I THALES TO LUCRETIUS 21 



the unworthy. Rather did he counsel the following 

 after pure, high, and noble aims, whereby alone a 

 man could have peace of mind. It is not hard to 

 see that in the minds of men of low ideals, the 

 tendency towards passivity which lurked in such 

 teaching would aid their sliding into the pursuit of 

 mere animal enjoyment ; hence the gross and limited 

 association of the term Epicurean. Epicurus accepted 

 the theory of Leucippus, and applied it all round. 

 The faMant gods, who dwell serenely indifferent to 

 human affairs, and about whom men should therefore 

 have no dread ; all things, whether dead or living ; 

 even the ideas that enter the mind ; are alike com- 

 posed of atoms. He also accepted the theory 

 broached by Empedocles as to the survival of fit 

 and capable forms, after life had arrived at these 

 through the processes of spontaneous generation 

 and the production of monstrosities. Adopting the 

 physical speculations of these forerunners, he made 

 them the vehicle of didactic and ethical philosophies 

 which inspired the production of the wonderful poem 

 of Lucretius. 



Between this great Roman and Epicurus a 

 period of some two centuries there is no name 

 of sufficient prominence to warrant attention. The 

 decline of Greece had reached its nadir in her conquest 

 by the semi-barbarian Mummius, and in her conse- 

 quent addition to the provinces of the Roman 

 Empire. What life lingered in her philosophy 

 within her own borders expired with the loss of 

 freedom, and the work begun by the Pioneers of 

 Evolution in Greece was to be resumed elsewhere. 

 In the few years of the pre-Christian period that 



