The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

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THE EPICUREAN CONTRAST n 9
possess intrinsically a certain power of free will.
This, in its first original form, is their power of declina
tion or swerving from the straight line of breaking the
law of gravity which is nature s "necessity,"
and of
introducing
freedom," thereby making a cosmos
possible. This power, of course, unlike free will in
man, is unconscious in the atoms ; but, nevertheless, it
is to be subsumed under the same category.
1
Free will in man, like thought and the higher
mental functions, attaches to "the fourth principle of
the soul," by means of which it acts upon
the various
elements of the anima scattered throughout the befly
and produces bodily movements.
IV
In his physical speculations, Epicurus was deeply
indebted to Democritus (born about 460 B.C.) and his
school. The Atomic theory was the great distinctive
feature of Democritus s teaching, as it was of his master
Leucippus and
; Epicurus accepted it, though with
important differences. He was no mere literal repeater
of the doctrine, but transformed it at vital points, and
adhered to it with a motive of his own.
In the first place,
Nature was purely scientific :
the interest of Democritus in
he had no ulterior end in
physical research Science for science s sake was his
motto. To Epicurus, on the other hand, the Atomic
not primarily for any scientific
theory commended itself,
or speculative reason, but, first and chiefly, because of its
ethical and religious bearings.
It seemed to him to be
1
This point has been admirably worked out by Dr. John
Masson in his The Atomic Theory of Lucretius, chap. vii.