THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE AND MORAL TEACHING OF LUCRETIUS.
Lucretius does not enforce his moral teaching on the systematic plan
on which his physical philosophy is discussed. His view of human
life is sometimes presented as it arises in the regular course of the
argument, at other times in highly finished digressions, interspersed
throughout the work with the view apparently of breaking its severe
monotony. These passages might be compared to the lyrical odes in a
Greek drama. They afford relief to the strained attention, and suggest
the close and permanent human interest involved in what is apparently
special, abstract, and remote. There is no necessary connexion between
the atomic theory of philosophy, and that view of the end and objects
of life which Lucretius derived from Epicurus. Although the moral
attitude of Epicurus was, in some respects, anticipated by Democritus,
Epicureanism really started from independent sources, viz. from the
later development of the ethical teaching of Socrates, and from the
personal circumstances and disposition of Epicurus. By the ordinary
Epicurean his philosophy was valued chiefly as affording a basis
for the denial of the doctrines of Divine Providence and of the
immortality of the soul. But there is a wide difference between
ordinary Epicureanism and that solemn view of human life which was
revealed to the world in the poem of Lucretius. The power which his
speculative philosophy exercised over his mind was one cause of this
difference. Although there is no necessary connexion between his
philosophical convictions and his ethical doctrines, yet the elevation
of feeling which he has imparted to the least elevated of all the
moral systems of antiquity may be in part accounted for by the
influence of ideas derived from the philosophy of Democritus.
Epicureanism, in its original form, was the expression of a character
as unlike as possible to that of Lucretius. It arose in a state of
society and under circumstances widely different from the social and
political condition of the last phase of the Roman Republic. It was a
doctrine suited to the easy social life which succeeded to the great
political career, the energetic ambition, and the creative genius
which ennobled the great age of Athenian liberty. It was essentially
the philosophy of the [Greek: rheia zoontes], who found in refined and
regulated pleasure, in friendliness and sociability, a compensation
for the loss of political existence, and of the sacred associations
and ideal glories of their ancestral religion. Human life, stripped
of its solemn meaning and high practical interest, was supposed to
be understood and realised, and brought under the control of a
comfortable and intelligible philosophy. Pleasure was the obvious
end of existence; the highest aim of knowledge was to ascertain the
conditions under which most enjoyment could be secured; the triumph of
the will was to conform to these conditions. All violent emotion,
all care and anxiety, whatever impaired the capacity of enjoyment
or fostered artificial desire, was to be controlled or resisted, as
inimical to the tranquillity of the soul. The philosophers of the
garden taught and acted on the practical truth, that pleasure depended
on the mind more than on external things; that a simple life tended
more to happiness than luxury[1]; that excess of every kind was
followed by reaction. They inculcated political quiescence as well as
the abnegation of personal ambition. As death was 'the end of all,'
life was to be temperately enjoyed while it lasted, and resigned when
necessary, with cheerful composure.
Such a philosophy would scarcely be thought capable of having given
birth to any form of serious and elevated poetry. Its natural fruit
was the refined, cheerful, and witty new comedy of Athens. Yet the
genius of Lucretius and of Horace expressed these doctrines in tones
of dignity and beauty, which have been denied to more ennobling
truths. The philosophy of pleasure thus makes its appeal to the
poetical susceptibility, as well as to the ordinary temperament of
men. It might have been thought also that no philosophy would have
been less attractive to the dignity of the nobler type, or to the
coarser texture of the common type of Roman character. Yet among the
Romans of the last age of the Republic, Epicureanism was a formidable
rival to the more congenial system of Stoicism, and was professed by
men of pure character and intellectual tastes as well as by men like
the Piso Caesoninus, of whom both Cicero and Catullus have left so
unflattering a portrait. These two systems, although antagonistic
in their view and aim, yet had this common adaptation to the Roman
character, that they held out a definite plan of life, and laid down
precepts by which that life might be attained. The strength of will
and singleness of aim, characteristic of the Romans, their love of
rule and impatience of speculative suspense, inclined and enabled
them to embrace the teaching of those schools whose tenets were most
definite and most readily applicable to human conduct. To a Greek
philosopher the interest of conforming his life to any system arose in
a great measure from the freedom and exercise thereby afforded to
his intellect. Thus Epicurus, in denying the power of luxury to give
happiness, says,--'These are not the things which form the life of
pleasure,'--'[Greek: alla nephon logismos kai tas aitias exereunon
pases haireseos kai phyges, kai tas doxas exelaunon, aph' hon pleistos
tas psychas katalambanei thorybos][2].' To a Roman, on the other hand,
such a scheme of life was recommended by the new power which was thus
imparted to the will. Greek philosophy has sometimes been reproached
as the cause of the corruption of Roman character and the decay of
Roman religion. But it would be more true to say that, to the higher
natures at least, philosophy supplied the place of the ancient
principles of duty, which had long since decayed with the decay of
patriotism and religion. The idea of regulating life by an ideal
standard afforded a broader aim and a more humane and liberal sphere
of action to that self-control and constancy of will, out of which,
in combination with absolute devotion to the State, the ancient Roman
virtue had been formed. But still it is true that the principles of
Epicureanism were difficult to reconcile with some of the conditions,
both good and bad, of Roman character. While fostering the humaner
feelings and more social tastes, and so softening the primitive
rudeness and austerity, these doctrines tended to discourage national
and political spirit, by withdrawing the energies of the will from
outward activity to the regulation of the inner life. The attitude
both of Stoicism and Epicureanism was one of resistance on the part
of the will to outward influences;--the one system striving to attain
entire independence of circumstances, the other to regulate life in
accordance with them, so as to secure the utmost positive enjoyment,
and the utmost exemption from pain. The political passions of the
last age of the Republic inclined men of thought and leisure to that
philosophy which seemed best fitted to meet and satisfy--
'The longing for confirmed tranquillity
Inward and outward.'
But while Epicureanism was a natural refuge from the passions of a
revolutionary era, Stoicism was a fortress of inward strength to the
few who, at the fall of the Republic, resisted the manifest tendency
of things, and, in a later age, to those who strove to maintain the
dignity of Roman citizens under the degradation of the early Empire.
But the profession of Epicureanism, in the last age of the Republic,
was not confined to men like Atticus and Lucretius who stood aloof
from public life. The existence of Cassius, who acted and suffered
for the same cause as the Stoic Cato, shows that political apathy,
although theoretically required by this philosophy, was not essential
to a Roman Epicurean. Lucretius, though animated by an ardent spirit
of proselytism, does not desire that Memmius should forget his duties
as a citizen and statesman. The denial of the Divine interference in
human affairs and of the doctrine of a future state was the essential
bond of agreement among the adherents of Epicureanism. The religious
unsettlement of the age assumed in them a positive form. They were the
Sadducees of Rome, who escaped from the perplexity as well as from
the most elevating influences of life, by moulding their feelings
and conduct on the firm conviction, that while man was master of his
happiness in this world, he had nothing either to hope or fear after
death.
It seems a strange result of the moral confusion of that time to find
the enthusiasm of Lucretius springing from this denial of what from
the days of Plato have been regarded as the highest hopes of mankind.
No writer of antiquity was more profoundly impressed by the serious
import and mystery of life. Yet he appears as the unhesitating
advocate of all the tenets of this philosophy, and denies the
foundations of religious belief with a zeal more like religious
earnestness than the spirit of any other writer of antiquity. Without
conscious deviation from the teaching of his master, he reproduces
the calm unimpassioned doctrines of Epicurus, in a new type,--earnest,
austere, and ennobled; enforcing them not for the sake of ease or for
the love of pleasure, but in the cause of truth and human dignity.
Pleasure is indeed recognised by him as the universal law or condition
of existence--'dux vitae dia voluptas,'--the great instrument of
Nature through which all life is created and maintained. But the real
object of his teaching is to obtain not active pleasure, but peace and
a 'pure heart.' 'For life,' he says, 'may go on without corn or wine,
but not without a pure heart--
At bene non poterat sine puro pectore vivi.
All that Nature craves is that the body should be free from actual
pain, and that the mind, undisturbed by fear and anxiety, should be
open to the influence of natural enjoyment--'
Nonne videre
Nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi ut, cui
Corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur
Iucundo sensu cura semotu' metuque[3]?
Although in different places he indicates a genuine appreciation of
the charms of art,--in the form of music, paintings, statues,
etc.,--yet he expresses or implies an independence of all the
adventitious stimulants to enjoyment. The only needful pleasure is
that which Nature herself bestows on a mind free from care, passion,
violent emotion, restless discontent, and slothful apathy.
Although no new principle or maxim of conduct appears in his teaching,
the view of human life presented by Lucretius was really something new
in the world. A strong and deep flood of serious thought and
feeling was for the first time poured into the shallow channel of
Epicureanism. The spirit in which Lucretius contemplated the world
was different from that of any other man of antiquity; especially
different from that of his master in philosophy. To the one human
life was a pleasant sojourn, which should be temperately enjoyed and
gracefully terminated at the appointed time: to the other it was the
more sombre and tragic side of the august spectacle which all Nature
presents to the contemplative mind. Moderation in enjoyment was the
practical lesson of the one: fortitude and renunciation were the
demands which the other made of all who would live worthily.
This difference in the spirit, rather than the letter, of their
philosophy is to be attributed in some degree to this, that Lucretius
was a Roman of the antique type of Ennius, born with the passionate
heart of a poet, and inheriting the resolute endurance of the great
patrician families. Partly too, as was said before, the effect of the
speculative philosophy which he embraced was to deepen and strengthen
that mood of imaginative contemplation, which he shares, not with any
of his countrymen, but with a few great thinkers of the world. It
is his philosophical enthusiasm which distinguishes the teaching of
Lucretius from the meditative and practical wisdom which has made
Horace the favourite Epicurean teacher and companion of modern times.
Partly too, as was said in a former chapter, this new aspect of
Epicureanism in Lucretius may be attributed to the reaction of his
nature from the confusion of the times in which he lived.
It is not indeed possible to learn whether the passions of his age
first drove him to Epicureanism, or whether the doctrines of that
philosophy, adopted on speculative grounds, may not rather have led
him to regard his age in the spirit of contemplative isolation, which
he has described in the well-known passage--
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, etc.
His philosophy may have been forced on him by personal experience, or
the intimations of experience may have assumed their form and colour
from the nature of his philosophy. But the memories of his youth and
the experience of things witnessed in his manhood did undoubtedly
colour all his thoughts and feelings on human life. Some of the
forms of evil against which he contends had never been so prominently
displayed before. Yet all these considerations afford only a partial
explanation of the character of his practical philosophy. There were
other Roman Epicureans, contemporary with him and later, and none are
known to have been in any way like him. Although his nature was made
of the strong Roman fibre; although his mind had been deeply imbued
with the spirit of Greek philosophy; although his view of life
was necessarily coloured by the action of his times; yet all these
considerations go but a little way to explain his attitude of mind
and the work which he accomplished in the world. Over all these
considerations this predominates, that he was a man of great original
and individual force, and one who in power and sincerity of thought
and feeling rose higher than any other above the level of his age and
country.
The moral teaching of the poem was rather an active protest against
various forms of evil than the proclamation of a positive good. The
happiness which the philosophic life promised is described in vague
outline, like the delineation given of the calm and passionless
existence of the Gods. Epicureanism appears here in antagonism to
the prejudice and ignorance, the weakness and the passions of human
nature, rather than in its hold of any positive good. Hence it is that
the tones of Lucretius might in many places be mistaken for those of
a Stoic rather than an Epicurean. In their resistance to the common
forms of evil these systems were at one. Perhaps, too, in the positive
good at which he aimed, the spirit of Lucretius was more that of
a Stoic than he imagined. His sense of human dignity was much more
powerful than his regard for human enjoyment. Yet his philosophy
enabled him, along with the strength of Stoicism, to cherish humaner
sympathies. While his earnest temper, his scorn of weakness, his
superiority to pleasure were in harmony with the militant rather than
the quiescent attitude of each of these philosophies, his humanity and
tenderness of feeling and the enjoyment which he derived from Nature
and art were more in harmony with the better side of Epicureanism than
with the formal teaching of the Porch.
The evils of life, for the cure of which Lucretius considers his
philosophy available, appeared to him to spring not out of man's
relation to Nature, but out of the weakness of his reason and the
corruption of his heart. The great service of Epicurus consisted not
only in revealing the laws of Nature, but in laying his finger on the
secret cause of man's unhappiness. Observing the insufficiency of all
external goods to bestow peace and contentment, he saw that the evil
lay in the vessel into which these blessings were poured:--
Intellegit ibi vitium vas efficere ipsum
Omniaque illius vitio corrumpier intus,
Quae conlata foris et commoda cumque venirent;
Partim quod fluxum pertusumque esse videbat,
Ut nulla posset ratione explerier umquam;
Partim quod taetro quasi conspurcare sapore
Omnia cernebat, quaecumque receperat, intus[4].
The evils which vitiate our happiness are the cowardice which dares
not accept the blessings of life, the weakness which repines at what
is inevitable, the restless desires which cannot enjoy the present and
crave for what is beyond their reach, the apathy and insensibility to
natural enjoyment, which are the necessary consequence of luxurious
indulgence. Thus the aim of his moral teaching was to purify the
heart from superstition, from the fear of death, from the passions of
ambition and of love, from all artificial pleasures and desires.
The greatest of these evils and the mainspring of all human misery
is superstition. It is this which surrounds life with the gloom of
death--
Omnia suffundens mortis nigrore[5].
Against the arbitrary and cruel power, supposed to be exercised by the
Gods, Lucretius proclaimed internecine war. The fear of this power is
denounced, not as a restraint on natural inclination, but as a base
and intolerable burden, degrading life, confounding all genuine
feeling, corrupting our ideas of what is holiest and most divine. The
pathetic story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia is told to enforce the
antagonism between the exactions of religious belief and the most
sacred human affections. Every line of the poem is indirectly a
protest against the religious errors of antiquity. At occasional
intervals this protest is directly uttered, sometimes with indignant
irony, at other times with the profoundest pathos. The first feeling
breaks forth in the passage at vi. 380, etc., where he argues against
the fancies which attribute thunder to the capricious anger of the
Gods. 'Why is it,' he asks, 'that the bolts pass over the guilty and
often strike the innocent? Why are they idly spent on desert places?
Is this done by the Gods merely in the way of practice and exercise
for their arms? Why is it that Jupiter never hurls his bolts in a
clear sky? Does he descend into the clouds in order that his aim may
be surer? Why does he cast his bolts into the sea? What charge has he
against the waves and the waste of waters?
Quid undas
Arguit et liquidam molem camposque natantis[6]?
Why is it that he often destroys and disfigures his own temples and
images?'
Elsewhere, however, he is moved by a feeling deeper than scorn,--a
feeling of true reverence, springing from a high ideal of the attitude
which it became man to maintain in presence of a superior nature.
There is no passage in the poem in which he speaks more from the
depths of his heart than in the lines--
O genus infelix humanum, talia divis
Cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas!
Quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis
Volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris!
Nec pietas ullast velatum saepe videri
Vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras
Nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas
Ante deum delubra nec aras sanguine multo
Spargere quadrupedum nec votis nectere vota,
Sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri[7].
The terrors of the popular mythology are denounced as a violation
of the majesty of the Gods, as well as the cause of infinite evil
to ourselves,--not indeed because any thought or act of ours has
the power to rouse the Divine anger, but from the effect that these
feelings have on our own minds. 'No longer can we approach the
temples of the Gods with a quiet heart, nor receive into our minds the
intimations of the Divine nature in peace'--
Nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis,
Nec de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur
In mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae
Suscipere haec animi tranquilla pace valebis[8].
This passage and others in the poem imply that Lucretius both
believed in the existence of Gods, and conceived of them as revealing
themselves through direct impressions to the mind of man, and filling
it with solemn awe and peace. But the account which he gives of their
eternal existence is vague and poetical, and might almost be regarded
as a symbolical expression of what seemed to him most holy and divine
in man. The highest aim of man is to 'lead a life worthy of the Gods':
the essential attribute of the divine life is 'peace.' The Gods are
said to consist of the finest and purest essence, to be exempt from
death, decay, and wasting passions, to be supplied with all things
by the liberal bounty of Nature, and to dwell for ever in untroubled
serenity above the darkness and the storms of our world. Their abode
in the spaces betwixt different worlds--(the 'intermundia' as they are
called by Cicero),--is described in words almost literally translated
from the description of the Heaven of the Odyssey--
Apparet divum numen sedesque quietae
Quas neque concutiunt venti nec nubila nimbis
Aspergunt neque nix acri concreta pruina
Cana cadens violat semperque innubilus aether
Integit, et large diffuso lumine rident[9].
They reveal themselves to man in dreams and waking visions by
images of ampler size and more august aspect than that of our mortal
condition. Fear and ignorance have assigned to these unchanging forms
the functions of creating and governing the world, and out of this
fear have arisen all over the earth temples and altars, along with
the festivals and the solemn rites of superstition. But the Gods are
neither the arbitrary tyrants nor the beneficent guardians of the
world. Why should they have done anything for the benefit of man?
How can he add to or detract from their eternal happiness? Shall
we suppose them weary of their existence, and infected with a human
passion for change?--
At, credo, in tenebris vita ac maerore iacebat,
Donec diluxit rerum genitalis origo.
Whence could they have obtained the idea of creation, whence gathered
the secret powers of matter--
Si non ipsa dedit specimen natura creandi?
Against the old argument from final causes he opposes that drawn
from the imperfections of the world, such as the waste of Nature's
resources on vast tracts of mountain and forest, on desolate marshes,
rocks, and seas,--the enmity to man of other occupants of the
earth,--the malign influences of climate and the seasons,--the
feebleness of infancy,--the devastations of disease,--the untimeliness
of early death[10].
While his belief in the Gods is thus expressed in vague outline and
poetical symbolism, yet it is clear that as he recognised a secret,
orderly, and omnipotent power in Nature, so also he recognised the
ideal of a purer and serener life than that of earthly existence.
These two elements in all true religion, a reverential acknowledgment
of a universal power and order, and a sense of a diviner life with
which man may have communion, were part of the being of Lucretius. His
denial of supernatural beliefs extended not only to all the fables
and false conceptions of ancient mythology, but to the doctrine of a
Divine Providence recompensing men, here or hereafter, according to
their actions. The intensity of his nature led him to identify all
religion with the cruel or childish fables of the popular faith. The
certainty with which he grasped the truth of the laws and order of
Nature was incompatible with the only conception he could form of a
Divine action on the world. His deep sense of human rights and deep
sympathy with human feeling rebelled against a belief in Powers
exercising a capricious tyranny over the world, and exacting human
sacrifice as a propitiation of their offended majesty. His reverence
for truth and his sense of the power and mystery of Nature led him to
scorn the virtue attributed to an idolatrous and formal worship. This
attitude of religious isolation, not more from his own time than from
the subsequent course of thought, in a man of unusual sincerity
and earnestness of feeling, is certainly among the most impressive
phenomena of ancient literature. The spirit in which he denies the
beliefs of the world is far from resembling the triumph of a cold
philosophy over the religious associations of mankind. He is moved
even to a kind of poetical sympathy with some of the ceremonies
and symbols of Paganism. A sense of religious awe,--a sympathetic
recognition of the power of religious emotion over the hearts of
men,--is expressed, for instance, in the lines which describe the
procession of Cybele through the great cities and nations of the
world. While guarding himself against the pollution of a base
idolatry, he yet acknowledges not only the power of religious
associations to entwine themselves with human affections, but the
intrinsic power of the truths symbolised in that worship; viz. the
truth of the majesty of Nature, and of the duties arising from the
elemental affections to parents and country. In regard to all his
religious impressions his intensity of feeling and imagination seems
to place him on a solitary height, nearly as far apart from the
followers of his own school as from their adversaries[11].
The same strength of heart and mind characterises that passage of
sustained and impassioned feeling, in which Lucretius encounters the
thought of eternal death. The vast spiritual difference between the
Roman poet and the Greek philosopher is apparent when we contrast the
cold, unsympathetic language of the epistle to Menoeceus with the
fervent and profoundly human tones of the third book of the poem of
Lucretius. Epicurus escapes from the fear of death through a placid
indifference of feeling, an easy contentment with the comforts of
this life, a sense of relief in getting rid of 'the longing for
immortality' ([Greek: ton tes athanasias pothon]). Lucretius, while
realising the full pathos and solemnity of the thought of death,
preaches submission to the inexorable decree of Nature with a stern
consistency and a proud fortitude combating the suggestions of human
weakness.
The whole of the third book is devoted to this part of his subject,
and the argument of the fourth is to a great extent supplementary
to that of the third book. The physical doctrine enunciated and
illustrated in the first half of the third book is the materiality of
the soul and its indissoluble connexion with the body. The practical
consequence of this doctrine, viz. that death is nothing to us, is
there enforced in a long passage[12] of sustained power and solemnity
of feeling. First, we are made to realise the entire unconsciousness
in death throughout all eternity. 'As it was before we were born, so
shall it be hereafter. As we felt no trouble in the past at the clash
of conflict between Roman and Carthaginian, when all the world shook
with alarm, so nothing can touch us or move us then--
Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo[13].
It is but the trick of our fancy which suggests the thought of any
kind of suffering after all consciousness has ceased--
Nec radicitus e vita se tollit et eicit
Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse[14].
Men feel that the sadness of death lies in the separation from wife,
and children, and home; in the extinction which a single day has
brought to all the blessings and the gains of a lifetime. But they
forget that along with these blessings is extinguished all desire and
longing for them. So, too, men "spice their fair banquets with the
dust of death." They say, "our joy is but for a season; it will soon
be past, nor ever again be recalled,"--as if forsooth any want or any
desire can haunt that sleep from which there is no awaking--
Nec quisquam expergitus exstat,
Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta[15].
Nature herself might utter this reproof to all weak complaining: "Thou
fool, if thy life hath given thee joy, and all its blessings have not
been poured into a leaky vessel, why dost thou not leave the feast
like a satisfied guest, and take thy rest contentedly? But if all has
hitherto been to thee vanity and vexation of spirit, why seek to add
to thy trouble? I can devise or frame no new pleasure for thee. "There
is no new thing under the sun"--"eadem sunt omnia semper."' To the
weak complaint of age, Nature would speak with sterner voice: 'Away
hence with thy tears and thy complainings. It is because, unable to
enjoy the present, thou art ever weakly longing for what is absent,
that death has come on thee unsatisfied.' 'This would be, indeed, a
just charge and reproof. For the old order is ever yielding place to
new; and life is given to no man in possession, to all men for use.
The time before we were born is a mirror to us of what the future
shall be. Is there any gloom or horror there? Is there not a deeper
rest than any sleep?'
'The terrors of the unseen world are but the hell which fools make
for themselves out of their passions[16]. The torments of Tantalus,
of Tityus, of Sisyphus, and the Danaides, are but symbols of the
blind cowardice and superstition, of the craving passions, of the
ever-foiled and ever-renewed ambition, of the thankless discontent
with the natural joy and beauty of the world, which curse and degrade
our mortal existence. The stories of Cerberus and the Furies, and of
the tortures of the damned are creations of a guilty conscience,
or the projections into futurity of the experiences of earthly
punishment.'
Other consolations are suggested by the thoughts of those who have
gone before us. Echoing the stern irony of Achilles--
[Greek:
alla, philos, thane kai su; tie olophyreai houtos?
katthane kai Patroklos, hoper seo pollon ameinon][17]--
he reminds us that better and greater men than we have died,--kings
and soldiers, poets and philosophers, the mightiest equally with the
humblest. In the spirit, and partly too in the words of Ennius, he
enforces the thought that 'Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, the terror
of Carthage, gave his bones to the earth as if he were the meanest
slave.' 'Why, then, should one whose life is half a sleep, who is the
prey of weak fears and restless discontent, complain that he too is
subject to the common law? What is this wretched love of life, which
makes us tremble at every danger? Death cannot be avoided; no new
pleasure can be forged out by longer living. This evil of our lot is
not inflicted by Nature, but by our own craving hearts, which cannot
enjoy, and are yet ever thirsting for longer life[18].'
The power of the whole of this passage depends partly on the vividness
of feeling and conception with which the thought is realised, partly
on the august and solemn associations with which it is surrounded.
Such graphic touches as these--
Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta[19];--
Cum summo gelidi cubat aequore saxi[20];--
Urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae[21],--
and again, the life, truth, and tenderness of the picture presented in
the lines--
Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
Optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent[22],
bring home to the mind, in startling distinctness, the old familiar
contrast between the 'cold obstruction' of the grave and 'the warm
precincts of the cheerful day.' But the horror and pain of the thought
of death are lost in a feeling of august resignation to the universal
law. Though the fact is made present to our minds in its sternest
reality, yet it is encompassed with the pomp and majesty of great
associations. It suggests the thought of the most momentous crisis in
history--
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis[23],
of the regal state of kings and mighty potentates--
Inde alii multi reges rerumque potentes
Occiderunt, magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt[24],
of the simpler and more impressive grandeur of the great men of old,
such as the 'good Ancus,' the mighty Scipio, Homer, 'peerless among
poets,' the sage Democritus, Epicurus, 'the sun among all the lesser
luminaries.' Lastly, we are reminded of the universal law of Nature,
that the death of the old is the condition of the life of the new--
Sic alid ex alio nunquam desistet oriri[25].
Even if the spirit of the poet cannot be said to rise buoyantly above
the depressing and paralysing influence of this conviction, yet he
draws a higher lesson from it than the maxim of 'Eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die.' He understands the epicurean precept of 'carpe
diem' in a sense more befitting to human dignity. The lesson which
he teaches is the need of conquering all weakness, sloth, and
irresolution in life. This life is all that we have through eternity;
let it not be wasted in unsatisfied desires, insensibility to present
and regrets for absent good, or restless disquiet for the future; let
us understand ourselves and our position here, bear and enjoy whatever
is allotted to us during our few years of existence. We are masters
of ourselves and of our fortunes, so far at least as to rise clearly
above the degradation of ignorance and misery.
The practical use of the study of Nature, according to Lucretius,
is, first, to inspire confidence in the room of an ignorant and
superstitious fear of supernatural power; and, secondly, to show
what man really needs, and so to clear the heart from all artificial
desires and passions. All that is wanted for happiness in this world
is a mind free from error, and a heart neither incapable of natural
enjoyment (fluxum pertusumque) nor vitiated by false appetite[26]. Of
the errors to which man is liable superstition and the fear of death
are the most deeply seated. Of the artificial desires and passions,
on the other hand, the most destructive are the love of power and of
riches, and the sensual appetite for pleasure. In the opening lines
of the second book the strife of ambition, the rivalries of rank and
intellect in the warfare of politics are contrasted with the serene
life of philosophy, as darkness, error, and danger with light,
certainty, and peace--
Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae,
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri[27].
Yet to be the master of armies and of navies, or to be clothed in
gold and purple, gives not that exemption from the real terrors and
anxieties of life which the power of reason only can bestow--
Quod si ridicula haec ludibriaque esse videmus,
Re veraque metus hominum curaeque sequaces
Nec metuunt sonitus armorum nec fera tela,
Audacterque inter reges rerumque potentis
Versantur neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro
Nec clarum vestis splendorem purpureai,
Quid dubitas quin omni' sit haec rationi' potestas?
Omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita laboret[28].
The desire of power and station leads to the shame and misery of
baffled hopes, of which the toil of Sisyphus is the type, and also
to the guilt which deluges the world in blood, and violates the
most sacred ties of Nature[29]. While failure in the struggle is
degradation, success is often only the prelude to the most sudden
downfall. Weary with bloodshed, and with forcing their way up the
hostile and narrow road of ambition[30], men reach the summit of their
hopes only to be hurled down by envy as by a thunderbolt[31]. They are
slaves to ambition, merely because they cannot distinguish the true
from the false, because they cannot judge of things as they really
are, apart from the estimate which the world puts upon them--
Quandoquidem sapiunt alieno ex ore petuntque
Res ex auditis potius quam sensibus ipsis.[32]
The love of riches and of luxurious living, which had begun to corrupt
the Roman character in the age of Lucilius, had increased to gigantic
dimensions in the last age of the Republic. By no aspect of his age
was Lucretius more repelled than by this. No doctrine is enforced in
the poem with more sincerity of conviction than that of the happiness
and dignity of plain and natural living, the vanity of all the
appliances of wealth, and their inability to give real enjoyment
either to body or mind. In a well-known passage at the beginning of
the second book he adapts an ideal description from Homer's account
of the palace of Alcinous to the costly magnificence and splendour
of Roman banquets, with which he contrasts the pleasure of gratifying
simple tastes, in fine weather, among the beauties of Nature--
Praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni
Tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas[33].
With fervid sincerity he announces the truth that 'to the man who
would govern his life by reason plain living and a contented spirit
are great riches'--
Quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,
Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce
Aequo animo[34].
Moderation, independence, and self-control are the virtues which
Horace derives from his philosophy. He knew how to enjoy both the
luxury of the city and the simple fare of the country. Lucretius is
more alive to the dangers of pampering the body and enervating the
mind. He is more active in his resistance to the common forms of
indulgence: he shows more truly simple tastes, stronger capacity of
natural enjoyment. He is vividly sensible of the apathy and _ennui_
produced by the luxury and inaction of his age. Others among the Roman
poets, with more or less sincerity and consistency, appear to long for
a return to more natural ways, and paint their ideals of the purity
and simplicity of country life. But no writer of antiquity is less
of an idealist than Lucretius: there is no writer, ancient or modern,
whose words are more truthful and unvarnished. There is no romance or
self-deception in what he longs for. There may be some anticipation of
the spirit of Rousseau in Virgil, and still more in Tibullus, but none
whatever in Lucretius. The privations and rude misery of savage life
are painted in as sombre colours as the satiety and discontent of his
own age. It would be difficult to name any writer, ancient or modern,
by whom the lesson of 'plain living and high thinking' was more
worthily inculcated.
The passion of love, which, in its more violent phases, was seen to
be a prominent motive in the comedy of Plautus, became a very powerful
influence in actual life during the last years of the Republic and the
early years of the Empire. Extreme license in the pursuit of pleasure
was common among men and women of the highest rank: but, over and
above this, the poetry of Catullus and of the elegiac poets of the
Augustan age shows that in the case of young men of fashion and
literary accomplishment (and these were often combined) intrigue and
temporary _liaisons_ had become the absorbing interest and occupation
of life. With these claims of passion and sentiment, apparently so
alien to the ancient strength and dignity of the Roman character,
Lucretius felt no sympathy. No writer has shown a profounder reverence
for human affection. In his eyes the crowning guilt of superstition
is the cruel violation of natural ties exacted by it: the chief
bitterness of death is the thought of eternal separation from wife and
children: the first civilising influence acting on the world is traced
to the power of the blandishments of children over the savage pride of
strength. The pathos of the famous passage, at Book ii. 350, attests
his sympathy with the sorrow caused by the disruption of natural ties,
even in the lower animals. Other casual expressions, as in that line
of profound feeling--
Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus[35];--
or such pictures, as that at iii. 469, of friends and relatives
surrounding the bed of one who has sunk into a deep lethargy--
Ad vitam qui revocantes
Circumstant lacrimis rorantes ora genasque[36],--
show how strong and real was his regard for the great elemental
affections of human nature. But, on the other hand, he is austerely
indifferent to the follies and the idealising fancies of lovers. With
satirical and not fastidious realism he strips passion of all
romance, and exhibits it as a bondage fatal alike to character and
independence, to peace of mind and to self-respect. But it is the
weakness, not the immorality of licentious passion which he condemns.
And it would be altogether an anachronism to attribute to a writer of
that age sentiments on this subject in harmony either with the austere
virtue of the primitive Romans, or with the moral standard of modern
times. It is not the indulgence of inclination, but its excess and
perversion, by which the happiness and dignity of life are placed in
another's power, which he condemns.
In order to perceive the limitation of the view of the evils of human
life and of their remedy presented by Lucretius, it is not necessary
to contrast it with the higher aspects of moral and religious thought
in modern times. It is clear that owing to some idiosyncrasy, the
result perhaps of some accident of his early years, and fostered by
seclusion in later years from the common ways of life, he greatly
exaggerates the influence of the terrors of the ancient religion over
the world. There is little trace, either in the literature[37] or in
the sepulchral inscriptions of the Romans, of that 'fear of Acheron'--
Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo
Omnia suffendens mortis nigrore neque ullam
Esse voluptatem liquidam puramque reliquit.
The answer of Cicero to the exaggerated pretensions of Epicureanism
seems to express the common sense of his age, 'Where can you find
an old woman fatuous enough to believe what you forsooth would have
believed, if you had not studied physical science[38]?' The passionate
protest of Lucretius seems more applicable to times of religious
persecution, and to extreme forms of fanaticism in modern times, than
to the tolerant spirit and the not unkindly superstition of the Greek
and Roman world, as they are known in its literature. But if
the experience of the modern world gives a still more startling
significance to the words--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,--
that experience also enables us better to understand the blindness
of Lucretius to the purifying and consoling power which even ancient
religion was capable of exercising. Though not insensible to the
poetical charm of some of the old mythological fancies, and to the
solemnising effect of impressive ceremonials, he can see only the
baser influences of fear in man's whole attitude to a supernatural
Power. His ordinary acuteness of mind seems to desert him in that
passage[39] where he resolves the passions of ambition and avarice
into the fear of death, and that again into the dread of eternal
punishment.
The limitation of his philosophy is also apparent in his want of
sympathy with the active duties and pursuits of life. He can see
only different modes of evil in the busy interests of the world.
War, politics, commerce, appeared to him a mere struggle of personal
passion with a view to personal aggrandisement. A life of peace, not
of energetic action, was his ideal. In eternal peace he placed the
supreme happiness of the Gods: a state of peaceful contemplation--
Sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri--
he regards as the only true religion for man: the 'mute and
uncomplaining' peace of the grave reconciles him to the thought of
everlasting death. The inadequacy of his philosophy may thus be traced
partly to his vivid impressibility of imagination, which made him
too exclusively sensible of the awe produced on man's spirit by the
mystery of the universe, partly to his defective sympathy with the
active interests and duties of life. Partly, too, the bent of his mind
towards material observation and enquiry had some share in determining
his convictions. In dwelling on the outward appearances of decay and
death, he seems to have shut his eyes to those inward conditions
of the human spirit which to Plato, Cicero, and Virgil appeared
the witnesses of immortality. The inability to form the definite
conception of a God without human limitations, as well as his strong
sense of the imperfection of the world, forced upon him the absolute
denial of any Divine providence over human affairs.
Yet a modern reader, without accepting the conclusions of his
philosophy, may sympathise with much of his spirit. In his firm faith
in the laws which govern the universe, he will recognise a great
position established, as essential to the progress of religious as
of scientific thought. He will see, in the earnest intensity of his
feeling and the sincerity of his expression, a spirit akin to the
purer kinds of religious fervour in modern times. In no other writer,
ancient or modern, will he find a profounder sense of human dignity,
of the supreme claims of affection, of the superiority of a natural
to a conventional life. From the direct exhortation and the indirect
teaching of Lucretius, he may learn such lessons as these,--that it is
man's first business to know and obey the laws of his being,--that the
sphere of his happiest activity is to be found in contemplation rather
than in action,--that his well-being consists in valuing rightly the
real blessings of life rather than in following the illusions of fancy
or of custom,--in reverencing the sanctity of family life,--and in
cherishing a kindly sympathy with all living things. If there was
nothing especially new in the views which he enunciated, the power
of realising the common conditions of life, the passionate effort not
only to rise himself above human weakness, but to redeem the whole
race of man from the curse of ignorance, and the force of imaginative
sympathy with which he executed this part of his task were, perhaps,
something altogether new in the world.
The same 'vivida vis' with which he observes natural phenomena
characterises his insight into human character and passion. He
penetrates below the surface of life with the searching insight of a
great satirist, and sees more clearly into the hearts of men, and has
a more subtle perception of the secret springs of their unhappiness,
than any of his countrymen. The aim of his satire is not to make men
seem objects of ridicule or scorn, but to restore them to the
dignity which they had forfeited through weakness and ignorance. The
observation of Horace is wider and more varied, but it ranges much
more over the surface of life. He has neither the same sense of the
mystery of our being, nor the same sympathy with the common conditions
of mankind.
The power of truthful moral painting which Lucretius exercises is seen
in that passage in which he reveals the secret of the 'amari aliquit,'
'amid the very flowers of love,'--
Aut cum conscius ipse animus se forte remordet
Desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire,
Aut quod in ambiguo verbum iaculata reliquit
Quod cupido adfixum cordi vivescit ut ignis,
Aut nimium iactare oculos aliumve tueri
Quod putat in voltuque videt vestigia risus[40]:
and in that in which he describes the satiety and restlessness which
is the avenging nemesis of an opulent and luxurious society,--
Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille,
Esse domi quem pertaesumst, subitoque revertit,
Quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse.
Currit agens mannos ad villam praecipitanter,
Auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans;
Oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villae,
Aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quaerit,
Aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit[41].
There is always poetry and pathos in the satire of Lucretius. There
is no trace in him of the malice or the love of detraction which
is seldom wholly absent from satiric writing. The futility of human
effort is the burden of his complaint[42]: and this (as has been
pointed out by M. Martha) is the explanation of the pathetic
recurrence of the word 'nequicquam' in so many passages of his poem.
His scorn and indignation are shown only in exposing the impostures
which men mistake for truths. There is thus infinite compassion for
the common lot of man blended with the irony of the passage in which
he represents the aged husbandman complaining of the general decay
of piety as the cause of the failure of the earth to respond to his
labours. His direct and realistic power of expression enhances his
power as a moral painter and teacher. Though the writings of Horace
supply many more quotations applicable to various situations in life,
and expressed in equally apposite language, yet such lines as these
in the older poet seem to come from the heart of one ever 'sounding a
deeper and more perilous way' over the sea of human life, than suited
the more worldly wisdom of Horace,--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum[43].--
Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis[44]?--
Vitaque mancipio nulli datur omnibus usu[45].--
Surgit amari aliquit quod in ipsis floribus augat[46].--
Nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Eiciuntur et eripitur persona, manet res[47].--
Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce
Aequo animo[48].
Many other lines and expressions of similar force will occur to every
reader familiar with Lucretius. As his ordinary style brings the
outward aspects of the world vividly before the mind, so the language
in which his moral teaching is enforced, or the result of his moral
observation is expressed, stamps powerfully on the mind important and
permanent truths of human nature. His thoughts are uttered sometimes
with the impressive dignity of Roman oratory, sometimes with the
nervous energy, not without flashes of the vigorous wit, of Roman
satire. There are occasionally to be heard also higher and deeper
tones than those familiar to classical poetry. His burning zeal and
indignation against idolatry, and the scorn with which he exposes the
impotence of false gods--
Cur etiam loca sola petunt frustraque laborant?
An tum bracchia consuescunt firmantque lacertos[49]?--
show some affinity of spirit to the prophets of another race and an
earlier time. The 'grandeur of desolation' uttered in the reproof of
Nature,--
Nam tibi praeterea quod machiner inveniamque,
Quod placeat, nil est: eadem sunt omnia semper[50],--
recalls the old words of the Preacher--'The thing that hath been, it
is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the sun.'
[Footnote 1: Cf. Juv. xiv. 319:--
Quantum Epicure tibi parvis suffecit in hortis.]
[Footnote 2: 'But the sober exercise of reason, investigating
the causes why we choose or avoid anything, and banishing
those opinions which cause the greatest trouble in the soul.']
[Footnote 3: ii. 16-19.]
[Footnote 4: 'Thereupon he perceived that the vessel itself
caused the evil, and that all external gains and blessings
whatsoever were vitiated within through its fault, partly
because he saw that it was so unsound and leaky that it could
never be filled in any way, partly because he discerned that
it tainted inwardly everything which it had received as it
were with a nauseous flavour.'--vi. 17-23.]
[Footnote 5: iii. 39.]
[Footnote 6: vi. 404-5.]
[Footnote 7: 'O miserable race of man when they imputed to
the Gods such acts as these, and ascribed to them also angry
passions. What sorrow did they then prepare for themselves,
what deep wounds for us, what tears for our descendants. For
there is no holiness in being often seen, turning round with
head veiled, in presence of a stone, and in drawing nigh to
every altar; nor in lying prostrate in the dust, and uplifting
the hands before the temples of the Gods; nor in sprinkling
altars with the blood of beasts, and in ever fastening up
new votive offerings, but rather in being able to look at all
things with a mind at peace.'--v. 1194-1203.]
[Footnote 8: vi. 75-78.]
[Footnote 9: 'The holy presence of the Gods is revealed, and
their peaceful dwelling-places, which neither the winds beat
upon, nor the clouds bedew with rain; nor does snow, gathered
in flakes by keen frost, and falling white, invade them; ever
the cloudless ether enfolds them, and they are radiant with
far-spread light.'--iii. 18-22.]
[Footnote 10: v. 145-225.]
[Footnote 11: The feelings with which Lucretius contemplates
the solemn procession of Cybele may be illustrated by the
following passage, quoted by Mr. Morley in his Life of
Diderot, vol. ii. p. 65: 'Absurd rigorists do not know the
effect of external ceremonies on the people: they can never
have seen the enthusiasm of the multitude at the procession of
the Fete Dieu, an enthusiasm that sometimes even gains me. I
have never seen that long file of priests in their vestments,
those young acolytes clad in their white robes, with broad
blue sashes engirdling their waists, and casting flowers on
the ground before the Holy Sacrament, the crowd, as it goes
before and follows after them, hushed in religious silence,
and so many with their faces bent reverently to the ground: I
have never heard the grave and pathetic chant, as it is led
by the priests and fervently responded to by an infinity of
voices of men, of women, of girls, of little children, without
my inmost heart being stirred, and tears coming into my eyes.
There is in it something, I know not what, that is grand,
solemn, sombre, and mournful.']
[Footnote 12: From 830 till the end.]
[Footnote 13: iii. 842.]
[Footnote 14: iii. 877-8.]
[Footnote 15: iii. 929-30.]
[Footnote 16: Hic Acherusia fit stultorum denique vita.]
[Footnote 17: Iliad xxi. 106-7.]
[Footnote 18: iii. 830-1094.]
[Footnote 19: iii. 930.]
[Footnote 20: iii. 892.]
[Footnote 21: iii. 893.]
[Footnote 22: 'Soon shall thy home receive thee no more with
glad welcome, nor thy true wife, nor thy dear children run
to snatch the first kiss, touching thy heart with silent
gladness.'--iii. 894-96.]
[Footnote 23: iii. 833.]
[Footnote 24: iii. 1027-8.]
[Footnote 25: iii. 970.]
[Footnote 26: Compare the metaphorical expressions at vi.
20-4.]
[Footnote 27: 'But there is no greater joy than to hold high
aloft the tranquil abodes, well bulwarked by the learning of
the wise, whence thou mayest look down on other men, and see
them wandering every way, and lost in error, seeking the road
of life; mayest mark the strife of genius, the rivalries of
rank, the struggle night and day with surpassing effort to
reach the highest place, and be master of the State.'--ii.
48-54.]
[Footnote 28: 'But if we see that all this is but folly and
a mockery, and, in real truth, the fears of men and their
dogging cares dread not the clash of arms nor the fierce
weapons of warfare, and boldly mix with kings and potentates,
nor fear the splendour of gold or the bright glare of purple
robes, canst thou doubt that it is the force of reason on
which all this depends, especially since all our life is in
darkness and tribulation?'--ii. 48-55.]
[Footnote 29: iii. 70.]
[Footnote 30: v. 1131.]
[Footnote 31: v. 1125.]
[Footnote 32: 'Since they take their wisdom from the lips of
others, and pursue their object in accordance rather with what
they hear than with what they really feel.'--v. 1133-4.]
[Footnote 33: ii. 33.]
[Footnote 34: v. 1117-19.]
[Footnote 35: ii. 638.]
[Footnote 36: iii. 468-9.]
[Footnote 37: A passage in the Captivi of Plautus (995-7),
shows that these terrors did appeal to the imagination in
ancient times, and thus might powerfully affect the happiness
of persons of specially impressible natures, although they do
not seem to have often interfered with the actual enjoyment of
life,--
Vidi ego multa saepe picta quae Acherunti fierent
Cruciamenta: verum enimvero nulla adaequest Acheruns
Atque ubi ego fui in lapicidinis.
Professor Wallace in his 'Epicureanism' (p. 109) writes,
'Whatever may have been the case in earlier ages of Greece,
there is no doubt that in the age of Epicurus, the doctrine of
a judgment to come, and of a hell where sinners were punished
for their crimes, made a large part of the vulgar creed....
Orphic and other religious sects had enhanced the terrors of
the world below,' etc. Cicero, however, is a better witness
than Lucretius of the actual state of opinion among his
educated contemporaries. The exaggerated sense entertained by
Lucretius of the influence of such terrors among the class
for whom his poem was written is a confirmation of his having
acted on the maxim [Greek: lathe biosas].']
[Footnote 38: Tusc. Disp. i. 21.]
[Footnote 39: iii. 59, etc.]
[Footnote 40: 'Either when his mind is stung with the
consciousness that he is wasting his life in sloth, and
ruining himself in wantonness; or because from the shafts of
her wit she has left in him some word of double meaning, which
seizes on his passionate heart and burns there like a fire; or
because he fancies that she casts about her eyes too much
or gazes at another, and marks the traces of a smile on her
countenance.'--iv. 1135-40.]
[Footnote 41: 'Oft-times, weary of home, the lord of some
spacious mansion issues forth abroad, and suddenly returns,
feeling that it is no better with him abroad. Driving his
horses, he speeds in hot haste to his country house, as if his
house were on fire and he was hurrying to bring assistance.
Straightway he begins to yawn, so soon as he has reached
his threshold, or sinks heavily into sleep and seeks
forgetfulness, or even with all haste returns to the
city.'--iii. 1060-67.]
[Footnote 42: E.g. v. 1430-34:--
Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat
Semper et in curis consumit inanibus aevom,
Nimirum quia non cognovit quae sit habendi
Finis et omnino quoad crescat vera voluptas.]
[Footnote 43: i. 101.]
[Footnote 44: iii. 938.]
[Footnote 45: iii. 971.]
[Footnote 46: iv. 1134.]
[Footnote 47: iii. 57-8.]
[Footnote 48: v. 1116.]
[Footnote 49: vi. 396-7.]
[Footnote 50: iii. 944-5.]