Lucretius. Translated by Cyril Bailey. Man's actions are no exception to the universal law, free-will is but a delusion. It was that the lively force of his mind won its way, and he passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless whole; whence in victory he brings us tidings what can come to be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its power limited, and its deepset boundary-stone. Religion in revenge is cast beneth men's feet and trampled, and victory raises us to heaven. Terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing. Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine poower brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nnothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, bothwhence each thing can be created, and in what ways all things come to be without the aid of gods. In the sphere of conduct, of action and suffering, has immediate sensation any evidence to give us comparable to the evidence of sense-perceptioon in the field of knowledge? Clearly it has in the immediate perceptions of pleasure and pain: we all feel them, we all instinctively seek pleasure and avoid pain. Pleasure is the moral good; sensation tells us so, and we cannot attempt to go behind it. Wherever the senses give us evidence, we are to accept their evidence as finally and certainly true. The soul, like all other things, a corporeal aggregate of atoms, which owes its sensation to the shape and movementns of its constituents, and its union with the body: neither can exist without the other, at death the soul is dissolved just like the body, and it can have nothing to feat for all time to come. All things are not held close pressed on every side by the nature of body; for there is void in things. For if there were not, by no means could things move. Man can do what he will because there is an element of spontaneity—not of course conscious spontaneity—in the atoms. It is the 'swerve' then which enables the atoms to meet in their downward fall, it is the 'swerve; which preserves in inorganic nature that curious element of spontaneity which we call chance, and it is the 'swerve', become conscious in the sensitive aggregate of the atoms of the mind, which secures man's freedom of action and makes it possible to urge on him a theory of conduct . The body must have its pleasure, but the true pleasure is not such as brings attendant pain in the form either of anticipation or reaction: rather, we shall secure its pleasure best by maintaining its health and restricting its desires within the narrowest possible limit. It is our wont to call matter or the creative bodies of things, and to name them the seeds of things, and again to term them the first-bodies, since from them first all things have their being. It is no use telling a man what he ought to do, unless he is free to do it. 'To think that ye should not see that nature cries aloud for nothing else but that pain may be kept far sundered from the body, and that, withdrawn from care and fear, the mind may enjoy the sense of pleasure'. Herein I have one fear, lest perchance you think that you are starting on the principles of some unholy reasoning, and setting foot upon the path of sin. Nay, but on the other hand, again and again our foe, religion, has given birth to deeds sinful and unholdy. Man is always essentially a compound of body and soul. Pain is dislocation of atomic arrangements and motions, pleasure, their readjustment and equilibrium. Pleasure then must be of body and soul alike, and it will show itself in the calm that denotes atoomic equilibrium. Nature breaks up each thing again into its own first-bodies, nor does she destroy ought into nothing. We must be careful not to interpret the past by the present. To each generation its problems present themselves in their own peculiar manner. The keystone of the whole Epicurean philosophy is the simple assertion: 'sensation is true,' 'I know aht I feel'. We want to know about ourselves and our conduct as a single human being. If men could see that there is a fixed limit to their sorrows, then with some reason they might have the strength to stand against the scruples of religion, and the threats of seers. As it is there is no means, no power to withstand, since everlasting is the punishment they must fear in death. All thinngs grow slowly, as is natural, from a fixed seed, and as they grow preserve their kind: so that you can know that each thing grows great, and is fostered out of its own substance. Whatsoever exists by itself, will either do something or suffer itself while other things act upon it, or it will be such that things may exist and go on in it. But nothing can do or suffer without body, nor afford room again, unless it be void and empty space. When primitive man came to unite in a common life, 'neighbours began eagerly to form friendship with one another, not to be hurt or be harmed.' The individual retains his freedom by a compact, and for his own sake respects his neighbours. But beyond that he is but little concerned with them. He will nnot enter public life or attempt to hold office, for ambition and the cares of rule are among the most disturbing influcences which can beset the mind: 'it is far better to obey in peace than to long to rule the world with kingly power and to sway kingdoms.' Even in private life he will learn not to trust too much to others, for his life must be independent. Friendships he will form, for friendship is based on the common stufy of philosophy is one of the highest blessings of life. But love—the giving up of oneself to one's affectionos and the complete dependence on another's will—the philosopher will of all things eschew. Nature has freed man from the tyranny of the gods and the fear of death, and in the knowledge of nature he will find not only the guarantee of his freedom, but the highest pleasure of his free life. The ideal for the individual then is not far to seek. But a man cannot live his life quite alone and he must have relations with his fellows. The other-regarding virtues are but of secondary and importance and necessary only in so far as they secure the individual from interruption in the pursuit of his own pleasure. Philosophy professed to place men above the conflict of religions and to give them what religion did not claim to offer, a guide to moral conduct. Nature, acting by law and yet without purpose—'for not by design did the first-beginnings of things place themselves each in their order with foreseeing mind but by trying movements and unions of every kind, at last they fall into such dispositions as those, whereby our world of things is created'—acting indeed blindly and occasionally with a kind of spontaneity which seems like chance, Nature made all the world and 'all that in them is'. There is no need for the aid of the gods, there is not even room for their interference. They are rather a part of nature's creation, immortal creatures, of a body of infinitely subtle formation, dwelling apart in the 'interspaces between the worlds'. The pleasures of the soul have the same principles. First it must be relieved of its peculiar pains, the fear of the gods and the fear of death: and then it may give itself up to its own particular pleasure, the study of nature: and so the highest pleasure of the mind is the acquisitiono of that knowledge which will incidentally free it from its pains. It is not perhaps a very attractive picture of the philosopher in isolation, pursuing his own pleasure and disregarding others, but it is again a relentless deduction from first principles. Whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own limits, straightway this is the death of that which was before. If we too were nurtured by dry food and soft moisture, we would lose our flesh, and all the life too would be loosened from all our sinews and bones. Diverse things are nourished on diverse food