[Footnote 807: ][ (return) ] Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.
To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with its tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end, and, as Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy. To accomplish this, God must be placed at an infinite distance from the universe, and must be represented as indifferent to every thing that transpires within it. We "must beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being we ought to suppose exempt from all occupation, and perfectly happy," [808]--that is, absolutely impassible. God did not make the world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence of design or intelligence in its structure, and "such is the faultiness with which it stands affected, that it can not be the work of a Divine power." [809]
Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit a God in any rational sense. True, he professed to believe in gods, but evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely to escape the popular condemnation. "They are not pure spirits, for there is no spirit in the atomic theory; they are not bodies, for where are the bodies that we may call gods? In this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge that the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses himself to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to dreams. As in dreams there are images that act upon and determine in us agreeable or painful sensations, without proceeding from exterior bodies, so the gods are images similar to those of dreams, but greater, having the human form; images which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of materiality which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must be admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since the universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a cause." [810]
[Footnote 808: ][ (return) ] Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.
[Footnote 809: ][ (return) ] Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.
[Footnote 810: ][ (return) ] Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 431.
It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus. One fact will have obviously presented itself to the mind of the reflecting reader. He starts with atoms having form, magnitude, and density, and essays to construct a universe; but he is obliged to be continually introducing, in addition, a "nameless something" which "remains in secret," to help him out in the explanation of the phenomena. [811] He makes life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms, consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason, without an adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental principle from which he starts, "that nothing can arise from nothing."
[Footnote 811: ][ (return) ] As, e.g., Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. iii. l. 260-290.
EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.
In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal or material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or substance. The soul is composed of atoms exceedingly diminutive, smooth, and round, and connected with or diffused through the veins, viscera, and nerves. The substance of the soul is not to be regarded as simple and uncompounded; its constituent parts are aura, heat, and air. These are not sufficient, however, even in the judgment of Epicurus, to account for sensation; they are not adequate to generate sensible motives such as revolve any thoughts in the mind. "A certain fourth nature, or substance, must, therefore, necessarily be added to these, that is wholly without a name; it is a substance, however, than which nothing exists more active or more subtile, nor is any thing more essentially composed of small and smooth elementary particles; and it is this substance which first distributes sensible motions through the members." [812]