226 Science Religion and Reality 



of the theologians, the mystics, and the ideahst philosophers. With 

 remarkable unanimity they have refused to have anything to do 

 with a biology which makes man's body the equal of those of the 

 animals, and his spiritual part a functionless shadow without im- 

 portance. It will be interesting to compare some of the mechanists 

 in history and place over against them quotations from their 

 antagonists. 



We cannot do better than begin with Democritus. One of 

 the Atomistic school of Greek philosophy, born about 440 B.C., 

 he lived at Abdera on the coast of Thrace, and although he left no 

 writings behind him which have lasted to our time, we know 

 sufficiently well what he taught from those of his disciples and from 

 Epicurus, who recognised him as his predecessor. His basic pro- 

 positions were the indestructibility of matter, the universality of 

 determinism, and the existence of nothing beside atoms. But he 

 paid special attention to the problem of life, and taught that the 

 soul consists of fine, round, smooth atoms like those of fire, very 

 mobile and fluid, permeating the whole body and so causing move- 

 ment. Such opinions were, of course, only opinions, but it is most 

 significant that Diogenes Laertius has a story to the eflFect that 

 Plato in later years desired to collect all the works of Democritus 

 and burn them to ashes. Plato's views are only of importance 

 in this connection because they were biologically anti-mechanistic. 

 Moreover, Plato makes Socrates in the " Theaetetus''' argue against 

 those philosophers who will only believe in what they can grip with 

 their hands. Here then is an example of the conflict. 



The next significant contrast is between Lucretius and 

 Tertullian. Lucretius in his great poem, " De Rerum Natura,'''' 

 written to propagate the philosophical materialism of Democritus 

 and Epicurus, devoted considerable space to the mechanistic theory 

 of life and, of course, argued in its favour. Although he exercised 

 a great influence on certain minds, notably Virgil, it is impossible 

 to say what effect his writings had upon the apologists on behalf 

 of the Roman " Religion of Numa," a debased form of which was 

 then the predominant cult at Rome, for no priestly writings of that 

 date have come down to us. His poem, by reason of its nature, 

 could never have been very popular, and this probably accounts for 

 the fact that the Fathers of the Church took little trouble to write 

 against his arguments. For them it was not a living issue. But 

 the following lines show the manner of Lucretius' thought : 



