No More Learning

So vivid verve of mind prevailed. He fared
Far o'er the flaming ramparts of the world,
And traversed the immeasurable All
In mind and soul: and thence a conqueror
Returns to tell what can, what cannot rise,
And on what principle each thing, in brief,
Hath powers defined and deep-set boundary.
Religion, then, is cast to earth in turn
And trampled. Triumph matches man with heaven.

The profoundest speculations on the nature of things are not impious.
Let not the reader feel that in such an inquiry he is on guilty
ground. It is, rather, true that religion has caused foul crimes. An
instance is the agonising sacrifice of sweet Iphigenia, slain at the
altar to appease divine wrath.

"Religion could such wickedness suggest. " Tales of eternal punishment
frighten only those ignorant of the real nature of the soul. This
ignorance can be dispelled by inquiring into the phenomena of heaven
and earth, and stating the laws of nature.


_II. --First Principles and a Theory of the Universe_

Of these the first is that nothing is made of nothing; the second,
that nothing is reduced to nothing. This indestructibility of matter
may be illustrated by the joyous and constantly renewed growth that is
in nature. There are two fundamental postulates required to explain
nature--atoms and void.
These constitute the universe. There is no
_tertium quid_. All other things are but properties and accidents of
these two. Atoms are solid, "without void"; they are indestructible,
"eternal"; they are indivisible. To appreciate the physical theory of
Epicurus, it is necessary to note the erroneous speculations of other
Greek thinkers, whether, like Heraclitus, they deduced all things
from one such fundamental element as fire, or whether they postulated
four elements. From a criticism of the theories of Empedocles and
Anaxagoras, the poet, return to the main subject.


A HARD TASK AND THREEFOLD TITLE TO FAME

How dark my theme, I know within my mind;
Yet hath high hope of praise with thyrsus keen
Smitten my heart and struck into my breast
Sweet passion for the Muses, stung wherewith
In lively thought I traverse pathless haunts
Pierian, untrodden yet by man.
I love to visit those untasted springs
And quaff; I love to cull fresh blooms, and whence
The Muses never veiled the brows of man
To seek a wreath of honour for my head:
First, for that lofty is the lore I teach;
Then, cramping knots of priestcraft I would loose;
And next because of mysteries I sing clear,
Decking my poems with the Muses' charm.

This sweetening of verse with: "the honey of the Muses" is like
disguising unpalatable medicine for children. The mind must be engaged
by attractive means till it perceives the nature of the world.

As to the existing universe, it is bounded in none of its dimensions;
matter and space are infinite. All things are in continual motion
in every direction, and there is an endless supply of material
bodies from infinite space. These ultimate atoms buffet each other
ceaselessly; they unite or disunite. But there is no such thing
as design in their unions. All is fortuitous concourse; so there
are innumerable blind experiments and failures in nature, due to
resultless encounters of the atoms.


CALM OF MIND IN RELATION TO A TRUE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE

When tempests rack the mighty ocean's face,
How sweet on land to watch the seaman's toil--
Not that we joy in neighbour's jeopardy,
But sweet it is to know what ills we 'scape.