conditions of life,' more
especially the construction of the human body, Democritus made no
attempt to solve. Empedocles, a man of more fiery and poetic nature,
introduced the notion of love and hate among the atoms, to account for
their combination and separation; and bolder than Democritus, he
struck in with the penetrating thought, linked, however, with some
wild speculation, that it lay in the very nature of those combinations
which were suited to their ends (in other words, in harmony with their
environment) to maintain themselves, while unfit combinations, having
no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear. Thus, more than 2,000
years ago, the doctrine of the 'survival of the fittest,' which in our
day, not on the basis of vague conjecture, but of positive knowledge,
has been raised to such extraordinary significance, had received at
all events partial enunciation. [Footnote: See 'Lange,' 2nd edit,
p. 23.]

Epicurus, [Footnote: Born 342 B.C.] said to be the son of a poor
schoolmaster at Samos, is the next dominant figure in the history of
the atomic philosophy. He mastered the writings of Democritus, heard
lectures in Athens, went back to Samos, and subsequently wandered
through various countries. He finally returned to Athens, where he
bought a garden, and surrounded himself by pupils, in the midst of
whom he lived a pure and serene life, and died a peaceful death.
Democritus looked to the soul as the ennobling part of man; even
beauty, without understanding, partook of animalism. Epicurus also
rated the spirit above the body; the pleasure of the body being that
of the moment, while the spirit could draw upon the future and the
past. His philosophy was almost identical with that of Democritus; but
he never quoted either friend or foe. One main object of Epicurus was
to free the world from superstition and the fear of death. Death be
treated with indifference. It merely robs us of sensation. As long
as we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not. Life has no
more evil for him who has made up his mind that it is no evil not to
live. He adored the gods, but not in the ordinary fashion. The idea
of Divine power, properly purified, he thought an elevating one. Still
he taught, 'Not he is godless who rejects the gods of the crowd, but
rather he who accepts them.' The gods were to him eternal and immortal
beings, whose blessedness excluded every thought of care or occupation
of any kind. Nature pur