Note 1 — Chapter XVII · THE EPICUREAN VIEWS ON NATURE.

A. Criticism of the gods and the popular faith. Satisfied with the results of his own enquiries into nature, Epicurus hoped by his view of the causes of things not only to displace the superstitions of a polytheistic worship, but also to uproot the prejudice in favour of Providence. Indeed, these two objects were placed by him on exactly the same footing. So absurd did he consider the popular notions respecting the Gods, that instead of blaming those who attacked them,1 he believed it impious to acquiesce in them. Religion being, according to Lucretius, the cause of the greatest evils,2 he who displaces it to make way for rational views of nature deserves praise as having overcome the most dangerous enemy of mankind. All the language of Epicurus in disparagement of the art of poetry applies in a still higher degree to the religious errors fostered by poetry.3 Nor is it better with belief in Providence than with the popular faith. This belief is also included in the category of romance;4 and the doctrine of fatalism, which was the Stoic form for the same belief, was denounced as even worse than the popular faith.5 For how, asks the Epicurean, could divine Providence have created a world in which evil abounds, in which virtue often fares ill, whilst vice is triumphant? How could a world have been made for the sake of man, when man can only inhabit a very small portion of it? How could nature be intended to promote man’s well-being when it so often imperils his life and labour, and sends him into the world more helpless than any animal? How can we form a conception of beings ruling over an infinite universe, and everywhere present to administer everything in every place?6 What could have induced these beings to create a world, and how and whence could they have known how to create it, had not nature supplied them with an example?7 In fine, how could God be the happy Being He must be if the whole burden of caring for all things and all events lay upon Him, or He were swayed to and fro together with the body of the world?8 Or how could we feel any other feeling than that of fear in the presence of such a God who troubles himself about everything?9