Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/676

656 here, and not the thought of personal profit hereafter, that prompted his observation.

A century and a half after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius wrote his great poem, "On the Nature of Things," in which he, a Roman, developed with extraordinary ardor the philosophy of his Greek predecessor. He wishes to win over his friend Memnius to the school of Epicurus; and although he has no rewards in a future life to offer, although his object appears to be a purely negative one, he addresses his friend with the heat of an apostle. His object, like that of his great forerunner, is the destruction of superstition; and considering that men trembled before every natural event as a direct monition from the gods, and that everlasting torture was also in prospect, the freedom aimed at by Lucretius might perhaps be deemed a positive good. "This terror," he says, "and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of Nature." He refutes the notion that any thing can come out of nothing, or that that which is once begotten can be recalled to nothing. The first beginnings, the atoms, are indestructible, and into them all things can be dissolved at last. Bodies are partly atoms and partly combinations of atoms; but the atoms nothing can quench. They are strong in solid singleness, and by their denser combination all things can be closely packed and exhibit enduring strength. He denies that matter is infinitely divisible. We come at length to the atoms, without which, as an imperishable substratum, all order in the generation and development of things would be destroyed.

The mechanical shock of the atoms being in his view the all-sufficient cause of things, he combats the notion that the constitution of Nature has been in any way determined by intelligent design. The interaction of the atoms throughout infinite time rendered all manner of combinations possible. Of these the fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones disappeared. Not after sage deliberation did the atoms station themselves in their right places, nor did they bargain what motions they should assume. From all eternity they have been driven together, and, after trying motions and unions of every kind, they fell at length into the arrangements out of which this system of things has been formed. His grand conception of the atoms falling silently through immeasurable ranges of space and time suggested the nebular hypothesis to Kant, its first propounder. "If you will apprehend and keep in mind these things, Nature, free at once, and rid of her haughty lords, is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling of the gods."