them. But they are never really adequate; and there are also many cases in which ho docs not employ them at all; and many others in which, though they are employed, they are supplemented by him unconsciously by additional principles, with whicb he makes no attempt to bring them into any connection. And thus his whole system, in the form he gave it. is utterly unsound and unstable; and even though it could not be disproved from without, it would have the principles of its own confutation within. "Partly a cause and partly a result of this was the im- perfect method which Lucretius for the most part fol- io wed. The method on which his conclusions reste^i was for the most part that of analogy, not of induction These two methods are not opposed to each other, noi are they mutually exclusive. The first is properly the supplement of the second; the second is the critic of the first. Analogy suggests explanations; induction chooses between those suggested. To modern science this choice is all-important. Lucretius seems to think it comparatively immaterial. Modern science interro- gates Nature with a view to showing how things are accomplished. The science of Lucretius interrogated Nature with a view to showing how things might be accomplished. And thus it is that such science as liis LUCRETIUS AM) MODERN THOUGET. 143 was in its very nature not progressive, and could give nieu no additional mastery over matter. Nor, indeed, did it even aim at doing so. The spirit that inspired it, and the spirit that inspires modern science, are dilTerent things. Knowledge, for its own sake, is the first thing desired by the latter. Knowl- edge, for the sake of discrediting supernatural agency, is the first thing desired by the former. So far as his mere analysis of matter goes, it is true that Lucretius employs a more accurate method of reasoning than that of mere analogy. He gives us there instances of gemi- lue, if of somewhat crude, induction. But from that point forward his main concern is to suggest the possi- ble, rather than discern the actual. The skeleton of his argument is as follows: "We see a number of things happen day by day. which we all of us admit to be natural, and which we attribute to no divine agency. Every event that men say the gods accomplish, I can show, by strict analogy, is no more supernatural than these' are, and i« no jot more wonderful." Thus, when , he says that thunder is often caused by the bursting of^ a cloud distant with wind, as a bladder bursts, his aim is not so much to show that such is the actual cause of thunder, as that thunder, whatever its cause, is really as homely a phenomenon as one of the most trivial events of life, that we all admit has nothing divine about it This will account, too, for his fancying he has explained the acl4on of lifeless matter, by compar- ing it to the action or growth of an animal. The sup- pressed premiss is, the animal is not divine. It seeks its food or its feathers grow, without the intervention of the crods. The aid of the gods is no more needful to explain why the stars roam through heaven, or why Uving things grow from the lifeless earth. 144 LUCIIETIUS. LUCRETIUS AND MODERN THOUGHT. 145 But great as are the dilTerences between this science of Lucretius and that of uiodern times, we must not forget how much they have iu aminion. His very method is but a part of the modern method, or rather it may be said tiiat it is the modern metho rould pass through glass. Again, as to these same ima'ges, it might be asked of him how things so fine, as he conceives them to he, could carry air before them, as he says tl.ey do; or how this air could pa.ss. as on his principles it must, through trans- parent things, which are evidently air-proof. In another place he says that, "if the mind be immortal, it must have five senses. But there can be no senses apart from the bod v." And yet he attributes to the mind one of the most important of all the sen>es— namely, sight. It sees, he says, just as the eyes do. only its vision is provoked by finer images. In his account of the voice, and the way in which we hear it. he says that a word as soon as it is uttered splits up into a number of words, and can thus l)e heard by a number of people at tlie same time. His ..wn manner of rea- soniug might be used against him here. Words being material, cannot be infinitely divisible. If they split into any great number, they will become inaudible. But it may be said that when we hear a word, a num- ber of such words enter our ears. Were that so, the more people tliere were within reach of a voice, rtie weaker to each one would that voice sound, as there would be fewer of these wandering words to enter the ears of each; and thus, suppose a room were filled with a thousand people, each of these would hear worse than 146 Lucai'yjns. if it were only filled with a huiidred people. These are but a fi-w instances out of many, of the way ia which Lucretius can be confuted by his own reasoning. But if we consider the general result ot his teaching -his first principles and his last cuiielusious-if we consider these as he taught theiri, and not the ways bv which he arrived at and supported them, we sha 1 ^r. that as far as ti >, Ids message t<. il..' world and tliat'of modern .ci.ncc i. practically identical. Human life in both 'li>' same momentary phenom- encm in the great un-yo.id itsrlt. It is to be judged of and ordered with ieferer.ce to itse f solely. It i> to be vabi.-d solely on account ot its -^,^/i ••!) jh*'<;*» rpsources ure to be present resources, and all incst it>oun.A..-i expressed in terms of roM.ciou. and of realized happi- ness. Luereti>. ■ thn as distinctly, and thought lie could prove it as surely, as Fiotess.ir Huxley oi Vucnista Comtc. In relation to human life then-in rehUion, that is. to the thing that alone gives anv- thing any interest for us-the materialism of Lueretiiu. and the materiidism of our own day are in exactly the same |>osition. But this lead- us on to the consideration of another and a deeper difference than any we have before been dwelliu- on. Tl that life itself is not the same thin<^ for u- a^ it wa. for Lucretius. Men's eyes have beeiropcned since \n. d.y , and they have become con- scious of new .Ufflculties; they have had new experi- ences of which he knew little or nothing, bince Ue LUCllETIUS AM) MODEUX THOUGHT. 147 lived, religion and }>hilosophy have transmuted the face of life, and have unfolded in human nature capacities that were before not bargained for. To begin witii wliat is commonly called philosophy, it can hardly fail to strike anv one who is in the least acquainted witli nietajiliysical speculation ^low strangely confused Lucretius is in liis treatment of mind and matter; how little he sec- the ditliculty of tracing the connection l)et\v(^en the universe we are conscious of, and the mind that is conscious of it; how little he sees what sensation really is; how completely he confounds it with the external cause that produces it. To say that without a mind to conceive what we call the uni- verse, no uni\«;-r is conceival)le, — to say that mind creates matter just as truly as matter creates mind, — is, to any one at all trained in exact thinking, a common- plac(\ But to the whole side of the question here indi- cated Lucretius seems an entire stranger. Many of our most eminent modern physicists are practically much in his case, it is true; and remind us. to quote the words of one of theiM>elves. " wliat drivellers even men of strenuous intellect may become, through exclusively dwelling and dealing wi;h." n<»t. as this writer says, "theological chimeras," but with the physical side of things merely, to the exclusion of the metaphysical. But they, tliough they practically lose sight of the other side of the question, yet theoretically acknowledge, for the most part, that the other side exists; and is only not a subject for study, because it is so great a mystery that no study can unravel it. The following are the words of Professor Tyudall: " The passage from the physics of the brain to the correspond- ing facts of consciousness is untliinkatjle. Granted that a defl- iiite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur 148 LUCREriUS. Bimultaneonsl' ' not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any i u uuitut of tlie organ, which would enable us to pass by a \>vov<- <'<* reasoning from the one to the other. They appear tOK'etli. we do not kiu av why. Were our mind and senses so expaiiat^l ;. and f.-el the very niol.'cules of the brain -were we capabU- ..f following all their motions, all their groupings, a^ their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acciuainted with the corresponding state of thought and feeling.— we should be as far as ever from the solu- tion of the i)roblem, 'How are these i»liysieal processes con- nected with the facts of consciousness^' The cliasm between the two classes of phenomena would remain intellectually im- passable." But of this difficult}' Lucretius knows nothing. He does not see that two classes of phenomena exist at all, and how closely each is dependent upon the other. As a sug.i^estive illustration of tiie gulf between his mind and ale modern mind with regard to this question, we may compare his words with the words of a modern poet, where the two are contemplating the same event, and expressing it in almost the same language. A pas- sage in which Lucretius speaks of the destruction of the existing universe has been already quoted, describing how one day it sliall all crumble, melt, and utterly pass away, and leave nothing behind it but invisible atoms and deserted space. Exactly the same thing has been said in words which we all know far better. " Like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces. The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." But how differently do Lucretius and Shakespeare con- ■.«W ^\ftA.•t.^ ifiLTi. i» ^vCt ■uMnmsz'fss- LUCRETIUS AND MODERN THOUGHT. 149 ceive of the same catastrophe that is predicted in the verse of both of them! Lucretius simply means that the world which is made up of atoms will be one day shattered, and become atoms again; it will, in short, be pulverized and reduced to the dust that it was made of. But Shakespeare means far more than this. To him the atoms and the dust are no more lasting than the universe that has been built, or that has built itself, out of them. They, too, are an insubstantial pageant like- wise; they, too, have no existence but in dreams— the dreams the stuff of which we ourselves are made of. The language of Shakespeare may not be strictly philo- sophical, but it expresses a meaning that is at the root of all philosophy; it expresses a meaning which Lucre- tius seems to have had no glimpse of. . , But not only is his position with regard to philos-j ophy so different to what ours is; his position with reiiard to the worth of life, and religion as connected with life, is even more different. The crude and puerile theology with which he had to combat, it was easy enough to prove a useless factor in any theory of the conduct or existence of life. Starting with his empty space and atoms, as the raw material of every- thing, he could show easily enough that no such gods as the world, he knew, believed in, could be of any as- sistance in explaining how the universe was manufac- tured. But the God which modern science encounters, and whose aid it is endeavoring to dispense with, is a very different God from these: He is a God to whom time and space are nothing, and who is behind the atoms themselves, making them what they are, and being the one cause of their existence. The ways in which modern theists have expressed the connection of God with the world, and the creation of the world, 150 LUCRETIUS. LUCRETIUS AND MODERN THOUGHT. 151 have been very various both in form and meaning. But — to take as an instance such a phrase as tliis, " The universe is a tlion<^iit of God." — tliey one and all show us how dilTerent :i thing is the theism we are calling in question now, to that which was called in question in the ancient world. And tiiat theism has thus grown a profounder thing, sliows us also how the w^orld has grown more and more to see the profundity of the enigma of existence for which it has held theism to be the onlv solution. The mere enigma of existence, however, is not the only one that now confronts us. We find ourselves perplexed by problems that are yet more importunate, and yet more difficult to deal with — problems not con- cerning the origin of the world, and of life and con- sciousness, but with the use to be made of life and consciousness when originated. Men during the last two thousand years have been growing more and more conscious of a worth, a solemnity, and a purpose in human life. They liave felt more and more that it must have some important end; they have been troubled more and more with aspirations towards things they have named holy, and high, and sacred. They have become convinced that these are the things they ouglit to live for, and that life is something worse than worthless if they fail to do so. And all this inward consciousness has associated itself, and been absorbed into their conception of God, — a God to whom they felt that they were rising, and who on his part was, they felt, condescending to them. Whilst, however, the ideal of life has been thus grow- ing, thus taking a grander and more august shape, and been catching brighter colors and a purer light, the actual facts of life have remained much the same. And I thus the contrast between what ought to be and what is has grown more marked, more painful, and more per- plexing, and men have come to be tortured with a new set of doubts and questions. Is the moral life only a dream? If it be not— if it be the real end of man— how is it that it seems so few can attain to it? If justice bo the thing that in some moods we feel it to be, how is it that injustice seems everywhere to have the mastery? Germs of this view of life are doubtless to be traced in Lucretius; but they were not distinct enough in liis mind, or often enough present with him, to perplex his view of things, and his facile explanation of the universe. How easily, for instance, and with what slipshod ingenuity, does he dispose of the problem of free-will: How little does he see how much, at least lo some mens reason, raay seem to hang on a denial of iti The contrast between his attitude and that of men in later ages, in the presence of the same facts, and trained in the same school of reasoning, is illus- trated very forcibly by a comparison between him and the Persian philosopher-poet, Omar Khayyam, now so well known to English readers through the translation of Mr. Fitzgerald. Omar, like Lucretius, was a mate- rialist; and like Lucretius, by virtue of his materialism, was a disbeliever in all theology. But to Lucretius this disbelief was pure gain. For the Persian, it raises as many problems as it solves. Both say alike that there is no God, and no life hereafter. But Lucretius says this with an earnest and grave content. Omar says it with a fierce despair, and would reason and ob- servation let him, he would gladly embrace the faith that he is thrusting from him; and this gives to his language a passiouate bitterness that iu Lucretius is 152 LUCRETIUS. LUCRETIUS AND MODERN TIIOUOIIT. 153 quite wanting. The presence of a mindless uniformity everywhere, that takes no heed of man, and knows nothing of him. Lucretius contemplates with com- placency. Oniiii iliscerns in such a spectacle food for another temper. He see that not only is nature thus " rid of her haughty lords," which is all that Lucretius sees, but that tiie soul of man is rid also of its desire, and its comforter. He does not congratulate men upon this discovery; he commistrales them. There is no help anywhere,— this is wiiat he says to them: there is no help anywhere, and who will show us any good? " And that inverted Itowl th>-v call the sky, Whereunder crawHnp. cooped, wp live and die. Lift not your hands to // for help—for It As impotently rules as you or I. With earth's first clay tliey did the last iiiaii knead, And there of the last harvest sowed tlie seed; And fhe first morning of creation wrote What the last daun of reckoning shall read. Yesterday r/us days madness tlid prepare, To-nn>rr us oy asisuncg us ■^iiRifKi^;^' 156 LUCRETIUS. GREEN'S HISTORY OF that, as far as our moral life goes, there is no knot to cut. Philosophy again steps in, and claims that science depends on it, and can have no certainty that is not de- rived from it. And now on all sides we see faith failing, philoso- pliies in conflict, and science, though its superstructure is daily growing, feeling its foundations becoming more and more insecure. And amongst the most thoughtful minds, who cannot accept faith as the guide of life, and who yet feel that reason alone will not take the place of it, w^e find traces theoretically, if not practic- ally, of a despondent scepticism. Let us do our best, they say, and live by what light we have. But these lights are very feeble, and their strongest rays are lost in the gloom beyond us. " W»' are such stiiflf As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with asleep." THE END. - THE ENGLISH PEOPLE THE LARGER HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE By John Kichanl <;ri-»'ii, Elzevir Edition. Complete in five v.. Is.. Brevier tyiH\ leade.l, J.l^t; images. I'er set. cloth, $2; half IUi>si:'.. red edges. $2.50. "No man can claim to be thoroughly posted on English history un- less he has read Green. The enthusiasm ami painstaking accunicy of the author, and the luminous style in whieli he writes, stamp th<> history as a classic. Ev«'ry man who has Anglo Saxon bloo,' of whom would he lamentable iKiior.uHc ; ;itTord you an infinite amount of pleasant recreation, and ot ri nlly ux ful knowledtre; f(»r fiction, better than liistory, knuwKdL^c .>f the lit".' of the people in the various age-s and c*)uutii- .> in w iiiiii it ;u'i' laid. The following may Ite >' Hyperion— Modern life of tlit .}^U ri i»reseuiiiife «i iiu J H >tt. Thult — Modern Koujauee, art and seenerv of North British I-lts. A*laui riede -North of England country life in the last I'.ntury. Hypatia— Egyptian and Roman life in the first centurv. Ivanhoe— English life in tiie romantic era of the C'nisadrs. Pompeii-Lif<- in and fate of, a Komaii citv in the tirst centurv. ^opperfleld— Lower ami middle classes of tuKland, recent tiines lane Eyre--Une.|ualed pictures of ccrtjuu pluises of Enirlish life, rohn Hahfa-v-EnKlisii fife again, nobility in xhv eomiiion. atia— Egyptian and lioma I vanhoe— English life in tiie romantic era of the C'nisadrs. Pompeii-Life in and fate of, a Komaii citv in the tirst centurv. Copperfleld- ' ...... . ,. w, . . Jj J< Vanity Fair-English lite ; tlu- keenest of nwxiern satires. The Spy-Green 3lountaiu Boys-Aineriean life in lievohition times. The Berl>er— Life in Siain and .Moroee<» in the iTtii centurv Horse-Shoe Robinson— American Kevolutionarv Life. Wilhelra Meister^ Goethe's wonderful ni( dlv oi" pe.i.>.i!;t i" -< i intor life in Genua nv. Moonstone-East Lynne-Influiteplot, tragcdv, iMih,,-, m.Miern tiuK— killing entirtaiument. Hyperion. By Henry W. Longfellow. ■2:i]KVJo<. Cloth 45c. IJriucosof Thule. By William Bhick. -Jt.l pages. Clotli, 50e. Hyperion and Tliule, in one \ol.. 7;.« jiages; cloth. ;5c.; half r.. 'M)c, Adam Bede. By (ieorge f ' ' ' ' ^. Clotli.5uc Hypatia. By Charles Kii: ^es. Cloth. 5oc. Adam Bede and Hypatia, m one vol.. j. i pages ; cl., *M>v. ; half r.. $t. K.. Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scot t. Jto j.ayes. Cloth. 5(V'. Last Days of Pompeii. Sir E. Bulwei- Lvtton. -K« pages. Cloth, .noc i.lC. )y nna a. JSl. Boys, m one vol., 77«i imges; el., 7(ic.;" h'lf r '«i<. The :^erber. By W. S. 3Iayo. axi p{i;es. Clotli, 4ik\ Horse-Shoe Rol)inson. By J. P. Kennedy. 5,^4 pages. Cloth, m- Berber and H. S. Kobiu.son, one vol., 854 pages; el., sk-.: half r., Sl.t'O. Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bronte. af2 pages. Cloth, fiOc. John Halifax, Gentlenum. Mrs. Muh.ck ( raik. 424 pages. Cloth .".iC Jane ^ — — " ^ '-- '^ ■ - ■ . • V; Jane Eyre and John Halifax. <7ne vol., blti pages. ; cl., hue; halt r S. Vanity Fair. By W. M. Thackeray. Nearly aX) illustrations. 77*1 pages . Cloth, 9ltc. ; half russia, S 1. 10. David Conpertteld. By Dickens. 8:. 1 pages. Cloth, ^Oe.. half r , $1 VVilhelmMeister. Goethe. 5% pp., Brev ier type. Cloth, 5:>c ; half russia, 81 >c. The Moonstone. By Wilkie Collins. 445 pages (; EastLynne. By Mrs. Heiir.\ \V ood. 409 pages, noin, 4:>c. Jloonsionc and Ea^t Lyiinc, one vol.. cl., Wjc; half r., $1. '"FT \ t I ra ..m ' GAYLAMOU ' PAMPHLET Bih Monufoctur«< iftAYLORD BROS ! Svrocu»#, N. ■ Sfockt-.. ■• '"'-I 87L96 BM COLUMBIA UNIVERSr 0026058383 in I 00 O MAR i 6 1954 iinli ^ If iJSft'*' *-. r\«f **%(!, W m- [Gi