LUCRETIUS. 



sary preparation for the reception of truth. All that was 

 held sacred by Memmius before he began to learn the truths 

 of the physical world must be immediately demolished, in 

 order that Memmius' mind may become smooth and pure 

 as a sheet of white paper, ready to receive the delicate im- 

 pressions of the philosophic unknowable. 



But of Lucretius. How fresh and simple is the opening 

 of the immortal poem. It seems like what it purports to be, 

 an introduction to true philosophy. Every student of nature 

 is charmed with the gentle peaceful picture in which the 

 beauties of nature are so inimitably described. The reader 

 seems to float joyfully and hopefully as upon the calm illimit- 

 able, happy in the thought that he is about to learn much 

 that he has been longing to know concerning the essences of 

 things. But what is his disappointment when he finds ere one 

 single act of nature has been unfolded, the poet discards his 

 philosophic repose, and angrily attacks religion as superstition 

 opposed to philosophy; speaks of his fellow-subjects who, 

 it may be concluded, were not more learned regarding the 

 nature of atoms than the majority of ours as foully grovel- 

 ling and crushed beneath a religion of terrible aspect tower- 

 ing over mortals. Priests were condemned for imposing 

 upon mankind, and "the present system of belief" was 

 spoken of with philosophic scorn. The impious and criminal 

 deeds to which much extolled religion had given birth, and 

 the terrors which the idea of eternal punishment had wrought 

 upon the mind of man were not forgotten. Full and suffi- 

 cient reason for the course followed by the poet was, how- 

 ever, discovered by Burke, who explained that the picture 

 drawn of religion was made terrible in order that the mag- 

 nanimity of the philosophical hero in opposing her might 



