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LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY. 1 



I know not whether this inquiry I speak of concerning the first condition 

 of seeds or atoms be not the most useful of all. BACON. 



THE popular conception of any philosophical doctrine is ne- 

 cessarily imperfect, and very generally unjust. Lucretius is 

 often alluded to as an atheistical writer, who held the silly 

 opinion that the universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse 

 of atoms ; readers are asked to consider how long letters must 

 be shaken in a bag before a complete annotated edition of 

 Shakespeare could result from the process ; and after being 

 reminded how much more complex the universe is than the 

 works of Shakespeare, they are expected to hold Lucretius, with 

 his teachers and his followers, in derision. A nickname which 

 sticks has generally some truth in it, and so has the above view, 

 but it would be unjust to form our judgment of a man from his 

 nickname alone, and we may profitably consider what the real 

 tenets of Lucretius were, especially now that men of science are 

 beginning, after a long pause in the inquiry, once more eagerly 

 to attempt some explanation of the ultimate constitution of 

 matter. 



This problem, a favourite one with many great men, has 

 come to be looked upon by most persons as insoluble ; nay, the 

 attempt to solve it is sometimes treated as impious ; but know- 

 ing that all the phenomena of light are explained by particular 

 motions of a medium constituted according to simple laws, and 

 so perfectly explained that the exact motions corresponding to 

 all the colours of the spectrum, with their modifications due to 

 reflection, refraction, and polarisation, can be defined in form, 



1 Review of Munro's Lucretius, second edition. From the North British 

 Review, 1868. 



VOL. I. N 



