Note 106:1 — III
Reading edition
Lucretius, i. 62-79, actually speaks of the great atheist in language taken from the Saviour Religions (see below, p. 162):
When Man's life upon earth in base dismay, Crushed by the burthen of Religion, lay, Whose face, from all the regions of the sky, Hung, glaring hate upon mortality, First one Greek man against her dared to raise His eyes, against her strive through all his days; Him noise of Gods nor lightnings nor the roar Of raging heaven subdued, but pricked the more His spirit's valiance, till he longed the Gate To burst of this low prison of man's fate. And thus the living ardour of his mind Conquered, and clove its way; he passed behind The world's last flaming wall, and through the whole Of space uncharted ranged his mind and soul. Whence, conquering, he returned to make Man see At last what can, what cannot, come to be; By what law to each Thing its power hath been Assigned, and what deep boundary set between; Till underfoot is tamed Religion trod, And, by His victory, Man ascends to God.