already coalesced into four distinct elements, one resembling wind (Tveûua, ventus or aura), which predominates in the timid soul of the swift deer, one fire, which shows itself in the fury of the lion, the third air, which gives to the oxen their character of calm repose, midway between burning passion and chill fear; the last element (evidently suggested by the Quinta Essentia of Aristotle) is nameless, composed of the very finest atoms; sensation, thought and will, are transmitted from it to the other elements. Death ensues on the severing of the link which binds the soul to the body: the etherial atoms of soul are immediately dispersed into the outer air, the earthy atoms of body gradually fall apart and rejoin their parent earth. Every mental impression is a modification of touch. The images thrown off from the surface of solid objects (σrepéμvia) are perceptible by the soulatoms located in the bodily organs; but there are more delicate images which are only perceptible by the mind itself: such are the images presented to the mind in slumber, or in thinking of the absent or the unreal. These images are sometimes produced by the coalescence of two or more images as in the case of the centaur, sometimes by a chance concatenation of fine atoms. Often, as in recollection, it requires an effort of mind (eißoλý, injectus animi,) to bring the fleeting image steadily before us. It is for the wise man to determine in the case of each image, whether it has a real object corresponding to it.

One class of images deserves especial attention. They are those which have led men to believe in the Gods. Shapes of superhuman size and beauty and strength appear to us both in our waking moments and

M. P.

13

ness.

still more in sleep'. These recurring appearances have given rise to an anticipation, póλns, of Divinity, of which the essential characteristics are immortality and blessedThe truth of this póλns is testified to by the universal consent of mankind. Taking it as our starting point we may go on to assign to the Gods such qualities as are agreeable to these essential attributes. If, in doing so, we run counter to the vulgar opinion and the many idle imaginations (Toλnes) which have been added to the Tpóλns, it is not we who are guilty of impiety, but those who impute to the Gods what is inconsistent with their true character. The idea of blessedness involves not only happiness but absolute perfection. It forbids us to suppose that the Gods can be troubled with the creation or government of a world; and this conclusion is confirmed by our experience of what our own world is, the greatest portion of it uninhabitable from excess of cold or heat, much of the remainder barren and unfruitful, even the best land requiring constant toil to make it produce what is of use to man. Then think of the various miseries of life, to which the good are exposed no less than the bad,—all this shows

nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam

naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa3.

1 The fact of these 'epiphanies' was generally accepted. For recorded instances see my note on Cic. N. D. I 46. It is not very clear why the appearances of Gods were considered to stand on a different footing from those of departed spirits, which were equally vouched for by experience. See Lucr. IV 32 foll. of the shapes of the dead, which 'frighten our minds when they present themselves to us awake as well as in sleep;' and compare 722 foll. and I 132. Aristotle also referred to dreams as one cause of our belief in Divine beings.

2 Lucr. V 198.

There are other more general considerations which point to the same conclusion: for what sudden motive can we conceive which should make the Gods abandon their state of eternal repose, and set to the work of creation, and how, with no model before them, could they know what to make or how to make it; again, how can we possibly believe that any being should be powerful enough to administer, not to say to create, the infinity of nature? It is equally impossible to ascribe to the Gods such weakness and pettiness of mind as to feel anger or be propitiated with gifts, or to take a fussy interest in the affairs of men. They enjoy undisturbed tranquillity in some region far removed from our troubled world.

This tranquil region Epicurus found in the intermundia, the spaces between his countless worlds. He seems to have borrowed the suggestion from Aristotle, who transformed the heaven of the poets into the supra-celestial region where space and time are not, but 'where the things outside enjoy through all eternity a perfect life of absolute joy and peace'.' But the unchangeableness which belongs naturally to Aristotle's solitary world is altogether out of place in the countless perishable worlds of Epicurus. For successive worlds need not occupy the same point in space nor be made up of the same materials; new worlds are formed καὶ ἐν κόσμῳ καὶ ἐν μετακοσμίῳ, and their materials may have been either already made use of for the formation of a world or they may be floating loose in an intermundium. Moreover, during the existence of each world, it is constantly either 1 Arist. De Caelo 1 9.

2 Diog. x 89.

receiving an accession of atoms from the intermundia or, in its later stages, giving them back again. It is plain therefore that Epicurus has failed to find a safe retreat for his Gods in the intermundia and that they are quite as much exposed to the metus ruinarum there as they would have been within the world'.

Again, the Gods, like every other existing thing, are made up of atoms and void; but every compound is liable to dissolution; how is this compatible with immortality? One answer given was that the destructive and conservative forces in the universe balance one another, but in this world the destructive forces have the upper hand, therefore elsewhere, probably in the intermundia, the conservative forces must prevail. Another reason was that the atoms of which the Gods are composed, were so fine and delicate as to evade the blows of the coarser atoms. This idea of the extreme tenuity of the divine corporeity was doubtless suggested partly by the Homeric description of the Gods 'who are bloodless and immortal' (II. v 340) and partly by the shadowy idola of the dead, which escape the grasp of their living friends. We find yet another reason assigned, not so much perhaps for the actual immortality of the Gods, as for our belief in it in the alleged fact of an incessant stream of divine images (eidwλa), too subtle to impinge on the bodily senses, but

1 Compare Cic. Divin. 11 40, N. D. 1 18, 53, 114, Diog. x 89, Lucr. II 1105-1174.

2 Cic. N. D. I 50, with my note.

See Cic. N. D. 1 68—71, and the passage from Herculanensia, Vol. VI. pt. 2 p. 35, quoted in my note on § 71 'no object which is perceptible to the senses is immortal, for its density makes it liable to severe shocks.'

perceptible by the kindred atoms of mind'. Evidently this incessant never-ending influx of divine images is not a thing which can be directly vouched for by any human experience. We are not directly conscious even of the stream of images. All that an Epicurean could say is that we seem from time to time to behold the same glorified form, and that there is some ground for supposing similar appearances during past ages; that we can only account for such appearances by the supposition of an uninterrupted succession of images continued from a very remote period. But this of course is no proof of immortality: if it were so, we must a fortiori believe the immortality of the sun, or indeed, as the Ciceronian Cotta remarks (N. D. 1 109), of any common object, since our ordinary perceptions are due to such an uninterrupted stream of images. If it is said that we cannot help attributing in our thought a permanent unchanging existence to the divine nature, and that this law of thought is only explicable, on the Epicurean hypothesis, by the supposition of an endless stream of images actuating our mind, then the belief in the divine immortality is made the

1 Lucretius (V 1161 foll.) describing how the belief in the gods originated in visions, tells us that they were thought to be immortal, partly because they seemed to be too mighty to be overcome by any force, and partly quia semper eorum subpeditabatur facies et forma manebat, one image constantly succeeded another giving the impression of a permanent form. There is a similar use of the verb suppedito in IV 776, (where he explains the apparent movements in dreams by the rapid succession of particles, tanta est copia particularum ut possit suppeditare) and in Cic. N. D. 1 109 (referring to the divine images) innumerabilitas suppeditat atomorum. See for a general discussion on the subject my notes on N. D. 1 49.

2 See Lucr. IV 26 foll., Diog. X 48.