There was however a school of philosophical speculation, which might have led to the foundation of a theory of Progress, if the historical outlook of the Greeks had been larger and if their temper had been different. The Atomic theory of Democritus seems to us now, in many ways, the most wonderful achievement of Greek thought, but it had a small range of influence in Greece, and would have had less if it had not convinced the brilliant mind of Epicurus. The Epicureans developed it, and it may be that the views which they put forward as to the history of the human race are mainly their own superstructure. These philosophers rejected entirely the doctrine of a Golden Age and a subsequent degeneration, which was manifestly incompatible with their theory that the world was mechanically formed from atoms without the intervention of a Deity. For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing state of civilisation, not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial design, but simply by the exercise of human intelligence throughout a long period. [Footnote: Lucretius v. 1448 sqq. (where the word PROGRESS is pronounced):
Usus et impigrae simul experientia mentis
Paulatim docuit pedetemtim progredientis.
Sic unum quicquid paulatim protrahit aetas
In medium ratioque in luminis erigit oras.
Namque alid ex alio clarescere et ordine debet
Artibus, ad summum donee uenere cacumen.]
The gradual amelioration of their existence was marked by the discovery of fire and the use of metals, the invention of language, the invention of weaving, the growth of arts and industries, navigation, the development of family life, the establishment of social order by means of kings, magistrates, laws, the foundation of cities. The last great step in the amelioration of life, according to Lucretius, was the illuminating philosophy of Epicurus, who dispelled the fear of invisible powers and guided man from intellectual darkness to light.
But Lucretius and the school to which he belonged did not look forward to a steady and continuous process of further amelioration in the future. They believed that a time would come when the universe would fall into ruins, [Footnote: Ib. 95.] but the intervening period did not interest them. Like many other philosophers, they thought that their own philosophy was the final word on the universe, and they did not contemplate the possibility that important advances in knowledge might be achieved by subsequent generations. And, in any case, their scope was entirely individualistic; all their speculations were subsidiary to the aim of rendering the life of the individual as tolerable as possible here and now. Their philosophy, like Stoicism, was a philosophy of resignation; it was thoroughly pessimistic and therefore incompatible with the idea of Progress. Lucretius himself allows an underlying feeling of scepticism as to the value of civilisation occasionally to escape. [Footnote: His eadem sunt omnia semper (iii. 945) is the constant refrain of Marcus Aurelius.]
Indeed, it might be said that in the mentality of the ancient Greeks there was a strain which would have rendered them indisposed to take such an idea seriously, if it had been propounded. No period of their history could be described as an age of optimism. They were never, by their achievements in art or literature, in mathematics or philosophy, exalted into self-complacency or lured into setting high hopes on human capacity. Man has resourcefulness to meet everything—[words in Greek],—they did not go further than that.
This instinctive pessimism of the Greeks had a religious tinge which perhaps even the Epicureans found it hard entirely to expunge. They always felt that they were in the presence of unknown incalculable powers, and that subtle dangers lurked in human achievements and gains. Horace has taken this feeling as the motif of a criticism on man's inventive powers. A voyage of Virgil suggests the reflection that his friend's life would not be exposed to hazards on the high seas if the art of navigation had never been discovered—if man had submissively respected the limits imposed by nature. But man is audacious:
Nequiquam deus abscidit
Prudens oceano dissociabili Terras.
In vain a wise god sever'd lands
By the dissociating sea.
Daedalus violated the air, as Hercules invaded hell. The discovery of fire put us in possession of a forbidden secret. Is this unnatural conquest of nature safe or wise? Nil mortalibus ardui est:
Man finds no feat too hard or high;
Heaven is not safe from man's desire.
Our rash designs move Jove to ire,
He dares not lay his thunder by.