200 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



Presages. 



The fear of 

 death, 



how got 

 rid of. 



he that attaches the fancies of the multitude to his idea of the gods. 

 For the multitude judge of the virtues of the gods by their own, and 

 attribute to them, alike the greatest evils that befall the wicked and 

 the prosperity that accrues to the good." 



While trying to account for the belief in presages or omens, drawn 

 from the flight of birds and other circumstances connected with 

 animals, Epicurus ridicules the idea of a divine being sitting aloft 

 watching the motions of the animals, and taking his cue from that as 

 to how he shall regulate the machinery of the world. He would not 

 set any living thing, whose lot he meant to be tolerable, to such a 

 dotard task; much less a being endowed with supreme felicity. 

 Lucretius even hints the .serious displeasure of the gods if the gods 

 could be angry against those who assign them any such ignoble em- 

 ployment as at all interfering with this world and the concerns of men. 



These notions if thou chase not, driving far 



Thoughts of the gods unworthy, and adverse 



To the pure peace they covet, thou wilt oft 



Foretaste the heavenly vengeance that thou dread' st. 



Not that the majesty of powers like these 



Kage e'er can violate, or dire revenge 



Rouse into action ; but that thou thyself 



Hence thy own ease wilt shipwreck with the storms 



Of passions fierce and foul ; nor e'er approach 



With hallowed heart the temples they possess, 



Nor deeply musing mark with soul serene 



The sacred semblances their forms emit, 



Traced by the spirit, thus of gods assured. 



Judge, then, thyself, what life must hence ensue. 1 



Death and Pain. 



Epicurus next proceeds to cut off the other great source of disquiet 

 the fear of death. For this he had prepared the way in his 

 physiology, when he proved that the dissolution of the body involves 

 that of the soul. 



'* The most terrible of all evils, death, is nothing to us ; since when 

 we are, death is not ; and when death z's, we are not. It is nothing 

 then to the dead or the living ; for to the one class it is not near, and 

 the other class are no longer in existence. The wise man does not fear 

 not-being-alive, or think it an evil ; for the question is not between 



1 Quse nisi respuis ex animo longeque remittis 

 Dis indigna putare alienaque pacis eorum, 

 Delibata deum per te tibi numina sancta 

 Saepe oberunt ; non quo violari summa deum vis 

 Possit, ut ex ira poenas petere inbibat acris, 

 Sed quia tute tibi placida cum pace quietos 

 Constitues magnos irarum volvere fluctus, 

 Nee delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis, 

 Nee de coi'pore quse saneto simulacra feruntur 

 In mentes hominum divinse nuntia formee 

 Suscipere hasc animi tranquilla pace valebis. 

 Inde videre licet qualis jam vita sequatur. Lucr. vi. 78. 



