When human life lay foully on the earth Before all eyes, 'neath Superstition crushed, Who from the heavenly quarters showed her head And with appalling aspect lowered on men, Then did a Greek dare first lift eyes to hers— First brave her face to face. Him neither myth Of gods, nor thunderbolt; nor sky with roar And threat could quell; nay, chafed with more resolve His valiant soul that he should yearn to be First man to burst the bars of nature's gates. So vivid verve of mind prevailed. He fared Far o'er the flaming ramparts of the world, And traversed the immeasurable All In mind and soul: and thence a conqueror Returns to tell what can, what cannot rise, And on what principle each thing, in brief, Hath powers defined and deep-set boundary. Religion, then, is cast to earth in turn And trampled. Triumph matches man with heaven.
The profoundest speculations on the nature of things are not impious. Let not the reader feel that in such an inquiry he is on guilty ground. It is, rather, true that religion has caused foul crimes. An instance is the agonising sacrifice of sweet Iphigenia, slain at the altar to appease divine wrath.
"Religion could such wickedness suggest." Tales of eternal punishment frighten only those ignorant of the real nature of the soul. This ignorance can be dispelled by inquiring into the phenomena of heaven and earth, and stating the laws of nature.
II.—First Principles and a Theory of the Universe
Of these the first is that nothing is made of nothing; the second, that nothing is reduced to nothing. This indestructibility of matter may be illustrated by the joyous and constantly renewed growth that is in nature. There are two fundamental postulates required to explain nature—atoms and void. These constitute the universe. There is no tertium quid. All other things are but properties and accidents of these two. Atoms are solid, "without void"; they are indestructible, "eternal"; they are indivisible. To appreciate the physical theory of Epicurus, it is necessary to note the erroneous speculations of other Greek thinkers, whether, like Heraclitus, they deduced all things from one such fundamental element as fire, or whether they postulated four elements. From a criticism of the theories of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, the poet, return to the main subject.
A HARD TASK AND THREEFOLD TITLE TO FAME
How dark my theme, I know within my mind; Yet hath high hope of praise with thyrsus keen Smitten my heart and struck into my breast Sweet passion for the Muses, stung wherewith In lively thought I traverse pathless haunts Pierian, untrodden yet by man. I love to visit those untasted springs And quaff; I love to cull fresh blooms, and whence The Muses never veiled the brows of man To seek a wreath of honour for my head: First, for that lofty is the lore I teach; Then, cramping knots of priestcraft I would loose; And next because of mysteries I sing clear, Decking my poems with the Muses' charm.
This sweetening of verse with: "the honey of the Muses" is like disguising unpalatable medicine for children. The mind must be engaged by attractive means till it perceives the nature of the world.
As to the existing universe, it is bounded in none of its dimensions; matter and space are infinite. All things are in continual motion in every direction, and there is an endless supply of material bodies from infinite space. These ultimate atoms buffet each other ceaselessly; they unite or disunite. But there is no such thing as design in their unions. All is fortuitous concourse; so there are innumerable blind experiments and failures in nature, due to resultless encounters of the atoms.
CALM OF MIND IN RELATION TO A TRUE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE
When tempests rack the mighty ocean's face, How sweet on land to watch the seaman's toil— Not that we joy in neighbour's jeopardy, But sweet it is to know what ills we 'scape. How sweet to see war's mighty rivalries Ranged on the plains—without thy share of risk. Naught sweeter than to hold the tranquil realms On high, well fortified by sages' lore, Whence to look down on others wide astray— Lost wanderers questing for the way of life— See strife of genius, rivalry of rank, See night and day men strain with wondrous toil To rise to utmost power and grasp the world.