The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

"
To
THE EPICUREAN CONTRAST 107
For one thing, we must take care not wholly to
discount Lucretius himself.
Lucretius was unquestion
ably an able thinker ;
and he was, moreover, a genuine
poet. And it is incredible that a disciple thus endowed
should simply repeat his master. Three things, at any
rate, * characterize him a clear grasp of his subject,
with an extraordinary power of happy illustration (the
mark of a genuine philosopher) an intense enthusiasm
;
of humanity ;
and a deep, poetic, speculative and
scientific interest in Nature,
Wordsworth :
after the manner of
the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye ;
Convinced that there, there only she can lay
Secure foundation." (Miscellaneous Sonnets, i. 34.)
He also responded unreservedly to the charm of Nature ;
revelling more especially in mountain scenery and in
the grander aspects of the outer world, as became a
philosopher,
to whom the mountain is the natural
symbol of mental ascent and of wide and clear philo
sophical outlook, and he was attracted by every mode
and form of motion, as being significant of the unceasing
activity of the primordial atoms, and suggestive of life
and energy.
But, on the other hand, though we must not discount
Lucretius himself, we must not forget that the Epicurean
school was perhaps the strictest of all schools of
antiquity in insisting on the scholars adhering rigor
ously to the master s dogmas. Summaries of Epicurus s
teaching (/piai 8oai) were prescribed to be learned by
heart, and little more was encouraged in the pupil than
a servile repetition of the master s thought. Epicurus