i6 



LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



science cannot cover all the demands of 

 his nature. But the history of the efforts 

 made to satisfy these demands might be 

 broadly described as a history of errors 

 the error, in great part, consisting in 

 ascribing fixity to that which is fluent, 

 which varies as we vary, being gross when 

 we are gross, and becoming, as our capa- 

 cities widen, more abstract and sublime. 

 On one great point the mind of Epicurus 

 was at peace. He neither sought nor 

 expected, here or hereafter, any personal 

 profit from his relation to the gods. And 

 it is assuredly a fact that loftiness and 

 serenity of thought may be promoted by 

 conceptions which involve no idea of 

 profit of this kind. " Did I not believe," 

 said a great man 1 to me once, " that an 

 Intelligence is at the heart of things, my 

 life on earth would be intolerable." The 

 utterer of these words is not, in my 

 opinion, rendered less but more noble 

 by the fact that it was the need of ethical 

 harmony here, and not the thought 

 of personal happiness hereafter, that 

 prompted his observation. 



There are persons, not belonging to 

 the highest intellectual zone, nor yet to 

 the lowest, to whom perfect clearness of 

 exposition suggests want of depth. They 

 find comfort and edification in an abstract 

 and learned phraseology. To such people 

 Epicurus, who spared no pains to rid his 

 style of every trace of haze and turbidity, 

 appeared, on this very account, super- I 

 ficial. He had, however, a disciple who 

 thought it no unworthy occupation to 

 spend his days and nights in the effort 

 to reach the clearness of his master, and | 

 to whom the Greek philosopher is mainly 

 indebted for the extension and perpetua- 

 tion of his fame. Some two centuries 

 after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius 2 

 wrote his great poem, On the Nature of 

 Things, in which he, a Roman, developed 

 with extraordinary ardour the philosophy 

 of his Greek predecessor. He wishes to 

 win over his friend Memnius to the 

 school of Epicurus ; and although he has 

 no rewards in a future life to offer, 



Carlyle. 



2 Born 99 u. c. 



although his object appears to be a purely 

 negative one, he addresses his friend with 

 the heat of an apostle. His object, like 

 that of his great forerunner, is the destruc- 

 tion of superstition ; and considering that 

 men in his day trembled before every 

 natural event as a direct monition from 

 the gods, and that everlasting torture 

 was also in prospect, the freedom aimed 

 at by Lucretius might be deemed a posi- 

 tive good. " This terror," he says, "and 

 darkness of mind, must be dispelled, not 

 by the rays of the sun and glittering 

 shafts of day, but by the aspect and the 

 law of nature." He refutes the notion 

 that anything can come out of nothing, 

 or that what is once begotten can be 

 recalled to nothing. The first beginnings, 

 the atoms, are indestructible, and into 

 them all things can be resolved at last. 

 Bodies are partly atoms and partly com- 

 binations of atoms; but the atoms 

 nothing can quench. They are strong 

 in solid singleness, and, by their denser 

 combination, all things can be closely 

 packed and exhibit enduring strength. 

 He denies that matter is infinitely divisi- 

 ble. We come at length to the atoms, 

 without which, as an imperishable sub- 

 stratum, all order in the generation and 

 development of things would be des- 

 troyed. 



The mechanical shock of the atoms 

 being, in his view, the all-sufficient cause 

 of things, he combats the notion that the 

 constitution of nature has been in any 

 way determined by intelligent design. 

 The interaction of the atoms throughout 

 infinite time rendered all manner of 

 combinations possible. Of these, the 

 fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones 

 disappeared. Not after sage deliberation 

 did the atoms station themselves in their 

 right places, nor did they bargain what 

 motions they should assume. From all 

 eternity they have been driven together, 

 and, after trying motions and unions of 

 every kind, they fell at length into the 

 arrangements, out of which this system 

 of things has been evolved. " If you 

 will apprehend and keep in mind these 

 things, Nature, free at once and rid of 



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