The Roman Poets of the Republic, 3rd edition

by W. Y. Sellar

CHAPTER XII.

The Philosophy of Lucretius.

The peculiarity of the poem of Lucretius, that which makes it unique in literature, is the fact that it is a long sustained argument in verse. The prosaic title of the poem, 'De rerum natura,'—a translation of the Greek περὶ φύσεως,—indicates that the method of exposition was adopted, not primarily with the view of affecting the imagination, but with that of communicating truth in a reasoned system. In the lines, in which the poet most confidently asserts his genius, he professes to fulfil the three distinct offices of a philosophical teacher, a moral reformer, and a poet,—

Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis

Religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo,

Deinde quod obscura de re tam lucida pango

Carmina, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore[¹].

We have, accordingly, to examine the poem in three different aspects:—

I. as the exposition of a system of speculative philosophy.

II. as an attempt to emancipate and reform human life.

III. as a work of poetical art and genius.

But these three aspects, though they may be considered separately, are not really independent of one another. The speculative ideas on which the system of philosophy is ultimately based impart confidence and elevation to the moral teaching, and new meaning and imaginative grandeur to the interpretation of Nature and of human life, on which the permanent value of the poem depends. Thus, although the philosophical argument, which forms as it were the skeleton of the work, is in many places barren and uninteresting, yet it is necessary to master it before we can form a true estimate of the personality of the poet, of the main passion and labour of his life, of the full meaning of his thought, and the full compass of his poetic genius. Moreover, the study of the argument is interesting on its own account. In no other work are the strength and the weakness of ancient physical philosophy so apparent. If the poem of Lucretius adds nothing to the knowledge of scientific facts, it throws a powerful light on one phase of the ancient mind. It is a witness of the eager imagination and of the searching thought of that early time, which endeavoured, by the force of individual thinkers and the intuitions of genius, to solve a problem which is perhaps beyond the reach of the human faculties, and to explain, at a single glance, secrets of Nature which have only slowly been revealed to the patient labours and combined investigations of many generations of enquirers.

I.—Examination of the Argument.

I. The philosophical system expounded in the poem is the atomic theory of Democritus[²], in the form in which it was accepted by Epicurus, and made the basis of his moral and religious doctrines. Lucretius lays no claim to original discovery as a philosopher: he professes only to explain, in his native language, 'Graiorum obscura reperta.' His originality consists, not in any expansion or modification of the Epicurean doctrine, but in the new life which he has imparted to its exposition, and in the poetical power with which he has applied it to reveal the secret of the life of Nature and of man's true position in the world. After enunciating the first principles of the atomic philosophy, he discusses in the last four books of the poem some special applications of that doctrine, which formed part of the physical system of Epicurus. But the extent to which he carries these discussions is limited by the practical purpose which he has in view. The impelling motive of all his labour is the impulse to purify human life, and, especially, to emancipate it from the terrors of superstition. The source of these terrors is traced to the general ignorance of certain facts in Nature,—ignorance, namely, of the constitution and condition of our souls and bodies, of the means by which the world came into existence and is still maintained, and lastly, of the causes of many natural phenomena, which are attributed to the direct agency of the gods. With the view of establishing knowledge in the room of ignorance on these questions, it is necessary, in the first place, to give a full account of the original principles of being: and to this enquiry the two first books of the poem are devoted. Had his purpose been merely speculative, the subject of the fifth book,—viz. the origin of the world, of life, and of human society,—would naturally have been treated immediately after the exposition of these first principles. But the order of treatment is determined by the immediate object of attacking the chief stronghold of superstition: and, accordingly, the third and fourth books contain an examination of the nature of the soul, a proof of its non-existence after death, and an explanation of the origin of the belief in a future state. In the fifth and sixth books an attempt is made to show that the creation and preservation of the world, the origin and progress of human society, and the phenomena of thunder, tempests, volcanoes, and the like, are the results of natural laws, without Divine intervention. Although he sometimes carries his argument into greater detail than is necessary for his purpose, and addresses himself to the reform of other evils to which the human heart is liable, yet his whole treatment of his subject is determined by the thought of the irreconcilable opposition between the truths of Nature and the falsehood of the ancient religions. The key-note to the argument is contained in the lines, which recur as a kind of prelude to the successive stages on which it enters, in the first, second, third, and sixth books:—

Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest

Non radii solis neque lucida tela diei

Discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque[³].

The action of the poem might be described as the gradual defeat of the ancient dominion of superstition by the new knowledge of Nature. This meaning seems to be symbolised in its magnificent introduction, where the genial, all-pervading Power—the source of order, beauty, and delight in the world and in the heart of man,—and the grim phantom of superstition—

Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,—

the cause of ignorance, degradation, and misery,—are vividly personified and presented in close contrast with one another. The thought, thus symbolised, pervades the poem. The processes of Nature are explained not chiefly for the purpose of satisfying the love of knowledge (although this end is incidentally attained), but as the means of establishing light in the room of darkness, peace in the room of terror, faith in the laws and the facts of the universe in the room of a base dependence on capricious and tyrannical Powers.

What then was this philosophy which supplied to Lucretius an answer to the perplexities of existence? The object contemplated by all the early systems of ontology was the discovery of the original substance or substances out of which all existing things were created, and which alone remained permanent amid the changing aspects of the visible world. Various systems, of a semi-physical, semi-metaphysical character, were founded on the answers given by the earliest enquirers to this question. In the first book of the poem several of these theories are discussed. Lucretius, following Epicurus, adopts the answer given by Democritus to this question, that the original substances were the 'atoms and the void'— ἄτομα καὶ κενόν. After the invocation and the address to Memmius, and the representation of the universal tyranny exercised by superstition until its power was overcome by Epicurus, and after a summary of the various topics to be treated in order to banish this influence from the world, he lays down this principle as the starting-point of his argument,—that no existing thing is formed out of nothing by divine agency—

Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam.

The apprehension of this principle—a principle common to all the ontological systems of antiquity—is the first step in the enquiry, as to what are the original substances out of which all creation comes into being and is maintained. The proof of this principle is the manifest order and causation recognisable in the world. If things could arise out of nothing, all existence would be confused and capricious. The regularity of Nature subsists—

Materies quia rebus reddita certast

Gignundis e qua constat quid possit oriri.

The complement of this first principle is the proposition that nothing is annihilated, but all existences are resolved into their ultimate elements. As the first is a necessary inference from the existence of universal order, the second is proved by the perpetuity of creation and the observed transformation of things into one another.

The original substances out of which all things are produced, and into which they are ultimately resolved, are found to be certain primordial particles of matter or atoms, which are called by various names—'materies,' 'genitalia corpora,' 'semina rerum,' 'corpora prima.' Some of these names, it may be observed, are expressive not only of their primordial character, but also of a germinative or productive power. The objection that these atoms are invisible to our senses is met by showing that there are many invisible forces acting in Nature, the effects of which prove that they must be bodies,—

Corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res.

In addition to bodily substance there must also be vacuum or space; otherwise there could be no motion in the universe, and without motion nothing could come into being. The existence of matter is proved by our senses, of vacuum by the necessity of there being space for matter to move in, and also by the varying density of bodies. But besides body and vacuum there is no other absolute substance—

Ergo praeter inane et corpora tertia per se

Nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqui[⁴].

All material bodies are either elemental substances or compounded out of a union of these substances. The elemental substances are indestructible and indivisible. This is proved by the necessities of thought (i. 498, etc.) and of Nature. If there were no ultimate limit to the divisibility of these substances, if there were not something immutable underlying all phenomena, there could be no law or order in the world. The existence and ultimate constitution of the atoms is thus enunciated—

Sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate

Quae minimis stipata cohaerent partibus arte,

Non ex illarum conventu conciliata,

Sed magis aeterna pollentia simplicitate,

Unde neque avelli quicquam neque deminui iam

Concedit natura reservans semina rebus[⁵].

At this stage in the argument, from line 635 to 920 of Book I, the first principles of other philosophies, and particularly of the systems of Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, are discussed at considerable length, and shown to be inconsistent with the actual appearance of things and with the principles already established.

The argument starts anew at line 920, and it is shown that the atoms must be infinite in number, and space infinite in extent;—the contrary supposition being both inconceivable and incompatible with the origin, preservation, and renewal of all existing things. It is shown also that the existing order of things has not come into being through design, but by infinite experiments through infinite time. The doctrine that all things tend to a centre is denied, and the book concludes with the imaginative presentation of the thought that, if matter were not infinite, the whole visible fabric of the world would perish in a moment, 'and leave not a rack behind.'

The second book opens with an impressive passage, in which the security and charm of the contemplative life is contrasted with the restless anxieties and alarms of the life of worldly ambition. The argument then proceeds to explain the process by which these atoms, primordial, indestructible, and infinite in number, combine together in infinite space, so as to carry on the birth, growth, and decay of all things. While the sum of things always remains the same, there is constant change in all phenomena. This is explicable only on the supposition of the original elements being in eternal motion. The atoms are borne through space, either by their own weight, or by contact with one another, with a rapidity of motion far beyond that of any visible bodies. All motion is naturally in a downward direction and in parallel lines, but to account for the contact of the atoms with one another it must be supposed that in their movements they make a slight declension from the straight line at uncertain intervals. This liability to declension is the sole thing to break the chain of necessity—'quod fati foedera rumpat.' It is through this liability in the primal elements that volition in living beings becomes possible.

As the sum of matter in the universe is constant, so the motions of the atoms always have been and always will be the same[⁶]. All things are in ceaseless motion, although they may present to our senses the appearance of perfect rest.

It is necessary further to assume the existence of other properties in the atoms, in order to account for the variety in Nature, and the individuality of existing things. They have original differences in form; some are smooth, others round, others rough, others hooked, &c. These varieties in form are not infinite, but limited in number.

As the diversity in the world depends on the diversity of these forms, the order and regularity of Nature imply that there is a limit to these varieties. But while they are limited, the individuals of each kind are infinite, otherwise the primordial atoms would be finite in number, and there could be no cohesion among atoms of the same kind, in the vast and chaotic sea of matter—

Unde ubi qua vi et quo pacto congressa coibunt

Materiae tanto in pelago turbaque aliena[⁷]?

The motions which tend to the support and the destruction of created things are balanced by one another: there must be an equilibrium in these opposing forces—

Sic aequo geritur certamine principiorum

Ex infinito contractum tempore bellum[⁸].

Death and birth succeed one another, as now the vitalising, now the destructive forces gain the upper hand.

Further, the great diversity in Nature is to be accounted for by diversity, not only in the original forms of matter, but also in their modes of combination. No existing thing is composed solely of one kind of atoms. The greater the variety of forces and powers which anything displays, the greater is the variety of the elements out of which it was originally composed. Of all visible objects the earth contains the greatest number of elements; therefore it has justly obtained the name of the universal mother. There is however a limit to the modes in which atoms can combine with one another: each nature appropriates elements suitable to its being and rejects those unsuitable. All existing things differ from one another in consequence of the difference in their elements and in their modes of combination. The different modes of combination give rise to many of the secondary properties of matter, which are not in the original elements. Colour, for instance, is not one of the original properties of atoms: for all colour is changeable, and all change implies the death of what previously existed. Moreover, colour depends on light, and the atoms never come forth into the light. The atoms are also devoid of heat and cold, of sound, taste, and smell. All these properties must be kept distinct from the original elements—

Immortalia si volumus subiungere rebus

Fundamenta quibus nitatur summa salutis;

Ne tibi res redeant ad nilum funditus omnes[⁹].

Further, although they are the origin of all living and sentient things, the atoms themselves are devoid of sense and life, otherwise they would be liable to death. All living things are merely results of the constant changes in the primordial elements contained in the heavens and the earth. Hence the heaven is addressed as the father, the earth as the mother, of all things that have life.

Finally, from the infinity of space and matter, it may be inferred that there are infinite other worlds and systems beside our own. Many elements were added from the infinite universe to our system before it reached maturity: and many indications prove that the period of growth is now past, and that we are living in the old age of the world.

The sum of the first two books, in which the principles of the atomic philosophy are methodically unfolded and illustrated, is, accordingly, to this effect:—that all things have their origin in, and are sustained by, the various combinations and motions of solid elemental atoms, infinite in number, various in form, but not infinite in the variety of their forms,—not perceptible to our senses, and themselves devoid of sense, of colour, and of all the secondary properties of matter. These atoms, by virtue of their ultimate conditions, are capable only of certain combinations with one another. These combinations have been brought about by perpetual motion, through infinite space and through all eternity. As the order of things now existing has come into being, so it must one day perish. Only the atoms will permanently remain, moving unceasingly through space, and forming new combinations with one another.

These first principles being established, the way is made clear for the true explanation, according to natural laws, of those phenomena which give rise to and maintain the terrors of superstition.

The third book treats of the nature of the mind, and of the vital principle. As it is by the fear of death, and of eternal torment after death, that human life is most disturbed, it is necessary to explain the nature of the soul, and to show that it perishes in death along with the body.

The mind and the vital principle are parts of the man as much as the hands, feet, or any other members. The mind is the directing principle, seated in the centre of the breast. The vital principle is diffused over the whole body, obedient to and in close sympathy with the mind. The power which the mind has in moving the body proves its own corporeal nature, as motion cannot take place without touch, nor touch without the presence of a bodily substance.

The soul (including both the mind and vital principle) is, therefore, material, formed of the finest or minutest atoms, as is proved by the extreme rapidity of its movement, and by the fact that there is nothing lost in appearance or weight immediately after death:—

Quod simul atque hominem leti secura quies est

Indepta atque animi natura animaeque recessit,

Nil ibi libatum de toto corpore cernas

Ad speciem, nil ad pondus: mors omnia praestat

Vitalem praeter sensum calidumque vaporem[¹⁰].

Four distinct elements enter into the composition of the soul—heat, wind, calm air, and a finer essence 'quasi anima animai.' The variety of disposition in men and animals depends on the proportion in which these elements are mixed.

The soul is the guardian of the body, inseparably united with it, as the odour is with frankincense; nor can the soul be disconnected from the body without its own destruction. This intimate union of soul and body is proved by many facts. They are born, they grow, and they decay together. The mind is liable to disease, like the body. Its affections are often dependent on bodily conditions. The difficulties of imagining the state of the soul as existing independently of the body are next urged; and the book concludes with a long passage of sustained elevation of feeling, in which the folly and the weakness of fearing death are passionately insisted upon.

The fourth book, which treats of the images which all objects cast off from themselves, and, in connexion with that subject, of the senses generally, and of the passion of love, is intimately connected with the preceding book. If there is no life after death, what is the origin of the universal belief in the existence of the souls of the departed? Images cast off from the surface of bodies, and borne incessantly through space without force or feeling, appearing to the living sometimes in sleep and sometimes in waking visions, have suggested the belief in the ghosts of the dead, and in many of the portents of ancient mythology. The rapid formation and motion of these images and their great number are explained by various analogies. Some apparent deceptions of the senses are next mentioned and explained. These deceptions are shown to be not in the senses, but in our minds not rightly interpreting their intimations. There is no error in the action of the senses. They are our 'prima fides'—the foundation of all knowledge and of all conduct—

Non modo enim ratio ruat omnis, vita quoque ipsa

Concidat extemplo, nisi credere sensibus ausis[¹¹].

Images that are too fine to act on the senses sometimes directly affect the soul itself. Discordant images unite together in the air, and present the appearance of Centaurs, Scyllas, and the like. In sleep, images of the dead—

Morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa[¹²],—

appear, and give rise to the belief in the existence of ghosts. The mind sees in dreams the objects in which it is most interested, because, although all kinds of images are present, it can discern only those of which it is expectant.

Several other questions are discussed in connexion with the doctrine of the 'simulacra.' The final cause of the senses and the appetites is denied, and, by implication, the argument from design founded on the belief in final causes. The use of everything is discovered through experience. We do not receive the sense of sight in order that we may see, but having got the sense of sight, we use it—

Nil ideo quoniam natumst in corpore ut uti

Possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum[¹³].

There follows an account of sleep, and of the condition of the mind during that state; and the book concludes with a physical account of the passion of love, which is dependent on the action of the simulacra on the mind. Love is shown also to arise from natural causes, and not to be engendered by divine influence. The fatal consequences of yielding to the passion are then enforced with much poetical and satiric power.

The object of the fifth book is to explain the formation of our system—of earth, sea, sky, sun, and moon,—the origin of life upon the earth, and the advance of human nature from a savage state to the arts and usages of civilisation. The purpose of these discussions is to show that all our system was produced and is maintained by natural agency, that it is neither itself divine nor created by divine power, and that, as it has come into existence, so it must one day perish.

As the parts of our system,—earth, water, air, and heat,—are perishable, and constantly passing through processes of decay and renovation, the system must have had a beginning, and will have an end. There must at last be an end of the long war between the contending elements.

The world came into existence as the result not of design, but of every variety of combination in the elemental atoms throughout infinite time. Originally all were confused together. Gradually those that had mutual affinities combined and separated themselves from the rest. The earthy particles sank to the centre. The elemental particles of the empyrean (aether ignifer) formed the 'moenia mundi.' The sun and moon were formed out of the particles that were neither heavy enough to combine with the earth, nor light enough to ascend to the highest heaven. Finally, the liquid particles separated from the earth and formed the sea. Highest above all is the empyrean, entirely separated from the storms of the lower air, and moving round with its stars by its own impetus. The earth is at rest in the centre of our system, supported by the air, as our body is by the vital principle. The movements of the stars and of the sun and moon through the heavens are next explained; then the origin of vegetable and animal life on the earth, and the beginning and progress of human society.

First plants and trees, afterwards men and animals, were produced from the earth in the early and vigorous prime of the world. Many of the animals originally produced afterwards became extinct. Those only were capable of continuation which had either some faculty of self-preservation against others, or were useful to man, and so shared his protection. The existence of monsters such as Scylla, the Centaurs, the Chimaera, is shown to be impossible according to the natural laws of production.

The earliest condition of man was one of savage vigour and power of endurance, but liable to danger and destruction from many causes. The first humanising influence is traced to domestic union and the affection inspired by children—

Et Venus inminuit viris puerique parentum

Blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superbum[¹⁴].

The origin of language is next explained, then that of civil society, of religion, and of the arts,—the general conclusion being that all progress is the result of natural experience, not of divine guidance.

The last source of superstition is our ignorance of the causes of natural phenomena—

Praesertim rebus in illis

Quae supera caput aetheriis cernuntur in oris[¹⁵].

Hence the sixth book is devoted to the explanation of thunderstorms, tempests, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like,—phenomena which are generally attributed to the direct agency of the gods. The whole work terminates with an account of the Plague at Athens, closely following that given by Thucydides.

The first question which arises after a review of the whole argument is that suggested by the statement of Jerome, and brought into prominence since the publication of Lachmann's edition of Lucretius, viz. whether there is good reason for believing that the poem was left by the author in an unfinished state. In answering this question, it is to be observed, on the one hand, that there is no incompleteness in the fulfilment of the original plan of the work, unless from one or two hints[¹⁶] we conclude that the poet intended giving a fuller account of the blessed state of the Gods than that given at iii. 17-24. He announces at i. 54, etc., and again at i. 127, etc., the design of the poem as embracing the first principles of natural philosophy, and the application of these principles to certain special subjects, viz. the nature of soul and body, the origin of the belief in ghosts, the natural causes of creation, and the meaning of certain celestial phenomena.

The practical purpose of the poem—the overthrow of superstition—limits the argument to these subjects of discussion. They are severally mentioned where the argument is resumed in Books iii, iv, v, and vi, as those matters which require a clear explanation from the poet. All the topics enunciated in the opening statement are discussed with the utmost fulness. The great strongholds of superstition are attacked and overthrown in regular succession. In the introduction to the sixth book, the lines (91-95)

Tu mihi supremae praescribta ad candida calcis, etc.

clearly show that the poet considered himself approaching the end of his task.

But, on the other hand, an examination of the poem in detail leads to the conclusion that it did not receive its author's final touch. The continuity of the argument is occasionally broken in all the books except the first. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth, especially, these breaks are very frequent, and there are more frequent instances in them of repetition and careless workmanship. They extend also to a greater length than the earlier books, which would naturally be the case if they had not received the author's final revision. The poem throughout gives the impression of great fulness of matter—

Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis

Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet;—

and in the composition of these later books, new suggestions seem to have been constantly occurring to the poet as new materials were added to his stores of knowledge: and the first draft of his argument has not been recast so as to incorporate and harmonise them with it. The passages containing these new materials appear to have been fitted into the place which they now occupy in the work, not always very judiciously, either by Cicero or some other editor.

It was also part of the author's design to enunciate his deepest thoughts on the Gods, on Nature, and on human life in more highly finished digressions from the main argument. Such passages are, in general, introduced at the beginning and the end of the different books. They seem to bring out the more catholic interest which underlies the special subject of the poem. Some of these passages are highly finished, and were evidently fixed by the poet in the places which he designed them to occupy. Such are, especially, the introductions to the first, second, and third books, and the concluding passages of the second and third. But the repetition of a passage of the first book as the introduction to the fourth, the long break in the continuity of the introduction to the fifth, the unfinished style of that to the sixth, and the abrupt and episodical conclusion to the whole poem (when contrasted with its elaborately artistic introduction), show that the same cause which marred the symmetry of his argument deprived it of the finished execution of a work of art. Yet these books—especially the fifth—are as rich in poetical feeling and substance as the earlier ones. The eye and hand of the master are as powerful as in the first enthusiasm with which he dedicated himself to his task, but they are less certain in their action. Whether his powers became intermittent owing to the attacks of illness, or whether his habit was to work roughly in the first instance and to perfect his work by subsequent revision, which in the case of his latest labours was prevented by death, must remain uncertain. It is a noticeable result of the vastness of the tasks which Roman genius set before itself, that two such works as the didactic poem of Lucretius and the Aeneid of Virgil were left unfinished by their authors, and given to the world in a more or less imperfect condition by other hands.

The poem, though incomplete in regard to the arrangement of its materials and artistic finish, presents a full and clear view of the philosophy accepted and expounded by Lucretius. What, then, is the intellectual interest and value of the work, considered as a great argument, in which the plan of Nature is explained, and the position of man in relation to that plan is determined? Is it true, as an illustrious modern critic[¹⁷] has said, that 'the greatest didactic poem in any language was written in defence of the silliest and meanest of all systems of natural and moral philosophy'? Is this work a mere maze of ingeniously woven error, enriched with a few brilliant colours which have not yet faded with the lapse of time? or is it a great monument of the ancient mind, marking indeed its limitations, but at the same time perpetuating the memory of its native strength and energy? Has all the meaning of this controversy between science in its infancy and the pagan mythology in its decrepitude passed away, as from the vantage-ground of nineteen centuries the blindness and the ignorance of both combatants are apparent? Or, may we not rather discern that amid all the confusion of this dim νυκτομαχία a great cause was at issue; that truths the most vital to human wellbeing were involved on both sides; and that some positions were then gained which are not now abandoned?

In estimating the strength and the weakness of the system expounded by Lucretius, it is necessary to distinguish between the exposition of the principles of the atomic philosophy, contained in the first two books, and the explanation of natural phenomena contained in the remaining books. The first, notwithstanding some arbitrary and unverifiable assumptions, represents a real and important stage in the progress of enquiry; the second, although containing many striking observations and immediate inferences from the facts and processes of Nature, is, from the point of view of modern science, to be regarded mainly, as a curious page in the records of human error. Whatever may be said of the Epicurean additions to the system, it seems to be admitted that the original hypothesis of Democritus has been more pregnant in results, and has more affinity with the most advanced physical speculations of modern times, than the doctrines of all the other philosophers of antiquity. But even amid the mass of unwarranted assumptions and erroneous explanations contained in the later books, the topics discussed—such as the relation of the mind to the body, the mode by which sensible impressions are conveyed to the mind, the processes by which our globe assumed its present form, the origin of life, the evolution of humanity from its lowest to its higher stages of development, the origin of spiritual beliefs, of the humaner sentiments, of language, etc.—possess the interest of being kindred to those on which speculative activity is most employed in the present day. If the study of Lucretius forces upon our minds the arbitrary assumptions, the inadequate method, and the false conclusions of ancient science, it enables us to appreciate the disinterested greatness of its aims, and the enlightened curiosity which sought to solve the vastest problems.

It might be said, generally, that the argument of Lucretius was an attempt to give a philosophical description of Nature before the advent of physical science. But, as a means of throwing light on the inadequacy of such speculations, it may be well to consider in detail some of those points where the argument most obviously fails in premises, method, and results.

The ancient as well as the modern enquirer into the truth of things was confronted with the question of the origin of all our knowledge. Is knowledge obtained originally through the exercise of the reason or the senses, or through their combined and inseparable action? To this question Lucretius distinctly answers, that the senses are the foundation of all our knowledge.[¹⁸] They are our 'prima fides': the basis not only of all sound inference, but of all human conduct. The very conception of the meaning of true and false is derived from the senses:—

Invenies primis ab sensibus esse creatam

Notitiam veri neque sensus posse refelli[¹⁹].

But besides the direct action of outward things on the senses, he admits the power of certain images to make themselves immediately present to the mind (iv. 722-822), and also a certain immediate apprehension or intuition of the mind (iniectus animi) into things beyond the cognisance of sense[²⁰]. Thus there is no actual inconsistency with his principles in claiming the power of understanding the properties and configuration of the atoms, which are represented as lying below the reach of our senses—

Omnis enim longe nostris ab sensibus infra

Primorum natura iacet.

But of the mode of operation of this 'intuition of the mind' there is no criterion. The doctrine of the properties, shapes, motions, etc. of the atoms is a creation of the imagination, suggested by certain analogies from sensible things, but incapable of being verified by the senses, which he regards as the only sure foundations of knowledge.

But even on the supposition that the existence and properties of the atoms had been satisfactorily established, no adequate explanation is offered of their relation to the facts of existence. The same difficulty is encountered at the outset of this as of all other ancient systems of ontology, viz. how to pass from the eternal and immutable forms of the atoms to the variety and transitory nature of sensible objects. This is the very difficulty which Lucretius himself urges against the system of Heraclitus,—

Nam cur tam variae res possint esse requiro,

Ex uno si sunt igni puroque creatae.

The order of Nature now subsisting is declared to be the result of the manifold combination of the atoms through infinite time and space, but the intermediate stages by which this process was effected are assumed rather than investigated. We seem to pass 'per saltum' from the chaos of lifeless elements to the perfect order and manifold life of our system. This wide chasm seems as little capable of being bridged by the help of the atoms of Democritus, as by the watery element of Thales or the fiery element of Heraclitus. But in Lucretius this difficulty is partially concealed, by a poetical element in his conception, really inconsistent with the mechanical materialism on which his philosophy professes to be based.—It is to be observed that while the Greek word ἄτομα implies merely the notion of individual existences, the words used by Lucretius, 'semina,' 'genitalia corpora,' really indicate a creative capacity in these existences. In conceiving their power of carrying on and sustaining the order of Nature, his imagination is thus aided by the analogy of the growth of plants and living beings. A secret faculty in the atoms, distinct from their other properties, is assumed. Thus he says—

At primordia gignundis in rebus oportet

Naturam clandestinam caecamque adhibere[²¹].

In his statement of the doctrine of the Clinamen, or slight declension in the motion of the atoms, so as 'to break the chain of fate,' he attributes to them a power analogous to volition in living beings. This doctrine is suggested by the necessity of explaining contingency in Nature and freedom in the movements of sentient beings. We are, as in all attempts to account for creation, forced back on the thought of an ultimate unexplained power in virtue of which things have been created and are maintained in being.

The Lucretian hypothesis of the atoms, even if it were accepted as the most reasonable explanation of the original constitution of matter, is, by itself, altogether inadequate as a key to the secret of Nature. It cannot be shown either how these atoms succeeded in arranging themselves in order, or how from their negative properties all positive life has been produced. The explanation of physical phenomena given in the four last books, as to the nature of our bodies and souls,—as to the action of outward things on the senses,—the origin and existence of the sun and moon, the earth and the living beings upon it, etc., although professedly deduced from the principles established in the first two books, are really reached independently. They are either immediate inferences from the obvious intimations of sense, or they are the suggestions of analogy.

The weakness as well as the strength of ancient science lay in its perception of analogies. The mind of Lucretius was both under the influence of earlier analogical conceptions, and also shows great boldness and originality in the logical and poetical apprehension of 'those same footsteps of Nature, treading on diverse subjects or matters.' But, in common with the earlier enquirers of Greece, he trusts too implicitly to their guidance through all his daring adventure. He seems to believe that the hidden properties of things are as open to discovery through this 'lux sublustris' of the imagination, as through the 'lucida tela' of the reason.

To take one prominent instance of this influence, it is remarkable how, in his explanation of our mundane system, he is both consciously and unconsciously guided by the analogy of the human body. Even Lucretius, living in the very meridian of ancient science, cannot in imagination absolutely emancipate himself from the associations of mythology. He is indeed conscious of the inconsistency of attributing life and sense to the earth: yet not only does he speak poetically of Earth being the creative mother, Aether the fructifying father of all things, but his whole conception of the creation of the world is derived from a supposed likeness between the properties of our terrestrial and celestial systems, and those of living beings. Thus we read—

Undique quandoquidem per caulas aetheris omnis

Et quasi per magni circum spiracula mundi

Exitus introitusque elementis redditus extat[²²].

Of the growth of plants and herbage it is said—

Ut pluma atque pili primum saetaeque creantur

Quadripedum membris et corpore pennipotentum,

Sic nova tum tellus herbas virgultaque primum

Sustulit, inde loci mortalia saecla creavit[²³].

From v. 535 to 563 the power of the air in supporting the earth 'in media mundi regione' is compared with the power which the delicate vital principle has in supporting the human body. Again, the gathering together of the waters of the sea is thus represented—

Tam magis expressus salsus de corpore sudor

Augebat mare manando camposque natantis[²⁴].

And finally, though it would be easy to multiply such quotations, the striking account, at the end of the second book, of the growth and the decay of our world is drawn directly from the obvious appearances of the growth and decay of the human body; e.g.—

Quoniam nec venae perpetiuntur

Quod satis est neque quantum opus est natura ministrat[²⁵].

As a necessary result of a system of natural philosophy based on assumptions, largely illustrated indeed, but not corroborated by the observation of phenomena, with no verification of experiment or ascertainment of special laws, there is throughout the poem the utmost hardihood of assertion and inference on many points, on which modern science clearly proves this system to have been as much in error as it was possible to be. It is strange to note how inadequate an idea Lucretius had of the vastness and complexity of the problem which he professed to solve. He has no real conception of the progressive advance of knowledge, and of the necessity of patiently building on humble foundations. The striking lines—

Namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca

Nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai

Pervideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus[²⁶],

look rather like an unconscious prophecy of the future progress of science than an account of the process of enquiry exhibited in the book.

A few out of many erroneous assertions about physical facts, in regard to some of which the opinions of Lucretius are behind the science even of his own time, may be noticed. Thus, at i. 1025, the existence of the Antipodes is denied. Again, in Book iii. the mind is stated to be a material substance, seated in the centre of the breast, composed of very minute particles, the relative proportions of which determine the characters both of men and animals. Lucretius shows a close and subtle observation of facts that establish the interdependence of mind and body, but no suspicion of that interdependence being connected with the functions of the brain and nervous system. His whole account of the mundus, of the earth at rest in the centre, and of the rolling vault of heaven, with its sun and moon and stars—'trembling fires in the vault'—all no larger than they appear to our eyes, is given without any notion of the inadequacy of his data to bear out his conclusions. The science which satisfied Epicurus was on astronomical and meteorological questions behind that attained by the mathematicians of Alexandria: and thus some of the conclusions enunciated by Virgil in the Georgics are nearer the truth than those accepted by Lucretius. While enlarging on the variety and subtlety in the combinations of his imaginary atoms, he has no adequate idea of the variety and subtlety in the real forces of Nature. His observation of the outward and visible appearances of things is accurate and vivid: there is often great ingenuity as well as a true apprehension of logical conditions in his processes of reasoning both from ideas and from phenomena: yet most of his conclusions as to the facts of Nature, which are not immediately perceptible to the senses, are mere fanciful explanations, indicating, indeed, a lively curiosity, but no real understanding of the true conditions of the enquiry. The root of his error lies in his not feeling how little can be known of the processes and facts of Nature by ordinary observation, without the resources of experiment and of scientific method built upon experiment.

The weak points of this philosophy, the mistaken aim and incomplete method of enquiry, the real ignorance of facts disguised under an appearance of systematic treatment, the unproductiveness of the results for any practical accession to man's power over Nature, are quite obvious to any modern reader, who, without any special study of physical science, cannot help being familiar with information which is now universally diffused, but which was beyond the reach of the most ardent enquirers and original thinkers of antiquity. But the amount of information possessed by different ages, or by different men, is no criterion of their relative intellectual power. The mental force of a strong and adventurous thinker may be recognised struggling even through these mists of error. The weakness of the system, interpreted by Lucretius, is the necessary weakness of the childhood of knowledge. But along with the weakness and the ignorance there are also the keen feeling, the clear eye, and the buoyant fancies of early years,—the germs and the promise of a strong maturity.

The full light in which ancient poetry, history, and mental philosophy can still be read, makes us apt to forget that a great part even of the intellectual life of antiquity has left scarcely any record of itself. Of one aspect of this intellectual life Lucretius is the most complete exponent. The genius of Plato and Aristotle has been estimated, perhaps, as justly in modern as in ancient times. But the great intellectual life of such men as Democritus, Empedocles, or Anaxagoras, escapes our notice in the more familiar studies of classical literature. The work of Lucretius reminds us of the intensity of thought and feeling, the clearness and minuteness of observation, with which the earliest enquiries into Nature were carried on. In some respects the general ignorance of the times enhances our sense of the greatness of individual philosophers. Each new attempt to understand the world was an original act of creative power. The intellectual strength and enthusiasm displayed by the poet himself may be regarded as some measure of the strength of the masters, who filled his mind with affection and astonishment.

The history of the physical science of the ancients cannot, indeed, be regarded as so interesting or important as that of their metaphysical philosophy. And this is so, not only on account of the comparative scantiness of their real acquisitions in the one as compared with the ideas and method which they have contributed to the other, and with the masterpieces which they have added to its literature; but still more on this account, that in physical knowledge new discovery supplants the place of previous error or ignorance, and can be understood without reference to what has been supplanted; whereas the power and meaning of philosophical ideas is unintelligible, apart from the knowledge of their origin and development. The history of physical science in ancient times affords satisfaction to a natural curiosity, but is not an indispensable branch of scientific study. The history of ancient mental philosophy, on the other hand,—the source not only of most of our metaphysical ideas and terms, but of many of the most familiar thoughts and words in daily use,—is the basis of all speculative study. Yet among the various kinds of interest which this poem has for different classes of modern readers this is not to be forgotten, that it enables a student of science to estimate the actual discoveries, and, still more, the prognostications of discovery attained by the irregular methods of early enquiry. The school of philosophy to which Lucretius belonged was distinguished above other schools for the attention which it gave to the facts of Nature. Though he himself makes no claim to original discovery, he yet shows a philosophical grasp of the whole system which he adopted, and a rigorous study of its details. He does not, like Virgil, merely reproduce some general results of ancient physics, to enhance the poetical conception of Nature: as he is not satisfied with those general results about human life and the origin of man, which amused a meditative poet and practical epicurean like Horace. He was a real student both of the plan of Nature and of man's relation to it. Out of the stores of his abundant information the modern reader may best learn not only the errors but also the happy guesses and pregnant suggestions of ancient science.

To the general reader there is another aspect, in which it is interesting to compare these germs of physical knowledge with some tendencies of scientific enquiry in modern times. The questions, vitally affecting the position of man in the world, which are discussed or raised by Lucretius in the course of his argument, are parallel to certain questions which have risen into prominence in connexion with the increasing study of Nature. Most conspicuous among these is the relation of physical enquiry to religious belief. Expressions such as this,

Impia te rationis inire elementa viamque

Indugredi sceleris,

show that scientific enquiry had to encounter the same prejudice in ancient as in modern times. The insufficiency and audacity of human reason were reprobated by the antagonists of Lucretius as they often are in the present day. Ancient religion denounced those who investigated the origin of sun, earth, and sky, as

Immortalia mortali sermone notantes[²⁷].

The views of Lucretius as to the natural origin of life, and the progressive advance of man from the rudest condition by the exercise of his senses and accumulated experience,—his denial of final causes universally, and specially in the human faculties,—his resolution of our knowledge into the intimations of sense,—his materialism and consequent denial of immortality,—and his utilitarianism in morals,—all present striking parallels to the opinions of one of the great schools of modern thought. At v. 875 there is a passage concerning the preservation and destruction of species, originally suggested by Empedocles,—which shows that the idea of the struggle for existence and of the survival of those species best fitted for the conditions of that struggle was familiar to ancient thinkers. It is there observed that those species alone have escaped destruction which possess some natural weapon of defence, or which are useful to man. Of others that could neither live by themselves nor were maintained by human protection, it is said—

Scilicet haec aliis praedae lucroque iacebant

Indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis,

Donec ad interitum genus id natura redegit[²⁸].

The attempt to trace the origin of all supernatural belief to the impressions made by dreams, the explanation given of the first manifestation of the humaner sentiments, of the beginning of language, and of the whole condition of 'primitive man,' are in conformity with the teaching of the most popular exponent of the doctrine of evolution in the present day.

But altogether apart from the truth and falsehood, the right and wrong tendencies of his system of philosophy, our feeling of personal interest in the poet is strengthened by noting the power of reasoning, observation, and expression put forth by him through the whole course of his argument. The pervading characteristic of Lucretius is the 'vivida vis animi.' The freshness of feeling and vividness of apprehension denoted by the words,

Mente vigenti

Avia Pieridum peragro loca,

are as remarkable in the processes of his intellect as of his imagination.

The passionate intensity of his nature has left its impress on the enunciation of his physical as well as of his moral doctrines. He has a thoroughly logical grasp of his subject as a whole. He shows the capacity of unfolding it and marshalling all his arguments in symmetrical order, and of arranging in due subordination vast masses of details. Vigour in acquiring and tenacity in retaining the knowledge of facts are combined with a high organising faculty. He has also, beyond any other Roman writer, a power of analysing and comprehending abstract ideas, such as that of the infinite, of space and time, of causation and the like, and of keeping the consequences involved in these ideas present to his mind through long-sustained processes of reasoning. He alone among his countrymen possessed, if not the faculty of original speculation, the genuine philosophic impulse, and the powers of mind demanded for abstruse and systematic thinking.

This vigour of understanding is displayed in many processes of deductive reasoning, in the power of seizing some general principle underlying diverse phenomena, in the use of analogies by which he illustrates the argument and advances from known to unknown causes and from things within the cognisance of our senses to those beyond their range, and in the clearness and variety of his observation.

His system cannot be called either purely inductive or purely deductive, though it is more of the former than of the latter. He argues with great force both from a large and varied mass of facts to general laws and from general principles to facts involved in them. The best examples of his power of following abstract ideas into their consequences may be found in the first two books, where he establishes the existence of vacuum, the infinity of space and of the atoms, the limitations of the form of the atoms and the like. The reasoning at i. 298-328 where the existence of invisible bodies is established affords a good instance of his power of recognising a common principle involved in a great number and variety of phenomena.

The vigour with which he reasons from known to unknown facts and causes may be judged most fairly by his arguments on the progress of society, where he is more on an equality with modern speculation. He discards, altogether, as might be expected, the fancies concerning a heroic or a golden age, and assumes as his data the facts of human nature as observed in his own day. The grounds from which he starts, his method of reasoning, and the nature of his conclusions remind a reader of the positive tendencies of Thucydides, as they are displayed in the introduction to his history. The importance of personal qualities, such as beauty, strength, and power of mind, in the earliest stage of civil society, the influence of accumulated wealth at a later period, the causes of the establishment and overthrow of tyrannies and of the rise of commonwealths in their room, are all set forth with a degree of strong sense and historical sagacity, such as no other Roman writer has shown in similar investigations. The inferiority even of Tacitus in his occasional digressions into the philosophy of history is very marked. On such topics, where the data were accessible to the natural faculties of observation and inference, and where conclusions were sought which, without aiming at definite certainty, should yet be true in the main, the reader of Lucretius has no sense of that wasted ingenuity which he often feels in following the investigations into some of the primary conditions of the atoms, the component elements of the soul, the process by which the world was formed, or the causes of electric or volcanic phenomena.

Lucretius makes a copious, and often a very happy use, of analogies, both in the illustration of his philosophy, and in passages of the highest poetical power. Some of the most striking of the former kind have already been noticed as sources of error, or at least of disguising ignorance, in his reasoning, viz. those founded on the supposed parallel between the world and the human body; others again are employed with force and ingenuity in support of various positions in his argument. Among these may be mentioned his comparison of the effect of various combinations of the same letters in forming different words, with that of the various combinations of similar atoms in forming different objects in nature. So too the ceaseless motion of the atoms is brought visibly before the imagination by the analogy of the motes dancing in the sunbeam. There is something striking in the comparison of the human body immediately after death to wine 'cum Bacchi flos evanuit,' and again, in that of the relation of body and soul to the relation of frankincense and its odour—

E thuris glaebis evellere odorem

Haud facile est quin intereat natura quoque eius[²⁹].

But this faculty of his understanding is in general so united with the imaginative feeling through which he discerns the vital identity of the most diverse manifestations of some common principle, that it can best be illustrated in connexion with the poetical, as distinct from the logical, merits of the work.

So also it is difficult to separate his faculty of clear, exact, and vivid observation from his poetical perception of the life and beauty of Nature. His powers of observation were, however, stimulated and directed by scientific as well as poetic interest in phenomena. From the wide scope of his philosophy he was led to examine the greatest variety of facts, physical as well as moral. His sense of the immensity of the universe led him to contemplate the largest and widest operations of Nature,—such as the movements of the heavenly bodies, the recurrence of the seasons, the forces of great storms, volcanoes, etc.; while, again, the theory of the invisible atoms drew his attention to the minutest processes of Nature, in so far as they can be perceived or inferred without the appliances of modern science. Thus, for instance, in a long passage beginning—

Denique fluctifrago suspensae in litore vestes[³⁰]

he shows by an accumulation of instances that there are many invisible bodies, the existence of which is inferred from visible effects. In other places he draws attention to the class of facts which have been the basis of the modern science of geology,—such as the mark of rivers slowly wearing away their banks,—of walls on the sea-shore mouldering from the long-continued effects of the exhalations from the sea,—of the fall of great rocks from the mountains under the wear and tear of ages.

Again, the argument is frequently illustrated by observation of the habits of various animals. In these passages Lucretius shows the curiosity of a naturalist, as well as the sympathetic feeling and insight of a poet. How graphic, for instance, is his description of dogs following up the scent of their game—

Errant saepe canes itaque et vestigia quaerunt[³¹].

How happily their characteristics are struck off in the line—

At levisomna canum fido cum pectore corda[³²].

The various cries and habits of birds are often observed and described, as—

Et validis cycni torrentibus ex Heliconis

Cum liquidam tollunt lugubri voce querellam[³³];

and again—

Parvus ut est cycni melior canor ille gruum quam

Clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austri[³⁴].

The description of sea-birds,

Mergique marinis

Fluctibus in salso victum vitamque petentes[³⁵],

recalls the vivid and natural life of those that haunted the isle of Calypso—

τανύγλωσσοί τε κορῶναι

εἰνάλιαι τῇσίν τε θαλάσσια ἔργα μέμηλεν[³⁶].

His lively personal observation and active interest in the casual objects presented to his eyes in the course of his walks are seen in such passages as—

Cum lubrica serpens

Exuit in spinis vestem; nam saepe videmus

Illorum spoliis vepres volitantibus auctas[³⁷].

There is also much truth and liveliness of observation in his notices of psychological and physiological facts; as in those passages where he establishes the connexion between mind and body, and in his account of the senses. With what a graphic touch does he paint the outward effects of death[³⁸], the decay of the faculties with age, and the madness that overtakes the mind—

Adde furorem animi proprium atque oblivia rerum,

Adde quod in nigras lethargi mergitur undas[³⁹];

the bodily waste, produced by long-continuous speaking—

Perpetuus sermo nigrai noctis ad umbram

Aurorae perductus ab exoriente nitore[⁴⁰];

the reflex action of the senses, produced by the nervous strain of witnessing games and spectacles for many days in succession; the insensibility to the pain of the severest wounds in the excitement of battle! In his account of the plague of Athens, in which he enters into much greater detail than Thucydides, he displays the minute observation of a physician, as well as the profound thought of a moralist.

The 'vivida vis' of his understanding is apparent also in the clearness and consecutiveness of his philosophical style. His complaint of 'the poverty of his native tongue' is directed against the capacities of the Latin language for scientific, not for poetical expression—

Nunc et Anaxagorae scrutemur Homoeomerian

Quam Grai memorant nec nostra dicere lingua

Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas[⁴¹].

That language, which gives admirable expression to the dictates of common sense and to the dignified emotions which inspire the conduct of great affairs, is ill adapted both for the expression of abstract ideas and for maintaining a long process of connected argument. Lucretius has occasionally to meet the first difficulty by the adoption of Graecisms, and the second by some sacrifice of artistic elegance. Thus he uses omne for τὸ πᾶν (II. 1108), esse, again, for τὸ εἶναι, and the like. Something of a formal and technical character appears in the links by which his argument is kept together, as in the constantly recurring use of certain connecting particles, such as the 'etenim,' 'quippe ubi,' 'quod genus,' 'amplius hoc,' 'huc accedit,' and the like. Virgil has retained some of the most striking of these connecting formulae, such as 'contemplator item,' 'nonne vides,' etc.; but, as was natural in a poem setting forth precepts and not proofs, he uses them much more sparingly and with more careful selection. As used by Lucretius, they add to our sense of the vividness of the book, of the constant personal address of the author, and of his ardent polemical tone. They also keep the framework of the argument more compact and distinct: but they bring into greater prominence the artistic mistake of conducting an abstract discussion in verse. The very merits of the work considered as an argument,—its clearness, fullness, and consecutiveness,—detract from the pleasure which a work of art naturally produces. But the style cannot be too highly praised for its logical coherence and lucid illustration. The meaning of Lucretius can never be mistaken from any ambiguity in his language. There are difficulties arising from the uncertainty of the text, difficulties also from our unfamiliarity with his method and principles, or with the objects he describes, but none from confusion in his ideas or his reasoning, or from a vague or unreal use of words.

II.—The Speculative Ideas in Lucretius.

But it is in his grasp of speculative ideas, and in his application of them to interpret the living world, that the greatness of Lucretius as an imaginative thinker is most apparent. The substantial truth of all the ancient philosophies lay in the ideas which they attempted to express and embody, not in the symbols by which these ideas were successively represented. Lucretius has a place among the few adventurous thinkers of antiquity who attained to high eminences of contemplation, which were hidden from the mass of their contemporaries, and which, in the breadth of view afforded by them, are not far below the higher levels of our modern conceptions of Nature and human life. And there came to him, as to the earlier race of thinkers, that which comes so rarely to modern enquiry, the fresh and poetical sense of surprise and keen curiosity, as at the first discovery of a new country, or the first unfolding of some illimitable prospect.

(1) In the philosophy of Lucretius the world is conceived as absolutely under the government of law. The starting-point of his system—

Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,

is an inference from the recognition of this condition. There is no need to prove its truth: it is openly revealed in all the processes of Nature. This fact of universal order is indeed supposed to result from the eternal and immutable properties of the atoms and from the original limitation in their varieties: but the idea of law is prior to, and the condition of, all the principles enunciated in the first two books, in regard to the nature and properties of matter. In no ancient writer do we find the certainty and universality of law more emphatically and unmistakably expressed than in Lucretius. This is the final appeal in all controversy. The superiority of Epicurus is proclaimed on the ground of his having discovered the fixed and certain limitations of all existence—

Unde refert nobis victor quid possit oriri,

Quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique

Quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens[⁴²].

Following on his steps the poet himself professes to teach—

Quo quaeque creata

Foedere sint, in eo quam sit durare necessum,

Nec validas valeant aevi rescindere leges[⁴³].

In another place he says—

Et quid quaeque queant per foedera naturai

Quid porro nequeant, sancitum quandoquidem extat[⁴⁴].

All knowledge and speculative confidence are declared to rest on this truth—

Certum ac dispositumst ubi quicquit crescat et insit[⁴⁵].

Superstition, the great enemy of truth, is said to be the result of ignorance of 'what may be and what may not be.' This is the thought which underlies and gives cogency to the whole argument. The subject of the poem is 'maiestas cognita rerum,'—the revelation of the majesty and order of the universe. The doctrine proclaimed by Lucretius was, that creation was no result of a capricious or benevolent exercise of power, but of certain processes extending through infinite time, by means of which the atoms have at length been able to combine and work together in accordance with their ultimate conditions. The conception of these ultimate conditions and of their relations to one another involves some more vital agency than that of blind chance or an iron fatalism[⁴⁶]. The 'foedera naturai' are opposed to the 'foedera fati.' The idea of law in Nature, as understood by Lucretius, is not, necessarily, inconsistent with that of a creative will determining the original conditions of the elemental substances. Though the ultimate principles of Lucretius are incompatible with a belief in the popular religions of antiquity, his mode of conceiving the operation of law in the universe is not irreconcileable with the conceptions of modern Theism.

The idea of law not only supports the whole fabric of his physical philosophy, but moulds his convictions on human life and imparts to his poetry that contemplative elevation by which it is pervaded. It is from this ground that he makes his most powerful assault on the strongholds of superstition. Nature is thus declared to be free from the arbitrary and capricious agency of the gods:—

Libera continuo dominis privata superbis[⁴⁷].

Man also is under the same law, and is made free by his knowledge and acceptance of this condition. A sense of security is thus gained for human life; a sense of elevation above its weakness and passions, and the courage to bear its inevitable evils[⁴⁸]. This absolute reliance on law does not act upon his mind with the depressing influence of fatalism. Although the fortunes of life and the phases of individual character are said to be the results of the infinite combinations of blind atoms, yet man is made free by knowledge and the use of his reason. Notwithstanding the original constitution of his nature, arising out of influences over which there is no control, he still has it in his power to live a life worthy of the gods:—

Illud in his rebus videor firmare potesse,

Usque adeo naturarum vestigia linqui

Parvola, quae nequeat ratio depellere nobis

Ut nil inpediat dignam dis degere vitam[⁴⁹].

From these high places of his philosophy,—'the "templa serena" well-bulwarked by the learning of the wise'[⁵⁰] he derives not only a sense of certainty in thought and security in life, but also his wide contemplative view, and his profound feeling of the majesty of the universe. The idea of universal law enables him to apprehend in all the processes of Nature a presence which awakens reverence and enforces obedience. This idea imparts unity of tone to the whole poem, informs its language, and seems to mould the very rhythm of its verse.

(2) But a closer view brings another aspect of the world into light; viz. the interdependence of all things on one another. There is not only fixed order, but there is also infinite mobility in Nature. The sum of all things remains unchanged, though all individual existences decay and perish. So too the sum of force remains the same[⁵¹]. There is no rest anywhere; all things are continually changing and passing into one another; decay and renovation form the very life and being of all things. Nothing is ever lost. 'Nature repairs one thing from another, and allows of no birth except through the death of something else':—

Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,

Quando alid ex alio reficit natura nec ullam

Rem gigni patitur nisi morte adiuta aliena[⁵²]?

As the 'ever-during peace' at the heart of all things is supposed to result from the eternal and immutable properties of the atoms, this 'endless agitation' arises out of their unceasing motion through infinite space. There are two kinds of motion,—the one tending to the renewal,—the other, to the destruction of things as they now exist. The maintenance of our whole system depends on the equilibrium of these opposing forces—

Sic aequo geritur certamine principiorum

Ex infinito contractum tempore bellum[⁵³].

There is thus seen to be not only absolute order, but also infinite change in the processes of Nature. Decay and renovation, death and life, support the existing creation in unceasing harmony. The imagination represents this process under the impressive symbol of an endless battle, in which now one side now the other gains some position, but neither, as yet, can become master of the field—

Nunc hinc nunc illic superant vitalia rerum,

Et superantur item[⁵⁴].

This symbol is the poetical form of the old philosophical distinction of αὔξησις and φθορά. It is another form of the ἔρις and φιλία which to the imagination of Empedocles appeared to pervade the universe. The idea of a constant battle imparts to the infinite and all-pervading movement of Nature the interest and the life of human passion on the grandest and widest sphere of action. The greatness of the thought makes each particular object in Nature pregnant with a deeper meaning, associates trivial and ordinary phenomena with a sense of imaginative wonder, and throws an august solemnity around the familiar aspects of human life. The passage in which this principle is most powerfully announced at ii. 575, etc., swells into deeper and grander tones, as the real human pathos involved in this strife of elements is made manifest. This struggle of life and decay is no mere war of abstractions: it is the daily and hourly process of existence. Birth and death are the fulfilment of this law. 'The old order changeth, yielding place to new'—

Cedit enim rerum novitate extrusa vetustas[⁵⁵].

'New nations wax strong, while the old are waning away; the generations of living things are changed within a brief space, and, like the runners in a race, pass on the torch of life'—

Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur,

Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum

Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt[⁵⁶].

Man also must resign himself to the universal law, and accept his life not as a thing to be possessed for ever, but only to be used for a time—

Sic alid ex alio numquam desistet oriri

Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu[⁵⁷].

Under this law of universal decay and restoration, we see the rains of heaven lost in the earth, but passing into new life in the fruits from which all living things are supported—

Hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum,

Hinc laetas urbes pueris florere videmus,

Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas[⁵⁸].

Or we see the waters of a river lost in the sea and returning through the earth to their original source, and again flowing in a fresh stream along the channel first formed for them—

Inde super terras fluit agmine dulci

Qua via secta semel liquido pede detulit undas[⁵⁹].

Under the same law the earth is seen to be the parent of all things and their tomb (v. 259); the sea, which loses its substance through evaporation and the subsidence of its waters, is found to be ever renewed by its native sources and the abundant tribute of rivers (v. 267; i. 231; vi. 608); the air is ever giving away and receiving back its substance; the sun ('liquidi fons luminis'), moon, and stars, are ever losing and ever renewing their light. The day on which the 'long-sustained mass and fabric of the world' will pass away, leaving only void space and the viewless atoms, is destined to come suddenly through the termination of this long balanced warfare:—

Denique tantopere inter se cum maxima mundi

Pugnent membra, pio nequaquam concita bello,

Nonne vides aliquam longi certaminis ollis

Posse dari finem? vel cum sol et vapor omnis

Omnibus epotis umoribus exsuperarint;

Quod facere intendunt, neque adhuc conata patrantur[⁶⁰].

(3) It is to be observed, also, how vividly Lucretius realises and how steadfastly he keeps before his mind the ideas of the eternity and infinity of the primordial atoms and of space. These conceptions support him in his antagonism to the popular religion, and deepen the feeling with which he contemplates human life and Nature. Our world of earth, sea, and sky is only one among infinite other systems. It stands to the universe in much the same proportion as any single man to the whole earth—

Et videas caelum summai totius unum

Quam sit parvula pars et quam multesima constet

Nec tota pars, homo terrai quota totius unus[⁶¹].

It was the glory of Epicurus that he first passed beyond the empyrean that bounds our world—

Atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque[⁶²].

The immensity of the universe is incompatible with the constant agency and interference of the gods,—

Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi

Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas[⁶³].

This negative idea is, at least, a step in advance towards a higher conception of the attributes of Deity. The infinity and complexity of the universe protest against the limited and divided powers, as the natural feelings of human nature protest against the moral qualities attributed to the gods of the Pagan mythology.

The power of these conceptions is also seen in the poet's deep sense of the littleness of human life. Such pathetic expressions of the shortness and triviality of each man's mortal span, as that,—

Degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest[⁶⁴],

are called forth by the ever-present thought of the Infinite and the Eternal. But this thought, if associated with a feeling of the pathos of human life does not lead Lucretius into cynicism or despair. It rather elevates him and fortifies him to suppress all personal complaint in the presence of ideas so stupendous. His imagination expands in contemplating the objects either of thought or of sight, which produce the impression of immensity,—such as the vast expanse of earth, sea and sky,—or of great duration,—such as the 'aeterni sidera mundi' or the 'validas aevi vires.' Thus, as much of the majesty of his poetry may be connected with his contemplative sense of law, much of its pervading life with his sense of the mobility of Nature, so the sublimity of many passages may be resolved into the influence of the ideas of immensity, both of time and space, on his imagination.

(4) Another aspect of things vividly realised by Lucretius is that of their individuality. It was in the atomic philosophy, that the thought of 'the individual' first rose into prominence. The meaning of the word 'atom' is simply 'individual.' The sense of each separate existence is not merged in the conception of law, of change, or of the immensity of the universe. The atoms are not only infinite in number, they are also varied in kind and powerful in solid singleness,—'solida pollentia simplicitate.' From their variety and individuality the variety and individuality in Nature emerge. No two classes and no two single objects are exactly alike. Between any two of the birds that gladden the sea-shore, the river banks, or the woods, there is some difference in outward appearance—

Invenies tamen inter se differre figuris[⁶⁵].

Each individual of a flock is different from every other, and by this difference only can the mother recognise her offspring. This sense of individuality intensifies the pathos of many passages in the poem. By regarding each being as having an existence of its own, the poet enters with sympathy into the feelings of all sentient existence,—of dumb animals as well as of human creatures. The freshness and distinctness of all his pictures from Nature are the result of an eye trained by his philosophy to see each thing not only as part of the universal life, but as existing in and for itself.

(5) The thought, also, of the infinite subtlety of combination in the elements and forces of the world acts powerfully on his imagination. The individuality of things depends on the fact that no two are composed of exactly the same elements, combined in the same way. The infinity of the elements, the immensity of the spaces in which they meet, and the infinite possibilities in their modes of combination result in the endless variety of beauty and wonder which the world presents to the eye. The epithet 'daedala,' by which this subtlety is expressed is applied not only to Nature, but to the earth as the sphere in which the elements are most largely mixed, and the creative forces most powerfully active. The varied loveliness of the world,—the 'varii lepores,' by which the eye is gratified and relieved,—are the result of the variety in the elements and the infinite subtlety in their modes of combination. Their invisibility and inscrutable action enhance the imaginative sense of the power and beauty resulting from these causes.

(6) The abstract properties of the atoms, discussed in the first two books, so far from being arbitrary assumptions, without any relation to actual existence, are thus found to be the conditions which explain the order, life, immensity, individuality, and subtlety manifested in the universe. These conceptions, which bridge the chasm between the particles of lifeless matter and the living world, unite in the more general conception of Nature. What then is involved in this conception—the dominant conception of the poem in its philosophical as well as its imaginative aspects? Something more than the subsidiary conceptions mentioned above. There is, in the first place, all that is involved in the unity of an organic whole. But to this whole the imagination of the poet seems, in some passages, to attach attributes scarcely reconcileable with the mechanical principles of his philosophy. In emancipating himself from the religious traditions of antiquity, Lucretius did not altogether escape from the power of an idea, so deeply rooted in the thought of past ages, as to seem to be an integral element of human consciousness. It is against the limitations which the ancient mythology imposed on the idea of Divine agency, rather than against the idea itself, as it is understood in modern times, that his philosophy protests. To Nature his imagination attributes not only life, but creative and regulative power. There would be more truth in calling this conception pantheistic than atheistic. But the sense of will, freedom, individual life, is so strong in Lucretius, that we think of the 'natura daedala rerum' rather as a personal power, with attributes in some respects analogous to those of man, than as a being in whose existence all other life is merged. Though this figurative attribution of personal qualities to great natural forces cannot be pressed as evidence of philosophical belief, yet as it shows, on the one hand, an unconscious survival of the state of mind which gave birth to mythology, so it seems to be the unconscious awakening of a spiritual conception of a creative and sustaining power in the universe.

This new and more vital conception which supersedes the old mythological modes of thought is not altogether independent of them. Lucretius still interprets the world by analogies and illustrations which attach personal attributes to different phases and forces of Nature. Thus he speaks of Aether as the fructifying father, of Earth as the great mother of all living things. But the survival of the mythological conception of the universe, blended indeed with other modes of imaginative thought, appears most conspicuously in the famous invocation to the poem,—

Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,

Alma Venus.

The mysterious power there addressed is identified with the Alma Venus of Italian worship,—the abstract conception of the life-giving impulse, the operations of which are most visible in the new birth of the early spring,—and with the Aphrodite of Greek art and poetry,—the concrete and passionate conception of the beauty and charm which most fascinate the senses. But if nothing more was meant in the opening lines of the poem than a fanciful appeal to one of the Deities of the popular belief, it might with justice be said that some of the finest poetry in Lucretius directly contradicted his sincerest convictions. But the language in which she is addressed clearly proves that the 'Alma Venus' of the invocation is not an independent capricious power, separate from the orderly action of Nature. She is emphatically addressed as a Power, present through all the world,—

Caeli subter labentia signa

Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis

Concelebras.

She is not only omnipresent, but all-creative,—

Per te quoniam genus omne animantum

Concipitur,—

and all-regulative—

Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas, etc.

Thus under the name, and with some of the attributes of the Goddess of Mythology, the genial force of Nature,—'Natura Naturans' as distinct from the 'rerum summa,' or 'Natura Naturata,'—is apprehended as a living, all-pervading energy, the cause of all life, joy, beauty, and order in the world, the cause too of all grace and accomplishment in man. To this mysterious Power, from which all joy and loveliness are silently emanating, the poet, (remembering at the same time that the friend to whom he dedicates his poem claims especially to be under the protection of that Goddess with whom she is identified), prays for inspiration,—

Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem[⁶⁶].

Here, as in earlier invocations of the Muse, there is a recognition of the truth that the feeling, the imagery, and the words of the poet come to him in a way which he does not understand,—

ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν, οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν,—

and by the gift of a Power which he cannot command. Like Goethe, Lucretius seems to feel that his thoughts and feelings pass into form and musical expression under the influence of the same vital movement which in early spring fills the world with new life and beauty. But still true to his philosophy, and remembering the Empedoclean thought[⁶⁷], which recurs with impressive solemnity in his argument, that this life-giving energy is inseparably united with a destructive energy, and seeing at the same time before his imagination the figures and colouring of some great masterpiece of Greek art, he embodies his conception in a passionately wrought picture of the loves of Aphrodite and Ares, and concludes with a prayer that the gracious Power whom he invokes would prevail on the fierce God of War to grant a time of peace to his country.

If to regard this passage as merely an artistic ornament of the poem would be unjust to the sincerity of Lucretius as a thinker, to regard it merely as a piece of elaborate symbolism would be still more unjust to his genius as a poet. It is a truth both of thought and of imaginative feeling that there is a pervading and puissant energy in the world, manifesting itself most powerfully in animate and inanimate creation, when the deadness of winter gives place to the genial warmth of spring,—

Tibi rident aequora ponti

Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum;—

manifesting itself also in the human spirit in the form of genius, calling into life new feelings and fancies of the poet, and shaping them into forms of imperishable beauty. Whether consistently or inconsistently with the ultimate tenets of his philosophy, the poet, in this invocation, seems to recognise, behind these manifestations of unconscious energy, the presence of a conscious Being with which his own spirit can hold communion, and from which it draws inspiration. With similar inconsistency or consistency a modern physicist speaks of 'the impression of joy given in the unfolding of leaf and the spreading of plant as irresistibly suggesting the thought of a great Being conscious of this joy.'

But this puissant and joy-giving energy, personified in the 'Alma Venus genetrix,' is only one of the aspects which the 'Natura daedala rerum' of Lucretius presents to man. She seems to stand to him rather in the position of a task-mistress than of a beneficent Being, ministering to his wants. The Gods receive all things from her bounty,—

Omnia suppeditat porro Natura,[⁶⁸]—

and the lower animals who 'wage no foolish strife with her' have their wants also abundantly satisfied:—

Quando omnibus omnia large

Tellus ipsa parit Naturaque daedala rerum[⁶⁹].

But to man she is the cause of evil as well as of good; of shipwrecks, earthquakes, pestilence, and untimely death, as well as of all beauty and delight. Sometimes he seems to hear her speaking to him in the tones of stern reproof,—

Denique si vocem rerum Natura repente, etc.[⁷⁰]

Again he sees her rising up before him like the old Nemesis of Greek religion, and trampling with secret irony on the pride and pomp of human affairs,—

Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam

Opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures

Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur[⁷¹].

It is this large conception of Nature which seems to bring the abstract doctrines of Lucretius into harmony with his poetical feelings and his human sensibilities. The poetry of the living world is thus breathed into the dry bones of the Atomic system of Democritus. The unity which the mind strains to grasp in contemplating the universe is thus made compatible with the perception of individual life in everything. The pathos and dignity of human life are enhanced by the recognition of our dependence on this great Power above and around us. The contemplation of this Power affects the imagination with a sense of awe, wonder, and majesty. But with this contemplative emotion a still deeper feeling seems to mingle. Throughout the poem there is heard a deep undertone of solemnity as from one awakening to the apprehension of a great invisible Power,—'a concealed omnipotence,'—in the world. As the imagination of Lucretius is immeasurably more poetical, so is his spirit immeasurably more reverential than that of Epicurus. If by the analysis of his understanding he seems to take all mystery and sanctity out of the universe, he restores them again by the synthesis of his imagination. If his work seems in some places to 'teach a truth he could not learn,' this is to be explained partly by the fact that he sometimes leaves the beaten road of Epicureanism for the higher and less defined tracts,—'avia loca,'—along which the mystic enthusiasm of Empedocles had borne him. But partly it may be explained by the fact that the poetic imagination, which was in him the predominant faculty, asserts its right to be heard after the logical understanding has said its last word. The imagination which recognises infinite life and order in the world unconsciously assumes the existence of a creative and governing Power, behind the visible framework of things. Even the germ of such a thought was more elevating than the popular idolatry and superstition. The recognition of the majesty of Nature enables Lucretius to contemplate life with a sense both of solemnity and security, while it imparts a more elevated feeling to his enjoyment of the beauty of the world. The belief which he taught and by which he lived is neither atheistic nor pantheistic; it is not definite enough to be theistic. It was like the twilight between the beliefs that were passing away, and that which rose on the world after his time,—

ἦμος δ' οὔτ' ἄρ πω ἠώς, ἔτι δ' ἀμφιλύκη νύξ.

[¹] 'First, by reason of the greatness of my argument, and because I set the mind free from the close-drawn bonds of superstition; and next because, on so dark a theme, I compose such lucid verse, touching every point with the grace of poesy.'—i. 931-34.

[²] Of Leucippus, with whose name the theory is also associated, very little is known.

[³] 'This terror of the soul, therefore, and this darkness must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun or the bright shafts of day, but by the outward aspect and harmonious plan of nature.'—i. 146-48.

[⁴] i. 445-56.

[⁵] 'The original atoms are, therefore, of solid singleness, composed of the smallest particles in close and compact union, not kept together by any meeting of these particles, but rather powerful by their eternal singleness, from which nature allows no loss by violence or decay, storing them as the seeds of all things.'—i. 609-14.

[⁶] ii. 297-302.

[⁷] ii. 549.

[⁸] ii. 575-76.

[⁹] 'If we are to suppose the existence of an eternal substance, at the basis of all things, on which the safety of the whole universe rests, lest you find creation resolved into nonentity.'—ii. 862-64.

[¹⁰] 'So soon as the deep rest of death hath fallen upon a man, and the mind and the life have departed from him, there is no loss in his whole frame to be perceived, either in appearance or in weight. Death still presents everything that was before, except the vital sense and the warm heat.'—iii. 211-15.

[¹¹] 'For, not only would all reason come to nought, even life itself would immediately be overthrown, unless you dare to trust the senses.'—iv. 507-8.

[¹²] i. 135.

[¹³] 'Since nothing in our body has been produced in order that we might be able to put it to use, but what has been produced creates its own use.'—iv. 834-35.

[¹⁴] 'And love impaired their strength, and children, by their coaxing ways, easily broke down the proud temper of their fathers.'—v. 1017-18.

[¹⁵] vi. 60-1.

[¹⁶] E.g. i. 54; v. 154.

[¹⁷] Macaulay.

[¹⁸] E.g. i. 694.

[¹⁹] iv. 478-79.

[²⁰]

In quae corpora si nullus tibi forte videtur

Posse animi iniectus fieri, procul avius erras.—ii. 739-40.

[²¹] 'But it is necessary that the atoms, in the act of creation, should exercise some secret, invisible faculty.'—i. 778-79.

[²²] 'Since on all sides, through all the pores of aether, and, as it were, all round through the breathing-places of the mighty world, a free exit and entrance is given to the atoms.'—vi. 492-94.

[²³] 'As feathers, and hair, and bristles are first formed on the limbs of beasts and the bodies of birds, so the young earth then first bore herbs and plants, afterwards gave birth to the generations of living things.'—v. 788-91.

[²⁴] 'So more and more, the sweat oozing from the salt body, increased the sea and the moving watery plains by its flow.'—v. 487-88.

[²⁵] 'Since neither its veins can support adequate nourishment, nor does Nature supply what is needful.'—ii. 1141-42.

[²⁶] 'For one thing will grow clear after another: nor shall the darkness of night make thee lose thy way, before thou seest, to the full, the furthest secrets of Nature: so shall all things throw light one on the other.'—i. 1115-17.

[²⁷] 'Dishonouring immortal things by mortal words.'—v. 121.

[²⁸] 'They, doubtless, became the prey and the gain of others, unable to break through the bonds of fate by which they were confined, until Nature caused that species to disappear.'—v. 875-77.

Professor Wallace (Epicureanism, p. 114) in commenting on this passage adds, 'Of course in this there is no implication of the peculiarly Darwinian doctrine of descent, or development of kind from kind, with structure modified and complicated to meet changing circumstances.'

[²⁹] iii. 327-28.

[³⁰] i. 305.

[³¹] iv. 705.

[³²] 'Dogs, lightly sleeping, with faithful heart.'—v. 864.

[³³] 'When from the strong torrents of Helicon the swans raise their liquid wailing with doleful voice.'—iv. 547-48.

[³⁴] 'As the low note of the swan is sweeter than the cry of the cranes, far-scattered among the south-wind's skiey clouds.'—iv. 181-82.

[³⁵] 'And gulls among the sea-waves, seeking their food and pastime in the brine.'—v. 1079-80.

[³⁶] Od. v. 66.

[³⁷] 'And likewise, when the lithe serpent casts its skin among the thorns; for often we notice the briers, with their light airy spoils hanging to them.'—iv. 60-2.

[³⁸] iii. 213-15.

[³⁹] 'Consider, too, the special madness of the mind, and forgetfulness of things; consider its sinking into the black waves of lethargy.'—iii. 828-29.

[⁴⁰] 'Unbroken speech prolonged from the first light of dawn till the shadows of the dark night.'—iv. 537-38.

[⁴¹] 'Now, too, let us examine the "Homoeomeria" of Anaxagoras, as the Greeks call it, though the poverty of our native speech does not admit of its being named in our language.'—i. 830-33.

[⁴²] 'Whence returning victorious he brings back to us tidings of what may and what may not come into existence: on what principle, in fine, the power of each thing is determined and the deeply-fixed limit of its being.'—i. 75-77.

[⁴³] 'According to what condition all things have been created, what necessity there is that they abide by it, and how they may not annul the mighty laws of the ages.'—v. 56-58.

[⁴⁴] 'Since it is absolutely decreed, what each thing can and what it cannot do by the conditions of nature.'—i. 586.

[⁴⁵] 'It is fixed and ordered where each thing may grow and exist.'—iii. 787.

[⁴⁶] ii. 254.

[⁴⁷] ii. 1091.

[⁴⁸] vi. 32.

[⁴⁹] 'This, in these circumstances, I think I can establish, that such faint traces of our native elements are left beyond the powers of our reason to dispel, that nothing prevents us from leading a life worthy of the gods.'—iii. 319-22.

[⁵⁰] ii. 8.

[⁵¹] ii. 297-99.

[⁵²] i. 262-64.

[⁵³] ii. 573-74.

[⁵⁴] ii. 575-76.

[⁵⁵] iii. 964.

[⁵⁶] ii. 77-79.

[⁵⁷] 'So one thing shall never cease being born from another, and life is given to no man as a possession, to all for use.'—iii. 970-71.

[⁵⁸] 'Hence, moreover, the race of man and the beasts of the forest are fed; hence we see cities glad with the flower of their children, and the leafy woods on all sides loud with the song of young birds.'—i. 254-56.

[⁵⁹] v. 271-72.

[⁶⁰] 'Finally, since the vast members of the world, engaged in no holy warfare, so mightily contend with one another, see'st thou not that some end may be assigned to their long conflict, either when the sun and every mode of heat, having drunk up all the moisture, shall have gained the day, which they are ever tending to do but do not yet accomplish?' etc.—v. 380-85.

[⁶¹] 'And that you may see how very small a part one firmament is of the whole sum of things, how small a fraction it is, not even so much in proportion as a single man is to the whole earth.'—vi. 650-52.

[⁶²] 'And traversed the whole boundless region of space, in mind and spirit.'—i. 74.

[⁶³] 'Who can order the infinite mass? who can hold with a guiding hand the mighty reins of immensity?'—ii. 1095-96.

[⁶⁴] ii. 16.

[⁶⁵] ii. 348.

[⁶⁶] i. 28.

[⁶⁷] Lucretius, in other places where he introduces pictures or stories from the ancient mythology, as at ii. 600, etc., iii. 978, etc., iv. 584, etc., treats them as symbolising some facts of Nature or human life. Occasionally, as at v. 14, etc., he deals with them in the spirit of Euhemerism. He never uses them, as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid do, merely as materials for artistic representation.

[⁶⁸] iii. 23.

[⁶⁹] v. 233-4.

[⁷⁰] ii. 931, etc.

[⁷¹] v. 1233-5.