Frankenstein's Cat.pdf - University of Cincinnati

EPICURUS AND THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN HUMANISM
moved and stirred by blows, that, after having tried
every kind of motion and combination, at length they
chance to fall into such groupings as those from which
this world of ours is formed and continues to exist.
4.! Living organisms, societies, cultural and technological
developments, etc. are not created fully perfected
by either the gods nor by the fortuitous concourse of
atoms but are rather the result of a gradual evolutionary
process in which unfit variations are eliminated and
fit variations survive:
Thus then the passage of time alters the nature of the
whole world and the earth enters upon one state after
another, so that it is not able to produce what it once
did, and can produce what once it could not. In the
past, the earth tried many experiments in creation,
producing creatures with strange forms and strange
members ... but to no purpose since Nature refused
them increase, nor could they attain to the desired prime
of life, find food, or be united in the task of Venus. For
we see that many points must meet favorably for creatures,
if they are to continue their race by propagating
it ... For whatever animals you see feeding upon the
life-giving air, either craft or courage or, it may be,
speed, has saved and protected that breed since its first
beginning; and there are also many which, commended
to us by their utility, survive because committed to our
protection ... But as for those to whom Nature has
granted none of these things ... these in truth fall as
prey and a booty to others, all of them entangled by
their own fated bonds, until Nature brings the breed to
destruction.
Navigation, fields under cultivation, walls, laws, arms,
highways, dress and other things of this sort; prizes,
every pleasure of life from its very foundation, songs,
pictures, and the creation of wondrous works of sculpture
– all these things, practice and, along with it, the
experience of an active mind, were taught slowly to
men, who were making progress step by step.
5.! The universe is infinite in duration and extension:
Moreover the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever
is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and
such an edge is defined by something beyond. Since the
universe does not have an edge, it has no limit; and
since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded.
6.! The universe contains countless other worlds
which, like the earth itself, were created by a fortuitous
concourse of atoms, and which will, like all complex
material objects, eventually decay again into their
Figure 7. A heavily damaged head of Epicurus, probably
broken off of a full-body statue.
component atoms:
Finally, the number of worlds – some like ours, and
others unlike – is also infinite ... One must not suppose
that, because of necessity, worlds in a single pattern
were created, or in every possible pattern ... Moreover,
we may believe that in all the worlds there are animals,
plants, and other things we see, for no one can show
that the seeds from which these grow might not have
been included in one particular world and that in another
kind of world this was impossible ... In addition,
it is necessary to believe that the worlds, and every
limited complex ... have been formed from the infinite,
each of them – greater or smaller – separating out
from its own whirling mass. We must suppose also that
these will all be dissolved again – some more quickly
and some more slowly, some affected by one calamity
and others by another.
7.! Consistent with man’s free agency, the universe
displays a statistical rather than an absolute determinism: !
[The prudent man] thinks that the chief power of decision
lies within us, although some things come about
by necessity, some by chance, and some by our own
wills, for he sees that necessity is irresponsible and
chance uncertain, but that our actions are subject to no
17