to Epicurus, 'since they are aggregates of fire, we should not suppose them to possess happiness and
pursue their courses voluntarily'. There are indeed gods in the Epicurean universe, admirable beings who
live a life of tranquillity far off in intergalactic space. But those gods are not to be feared. 'What is happy
and indestructible neither is troubled itself nor causes trouble to others - hence it is moved neither by
anger nor by gratitude.' Thus the heavenly rumblings at which the superstitious quake are purely material
events, and the real gods have no interest at all in life on earth.
Secondly, 'those who say that the soul is incorporeal are foolish; for if it were it could neither act nor be
acted upon - but in fact both those properties are plainly observed to belong to the soul'. The soul is a
body within the body, 'composed of fine particles spread all through the structure, most like wind with an
admixture of heat'. Thus 'when the whole structure is dissolved, the soul is dispersed and no longer retains
its powers'. It follows that 'death is nothing to us; for what is dissolved has no perception, and what has no
perception is nothing to us'. It is as absurd to fear the time after death as it would be to fear the time
before birth. Lucretius makes the point vividly:
Just as in time past we felt no disquiet when the Carthaginians arose on all sides in conflict and all was
shaken by the fearful tumult of war ... so when we shall no longer exist, when the body and soul from
which we are compounded shall have separated, then nothing at all can happen to us, who then shall no
longer exist; nothing will stir our senses, though the earth mingle with the sea and the sea with the
heavens.
True physics dispels both the grosser fears of Hell and the more sophisticated inquietude aroused by the
anticipation of future non-existence.
If we are fearless of the gods and of death, may we not still be troubled by pain and by the desolation of
frustrated desires? Epicurean physics includes a psychological analysis of human desire. 'Of desires, some
are natural, others empty; and of natural desires, some are necessary, others merely natural.' Non-natural
desires - such as the desire to be honoured or to be commemorated - 'depend upon an empty opinion' and
depart once the opinion is seen to be false. Similarly, 'those natural desires which bring no pain if they are
not satisfied [a desire for roast beef, say, or for claret] ... depend upon an empty opinion'. There remain
natural and necessary desires, such as the desire for food or for drink. Those desires cannot be eliminated,
for the opinions on which they rest are true; yet they are also easily satisfied. As for pain, Epicurus is
brusque: 'All pain is to be despised; for pains which hurt sharply remain briefly and those which endure in
the flesh are blunt.' Moreover, pain is counterbalanced by pleasure. Epicurus himself, dying of strangury
and dysentery, wrote 'on this happy day' to his friend Idomeneus that all his agonies were 'balanced by the
joy in my soul as I recollect the conversations we have had together'.
Physics produces tranquillity by proving our fears to be groundless. To achieve that end, Epicurus
believes that he must establish the fundamental truths of atomism. But he does not think it necessary to
provide detailed explanations of natural phenomena - 'the investigation of risings and settings and
solstices and eclipses makes no contribution to happiness'. Indeed, such knowledge is unattainable: in the
case of the first principle of physics, 'there is only one explanation which harmonizes with the
phenomena, but that is not so in celestial matters: they admit more than one explanation of their