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atoms were supposed to be endowed implied a mighty supernatural will as their source. For not recognising this single ultimate will Epicurus and Lucretius had no relevant reason. They stopped short at the atoms in sheer wilfulness; they saw nothing beyond them because they had beforehand determined on no account to look beyond them.

In the second place, the hypothesis of a certain degree of spontaneity in the atoms recommended itself to the Epicureans as a warrant for rejecting fatalism, and as an explanation of freewill in living things. Epicurus pronounced the fatalism of the physicists and philosophers even more disquieting and discouraging than superstition; the goodwill of the gods might be gained by honouring them, but there are no means by which fate can be controlled. He and his followers accepted freewill in man as a fact fully guaranteed to them by consciousness and observation. But if there be freewill in man there must be freewill elsewhere to account for it; only nothing can come from nothing; only necessity from necessity. If, then, there be no Being above nature, and all must be explained from nature, freewill must have its cause in nature, and nature cannot be wholly subject to necessity. "If all motion is ever linked together, and a new motion ever springs from another in a fixed order, and first beginnings do

not by swerving make some commencement of motion to break through the decrees of fate, that cause follow not cause from everlasting, whence. have all living creatures here on earth, whence, I ask, has been wrested from the fates the power by which we go forward whither the will leads each, by which likewise we change the direction of our motions neither at a fixed time nor fixed place, but when and where the mind itself has prompted?" The Roman poet could give to this question of his own no more rational answer on materialistic principles than the one which has been mentioned.

If the materialist maintain that there is nothing but necessity in nature, he must maintain also that there is nothing but necessity in man. If he admit that there is spontaneity or freedom in man, he must admit that it is inherent likewise in nature. Necessity in both nature and man, or freedom in both, is the only reasonable alternative. The effort to deduce truly voluntary movements from purely mechanical causes is nonsensical. But when Epicurus and Lucretius followed reason so far, why did they not follow it farther, and pack reason as well as will into their atoms, and emotion and conscience too, and so endow each atom with a complete mind? They might at least have anticipated Professor Clifford, and told us that "a moving molecule of inorganic matter possesses a small piece of mind-stuff."

Having conformed their atoms to the needs of their system, the Epicureans proceeded to explain how the universe was formed; how from the boundless mass of matter, heaven, and earth, and ocean, sun and moon, rose in nice order. The atoms, so we are told, "jostling about of their own accord, in infinite modes, were often brought together confusedly, irregularly, and to no purpose, but at length they successfully coalesced; at least, such of them as were thrown together suddenly became, in succession, the beginnings of great things-as earth, and air, and sea, and heaven." With magnificent breadth of conception, and often with genuine scientific insight, Lucretius, following the guidance of Epicurus, has described how, in obedience to mechanical laws, from atoms of "solid singleness," inorganic matter assumed its various forms and organic nature passed through its manifold stages; what living creatures issued from the earth; how speech was invented; how society originated and governments were instituted; how civilisation commenced; and in what ways religion gained an entry into men's hearts. He thoroughly appreciated the significance of the doctrine of evolution in the system of materialism. The development theory has been ingeniously improved at many particular points in recent times, but it has not been widened in range. It was just as comprehensive in the hands of Lucre

tius as it is in those of Herbert Spencer. Its aim and method are still the same; its problems are the same; its principles of solution are the same; the solutions themselves are often the same. I state this as a fact, not as a reproach; for I do not object to the development theory in itself, but only to it in association with atheism. Atheism has done much to discredit it; it has contributed nothing to the proof of atheism.

The Epicurean materialists refused to recognise anywhere the traces of a creative or governing Intelligence. The mechanical explanation which they gave of the formation of things seemed to them to preclude the view that aught was effected by Divine power or wisdom. Like their successors in modern times, they regarded efficient causes as incompatible with final causes; and, like them also, they dwelt in confirmation of their opinion on the alleged defects of nature, blaming the arrangements of the heavens and the earth with. the same vehemence and narrowness which have become so familiar to us of late. And yet they were not unwilling to admit the existence of the gods worshipped by the people, if conceived of as only a sort of etherealised men, utterly unconnected with the world and its affairs. "Beware," says Epicurus, "of attributing the revolutions of the heaven, and eclipses, and the rising and setting of stars, either to the original contrivance or con

tinued regulation of a Divine Being. For business, and cares, and anger, and benevolence, are not accordant with happiness, but arise from weakness, and fear, and dependence on others." The Epicureans, in fact, conceived of the gods as ideal Epicureans as beings serenely happy, without care, occupation, or sorrow.

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To belief in the immortality of the soul they offered strenuous opposition. It was one of the prime recommendations of materialism in their eyes, that it supplied them with arms to combat this belief. They laboured to prove the soul material in order that they might infer it to be mortal, and with such diligence that scarcely a plausible argument seems to have escaped them. could not, they felt, emancipate men from fear of future retribution otherwise than by persuading them that there was no future to fear-that death was an eternal sleep. Therefore they taught that "the nature of the mind cannot come into being alone without the body, nor exist far away from sinews and blood;" that "death concerns us not a jot, since the nature of the mind is proved to be mortal;" that "death is nothing to us, for that which is dissolved is devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us.” All the consolation which Lucretius can offer to the heart shrinking at the prospect of death, is the reflection that it will escape the ills of life.

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