HOMER AND VIRGIL. 485 



Anaxagoras, and Democritus, was rejected by 

 Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, who maintained 

 that the different elements are mutually convert- 

 ible into each other. Besides, the universal doc- 

 trine of the ancients, that all space is filled with 

 subtile matter, is supposed to have been rejected 

 by Epicurus, who is generally understood to have 

 maintained the vacuum of space. || 



But with all due reverence for the wisdom of 

 the ancients, it must be acknowledged, that they 

 never fully established any one great principle 

 in physics, capable of widely-extended applica- 

 tion to the benefit of mankind. Many of their 



lines from Homer's Iliad, translated by Pope, the living principle 

 is represented as escaping with the blood: 



"The vital spirit issued at the wound, 



And left the members quivering on the ground." 



And in the description of a dying hero by Virgil, the soul is 

 identified with the blood : 



" Purpuream vomit ille animam." 



|| Mason Good says, " it required 3000 years to render the 

 doctrine of a vacuum probable, and 5600 years to establish it 

 on a solid foundation. For its probability, we are indebted to 

 Epicurus ; for its certainty to Sir Isaac Newton." (Book of Na- 

 ture, vol. i. p. 343.) But the following lines from Lucretius, 

 translated by Good, leave it doubtful whether any of the ancients 

 ever believed in a perfect vacuum : 



*' The myriad seeds of fire dispersed at large 

 Through all things, back to the same fountain flow ; 

 And hence well forth o'er all the exulting world 

 In boundless flood." 



