that a machine cannot command worship; the _Natura_ of
Lucretius, _i.e._, was really a machine.

[760] Masson i. p. 284, and citations of Philodemus
there given.

[761] Mayor's Cic. _N.D._ vol. i. p. xlix.

[762] Lucr. vi. 68 foll.

[763] Masson i. p. 285.

[764] Cic. _N.D._ i. 2. 3.

[765] Cic. _N.D._ i. 37. 102; to believe the gods idle
"etiam homines inertes efficit."

[766] For this profound reverence for Epicurus see also
Cic. _N.D._ i. 8. 18. It amounted to a faith. In this
passage the Epicurean is described as "nihil tam verens
quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur, tanquam modo ex
deorum concilio et ex Epicuri intermundiis
descendisset." See also sec. 43 and Mayor's note; Cic.
_de Finibus_, i. 5. 14; Masson i. 354-5, who quotes the
most striking passages from Lucretius, _e.g._ v. 8-10:

deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi,
qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam quae
nunc appellatur sapientia, etc.

In a paper entitled "Die Bekehrung (conversion) im
klassischen Altertum," by W. A. Heidel (_Zeitschrift fuer
Religionspsychologie_, vol. iii. Heft 2), the author, an
American disciple of W. James, argues that the exordium
of Bk. iii. indicates a psychological conversion of
Lucretius.

[767] See Masson's chapter (p. 399 foll.) on the
teaching and personality of Lucretius. _Social Life at
Rome in the Age of Cicero_, p. 327 foll., and references
there given. I may note here that the power of Epicurism
as a faith depended also largely on the directness,
downrightness, and audacity of its system, working on
minds weary of philosophers' disputations and political
quarrels.

[768] Cic. _de Finibus_, i. viii. to end (translation by
J. S. Reid, Camb. Univ. Press). The following sentence
in ch. 18, sec. 57, puts the Epicurean ethics in a
nutshell: "Clamat Epicurus, is quem vos nimis
voluptatibus esse deditum dicitis, non posse iucunde
vivi nisi sapienter, honeste, iusteque vivatur, nec
sapienter, honeste, iuste, nisi iucunde."

[769] What this quietism might mean for a Roman may be
gathered from the following passage in Cic. _de
Finibus_, i. 13. 43, in which _sapientia_ is practical
wisdom, the Aristotelian [Greek: phronesis] or the _ars
vivendi_, as Cicero has explained it just before:
"Sapientia est a