LUCBETIUS AND THE EVOLUTION IDEA. 173 



shocking immoralities, and there are hints here and there of human 

 sacrifices. The future life, even when it was allowed, was far from 

 attractive to a noble spirit, being a sort of languid and aimless shadow 

 of the i^resent life. The Roman gods are vague abstractions with no 

 appeal to the imagination or enthusiasm of their votaries, and, so far 

 as thev touch human life at all, malevolent and irresistible. This was 

 the body of religious beliefs and practices against which Lucretius pro- 

 tested in the interests of humanity. In doing so, he showed his essen- 

 tially religious nature. 'He denied divinely the divine.' The divine 

 within him recognized nothing kindred in what was currently called 

 divine, and he invoked the aid of science to dispel 'this terror and dark- 

 ness of mind.' 



