THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 44? 
their combination and separation; and bolder than Dernoc* 
ritus, he struck in with the penetrating thought, linked, 
however, with some wild speculation, that it lay in the very 
nature of those combinations which were suited to their 
ends (in other words, in harmony with their environment) 
to maintain themselves, while unfit combinations, having 
no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear. / Thus, more 
than two thousand years ago, the doctrine of the "survival -^K^*^ 
of the fittest," which in our day, not on the basis of vague 
conjecture, but of positive knowledge, has been raised to 
such extraordinary significance, had received at all events 
partial enunciation.*/' -4^^. "C 
Epicurus,t said to be the son of a poor schoolmaster at 
Samos, is the next dominant figure in the history of the 
atomic philosophy. He mastered the writings of Democ- 
ritus, heard lectures in Athens, went buck to Samos, and . , 
subsequently wandered through various countries. He 
finally returned to Athens, where he bought a garden, and 
surrounded himself by pupils, in the midst of whom he 
lived a pure and serene life, and died a peaceful death. 
Democritus looked to the soul as the ennobling part of 
man; even beauty, without understanding, partook of 
animalism. Epicurus also rated the spirit above the body; 
the pleasure of the body being that of the moment, while 
the spirit could draw upon the future and the past. His 
philosophy was almost identical with that of Democritus; 
but he never quoted either friend or foe. One main object 
of Epicurus was to free the world from superstition and 
the fear of death. Death he treated with indifference. It 
merely robs us of sensation. As long as we are, death is 
not; and when death is, we are not. Life has no more 
evil for him who has made up his mind that it is no 
evil not to live. He adored the gods, but not in the 
ordinary fashion. The idea of divine power, properly 
purified, he thought an elevating one. Still he taught, 
" Not he is godless who rejects the gods of the crowd, but 
rather he who accepts them." The gods were to him 
eternal and immortal beings, whose blessedness excluded 
every thought of care or occupation of any kind. Nature 
pursues her course in accordance with everlasting laws, the 
gods never interfering. They haunt 
* See "Lange," 2d edit., p. 23. f Born 342 B. c. 
