192 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE 



straight path of an atom, had an imperfect perception of this 

 mechanical doctrine ; a little swerving would bring his atoms 

 into contact, and a modern mechanician would tell him. you 

 require no power to make them swerve. With what triumph 

 Epicurus, and Lucretius his scholar, would have hailed the 

 demonstration ; but, alas ! their triumph would have been 

 short-lived ; they would soon have perceived that their atoms 

 were described as in deadly stillness a death from which no 

 life could spring, a rest from which, they could never swerve 

 until inspired with power from a source of life. Still we can 

 see that their conception was not stupid, it was simply false, as 

 all physical explanations of the origin of energy and matter 

 must be. There is little to be said for the further conception 

 that matter with its present properties would result from the 

 mere accidental clashing of atoms ; this one doctrine of 

 Lucretius is so well known and so little valued, that we will 

 waste no further time on it, merely pointing out that the worth- 

 lessness of these ideas as an explanation of the origin of things 

 does not impair the value of the conception of moving atoms as 

 the constituent parts of gross matter as it exists. 



The motive for devising the curious doctrine that atoms 

 might swerve now and then from the straight path without 

 being acted upon by other atoms, was, as Mr. Munro observes, 

 undoubtedly the desire to devise an explanation of Free-will. 

 Lucretius believed in free-will. If you believe in free-will and 

 in atoms, you have two courses open to you. The first alterna- 

 tive may be put as follows : Something which is not atoms must 

 be allowed an existence, and must be supposed capable of 

 acting on the atoms. The atoms may, as Democritus believed, 

 build up a huge mechanical structure, each wheel of which 

 drives its neighbour in one long inevitable sequence of causation ; 

 but you may assume that beyond this ever-grinding wheelwork 

 there exists a power not subject to but partly master of the 

 machine ; you may believe that man possesses such a power, 

 and if so, no better conception of the manner of its action could 

 be devised than the idea of its deflecting the atoms in their 

 onward path to the right or left of that line in which they 

 would naturally move. The will, if it so acted, would add 

 nothing sensible to nor take anything sensible from the energy 



