[196] For details we must refer to the masterly treatise of Dr. Woltjer, already cited more than once in the course of this chapter.
[197] Cf. II., 18, with II., 172.
[198] The single exception to this rule that can be quoted is, we believe, the argument against impassioned love derived from its enslaving influence (quod alterius sub nutu degitur aetas, V., 1116). But to live under another’s nod is a condition eminently unfavourable to the mental tranquillity which an Epicurean prized before all things; nor, in any case, does it seem to have counted for so much with Lucretius as the ‘damnation of expenses’ which was no less formidable a deterrent to him than to the ‘unco guid’ of Burns’s satire.
[199] V., 1153-4.
[200] V., 1125.
[201] Ziegler (Gesch. a. Ethik, I., p. 203) quotes Lucret., III., 136, to prove that the poet recognised the existence of mental pleasures as such. But Lucretius only says that the mind has pleasures not derived from an immediate external stimulus. This would apply perfectly to the imagination of sensual pleasure.
[202] Woltjer, op. cit., p. 5.
[203] IV., 966.
[204] Woltjer, op. cit., pp. 178 ff.
[205] There is an unquestionable coincidence between Lucretius, II., 69 ff. and Plato, Legg., 776 B, pointed out by Teichmüller, Geschichte der Begriffe, p. 177. Both may have drawn from some older source.