THE FABRIC OF MATTER 17 



death. I, too, follow the custom, and call it 

 so myself. . . . Fools ! — for they have no far- 

 reaching thoughts who deem that what before 

 was not comes into being, or that aught can perish 

 or be utterly destroyed, for it cannot be that aught 

 can arise from what in no way is, and it is im- 

 possible and unheard of that what is should perish ; 

 for it will always be, wherever one may keep put- 

 ting it. ... A man who is wise in such matters 

 would never surmise in his heart that so long as 

 mortals live what men choose to call their life, 

 they are, and suffer good and ill ; while before 

 they were formed, and after they have been 

 dissolved, they are, it seems, nothing at all." 



Surely these are words of wisdom ! 



Epicurus may also be mentioned as one of the 

 Atomic School. He taught that there was an 

 infinite number of atoms falling perpendicularly 

 down an infinite space. Some of these atoms, he 

 suggested, deviated from a straight path, and 

 stuck together and formed the world. 



But the ancient apostle/)^r excellence of the atoms 

 was Epicurus' disciple, the great Roman poet 

 Lucretius, who made a most scientific use of his 

 imagination, and propounded the atomic theory 

 " in harmonious and beautiful verse, swayed by a 

 fervour that is akin to religious emotion." 



To Lucretius we must give a separate chapter. 



2 



