I am not mistaken, the nearest approach to real
religion that we find in the history of Roman Epicurism; yet so far as
we know it bore no fruit. It seems to me to express a genuine feeling, a
_religio_, but the expression is blurred by a consciousness of
inconsistency.

The fact is that in the system of Epicurus the Power manifesting itself
in the universe is not a divine Power, but a mechanical one; the gods
have nothing to do with it, they cannot be active, their perfection is
found in repose; they are an adjunct, an after-thought in the system.
Thus all attempts to reconcile the Power with the popular religion must
inevitably be failures, and more especially so in the Roman world. At
best the Epicurean gods could but set an example of quietism which could
not possibly be a force for good in that active world of business and
government.[765] The real force of Epicurism, for the Roman at least, if
I am not mistaken, was _analogous_ to a religious force, though far
indeed from being one in reality--I mean the profound and touching
belief in the Founder himself as a saviour, which is so familiar to all
readers of Lucretius.[766] And the real legacy of Lucretius himself to
Roman religion is only indirectly a religious one--I mean the wholesome
contempt for "_superstitio_" and all the baser side of religious belief
and practice, old and new.[767] If his devotion to the Master had been
rooted more in the love of goodness and less in the admiration for his
speculations, and if his contempt for _superstitio_ had been less
harshly dogmatic, had he been more sympathetic and generous in his
attitude to the Italian ideas of the divine--the power of Lucretius
might possibly have been strong and permanent.

Thus for the Roman's destitution in regard to God Epicurism could find
no remedy, and as a consequence it could provide no religious sanction
for his conduct in life. What power it had upon conduct as a system of
ethics is a question outside the range of my subject. No doubt a certain
type of mind, naturally pure and good, and apt to retire upon itself,
might find in Epicurism not only no harm but even positive help; perhaps
the best way to appreciate this fact, too often overlooked, is to read
the defence of the Epicurean ethics put into the mouth of Torquatus, in
the first book of the _de Finibus_,[768] by one who was far from being
in sympathy with the creed. But for the Roman of that age, when ideas of
duty and discipline w