6o AMONG THE GREEKS. 



refute it. Epicurus was influenced by Democritus 

 and his doctrine cf Atomism, excluding Teleology 

 at every present point as well as at the beginning 

 of the world, supporting the mechanical conception 

 of Nature, and maintaining that every individual 

 thing is to be explained in a purely mechanical 

 manner. Convinced that only natural causes pre- 

 vail, Epicurus did not concern himself with in- 

 quiries as to their character. He also taught 

 the origin of life by spontaneous generation, that 

 living beings arose directly from the earth, including 

 many marvellous forms, and adopted Empedocles' 

 notion, that only those capable of life and reproduc- 

 tion have been preserved. 



From Epicurus we take a long leap in time to 

 T. Lucretius Carus, the Roman poet, whose inquiry 

 into the origin and nature of living things, as we 

 have observed, revived the teachings of Emped- 

 ocles, of Democritus, and especially of Epicurus. 

 He connected with these many observations of his 

 own. The fact that he was an original observer of 

 Nature must be inferred from his considerable 

 knowledge of animals and plants. It is possible 

 that the observations treated in his great poem may 

 have been more precisely recorded in some of his 

 lost books. ^^ , 



Lucretius (99-55) was the second poet of Evo- 

 lution. His De Rertim Natura resuscitated the 

 doctrines of Epicurus, and set them in a far more 

 favourable light, building up anew the mechanical 



