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which underlies it. Epikuros there assumes that weight or gravity, as well as resistance, is an essential property of the atoms. On this point the profound thinkers who created the Materialism of antiquity did not succeed altogether in freeing themselves from ordinary notions; for although Epikuros expressly teaches that, strictly speaking, there is in space no above and no below, yet he clings to a determinate direction in the falling of the atoms that make up the universe. To escape from the ordinary notions of weight was, in fact, no easy achievement for the human intellect. The doctrine of the Antipodes, which had developed from the shock inflicted upon the belief in Tartarus, together with the study of astronomy, struggled in vain in antiquity against the ordinary conception of an absolute above and below. With what reluctance these notions, which are constantly impressed upon us by our senses, yield to scientific abstraction, we may see from another example in modern times,—namely, the doctrine of the revolution of the earth. Even so late as a century after Copernicus, there were scientifically trained and freethinking astronomers, who advanced their natural feeling of the solidity and fixity of the earth as a proof of the incorrectness of the Copernican system.

Starting, then, from the basis of the gravity of the atoms, the Epikurean system cannot suppose that these have a twofold direction, ceasing in the centre. For since, as everywhere else, so in this centre also, there remains void space between the particles, they cannot support each other. But if we wished to suppose that they had already become compressed in the centre to a certain absolute density by immediate contact, then, according to the theory of Epikuros, already in the infinite duration of time all atoms must have been collected here, and therefore nothing more could happen in the world.

We need not critically demonstrate the weaknesses of this whole manner of thinking.64 It is much more inter64 It deserves, however, to be re- viewed from the standpoint of the marked, that the theory of Epikuros, knowledge and ideas of that time, ad

esting to the thoughtful observer of human development to see how difficult it was to attain to a correct theory of nature. We wonder at Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation, and scarcely reflect how much progress had to be made in order so far to pave the way for this doctrine that it must inevitably be discovered by some great thinker. When the discovery of Columbus instantaneously placed the old theory of the Antipodes in an entirely new light, and finally disposed of the Epikurean theories on this point, there was involved the necessity of a reform in the whole conception of gravity. Then came Copernicus, then Keppler, then the inquiry into the laws of falling bodies made by Galilei, and so at last everything was ready for the exposition of an entirely new theory.

Towards the end of the First Book Lucretius briefly announces the magnificent doctrine, first proposed by Empedokles, that all the adaptation to be found in the universe, and especially in organic life, is merely a special case of the infinite possibilities of mechanical events.65

duces much better reasons in many
important points than the Aristotelian
theory, and that the latter, more by
chance than by force of its proofs,
happens to be nearer to our present
views. Thus, for example, the whole
theory of Aristotle rests upon the con-
ception of a centre of the universe,
which Lucretius (i. 1070) rightly con-
troverts from the standpoint of the
infinity of the universe. In the same
way Lucretius has the better concep-
tion of motion when he maintains (i.
1074 foll.) that in a void, even though
it were the centre of the universe, mo-
65 Compare above pp. 32-35. The verses (i. 21-34) run thus :-
"Nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum
Ordine se sua quaeque sagaci mente locarunt
Nec quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto,
Sed quia multa modis multis mutata per omne
Ex infinito vexantur percita plagis,
Omne genus motus et coetus experiundo
Tandem deveniunt in talis disposituras,
Qualibus haec rerum consistit summa creata,
Et multos etiam magnos servata per annos

tion once begun could not be stopped,
while Aristotle, starting from his
teleological idea of motion, finds in
the centre its natural goal. But the
superiority is most evident in the
argumentation of the Epikurean sys-
tem to overthrow the natural upward
(centrifugal) motion of Aristotle,
which is very well refuted by Lu-
cretius (ii. 185 foll.; probably also
in the last passage of the first book,
according to v. 1094), and referred
to upward motion necessitated by
the laws of equilibrium and of colli-
sion.

:

If we find any magnificence in the Aristotelian teleclogy, yet we must none the more refuse this character to the uncompromising denial of the idea of design. We are here dealing with the peculiar keystone of the whole edifice of Materialistic philosophy, a part of the system which has by no means always received its proper share of attention from recent Materialists. If the doctrine of design is one for which we have naturally more sympathy, yet it also contains a larger infusion of human one-sidedness of view. The entire dismissal of what has been imported into our view of things from human narrowness may be repugnant to us, but feeling is not argument; it is at the best but a divining principle, and in face of keen logical consequences is, it may be, an intimation of further possible explanations, which, however, lie beyond, and never before, these consequences.

"For verily not by design did the first beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place, guided by keen-sighted intelligence, nor did they bargain, sooth to say. what motions each should assume, but because many in number, and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe, they are driven and tormented by blows during infinite time past; after trying motions and unions of every kind, at length they fall into arrangements such as those out of which this our sum of things has been formed, and by which too it is preserved through many great years, when once it has been thrown into the appropriate motions, and causes the streams to replenish the greedy sea with copious river-waters, and the earth, fostered by the heat of the sun, to renew its produce, and the race of liv

Ut semel in motus conjectast convenientis,
Efficit ut largis avidum mare fluminis undis
Integrent omnes et solis terra vapore

Fota novet fetus summissaque gens animantum
Floreat et vivant labentes aetheris ignes."

A more special treatment of the Empedoklean principles, follows in

rise of organic existence, according to

Book v. 836 foll

ing things to come up and flourish, and the gliding fires of ether to live." *

To conceive adaptations as only a special case of all conceivable possibilities is as magnificent an idea, as it is an ingenious one to refer the adaptations in this world to the persistence of adaptations. Thus this world, which maintains itself, is merely the one case which, among the innumerable combinations of atoms, must in the course of eternity spontaneously result; and it is only the fact that the very nature of these movements leads to their upon the whole maintaining and constantly renewing themselves that lends to the actual facts of this world the persistency which they enjoy.

In the Second Book Lucretius explains more fully the motion and the properties of the atoms. They are, he declares, in everlasting movement, and this movement is originally a perpetual, equable falling through the boundless infinity of void space.

But here arises a formidable difficulty for the Epikurean system: How is this everlasting and equable descent of the atoms to result in the formation of the world? According to Demokritos the atoms fall with varying degrees of rapidity; the heavy strike against the light, and thus becoming is first occasioned. Epikuros rightly enough refers the various speed with which bodies fall in the air or in water to the resistance of the medium. In this he follows Aristotle, only to take up later a more decided opposition to him. Aristotle not only denies a void, but even the possibility of motion in a void. Epikuros, with a more accurate conception of motion, finds, on the contrary, that motion in a vacuum must be only the more rapid because there is no resistance. But how rapid will it be? Here lies another sunken rock in the system.

As a comparison, it is suggested that the atoms must move in space with incomparably greater speed than the sun rays which in an instant traverse the space from the Lucret., i. 1021-1034, Munro.

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sun to the earth.66 But is this a standard? Have we here any standard whatever of speed? Obviously not; for, in fact, any given space must be traversed in infinitely little. time, and as space is absolutely endless, this motion, so long as there are no objects by which it may measure itself, will be quite undeterminate; but the atoms, which move in parallel lines and with equal rapidity, are relatively in complete rest. This consequence of his departure from the view of Demokritos, Epikuros does not seem to have realised to himself with sufficient clearness. Very singular, however, is the expedient he adopts in order to begin the formation of the world.

How came the atoms, which naturally move in a simple course of straight parallel lines, like drops of rain, to attain oblique movements, rapid eddying and innumerable combinations, now inextricably fixed, now releasing themselves, and engaging in new groups with eternal regularity? It must be impossible to fix the time at which they began to deviate from their straight course.67 The slightest aberration from the parallel lines must, in the course of time, bring about a meeting, a collision of atoms. When this has once occurred, the various forms of the atoms will soon result in the most complicated eddying movements, combinations, and separations. But how did it begin? Here is a fatal gap in the system of Epikuros. Lucretius solves the riddle, or rather cuts the knot, by having recourse to the voluntary movements of men and animals.68

66 Because the sun rays, subtle as they may be, do not consist of single atoms, but of combinations of atoms, and their course lies through a very rare medium it is true, but by no

67 II. 216 foll.

means through empty space (ii. 150-
156). On the other hand, we may
say of the atoms that they must fall
many times quicker than light (ii.
162-164).

"Et multo citius ferri quam lumina solis,
Multiplexque loci spatium transcurrere eodem
Tempore quo solis pervolgant fulgura coelum."

68 II. 251-293. It is hard to understand how it can have been supposed that this doctrine of the 'freedom of the will' constitutes a superiority of Lucretius over Epikuros, and a result

of his stronger moral character; for, leaving out of view that the point occurs also, of course, in Epikuros, we here find a serious inconsistency with the physical theory, which lends no support whatever to a theory of

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