THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 44? 



their combination and separation; and bolder than Democ- 

 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 

 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.* 



Epicurus, f 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 back 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. 



