LUCRETIUS.

LUCRETIUS (TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS), a Roman philosophical poet, born about 95 B. c.; died, it is said by his own hand, in 52 B. C. He is known only by his poem "De Rerum Naturâ," "On the Nature of Things." This poem is in six books, containing in all about 7,500 lines. Its aim is to set forth and elucidate the philosophical theory of Epicurus, whom Lucretius recognized as his master. This theory, as stated by Lucretius, is: The entire universe is material, and matter, in its ultimate analysis, is reduced to infinite space, and an infinite number of Atoms of infinite minuteness, existing in this infinite space. By this atomic theory Lucretius undertakes to account for everything which exists, or which we can conceive to exist.

ON THE EVIL OF SUPERSTITION.

Him

WHEN human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth, crushed down under the weight of religion, who showed her head from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to lift up his mortal eyes to her face and first to withstand her to her face. neither story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar could quell: they only chafed the more the eager courage of his soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars of nature's portals. Therefore the living force of his soul gained the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world, and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; whence he returns, a conqueror, to tell us what can, what cannot come into being; in short, on what principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore religion is put under foot and trampled upon in turn; us his victory brings level with heaven.

This is what I fear herein, lest haply you should fancy that you are entering on unholy grounds of reason, and treading the path of sin; whereas on the contrary, often and often that very

religion has given birth to sinful and unholy deeds. Thus, in Aulis, the chosen chieftains of the Danai, foremost of men, foully polluted with Iphianassa's blood the altar of the Trivian maid. Soon as the fillet encircling her maiden tresses shed itself in equal lengths adown each cheek, and soon as she saw her father standing sorrowful before the altars, and beside him the ministering priests hiding the knife, and her countrymen at sight of her shedding tears, speechless in terror she dropped down on her knees and sank to the ground. Nor aught in such a moment could it avail the luckless girl that she had first bestowed the name of father on the king. For lifted up in the hands of the men she was carried shivering to the altars, not after due performance of the customary rites to be escorted by the clear-ringing bridal song, but in the very season of marriage, stainless maid 'mid the stain of blood, to fall a sad victim by the sacrificing stroke of a father, that thus a happy and prosperous departure might be granted to the fleet. So great the evils to which religion could prompt!

THE FOOLISHNESS OF LUXURY.

It is sweet, when on the great sea the winds trouble its waters, to behold from land another's deep distress; not that it is a pleasure and delight that any should be afflicted, but because it is sweet to see from what evils you are yourself exempt. It is sweet, also, to look upon the mighty struggles of war arrayed along the plains without sharing yourself in the danger. But nothing is more welcome than to hold the lofty and serene positions well fortified by the learning of the wise, from which you may look down upon others and see them wandering all abroad and going astray in their search for the path of life, see the contest among them of intellect, the rivalry of birth, the striving night and day with surpassing effort to struggle up to the summit of power and be masters of the world. Oh, miserable minds of men oh, blinded breasts! in what darkness of life and in how great dangers is passed this term of life, whatever its duration! Not choose to see that nature craves for herself no more than this, that pain hold aloof from the body, and she in mind enjoy a feeling of pleasure exempt from care and fear? Therefore we see that for the body's nature few things are needed at all;

such and such only as take away pain. Nay, though more gratefully at times they can minister to us many choice delights, nature for her part wants them not, when there are no golden images of youths through the house holding in their right hands flaming lamps for supply of light to the nightly banquet, when the house shines not with silver nor glitters with gold, nor do the paneled and gilded roofs reëcho to the harp; what time, though these things be wanting, they spread themselves in groups on the soft grass beside a stream of water, under the boughs of a high tree, and at no great cost pleasantly refresh their bodies, above all when the weather smiles and the seasons of the year besprinkle the green grass with flowers. Nor do hot fevers sooner quit the body if you toss about on pictured tapestry and blushing purple, than if you must lie under a poor man's blanket. Wherefore, since treasures avail nothing in respect of our body nor birth nor the glory of kingly power, advancing farther you must hold that they are of no service to the mind as well.

INVOCATION TO VENUS.

SINCE thou then art sole mistress of the nature of things, and without thee nothing rises up into the divine borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or lovely, fain would I have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses which I essay to pen on the nature of things for our own son of the Memmii; whom thou, goddess, hast willed to have no peer, rich as he ever is in every grace. Wherefore all the more, O lady, lend my lays an ever-living charm. Cause meanwhile the savage works of war to be lulled to rest throughout all seas and lands; for thou alone canst bless mankind with calm peace, seeing that Mavors, lord of battle, controls the savage works of war, Mavors, who often flings himself into thy lap quite vanquished by the never healing wound of love; and then, with upturned face and shapely neck thrown back, feeds with love his greedy sight, gazing, goddess, open-mouthed on thee. Then, lady, pour from thy lips sweet discourse, asking, glorious dame, gentle peace for the Romans.

THE NOTHINGNESS OF Death.

DEATH therefore to us is nothing, concerns us not a jot, since the nature of the mind is proved to be mortal. And as in

time gone by we felt no distress, when the Pœni [Carthaginians] from all sides came together to do battle, and all things shaken by war's troublous uproar shuddered and quaked beneath high heaven, and mortal men were in doubt which of the two peoples it should be to whose empire all must fall by sea and land alike; thus when we shall be no more, when there shall have been a separation of body and soul, out of both of which we are each formed into a single being, to us, you may be sure, who then shall be no more, nothing whatever can happen to excite sensation, not if earth shall be mingled with sea and sea with heaven. And even supposing the nature of the mind and power of the soul do feel, after they have been severed from our body, yet that is nothing to us, who by the binding tie of marriage between body and soul are formed each into one single being. And if time should gather up our matter after our death and put it once more into the position in which it now is, and the light of life be given to us again, this result even would concern us not at all, when the chain of our self-consciousness has once been snapped asunder.

THE END OF ALL.

IF, just as they are seen to feel that a load is on their mind which wears them out with its pressure, men might apprehend from what causes too it is produced, and whence such a pile, if I may say so, of ill lies on their breast, they would not spend their life as we see them now for the most part do, not knowing any one of them what he wishes, and wanting ever change of place as though he might lay his burden down. The man who is sick of home often issues forth from his large mansion, and as suddenly comes back to it, finding as he does that he is no better off abroad. He races to his country house, driving his jennets in headlong haste, as if hurrying to bring help to a house on fire: he yawns the moment he has reached the door of his house, or sinks heavily into sleep and seeks forgetfulness, or even in haste goes back again to town. In this way each man flies from himself (but self, from whom, as you may be sure is commonly the case, he cannot escape, clings to him in his own despite); hates too himself, because he is sick and Enows not the cause of the malady; for if he could rightly see into this, relinquishing all else, each man would study to learn

the nature of things; since the point at stake is the condition for eternity, not for one hour, in which mortals have to pass all the time which remains for them to expect after death.

Once more, what evil lust of life is this which constrains us with such force to be so mightily troubled in doubts and dangers? A sure term of life is fixed for mortals, and death cannot be shunned, but meet it we must. Moreover, we are ever engaged, ever involved in the same pursuits, and no new pleasure is struck out by living on: but whilst what we crave is wanting, it seems to transcend all the rest; then, when it has been gotten, we crave something else, and ever does the same thirst of life possess us, as we gape for it open-mouthed. Quite doubtful it is what fortune the future will carry with it, or what chance will bring us, or what end is at hand. Nor, by prolonging life, do we take one tittle from the time passed in death, nor can we fret anything away, whereby we may haply be a less long time in the condition of the dead. Therefore you may complete as many generations as you please during your life: none the less, however, will that everlasting death await you; and for no less long a time will he be no more in being, who, beginning with to-day, has ended his life, than the man who has died many months and years ago.

THE SPIRITUALITY OF MATERIAL THINGS.

In the first place, from all things whatsoever which we see, there must incessantly stream and be discharged and scattered abroad such bodies as strike the eyes and provoke vision. Smells too incessantly stream from certain things; as does cold from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, that enter into walls near the shore. Various sounds, too, cease not to stream through the air. Then a moist salt flavor often comes into the mouth, when we are moving about beside the sea, and when we look on at the mixing of a decoction of wormwood, its bitterness affects us. In such a constant stream from all things the several qualities of things are carried and are transmitted in all directions round: and no delay, no respite in the flow, is ever granted; since we constantly have feeling, and may at any time see, smell, and hear the sound of everything. And now I will state once again how rare a body all things