142 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



ethical harmony here, and not the thought of personal 

 happiness hereafter, that prompted his observation. 



There are persons, not belonging to the highest 

 intellectual zone, nor yet to the lowest, to whom perfect 

 clearness of exposition suggests want of depth. They 

 find comfort and edification in an abstract and learned 

 phraseology. To such people Epicurus, who spared no 

 pains to rid his style of every trace of haze and turbidity, 

 appeared, on this very account, superficial. He had, 

 however, a disciple who thought it no unworthy occu- 

 pation to spend his days and nights in the effort to 

 reach the clearness of his master, and to whom th< 

 Greek philosopher is mainly indebted for the extension 

 and perpetuation of his fame. Some two centuries 

 after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius l wrote his grea< 

 poem, ' On the Nature of Things,' in which he, 

 Koman, developed with extraordinary ardour the philo 

 eophy of his Greek predecessor. He wishes to win ovei 

 his friend Memnius to the school of Epicurus ; and 

 although he has no rewards in a future life to offer, 

 although his object appears to be a purely negative one, 

 he addresses his friend with the heat of an apostle. His 

 object, like that of his great forerunner, is the destruc- 

 tion of superstition ; and considering that men in his 

 day trembled before every natural event as a direct 

 monition from the gods, and that everlasting torture 

 was also in prospect, the freedom aimed at by Lucretius 

 might be deemed a positive good. ' This terror,' he 

 says, * and darkness of mind, must be dispelled, not by 

 the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by 

 the aspect and the law of nature.' He refutes the 

 notion that anything can come out of nothing, or that 

 what is once begotten can be recalled to nothing. The 

 first beginnings, the atoms, are indestructible, and into 

 * Born 99 B.O. 



