THE BELFAST ADDRESS 



her haughty lords, is seen to do all 

 things spontaneously of herself, without 

 the meddling of the gods." 1 



To meet the objection that his atoms 

 cannot be seen, Lucretius describes a 

 violent storm, and shows that the in- 

 visible particles of air act in the same 

 way as the visible particles of water. 

 We perceive, moreover, the different 

 smells of things, yet never see them 

 coming to our nostrils. Again, clothes 

 hung up on a shore, which waves break 

 upon, become moist, and then get dry if 

 spread out in the sun, though no eye can 

 see either the approach or the escape 

 of the water-particles. A ring, worn long 

 on the ringer, becomes thinner ; a water- 

 drop hollows out a stone ; the plough- 

 share is rubbed away in the field ; the 

 street-pavement is worn by the feet ; but 

 the particles that disappear at any 

 moment we cannot see. Nature acts 

 through invisible particles. That Lu- 

 cretius had a strong scientific imagina- 

 tion the foregoing references prove. A 

 fine illustration of his power in this 

 respect is his explanation of the ap- 

 parent rest of bodies whose atoms are in 

 motion. He employs the image of a 

 flock of sheep with skipping lambs, 

 which, seen from a distance, presents 

 simply a white patch upon the green hill, 

 the jumping of the individual lambs 

 being quite invisible. 



His vaguely grand conception of the 

 atoms falling eternally through space 

 suggested the nebular hypothesis to 

 Kant, its first propounder. Far beyond 

 the limits of our visible world are to be 

 found atoms innumerable, which have 

 never been united to form bodies, or 

 which, if once united, have been again 

 dispersed falling silently through im- 

 measurable intervals of time and space. 

 As everywhere throughout the All the 

 same conditions are repeated, so must 

 the phenomena be repeated also. Above 



1 Monro's translation. In his criticism of this 

 work (Contemporary Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman 

 does not appear to be aware of the really sound 

 and subtile observations on which the reasoning 

 of Lucretius, though erroneous, sometimes rests. 



us, below us, beside us, therefore, are 

 worlds without end; and this, when 

 considered, must dissipate every thought 

 of a deflection of the universe by the 

 gods. The worlds come and go, attract- 

 ing new atoms out of limitless space, or 

 dispersing their own particles. The 

 reputed death of Lucretius, which forms 

 the basis of Mr. Tennyson's noble poem, 

 is in strict accordance with his philo- 

 sophy, which was severe and pure. 



STILL earlier than these three philoso- 

 phers, and during the centuries between 

 the first of them and the last, the human 

 intellect was active in other fields than 

 theirs. Pythagoras had founded a school 

 of mathematics, and made his experi- 

 ments on the harmonic intervals. The 

 Sophists had run through their career. 

 At Athens had appeared Socrates, Plato, 

 and Aristotle, who ruined the Sophists, 

 and whose yoke remains to some extent 

 unbroken to the present hour. Within 

 this period also the School of Alexandria 

 was founded, Euclid wrote his Elements, 

 and made some advance in optics. 

 Archimedes had propounded the theory 

 of the lever and the principles of 

 hydrostatics. Astronomy was immensely 

 enriched by the discoveries of Hippar- 

 chus, who was followed by the historically 

 more celebrated Ptolemy. Anatomy 

 had been made the basis of scientific 

 medicine ; and it is said by Draper 1 that 

 vivisection had begun. In fact, the 

 science of ancient Greece had already 

 cleared the world of the fantastic images of 

 divinities operating capriciously through 

 natural phenomena. It had shaken itself 

 free from that fruitless scrutiny "by the 

 internal light of the mind alone," which 

 had vainly sought to transcend experi- 

 ence, and to reach a knowledge of 

 ultimate causes. Instead of accidental 

 observation, it had introduced observa- 

 tion with a purpose ; instruments were 

 employed to aid the senses, and scientific 



1 History of the Intellectual Development of 

 Europe, p. 295. 



C 



