The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE EPICUREAN CONTRAST 113
In other words, it could not but be that an infinite *
number of atoms, combining in all possible ways during
an infinite time, should hit upon combinations so
regular and orderly as to appear to us to be works of
deliberate purpose and prevision. Such is the com
bination, or rather countless number of combinations,
that goes to form what we understand by the universe.
Thus, then, out of atoms in motion and the void,
fixed immutable laws, the whole material
universe, in the view of Lucretius, was constructed ;
the mode of formation being to him and to the
Epicureans in general, as to Democritus, very much
that which has been insisted on by modern science.
In Democritus and Epicurus and Lucretius, we have
the undoubted precursors of Tyndall, Huxley, Buchner,
Haeckel. Indeed, it has been roundly maintained that
the general outlines of the
atomic doctrine has been
long accepted as in the main true ;
in all important
features it is superior to any other physical theory of
the universe which existed up
to the seventeenth
century. In his theory of light, Lucretius was in
advance of Newton. In his theory of chemical affinities
(for he describes the thing though the nomenclature
was unknown to him) he was in advance of Lavoisier.
In his theory of the ultimate constitution of the atom
he is
in striking agreement with the views of the ablest
living physicists. The essential function of science
to reduce apparently disparate phenomena to the ex
pressions of a single law is not with him the object
of a moment s doubt or uncertainty.
How far the Atomic theory needs to be modified
8
1
J. W. Mackail, Latin Literature^ p. 44.
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