show how far Epicurus was from the popular misconception of the epicure (above, p. 372). Fame and
riches do no more for the mind than for the body: you may see your legions swarming over the plain,
and still be obsessed by religious scruples and the terror of death (40 ff). Men are like children fearing
phantoms in the dark: 'hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest / non radii solis neque lucida
tela diei / discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque' (59 ff. 'this terror and darkness of the mind must be
dispelled not by the rays of the sun or the shining shafts of day but by the outward appearance and inner
rationale of nature').
Lucretius then reverts to his atoms, whose unseen collisions and reboundings he illustrates by
characteristically memorable analogies: they manoeuvre and fight like specks of dust seen in a sunbeam
in a darkened room (114 ff.), but their motion is no more visible to the senses than that of sheep
crawling on a far-off hill (317 ff.). They move in the first place because they have weight and fall; but if
they fall in parallel lines, that does not explain the collisions that produce aggregations of matter (the
poet is unaware of the possibilities of attraction). They cannot catch up with one another by falling at
different speeds, for as they fall in a void they must all fall at the same speed (225 ff.). Lucretius is thus
led to the theory of the clinamen or swerve which was Epicurus' most important contribution to atomic
physics: 'at times quite undetermined and undetermined places they veer a little from their track, with the
smallest possible change of course' (218 ff.). Cicero thought that nothing was as disgraceful for a
scientist as to say that something happens without a cause, but modern physicists can understand an
appeal to indeterminacy; they will be more shocked by Epicurus' ethical intention, a desire to exempt
human volition from the shackles of determinism, (above, pp. 376 ff.).
The third book expounds the structure of the soul, and its mortality. Lucretius tells how Epicurus
banished the fear of death: it is this that muddies the waters of life, clouding them with darkness, and
leaving no pleasure clear and unpolluted. Men profess a disbelief in survival, but in adversity the mask is
torn off, and they revert to their old superstitions (55 f). Such remarks reflect a traditional preoccupation
of the Epicureans, and Philodemus himself, the most distinguished contemporary member of the school,
wrote a treatise On Death. Nor should one underestimate the credulity about an after-life in the poet's
own society; it is true that Cicero mocks the Epicurean obsession ('what old woman is crazy enough to
be afraid of such things?'), but he confines the issue to the fables of mythology, and his rational
scepticism was untypical even of the governing class. Some have thought that Lucretius protests too
much, but for a poet he seems remarkably clear-headed: St Jerome's story of his madness can be
explained by the incomprehension of the Church.
Lucretius naturally rejects the mind-body dualism that has haunted the history of thought for so long; as
Epicurus had uncompromisingly put it, 'soul is body'. He also opposes the more plausible view that the
soul is simply a condition of the body, or harmonia as it was called ('attunement' gives the idea); he
derisively comments that the organici or instrumentalists are welcome to keep the word (131 f.).
Following the psychology of his master he distinguishes the anima, the vital principle that is common to
all living creatures, from the governing animus or mind, that is found only in man; but as both are
equally mortal, he does not always use his terms precisely. The soul can influence the body, and the
body the soul; this can only be effected by physical contact, and touch is a property of body (161 ff).
The atoms of the mind are exceptionally small and smooth, as is shown by the speed with which volition