FROM THALES TO LUCRETIUS. 



23 



aid their sliding into the pursuit of mere animal en- 

 joyment; hence the gross and limited association of 

 the term Epicurean. Epicurus accepted the theory 

 of Leucippus, and applied it all round. The faineant 

 gods, who dwell serenely indifferent to human af- 

 fairs, and about whom men should therefore have no 

 dread; all things, whether dead or living, even the 

 ideas that enter the mind; are alike composed of 

 atoms. He also accepted the theory broached by 

 Empedocles as to the survival of fit and capable 

 forms after life had arrived at these through the 

 processes of spontaneous generation and the pro- 

 duction of monstrosities. Adopting the physical 

 speculations of these forerunners, he made them the 

 vehicle of didactic and ethical philosophies which in- 

 spired the production of the wonderful poem of 

 Lucretius. 



Between this great Roman and Epicurus — a pe- 

 riod of some two centuries — there is no name of suf- 

 ficient prominence to warrant attention. The decline 

 of Greece had culminated in her conquest by the 

 semi-barbarian Mummius, and in her consequent ad- 

 dition to the provinces of the Roman Empire. What 

 life lingered in her philosophy within her own bor- 

 ders expired with the loss of freedom, and the work 

 done by the Pioneers of Evolution in Greece was to 

 be resumed elsewhere. In the few years of the pre- 

 Christian period that remained the teaching of Em- 

 pedocles, and of Epicurus as the mouthpiece of the 

 atomic theory, 'was revived by Lucretius in his De 



