ments of matter are infinite, eternal, and self-moved. After ages
upon ages of chaotic strife, the universe at length arose out of an
_infinite_ number of atoms, and a _finite_ number of forms, by a
fortuitous combination. Plants, animals, and man were spontaneously
generated from ether and earth. Languages, society, governments, arts
were gradually developed. And all was achieved simply by blind,
unconscious nature-forces, without any designing, presiding, and
governing Intelligence--that is, without a God.

The evil genius which presided over the method of Epicurus, and
perverted all his processes of thought, is clearly apparent. The end of
his philosophy was not the discovery of truth. He does not commence his
inquiry into the principles or causes which are adequate to the
explanation of the universe, with an unprejudiced mind. He everywhere
develops a malignant hostility to religion, and the avowed object of his
physical theories is to rid the human mind of all fear of supernatural
powers--that is, of all fear of God.[806] "The phenomena which men
observe to occur in the earth and the heavens, when, as often happens,
they are perplexed with fearful thoughts, overawe their minds with a
dread of the gods, and humble and depress them to the earth. For
ignorance of natural causes obliges them to refer all things to the
power of the divinities, and to resign the dominion of the world to
them; because of those effects they can by no means see the origin, and
accordingly suppose that they are produced by divine influence."[807]

[Footnote 806: "Let us trample religion underfoot, that the victory
gained over it may place us on an equality with heaven" (book i.). See
Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x. ch. xxiv. pp.
453,454 (Bohn's edition); Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i.
l. 54-120.]

[Footnote 807: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. vi. l. 51-60.]

To "expel these fancies from the mind" as "inconsistent with its
tranquillity and opposed to human happiness," is the end, and, as
Lucretius believes, the glory of the Epicurean philosophy. To accomplish
this, God must be placed at an infinite distance from the universe, and
must be represented as indifferent to every thing that transpires within
it. We "must beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that Being
we ought to suppose _exempt from all occupation_, and perfectly
happy,"[808]--that is, absolutely impassible. God did not m