ake the
world, and he does not govern the world. There is no evidence of design
or intelligence in its structure, and "such is the faultiness with which
it stands affected, that it can not be the work of a Divine power."[809]

Epicurus is, then, an unmistakable Atheist. He did not admit a God in
any rational sense. True, he _professed_ to believe in gods, but
evidently in a very equivocal manner, and solely to escape the popular
condemnation. "They are not pure spirits, for there is no spirit in the
atomic theory; they are not bodies, for where are the bodies that we may
call gods? In this embarrassment, Epicurus, compelled to acknowledge
that the human race believes in the existence of gods, addresses himself
to an old theory of Democritus--that is, he appeals to dreams. As in
dreams there are images that act upon and determine in us agreeable or
painful sensations, without proceeding from exterior bodies, so the gods
are images similar to those of dreams, but greater, having the human
form; images which are not precisely bodies, and yet not deprived of
materiality which are whatever you please, but which, in short, must be
admitted, since the human race believes in gods, and since the
universality of the religious sentiment is a fact which demands a
cause."[810]

[Footnote 808: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. x.
ch. xxv.; Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. i. l. 55-60.]

[Footnote 809: Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things," bk. v. l. 195-200.]

[Footnote 810: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.
p. 431.]

It is needless to offer any criticism on the reasoning of Epicurus. One
fact will have obviously presented itself to the mind of the reflecting
reader. He starts with atoms having form, magnitude, and density, and
essays to construct a universe; but he is obliged to be continually
introducing, in addition, a "_nameless something_" which "remains in
secret," to help him out in the explanation of the phenomena.[811] He
makes life to arise out of dead matter, sense out of senseless atoms,
consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason, without an
adequate cause, and thus violates the fundamental principle from which
he starts, "_that nothing can arise from nothing_."

EPICUREAN PSYCHOLOGY.

In the system of Epicurus, the soul is regarded as corporeal or
material, like the body; they form, together, one nature or substance.
The soul is composed of atoms