2. The soul also is made up of material atoms which are in conceivably fine (Epicur. Ad Herod. 63, Lucr. iii. 177), and is diffused over all the body from which it cannot exist apart (Epicur.
Ad Herod. 64-65, Lucr. iii. 119-358). Lucretius, iii. 94-135, dis tinguished between the anima or vital principle, which is distrib uted over all the body and is the origin of sensation, and the animus, or mind, which is situated in the breast. The same dis tinction had been made by Democritus and appears also in Plutarch Adv. Colot. 20. In any case at death the soul is resolved into its primitive atoms and, therefore, death does not concern us (Epicur. Ad Menoec, 124-127, Lucr. iii. 83o, Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum Quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur).
3. Knowledge comes to us through the senses, whose evidence we must accept as unimpeachable (Epicur. Ad Herod. 62, KUptat A6Eac 25-26. Lucr. i. 423, Sensus cui nisi prima fides fundata valebit, Hand erit occultis de rebus quo referentes Confirmare animi quicquam ratione queamus). All solid bodies are continually giving off fine films (€160.0m, Tinrot Oktotoaxibuolifs, simulacra), which are the exact likeness of the bodies themselves (Epicur. Ad Herod. 46-48, Lucr. iv. 51 sqq. 110 sqq. 196 sqq.). These fine films, moving with infinite speed, are conveyed to the soul by the various organs of sense. Hence arise the perceptions of sight (Ad Herod. 46-47, Lucr. iv. 46 sqq.), hearing (Ad Herod. 52, Lucr. iv. 563 sqq.), smell (Ad Herod. 53, Lucr. ii. 414 sqq. iv. 673 sqq.), taste (Lucr. iv. 615 sqq.).
4. The gods exist and they too are material, but compounded of inconceivably fine atoms. They live apart, immortal, and of perfect felicity, and take no concern in the affairs of men. Our knowledge of the gods is not derived from the senses in the same way as our other knowledge, but comes by immediate intuition.
(Ad Herod. 49, Lucr. iv. 724 sqq. v. 1167 sqq.) This doctrine raises considerable difficulties. (Cf. R. Philippson, Zur Epikur eischen Gotterlehre, Hermes 51 [1916], pp. 568 sqq.) The sequence of topics in Lucretius is as follows. Books i.–ii.
expound the doctrine of the atoms and the void. Book iii. is con cerned with showing that the soul is material and does not survive the body. Book iv. sets forth the theory of sensuous perception. Book v. gives an account of the origin of the world, of life, and of human society. Book vi. discusses various meteorological phe nomena and thus corresponds largely to the Letter of Epicurus To Pythocles. It concludes with an account of the plague at Athens. From certain indications in the poem which point to two redactions of different dates it has been suggested that in the original scheme of the work the order of the present books was i., ii., v., vi., iv., iii. That the division into books goes back to Lucretius himself is indicated by the fact that each book begins with a highly polished exordium, which is independent of the general argument.
Apart from its philosophic and poetical interest, the poem presents several striking features, one of the most notable being the generally archaic character of the language, e.g., the use of the genitive of the 1st Declension in ai (disyllable) for ae (diph thong). Doubtless one motive for this was the metrical conven ience of -ai for forming the final spondee of the hexameter: thus of 166 cases of the genitive in -ai, no fewer than 107 occur at the end of the hexameter. Metrical convenience too determines the use of the infinitive passive in -ier or -i; of the ablative singular of the 3rd Declension in -e or -i; and the same motive leads to the use of such forms as indugredi for ingredi, induperator for im perator, alid for aliud, sis for suis, and for treating final -s as metrically negligible when metrically inconvenient, e.g., fontibu' magnis, i. 412, Ancu' reliquit, iii. 1025. Other archaisms are Mayors for Mars, sanguen (i. 837) for sanguis, aevns (ii. 561) for aevum; cornum (ii. 388) for cornu, caelus (ii. 1o97) for caelum. In the great majority of cases the archaic form is prob ably chosen for metrical convenience, but in some cases—ollis for illis , moener a for munera, reddundus for reddendus, etc.—we seem to have deliberate archaism.