author of the philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the
Universe), a comprehensive exposition of the Epicurean world-view.
Very little is known of the poet's life, though a sense of his
character and personality emerges vividly from his poem. The stress
and tumult of his times stands in the background of his work and
partly explains his personal attraction and commitment to
Epicureanism, with its elevation of intellectual pleasure and
tranquility of mind and its dim view of the world of social strife and
political violence. His epic is presented in six books and undertakes
a full and completely naturalistic explanation of the physical origin,
structure, and destiny of the universe. Included in this presentation
are theories of the atomic structure of matter and the emergence and
evolution of life forms – ideas that would eventually form a crucial
foundation and background for the development of western science. In
addition to his literary and scientific influence, Lucretius has been
a major source of inspiration for a wide range of modern philosophers,
including Gassendi, Bergson, Spencer, Whitehead, and Teilhard de
Chardin.
1. Life
Of Lucretius' life remarkably little is known: he was an accomplished
poet; he lived during the first century BC; he was devoted to the
teachings of Epicurus; and he apparently died before his magnum opus,
De Rerum Natura, was completed. Almost everything else we know (or
think we know) about this elusive figure is a matter of conjecture,
rumor, legend, or gossip.
Some scholars have imagined that this lack of information is the
result of a sinister plot – a conspiracy of silence supposedly
conducted by pious Roman and early Christian writers bent on
suppressing the poet's anti-religious sentiments and materialist
blasphemies. Yet perhaps more vexing for our understanding of
Lucretius than any conspiracy of silence has been the single lurid
item about his death that appears in a fourth century chronicle
history by St. Jerome:
94
[sic] BC. . . The poet Titus Lucretius is born. He was later driven
mad by a love philtre and, having composed between bouts of insanity
several books (which Cicero afterwards corrected), committed suicide
at the age of 44.
Certainly the possibility that Lucretius (whose blistering, two
hundred line denunciation of sexual love comprises one of the
memorable highlights of the poem) may himself have fallen victim to a
love potion is a superb irony. Unfortunately, there is not a shred of
evidence to support the claim. Nor is it highly likely that Cicero (a
skeptical-minded thinker with sympathies toward Stoicism) would have
assisted to any large degree in the publication of an epic celebrating
the Epicurean creed. As for the suggestion that Lucretius produced De
Rerum Natura in lucid periods between intervals of raging insanity,
the poem itself stands as a strong argument to the contrary. At the
very least it must be considered improbable that a work of such scope
and complexity, of such intellectual depth and sustained reasoning
power, could have been the product of fitful composition and a
diseased mind.
Fortunately, even if we dismiss Jerome's account as little more than
an edifying fable and resign ourselves to the absence of even a scrap
of reliable biographical information on Lucretius, there is still one
source we can turn to for valuable insights into the poet's character,
personality, and habits of mind, and that is De Rerum Natura itself.
For although the poem tells us almost nothing about the day to day
affairs of Lucretius the man, it nevertheless furnishes a large and
revealing portrait of Lucretius the poet, philosopher, social
commentator, critic of religion, and observer of the world.
Indeed one does not have to read very far into the poem to discover
that not only is Lucretius a serious student of philosophy and
science, but that above all he is a great poet of nature. He reveals
himself as a lover of woods, fields, streams, and open spaces, acutely
sensitive to the beauties of landscape and the march of seasons. He
proves a keen observer of plants and animals and at least as
knowledgeable and interested in crops, weather, soil, and horticulture
as in the existence of gods or the motion of atoms. The preponderance
of natural descriptions and images in the poem has led some readers to
suppose that the author must have led some form of rural existence,
perhaps as the owner of a country estate. True or not, it is clearly
not the city, with its hurly-burly of commerce, money grubbing, social
climbing, and political strife, but the quiet countryside with its
contemplative retreats, solitude, and simple pleasures that inspires
his poetry and (as was the case with his master Epicurus in his garden
at Athens) his philosophical reveries.
It is generally assumed that the poet, as his name implies, was a
member of the aristocratic clan of the Lucretii. On the other hand, it
is also possible that he was a former slave and freedman of that same
noble family. Support for the idea of his nobility comes in part from
his suave command of learning and the polished mastery of his style,
but mostly from the easy and natural way (friend to friend, rather
than subordinate to superior) in which he addresses Memmius, his
literary patron and the addressee of the poem.
Gaius Memmius was a Roman patrician who was at one time married to
Sulla's daughter, Fausta. In 54 BC (one year after Lucretius' death),
he stood for consul, but was defeated owing to an electoral violation,
which he himself revealed but was afterwards condemned for. In 52 BC
he went into exile at Athens, and it is unknown whether he ever
returned to Rome. Lucretius dedicated his poem to him, and throughout
the epic the poet is at pains to remind Memmius of the sweet rewards
of the Epicurean lifestyle and the bitter tribulations of public life.
No doubt it would have distressed the poet deeply to know that his
chief literary sponsor, instead of following the lofty path to
Epicurean tranquilitas, ended his career with a vain descent into the
tarnishing world of power politics and personal ambition.
Literary tradition has supplied Lucretius with a wife, Lucilla.
However, except for a line or two in the poem suggesting the author's
personal familiarity with marital discord and the bedroom practices of
"our Roman wives" (4. 1277), there is no evidence that he himself was
ever married.
a. Italy during the first century BC
For the most part, the forty-four years of Lucretius' lifetime was a
period of nearly non-stop violence: a time of civil wars, grueling
overseas campaigns, political assassinations, massacres, revolts,
conspiracies, mass executions, and social and economic chaos. Even a
brief chronology of the times paints a grim picture of devastation,
with each decade bearing witness to some new disturbance or uprising:
100 BC: riots erupt in the streets of Rome; two public officials, the
tribune L. Appuleius Saturninus and praetor C. Servilius Glaucia, are
murdered. 91 BC: the so-called Social War (between Rome and her
Italian allies) breaks out. No sooner is this bitter struggle ended
(88 BC) than Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a ruthless politician and
renegade army commander, marches on Rome, and an even more convulsive
and bloody Civil War begins. 82 BC: Sulla becomes dictator. His
infamous proscription results in the arrest and execution of more than
4000 leading citizens, including 40 senators. 71 BC: Spartacus'
massive slave revolt (involving an army of 90,000 former slaves and
outlaws) is finally put down by Cassius and Pompey. More than 6000 of
the captured rebels are crucified and their bodies left for display
along the Appian Way. 62 BC: Defeat and death of Catiline. By this
point in his career this former lieutenant of Sulla had become a
living plague upon Roman politics and a virtual byword for scandal,
intrigue, conspiracy, demagoguery, and vain ambition.Such was Rome
from the rise of Sulla to the fall of Catiline, a period of seemingly
endless bloodshed and civil unrest. With such a background, it is
little wonder that the precepts of Epicurus – with their emphasis on
contemplative pursuits and quiet pleasures and severe strictures
against ambition, fame, and the world of politics – struck a
responsive chord in the heart of a young Roman poet. To a sensitive
intellectual like Lucretius, the teachings of Epicurus must have had
the force of a philosophical revelation. In this respect, it is
noteworthy (and ironic) that throughout De Rerum Natura whenever the
poet writes about Epicurus he praises him not simply as a great
teacher and brilliant philosopher, but virtually as a kind of oracle
and even a god. Meanwhile, he seems to have viewed his own role as
that of an Epicurean evangelist: he is a poetic apostle dedicated to
spreading the master's gospel of liberation from the bondage of
superstition and error, of inner peace attained through the study of
philosophy and the enjoyment of modest pleasures.
b. Lucretius' Personality and Outlook
Unlike his hero Epicurus, who had a reputation for being gentle and
self-effacing, Lucretius' excitable personality springs vividly from
his pages. Though naturally passionate and intellectually contentious,
he also reveals himself as reflective and prone to melancholy. Like
his master, he detests war, strife, and social tumult and favors a
life quietly devoted to sweet friendship (suavis amicitia) and
intellectual pleasures.
At the beginning of Book 2 of his poem, the poet compares the prospect
of a person armed with the insights of Epicurus to that of a secure
spectator looking down upon a scene of strife:
Pleasant it is, when over the great sea the winds shake the waters,
To gaze down from shore on the trials of others;
Not because seeing other people struggle is sweet to us,
But because the fact that we ourselves are free from such ills strikes
us as pleasant.
Pleasant it is also to behold great armies battling on a plain,
When we ourselves have no part in their peril.
But nothing is sweeter than to occupy a lofty sanctuary of the mind,
Well fortified with the teachings of the wise,
Where we may look down on others as they stumble along,
Vainly searching for the true path of life. . . . (2. 1-10)This idea
of philosophy as a private citadel or quiet refuge in a world of
anxiety and turmoil, or of some form of contemplation as the true path
to enlightenment, has been a recurrent theme in world literature from
the Buddha to Boethius, from Socrates to Schopenhauer. The idea is a
central component of Epicurean doctrine and a favorite theme and image
of Lucretius, whose characteristic vantage point throughout the poem
is that of a critical observer above the fray. As narrator, he stands
aloof, a scornful yet at the same time sympathetic witness to
mankind's dark strivings and tribulations:
Lo, see them: contending with their wits, fighting for precedence,
Struggling night and day with unending effort,Climbing, clawing their
way up the pinnacles of wealth and power.
O miserable minds of men! O blind hearts!
In what darkness, among how many perils,
You pass your short lives! Do you not see
That our nature requires only this:
A body free from pain, and a mind, released from worry and fear,
Free to enjoy feelings of delight? (2. 11-19.)Like his master,
Lucretius obviously feels that the true purpose of moral philosophy is
not merely to diagnose human miseries; but to heal them.
2. Philosophy
a. Epicurus
From the very start of the poem, and especially in the opening lines
of Book 3 (a ringing tribute to Epicurus), Lucretius makes it clear
that his main purpose is not so much to display his own talents as to
render accurately in a suitably sublime style the glorious philosophy
of his master:
O you who out of the vast darkness were the first to raise
A shining light, illuminating the blessings of life,
O glory of the Grecian race, it is you I follow,
Tracing in your clearly marked footprints my own firm steps,
Not as a contending rival, but out of love, for I yearn to imitate you.
For why should the swallow vie with the swan?
Why should a young kid on spindly limbs
Dare to match strides with a mighty steed? (3. 1-8.)The poetry,
Lucretius keeps reminding his readers, is secondary, a sugar coating
to sweeten Epicurus' healing medicine. The Epicurean system is what is
important, and the poet pledges all his skill to presenting it as
clearly, as faithfully, and as persuasively as possible. In his view
nothing less than universal enlightenment and the liberation of
mankind is at stake.
Epicurus was born at Samos, an Athenian colony, in 341 BC. Reduced to
its simplest level, the goal of his teaching was to free humanity from
needless cares and anxieties (especially the fear of death) . By
furnishing a complete explanation of the origin and structure of the
universe, he sought to open men's eyes to a true understanding of
their condition and liberate them from ignorant fears and
superstitions. Though by all accounts he was a voluminous writer, only
a tiny fraction of his original output has survived, with the result
that Lucretius' poem has served as one of the primary vehicles for
conveying his thought.
b. Epicureanism
The Epicurean system consists of three linked components: Physics,
Ethics, and Canonic. These three elements are designed to be
interdependent, each one supposedly uniting with and reinforcing the
other two. (To cite just one example, Epicurus' physics supposedly
validates both the existence of free will and the fact that the soul
disintegrates with the body, ideas that are crucial to Epicurean
ethics. The canonic claims to validate the authority and reliability
of sensation, which in turn serves as a basis for Epicurean physical
theories and ethical views relating to pleasure and pain.) In actual
fact, however, the three components are quite separable, and it is
certainly possible, for example, to accept Epicurus' ethical doctrines
while entirely denying his canonic teachings and physics.
i. Physics
One of the great achievements of the scientific imagination, the
Epicurean cosmos is based on three fundamental principles:
materialism, mechanism, and atomism. According to Epicurus the
universe covers an infinitude of space and consists entirely of matter
and void. For the most part the philosopher upholds Democritus' theory
that all matter is composed of imperishable atoms, tiny indivisible
particles that can neither be created or destroyed. He also shares
Democritus' view that the atoms are infinite in number and homogenous
in substance, while differing in shape and size. However, whereas
Democritus held that the number of atomic sizes and shapes is
infinite, Epicurus argued that their number, while large, is
nevertheless finite. (As Lucretius notes, if atoms could be any size,
some would be visible, and possibly even immense.) As for atomic
motion, Democritus had claimed that the atoms move in straight lines
in all directions and always in accordance with the iron laws of
"necessity" (anangke). Epicurus, on the other hand, contends that
their natural motion is to travel straight downwards at a uniform high
velocity. At random and unpredictable moments, moreover, they deviate
ever so slightly from their regular course, their resulting collisions
thus occurring not by strict necessity but always with some element of
chance. This theory of atomic "swerve" or clinamen is a crucial
feature of the Epicurean world-view, providing (so Lucretius and other
adherents believed) a firm physical foundation supporting the
existence of free will.
Armed with these basic principles, Epicurus is able to explain the
universe as an ongoing cosmic event – a never-ending binding and
unbinding of atoms resulting in the gradual emergence of entire new
worlds and the gradual disintegration of old ones. Our world, our
bodies, our minds are but atoms in motion. They did not occur because
of some purpose or final cause. Nor were they created by some god for
our special use and benefit. They simply happened, more or less
randomly and entirely naturally, through the effective operation of
immutable and eternal physical laws.
Here it should be noted that Epicurus is a materialist, not an
atheist. Although he argues that not only our earth and all its life
forms, but also all human civilizations and arts came into being and
evolved without any aid or sponsorship from the gods, he does not deny
their existence. He merely denies that they have any knowledge of or
interest in human affairs. They live on immune to destruction in their
perfectly compounded material bodies in the serene and cloudless
spaces between the worlds (intermundia), perfectly oblivious of human
anxieties and cares. Lucretius imagines that Epicurus rivaled them in
their divine tranquility.
ii. Canonic
The so-called canonic teachings of Epicurus (from the Greek kanon,
"rule") include his epistemological theories and especially his
theories of sensation and perception. In certain respects, these
theories represent Epicurus' thought at its most original and
prescient – and in one or two instances at its most fanciful and
absurd.
The central principle of the canonic is that our sense data provide a
true and accurate picture of external reality. Sensation is the
ultimate source and criterion of truth, and its testimony is
incontrovertible. Epicurus considered the reliability of the senses a
bulwark of his philosophy, and Lucretius refers to trust in sensation
as a "holdfast," describing it as the only thing preventing our slide
into the abyss of skepticism (4. 502-512).
But if our sensory input is always true and dependable, how are we to
account for hallucinations, fantasies, dreams, delusions, and other
forms of perceptual error? According to Epicurus, such errors are
always due to some higher mental process. They arise, for example,
when we apply judgment or reasoning or some confused product of memory
to the actual data presented to us by sensation. As Lucretius remarks,
we deceive ourselves because we tend to "see some things with our mind
that have not been seen by the senses":
For nothing is harder than to distinguish the real things of sense
From those doubtful versions of them that the mind readily supplies.
(4. 466-468.)Epicurus' theory of sensory perception is consistent with
and follows from his materialism and atomism. Like Democritus, he
postulates that external objects send off emanations or "idols"
(eidola) of themselves that travel through the air and impinge upon
our senses. In effect, these subtle atomic images or films imprint
themselves on the senses, leaving behind trace versions of the
external world (auditory and olfactory as well as visual) that can be
apprehended and stored in memory. Once again, perceptual errors can
occur in this process, but not because of any inherent problem with
sensation itself. Instead, mistakes arise due either to the
contamination of the "idols" by other atoms or because of the "false
opinions" that we ourselves, through defects in our higher mental
operations, introduce.
In short, unless it is distorted by some form of external "noise" or
by some processing error attributable to reason, all information
conveyed through the senses is true. This is Epicurus' core canonic
teaching. Unfortunately, this belief in the infallibility of sense
perception and the unreliability of logic and reason led him and his
followers (including Lucretius) into a number of strange conclusions –
such as the absurd claim that the sun, moon, and stars are exactly the
size and shape that they appear to be to our naked eye. Thus (as
strict Epicurean doctrine would have it) the moon truly is a small,
silver disc, the sun is a slightly larger golden fire, and the stars
are but tiny points of light.
iii. Ethics
Epicurus' ethics represents the true goal and raison d'etre of his
philosophical mission, the capstone atop the impressive (though hardly
flawless) pillars of his physics and epistemology. Like Socrates, he
considered moral questions (What is virtue? What is happiness?) rather
than cosmological speculations to be the ultimate concerns of
philosophical inquiry.
As mentioned earlier, it is possible to accept one component of the
Epicurean system without necessarily subscribing to the others. But
from Epicurus' (and Lucretius') point of view, it is the ethical
component that is of vital importance.
As many commentators have noted, the term "Epicure" (in the sense of a
self-indulgent bon vivant or luxurious pleasure-seeker) is entirely
out of place when applied to Epicureanism in general and to its
founder in particular. By all accounts, Epicurus' own living habits
were virtually Spartan, and it is said that he attracted many of his
disciples more by his solid character and agreeable temper than by his
philosophical arguments. His moral philosophy is a form of hedonism,
meaning that it is a system based on the pursuit of pleasure (Gr.
'ēdonewhich it identifies as the greatest good. But Epicurean
hedonism is hardly synonymous with sensual extravagance; nor is it a
matter (in St. Paul's disparaging terms) of "let us eat and drink; for
tomorrow we die." It is instead a system that requires severe
self-denial and moral discipline. For Epicurus places a much greater
emphasis on the avoidance of pain than on the pursuit of pleasure, and
he favors intellectual pleasures (which are long-lasting and never
cloying) over physical ones (which are short-lived and lead to
excess). As for self-indulgence, he argued that it is better to
abstain from coarse or trivial pleasures if they prevent our enjoyment
of richer, more satisfying ones.
In Epicurean ethics physical pain is the great enemy of happiness and
is to be avoided in almost all cases. Mental anguish is even more
threatening and potentially debilitating. It follows that the fear of
death – and especially the superstitious belief in an after-life of
eternal torment – can be particularly devastating source of anxiety
and take a terrible toll on humanity, which is why Epicurus sets out
so determinedly to crush it.
c. The Design of the Poem
De Rerum Natura
is an epic in six books and is expertly organized to provide both
expository clarity as well as powerful narrative and lyric effects. In
one respect, the poem represents the unfolding of a complex
philosophical argument, and in many places the poet is challenged to
explain abstract and often extremely prosaic technical material in a
lucid and lively way. (At times during the poem he complains about the
relative poverty of Latin as a philosophical medium compared to the
technical richness of Greek.) At the same time, he must be careful not
to overwhelm or upstage his philosophical presentation with a surplus
of brilliant literary devices and gaudy stylistic displays. The basic
organization is as follows:
Book 1: The poem begins with a justly famous invocation to Venus (the
poet's symbol for the forces of cohesion, integration, and creative
energy in the universe). Presented as a kind of life principle, the
Lucretian Venus is associated with the figure of Love (Gr. philia,
the unifying or binding force in the philosophy of Empedocles, and
also identified with her mythical role as Venus Genetrix, the patron
goddess and mother of the Roman people. In the remainder of the book
the poet begins the work of explaining the Epicurean system and
refuting the systems of other philosophers. He starts by setting forth
the major principles of Epicurean physics and cosmology, including
atomism, the infinity of the universe, and the existence of matter and
void.
Book 2. This book begins with a lyric passage celebrating the "serene
sanctuaries" of philosophy and lamenting the condition of those poor
human beings who struggle vainly outside its protective walls. The
poet explains atomic motion and shapes and argues that the atoms do
not have secondary qualities (color, smell, heat, moisture, etc.).
Book 3. After a glowing opening apostrophe to Epicurus ("O glory of
the Greeks!"), the poet proceeds with an extended explanation and
proof of the materiality – and mortality – of the mind and soul. This
explanation culminates in the climactic declaration, "Nil igitur mors
est ad nos. . ." ("Therefore death is nothing to us."), a stark,
simple statement which effectively epitomizes the main message and
central doctrine of Epicureanism.
Book 4. Following introductory verses on the art of didactic poetry,
this book begins with a full account of Epicurus' theory of vision and
sensation. It concludes with one of Lucretius' greatest passages of
verse, his famous (and caustic) analysis of the biology and psychology
of sexual love.
Book 5. Lucretius begins this book with another tribute to the genius
of Epicurus, whose heroic intellectual achievements, it is argued,
exceed even the twelve labors of Hercules. The remainder of the book
is devoted to a full account of Epicurean cosmology and sociology,
with the poet explaining the stages of life on earth and the origin
and development of civilization. This book includes the remarkable
passage (837-886) in which the poet offers his own evolutionary
hypothesis on the proliferation and extinction of life forms.
Book 6. Though partly unfinished, this book contains some of
Lucretius' greatest poetry, with effective technical explanations of
meteorological and geologic phenomena and vivid descriptions of
thunderstorms, lightning, and volcanic eruptions. The poem closes with
a horrifying account of the great plague of Athens (430 BC), a grim
reminder of universal mortality.
d. Lucretius as a Philosopher
Critics universally recognize Lucretius as a major poet and the author
of one of the great classics of world literature. But in part because
of his accepted role as a spokesperson for Epicureanism rather than an
originator, it has been more difficult to assess his merit as a
philosopher.
In this respect, it is noteworthy that at least two important
philosophers have voiced strong support for Lucretius' status as a
philosophical innovator and original thinker. In 1884, while still a
young faculty member at the Blaise Pascal Lycee in Paris, the French
philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) published an edition of De Rerum
Natura with notes, commentary, and an accompanying critical essay.
Throughout this work, Bergson commends Lucretius not only as a poet of
genius, but also as an inspired and "singularly original" thinker. In
particular, he points out that in his view the poet's instinctive
grasp of the physical operations of nature and his comprehensive,
truly scientific world-view exceed anything found in the theories of
Democritus and Epicurus.
The Spanish poet and Harvard philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952)
held a similarly high opinion of Lucretius' power as a scientific
thinker. Democritus and Epicurus, he argues, are mere sketch artists
who offer no more than bare hints and vague outlines of a thoroughly
imagined and truly scientifically conceived universe. It thus remained
for the deeper, more visionary poet not just to flesh out their rough
drafts in fine words, but in essence to actually create and give body
to the entire Epicurean system. In Santayana's view, Epicurus was but
a supplier of half-baked ideas; it was Lucretius who was the true
creator of scientific materialism and the real founder of
Epicureanism.
Hyperbole aside, what both Bergson and Santayana are pointing to is
the frequently underrated and misunderstood role of imagination in the
production of almost all major systems of philosophy. Great
philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Kant and Nietzsche (and
Bergson himself) have never been simply logic mills or thinking
machines, but bold thinkers with an imaginative "feel" for abstract
reality. In this respect, even if we dismiss the assessments of
Bergson and Santayana as extravagant, we can still accept Lucretius as
a bona fide philosopher and not just as a poetical embellisher and
interpreter.
Every philosopher has strengths and weaknesses; those of Lucretius are
conspicuous. In addition to his powerful imagination, his main
strength (not surprisingly) is his verbal skill and force of
expression. He is one of the most quotable of philosophers, with a
flair for striking images and tightly packed statements. A few
samples:
On superstition:
"So powerful is religion at persuading to evil." 1. 101.On luxuries:
"Hot fevers do not depart your body more quickly
If you toss about on pictured tapestries or rich purple coverlets
Than if you lie sick under a poor man's blanket." 2. 34-36.
On life without philosophy:
"All life is a struggle in the dark." 2. 54.
"After a while the life of a fool is hell on earth." 3. 1023.
On new truths:
"No fact is so obvious that it does not at first produce wonder,
Nor so wonderful that it does not eventually yield to belief." 2. 1026-27.
On reason:
"Such is the power of reason to overcome inborn vices
That nothing prevents our living a life worthy of gods." 3. 321-22.
On the language of love:
"We say a foul, dirty woman is 'sweetly disordered,'
If she is green-eyed, we call her 'my little Pallas';
If she's flighty and tightly strung, she's 'a gazelle';
A squat, dumpy dwarf is 'a little sprite,'
While a hulking giantess is 'divinely statuesque.'
If she stutters or lisps, she speaks 'musically.'
If she's dumb, she's 'modest'; and if she's hot-tempered
And a chatterbox, she's 'a ball of fire.'
When she's too skinny to live, she's 'svelte,'
And she's 'delicate' when she's dying of consumption. . .
It would be wearisome to run through the whole list." 4. 1159-1171.
Of all Lucretius' intellectual strengths, perhaps none is more
characteristic or stands out more impressively than his hard, clear
commitment to naturalism. Throughout the poem he consistently attacks
supernatural explanations of phenomena and resists the temptation to
give in to some form of natural religion or "scientific"
supernaturalism. The world, he argues, was not created by divine
intelligence, nor is it imbued with any form of mind or purpose.
Instead, it must be understood as an entirely natural phenomenon, the
outcome of a random (though statistically inevitable and lawful)
process. In short, whatever happens in the universe is not the product
of design, but part of an ongoing sequence of purely physical events.
Lucretius' principal philosophical shortcoming is that not only will
he occasionally follow Epicurean doctrine to the point of absurdity
(e.g., the supposedly tiny size of the sun and moon) but he will also
introduce logical fallacies or scientific errors of his own (such as
his claim that the atoms travel faster than light – 2. 144ff.). As
Bergson points out, these howlers can usually be attributed to the
defective method of ancient science, which, because it did not require
that hypotheses be confirmed by experimentation, allowed even the
wildest conjectures to pass as plausible truths. One further problem
is that, for all his reliance on naturalistic explanations and his
attempted reduction of metaphysics to physics, Lucretius at times
seems to back away, if only ever so slightly, from a purely
materialist world view. Indeed in his effusive descriptions of the
creative power of nature, effectively symbolized by the figure of
Venus, he seems almost (like Bergson) to postulate an immaterial
life-force surging through the universe and operating above or beyond
raw nature. To read this romantic streak into him is clearly a
mistake. Lucretius remains a thorough-going naturalist. Yet when his
verse is in high gear, one almost gets the impression that somewhere
inside this staunchly scientific, fiercely anti-religious poet there
is a romantic nature-worshipper screaming to get out.
e. Influence and Legacy
Lucretius' literary influence has been long-lasting and widespread,
especially among poets with epic ambitions or cosmological interests,
from Virgil and Milton to Whitman and Wordsworth. Not surprisingly, as
one of the main proponents and principal sources of Epicurean thought,
his philosophical influence has also been considerable. The extent of
his communication with and influence on his contemporaries, including
other Epicurean writers, is not known. What is known is that by the
end of the first century A.D. De Rerum Natura was hardly read and its
author had already begun a long, slow descent into philosophical
oblivion. It was not until the Renaissance, with the recovery of lost
Lucretian manuscripts, that a true revival of the poet became
possible.
It is probably an exaggeration to say that the restoration and study
of Lucretius' poem was crucial to the rise of Renaissance "new
philosophy" and the birth of modern science. On the other hand, one
must not ignore its importance as a spur to innovative sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century scientific thought and cosmological speculation.
Greek atomism and Lucretius' account of the universe as an infinite,
lawfully integrated whole provided an important background stimulus
not only for Newtonian science, but also (if only in a negative or
contrary way) for Spinoza's pantheism and Leibniz's monadology.
Lucretius' influence on early modern thought is most directly visible
in the work of the French scientist and neo-Epicurean philosopher
Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655). In 1649 Gassendi published his Syntagma
Philosophiae Epicuri, a theoretical refinement and elaboration of
Epicurean science. A Catholic priest with a remarkably independent
mind, Gassendi seemingly had no problem reconciling his personal
philosophical commitment to atomism and materialism with his Christian
beliefs in the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of divine
providence.
Every modern reader of De Rerum Natura has been struck by the extent
to which Lucretius seems to have anticipated modern evolutionary
theories in the fields of geology, biology, and sociology. However, to
acknowledge this connection is not to say that the poet deserves
accredited status as some kind of scientific "evolutionist" or
pre-Darwinian precursor. It is merely to point out that, however we
choose to define and evaluate its influence, De Rerum Natura was from
the 17th century onward a massive cultural presence and hence a ready
source of evolutionary ideas. The poem formed part of the cultural
heritage and intellectual background of virtually every evolutionary
theorist in Europe from Lamarck to Herbert Spencer (whose hedonistic
ethics also owed a debt to the poet) – including (though he claimed
never to have read Lucretius' epic) Darwin himself.
Bergson's early study of Lucretius obviously played an important role
in the foundation and development of his own philosophy. In 1907
Bergson published Creative Evolution, outlining his bold, new
vitalistic theory of evolution, in opposition to both the earlier
vitalism of Lamarck and the naturalism of Darwin, and Spencer. It is
hard not to see in the French philosophers' concept of the élan vital
a powerful life force akin to and strongly influenced by the immortal
Venus of his great Latin predecessor. Bergson's evolutionary
philosophy influenced the later "process" philosophy of Alfred North
Whitehead (1861-1947) and the teleological scientific theories of
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), with the interesting result
that it is possible to trace out a fairly direct, if unlikely, line of
descent from Greek atomism through the pagan anti-spiritualist
Lucretius to the Catholic naturalist Gassendi and then on, via the
Jewish-Catholic Bergson, to the highly abstract theism of Whitehead
and the "spiritualized" evolutionism of Father Teilhard. That
Lucretius' ideas wound up two thousand years after his death
influencing those of a godly British mathematical theorist and a
highly original and even eccentric French scientist-priest is
remarkable testimony to their durability, adaptability, and persuasive
power.
f. Conclusion
In conclusion, it seems fair to say that, far from being a mere
conduit for earlier Greek thought, the poet Titus Lucretius Carus was
a bold innovator and original thinker who fully deserves the
appellation of philosopher. While his literary fame clearly (and
properly) comes first, and although his philosophical reputation is
based largely (and again properly) on his role as one of the principle
sources and prime exponents of Epicureanism, his own ideas, especially
his evolutionary theories and his entirely naturalistic explanation of
all universal phenomena, have exerted a long and important influence
on western science and philosophy and should not be underestimated.
3. Bibliography
The most authoritative manuscripts of De Rerum Natura are the
so-called O and Q codices in Leiden. Both date from the 9th century.
Recently, however, scholars have deciphered a much older and
previously illegible manuscript, consisting of papyri discovered in
Herculaneum and possibly dating from as early as the first century AD.
All other Lucretian manuscripts date from the 15th and 16th century
and are based on the one (no longer extant) discovered in a monastery
by the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini in 1417.
Texts:
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things. W.H.D. Rouse, trans. Revised and
edited by Martin F. Smith. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1992.Bailey, C. ed. De Rerum Natura. 3 volumes with commentary.
Oxford, 1947.
English translations:
Munro, H.A.J. (prose). Cambridge, 1864.Latham, R.E. (prose).
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1951.
Humphries, Rolphe. (verse). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968.
Copley, Frank O. (verse). New York: Norton, 1977.
Critical and scholarly studies:
Bergson, Henri. Philosophy of Poetry: The Genius of Lucretius. Wade
Baskin, trans. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.Clay, D.
Lucretius and Epicurus. Ithaca, NY, 1983.
Jones, H. The Epicurean Tradition. London: 1989.
Kenney, E. J. Lucretius. Oxford, 1977.
Santayana, George. Three Philosophical Poets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Sikes, E.E. Lucretius: Poet and Philosopher. Cambridge, 1936.
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