chance and natural law in epicureanism

8/13/2019 Chance and Natural Law in Epicureanism

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Chancendnaturalaw nEpicureanismA. A. LONG

When Epicurus dischargedthe gods from running the world he gavenew fuel to a controversy which had been ragingoff and on for the pasthundredyears and which was to continue, at least as fiercely, into theChristian era. In preferringatoms and void to gods as ultimate causesof all natural phenomena, Epicurus knew perfectly well that he wasentering an arena in which Plato and Aristotle had alreadydone battleagainst the mechanisticexplanations of earlierthinkers.2 How could apurely mechanical combination of atoms moving in empty space ac-count for the regularmovements of the heavens and the orderlystruc-ture of living things? Plato and Aristotle had inferreddivine causationand inherentpurposiveness n the world orgoal-directedprocessesfromthe evidence of such regularities,and within Epicurus'own lifetime theStoics took up the same fundamentalposition as the Academy and the1 This is a slightly expanded version of a paper read to two meetings in 1974, theScottish Classical Association and the Southern Association for Ancient Philoso-phy. I am grateful to members of the audience for their comments during discus-sion of the paper and also to the Fondation Hardt which offered me ideal condi-tions for writing the first draft. Full references to the books and articles I havecited or discussed are given in the bibliography at the end of the article.2 Some of the classic texts are Plato Phd. 98b (Socrates' disappointment withAnaxagoras), Laws x. 889 b-d (those who deny that voir,e6i and 'kxv7 had anypart in causing the world and living things), Aristot. Phys. ii. 198 b 14-199a 8(attack on Empedocles and Anaxagoras for their neglect of the final cause). AtPhys. 196 a 24-35 Aristotle challenges those who say that r6 oir6,uavrovwas thecause of the heaven and all worlds, to reconcile this with their claim that animalsand plants do not arise &=r6?'Xvqbut have nature or mind or another such thingas their cause' - o6 yap 68t &uXystxxOi ankpp.oroq &ixkaTou(yvcroc, &)VX&x TOUv,oroLouBl Xoixx 8 ir 'owouAl&vOpcnoq.Modern scholars have generally followedSimplicius (Phys. 331, 16ff.) in identifying these as Atomists, cf. Bailey (1928)pp. 139-43, who takes the Greek text quoted above to give Democritus' ownview. Epicurus modified Democritus by arguing that a world too can only ariseout of crpnipx &'rfm 8e, see p. 71. For Aristotle, an unpurposed result is &TC6-rX-q but this does not imply that it lacks a determinate cause, cf. Cherniss pp.248-9. In discussing the Atomists, including Epicurus, it is essential to dis-tinguish this sense of n5X-1rom mere contingency or sheer indeterminateness.

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Lyceum.3 By the time of Lucretius and Cicero it is possible to speak of ageneralised deist standpoint which confronts and is confronted by Epi-cureanism. 'You Stoics', says Velleius in Cicero's De natura deorum(i.53 f.), 'do not see how nature's creative work can occur sine aliquamente, and so you run to god like the tragic poets, needing a god tounravel the end of your plot'.Epicurus believed he could undermine deist and teleological expla-nations of the world by explaining all phenomena in purely mechanisticterms. In 1951 Friedrich Solmsen wrote: 'Yet granted that Epicuruscondemned the conclusions which men had drawn from the pattern oforder in the firmament, could he deny or ignore the regularities? Whydoes the Sunriseevery day temporecerto . . . On the basisof the atomisttheory it was desperately difficult to cope with these problems and onecan hardly maintain that Epicurus acquitted himself of his task in amanner likely to enhance his stature as a scientist' (p. 18). Solmsen 'istempted to comment' that Epicureanism was unable 'to cope with thephenomena which the Academy ascribed to the operations of a divineMind or Soul' (p. 19). Now this is a very serious charge, for it impliesthat Epicureanism failed to defend itself at the poinlts where it issuedits strongest challenge. In fact, Solmsen, somewhat hesitantly, qualifieshis remarks by drawing attention to Lucretius' repeated emphasis onthe fact that everything in the world arises out of something definite(i.174 ff. etc.).4 In 1969 Phillip De Lacy shed further light on Epicurus'conception of order in the world in a valuable article, 'Limit and Varia-tion in the Epicurean Philosophy'. De Lacy finds the notion of 'limit' aunifying theme throughout Epicurus' philosophy and he illustrates theway in which Epicurean writers set up limits to the variations which

3Cf. the texts cited in the previous note and also Plato Laws vii.821a ff., AristotleDe gen. et corr. ii.336 b 25-337 al, and the useful remarks of D. J. Furley (1966)pp. 29-30. A clear statement of the Stoic view is to be found in Cic. N.D. ii.93 ff.which refers to the 'incredibility' of the Atomist position and also quotes againstit a passage from Aristotle's lost De philosophia. Marcus Aurelius expresses thechoice between divergent views as j-r%o p6voLm M &rO,.LOL (Med. iv.3, similarlyix.28 and x.6).4As Solmsen rightly observes, Lucretius' proof of this point goes beyond theofficial thesis: nihil e nihilo gigni. In order to show that any new X arises out ofsome Y it is not necessary to show that it arises out of a definite (cerium) Y. OnLucret. v.677-79, which Solmsen also cites for Epicurus' concept of order (p. 19),see below p. 84. Since I seek in this article to strengthen the Epicurean basis ofnatural laws, it would be disingenuous of me not to admit having previouslyexpressed doubts about this very point, Hellenistic Philosophy, p. 41.64


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are possiblewithin membersof a given species. De Lacy recognizesthatthere areEpicureanequivalents to naturallaws, but I believe Epicurus'restrictions on indeterminate occurrenceswere much tighter than DeLacy suggests. In particular,he seems to me to lay too muchweight onthe totally indeterminateand unpredictable'swerve'of atoms, whenheargues that this is responsiblefor variations within limits, such as thefact that a child sometimesresemblesthe mother,sometimes the father,sometimes even a grandparent (Lucret. iv.1209-1232).6The swerve ofatoms, by definition, is the beginning of a new movement at no deter-minate time or place (Lucret.ii.218 ff., 251-60); it breaksor interruptsany antecedent set of causes. If Epicurus supposed that the manifoldvarieties within an animal species were due to the swerve of atoms, hepermitted a measureof indeterminatenessor purely spontaneous hap-penings in the world, which made his system appallingly vulnerable toattack by those who lookedto the gods as guaranteesof order n nature.The atomic swervewas much criticized by opponents of Epicureanism,but never on this obvious ground.6De Lacy, however, is not alone inassuming that Epicurus accepted into his explanation of natural phe-nomena an element of sheer contingency or indeterminateness. ThisPp. 109. Lucretius is discussing in this context the sources of inherited charac-teristics. After observing that the manner of intercourse determines the geneticeffects of the parents' seed, Lucretius makes his point about children sometimesresembling their grandparents or even remoter ancestors, for the followingreason: multa modis primordia multis Imixta suo celant in corpore saepe parentes, Iquae patribus patres tradunt a stirpe profecta, 1220-22. He then draws the con-clusion that facial characteristics, voice and hair etc. are not created semine certo,and therefore Venus varia producit sorte figuras. There is clearly a contrastbetween semen certum and varia sors. But the latter expression does not implyspontaneous or strictly indeterminate happenings. Some inherited characteris-tics depend on the primordia multa in the bodies of the parents, and these intheir turn have been transmitted genetically. All Lucretius is saying here is thata variety of atomic structures within the parents' bodies, rather than one deter-minate kind, can contribute to the features of offspring. This does not warrantany reference to the 'swerve' of atoms, which entails a 'new beginning' of motionthat is contrary to the needs of Lucretius' discussion of inherited characteristics.None of De Lacy's other examples of variation seems to me to introduce anyidea of sheer contingency or interruptions of a causal sequence. Nor can I seethat Plut. Mor. 1116 c (Usener 282) or Diogenes Oen. (fr. 16 Chilton) imply that'the laws of physics determine the roL6v8e,but not the T68e 't' (p. 108). AsPlutarch says, compound bodies are modified (7oLXEXcEaOaL)y the coming andgoing of atoms, but this is a continuous process throughout nature, which is dueto normal atomic motion and never attributed to the abnormal 'swerve'.

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has become virtually an orthodox view.7Bailey stated that 'there canhardly be any doubt that Epicurus admitted the existence of a realcontingency in nature, an element of 'chance', which at times workedin contravention of necessity' (1928, p. 326).Up to the year 1879 it seems to have been generally assumed thathuman action is the only sphere of spontaneous or undeterminedmove-ment in the world of Epicurus.8This is the significant exception to thestrictly mechanical causation or necessary chain of events which isotherwise evident in phenomena. Human freedom was accounted forby an exceptional form of motion, the 'swerve' of atoms, and this'minimal'deviation was also invoked to explain the 'theoretical' firstcontact between atoms from which worlds arise. These, in fact, are theonly functions of the swerve which are mentioned explicitly in Lucre-tius, and no word from Epicurus himself on the swerve has been dis-covered."In the year I have just mentioned, M. Guyau publishedLamoraled'tpicure in which he argued that Epicurus extended the func-tion of the swerve to cover spontaneous happeningsin the world now(pp. 72-102). At the time when he wrote, Guyau'sattribution of spon-taneity to nature was not accepted by most scholars.10But the effectsof his work are still apparent. In 1972 J. M. Rist wrote: 'there is arandomelement, an element of chancein nature,and Guyauwas prob-ably right in holding that Epicurus attributed it to the swerve ofatoms' (p. 52).11But is there a 'randomelement, an element of chance in nature', asEpicurusconceives of the world?In discussing this question it is most important to be clear about

I The standard criticism is that Epicurus introduced an inexplicable form ofspontaneous movement in order to preserve human freedom, see the passages inUsener 281.7 Cf. Solmsen (1951) p. 19.8 See Guyau p. 86. For the same view in modern books, see T)e Witt p. 175 andFarrington p. 8.9 Brieger's view that the swerve was only introduced by later Epicureans waseffectively criticized by Giussani (i pp. 129 ff.) and has not been accepted by laterscholars.10 See the sound criticism by Zeller n. 5 pp. 421-2 and Hicks pp. 260 f.11Bailey, who consistently attributed 'real contingency in nature' to Epicurus,was sceptical about Guyau's link between contingency and the swerve in 1928,p. 326. But in 1947 he found Guyau probably right (p. 840). Philod. On signs col.xxxvi.11 seems to have resolved his earlier doubts. This passage is discussedbelow, p. 86.66


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what we are asking. Random or chance in English, ')Xn or .arrv inGreek, may mean that the event or thing which they qualify is aimless,not something purposed or determined by an end. This seems to havebeen Democritus' conception of the world, and he did not contradicthimself if he also said that all things are the necessary outcome ofantecedent conditions.'2 Random in the sense of aimless is quite com-patible with necessary. Since Epicurus strenuously resisted the ideathat the world is the outcome of any design or end to be attained,random or chance elements, in the sense I have just elucidated, arebasic to his conception of things. But this cannot be the point whichRist and others have in mind when they attribute random and chanceevents to the swerve of the atoms. There is no need of any exceptionalatomic movement to account for aimlessness and lack of purposivenessin Epicurus' view of nature. Paradoxically enough, the one phenome-non to which the swerve of atoms makes a certain contribution is thepurposive movements of living things. Natural events in general areaimless and therefore require no special freedom from normal atomicmovement in order to be explained.But here I anticipate the later argument of this paper. To return tothe meanings of random and chance - only if these words are used in aquite other sense, or series of senses, will there be point in attributingrandom or chance events to the swerve. The senses in question arecontingency as distinct from necessity, indeterminateness as distinctfrom determinateness, and spontaneity as distinct from causation.Contingency, indeterminateness, and spontaneity, if Epicurus supposedthem to have a part in natural events, might all, in theory, be attrib-uted to the swerve of atoms, provided that they refer, like the swerve,to something which happens at no fixed time or place. Irregularity ordisorderliness, on the other hand, are senses of random and chancewhich, like aimlessness, imply no contradiction of necessity. Irregularand disorderly happenings may be just as much the outcome of ante-cedent conditions as regular events describable by some 'law'.The only senses of chance, therefore, which concern us in this paperare pure contingency, strict indeterminateness and spontaneity, sinceany other sense of chance is quite compatible with necessity. I shall12 This point has been well understood by modern scholars who have discussedAristotle's interpretation of Democritus, cf. Cherniss pp. 248-9, Edmunds pp.349-52. Unfortunately the same clarity is not always evident in modern discuss-ions of chance in Epicureanism.

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first considerthe evidenceforsaying, with Bailey and others, that Epi-curus admitted sheer contingency, pure indeterminateness,alongsidenecessity in his explanation of natural events. I shall then attempt toshow how Epicurusand Lucretiusdealt with the problem of accountingfor the regularitiesof experience.The subject seems to me to be an im-portant one, for if Bailey, De Lacy and Rist are right, Epicureanismwas in the highly uncomfortableposition of combiningnecessity andpure contingency, and this is paradoxical unless the limits of purelycontingent happeningscan be located. De Lacy concludeshis paperbyasserting that 'Epicurus [does not] tell us where the limits are' (1969p. 113) and neither Bailey nor Rist raises the problem.A philosopherorscientist is entitled to admit exceptions to some natural law. But no-one will take himseriously,if he merely says: 'this is a law of naturebutI can't say how far it extends'. If Epicurus held that continuity ofcausationor naturallaw is a featureof all observablehappenings n ourworldexcept human (orother animal)behaviour,and that only in thisexceptional case does the atomic swerve contribute to these events, atleast he could not be criticized in this way. Was the orthodox viewwhich Guyau combated correct after all?Did Epicurus admitwr'Xas a cause in nature?The word m'X6 ccurs several times in the surviving work of Epi-curus, but most of the contexts where it is found are ethical maximswhich tell us nothing about any technical use which Epicurus mighthave had for such a concept in his natural philosophy.13There is,however, a passage at the end of the Letter o Menoeceus 133-5)whichhas beencited by Bailey and Rist as evidencefor 'i6X- being a powerinnature. The subject-matter of this letter is ethics, and in the contextwhere'r6X$ ccursEpicurusis outlining the characterof the truly wiseman. Textual difficultiesmake many points of interpretation extreme-ly difficult, but it is certain that Epicurus made the wise man hold theview that: 'it would be better to followthe myths about the gods thanto be enslaved to the destiny of the natural philosophers; for theformer suggest a hope of placating the gods by honouring them,whereas the latter involves implacablenecessity' (xpe T'rov v rF 7tepLOF-&vIL60( xocXOeOU7kLV i r:n- (V cpuatx&V elFpyvnLOCPV eUv?LV- O pivy &xpVL'a TrOCPa9(A) WrOypa(PL Oe&V8;a TLJA, 8 &pCoCdrJrrov13E.g. Ep. Men. 131, Kuria Doxa 16, Gnom. Vat. 17, Diog. Laert. 120. Thepurely ethical significance of these references is seen more clearly by Rist (p. 51)than by Bailey (pp. 325 f.).68


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?er?v &v&Yxvav,34). Following this rejection of destiny and im-placable necessity - a most important statement to which I willreturn - Epicurus denied that the wise man regardsm'X-as either agod or an 'unstable cause' (&pfMLocoOWdE).14t is something whichprovides 'starting-points (&pXot()f great good or bad things', but thewise man thinks it better 'to be unfortunate in company with soundreason than to fare well with folly'. This is the nearest we come to adefinition of 'ck-i by Epicurus. If 'rLXYps not an 'unstablecause', it canhardly be a cause at all, for the converse of 'unstable' - , Fo -would be a nonsensical account of mX. In a defective sentencepreceding the Greek passage printed above, Epicurus evidentlyreferredto the wise man's attitude to three things - destiny or neces-sity, rtxq,and 'what is in our power' (so 7op' r How the first ofthese was introduced is not quite clear, but immediately before thewords, & d at^%X]qEpicurussaid that the wise man 'does somethingwith regard to her who is introduced by some as the mnistress f allthings'.'6This 'mistress'might be 'vy- as well as (v6iyX-1 r eL,Aq.tThe text is too defective for us to know how Epicurus went on.Following the lacunahe clearlygave reasons forrejecting the influenceof destiny and 'rx-qon the wise man's life. Destiny, as we have seen,involves 'implacablenecessity', and in this context r~x7is said to be&a'rwrog,uncertain'. This does not contradict the later denial that r6Xx'is an &i,B%4oqVtra,s Bailey thought."'Epicurusis describing the wiseman's reasons for playing down the place of necessity and ';X- inhuman action. nU'eXis uncertain, that is what the word naturallyimplies, but it is not an actual unstable force or cause.It is crucial to see that the context of these references to nTky is" Bailey (1926 p. 90) adopted in his text the reading ovU'T Ndv-rov> &a3fP43Covaxhoav.This is an entirely question-begging emendation, which has been rightlyrejected by later editors, though it still appears in the critical apparatus ofH. S. Long. Democritus described nSXnas tcyacX68&pop )XV'PmLog, DK 68B176. In his usage m;Xn efers to undiscovered causes not indeterminateness, cf.Cherniss p. 248.15Without emendation the text reads 'rv 8i 1J6 tvcv 8aGnv6tyV ?aXyoqVn:&vrwv &yyiXov'roN the reading of BFZf - as reported by von der Muhll;&yy)covXosP before correction and &yy&v-roq P after correction) & 8i &eZ'5x71X,& 8i toxp' t[L&... Usener emended &.yykXovTrog tc. to 8LayeX&v'roq andsupplemented the text, exempli causa, ?kvovT'&vkyx7ovy(veaOXL Xywroq> which H. S. Long, the latest editor, prints. But it is impossibleto ascertain the length of the lacuna.16Hence his emendation referred to in n. 14.

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entirely ethical. Epicurusis describing he wise man's attitude towardstwo things which some people regard as powerful determinants ofhuman life. Necessity is rejected, because it underminesmoral judg-ment. And sukn is seen merely as something which offers starting-points for success or failure. The meaningof ruxnhere is 'luck', and ithas no more a technical sense in this context than in Aristotle'sNicomacheanEthics. Epicurus' word xopnye0aoctn referenceto X'rreminds me of Aristotle who says that a man needs to be 'supplied'with external goods if he is to be happy.'7 Neither Aristotle nor Epi-curus is implying a theory of sheer contingency or spontaneoushappeningsin the worldby such referencesto Tu'. Epicurus'point isthat 'luck' is relatively insignificant for human happiness, comparedwith cpp6vqaLqcf.Kuria doxaxvi). Rist says that 'Epicurus s concernedwith the effect of the swerve in nature' (p. 52). But this passage doesnot support such a strong statement. Epicurusis talking about humannature not physics.18The other principal piece of evidence from which Rist infers a'random' element in nature and connects this with the swerve ofatoms looks more promising at first glance. In his work On the in-telligence of animals (964c = Usener p. 351, 11) Plutarch refers toopponents of Epicurus who do not allow him a minute swerve of asingle atom 6Tw &arpac 'l Cec xxl'nT? 7peLak0-n xxl 'ro 'cp'Ip.tv,u1ouraonrat,so that stars and animals and m'Xymight be introducedand human autonomy not be destroyed'. This curiouspairingof starsand animals is due, as Sandbach has pointed out, to the fact thatEpicurus'deist opponents had no better argumentsthan celestial and

17 Cf. E.N. i. 1099 a 30, bOCEVeTOCL'4LZO Xcl 'T9v kXr6k &yc07v npoaoeoFv- (sc.c aa~LpOvEx)... OC8UVMr-ov&p % ov f48LOV 'r& xaXa 7tp'r'rCLv &XopfY7jTov 6VTX;1100b8, ov'y&p v TacuTar (sc. rMZ4 UxaLq) Tr6E5 % xax7S, &XX&Spoaa?oct ToUTrv6 &,vOprnLvoqos-18 When Epicurus is writing technically about the causes of human action heintroduces distinctions between 'the cause in ourselves', the 'nature' we haveinherited, and external necessity (34.27; 34.33 Arrighetti, cf. Lucret. ii. 284-292).If he drew the distinction suggested by Rist between necessity and randommovements in nature no trace of this is found in the extensive fragments of thebook On Nature, which discussed the causes of action (= 34 Arrighetti). Theremay be no 'formulable natural law' (Rist's phrase) for the countless externalatoms which affect our sense organs, but Epicurus' description of this affect isnot 'the swerve in nature' or Tu'p)but To[5 7r]CpLkXo'rogac &17rLaEVt0s x[aO]&Tocr6tc[-rov &]v[&y]x[-n 34.27.7-9 Arrighetti).70


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biological phenomena for inferring the existence of gods.'9 The deistcase is that such things cannot be explained adequately as theeffectsofchance, hat is, purposeless combinations of atoms. But this is not whatthe received text says. It hypostatizes 'rXnas a thing which Epicurussought to bring into being. I have little doubt that Gassendi, Madvigand Sandbach were right to regard the words xal 'x with suspicion.20The absence of the definite article is difficult, and r6y,I makes a veryodd partner for stars and animals. Sandbach has proposed 'yj orrX)v as emendations (p. 114), and his second emendation has beenaccepted by Helmbold, the Loeb editor of this part of the Moralia (vol.xii, p. 350).As emended the text ties in perfectly with Lucretius' comments onthe atomic swerve where the existence of this atomic potentiality isinferred not from purely contingent events in our world but from theexistence of libera voluntasin animals and the impossibility of intro-ducing genitalismotus,from which a world can arise, if atoms alwaysmove in the same way without making contact with one another (ii.216-93). Unlike the deists, Epicurus denied that stars and animals mustbe explained by final causes. Purposiveness is not a feature of theworld, which came into being as a result of purposeless movements andcombinations of atoms. xacv rk-jv (n) may imply a contrast with&CV&C*x-?ut its stronger contrast is with gvex& '0ou, 'for the sake ofsomething'.Bailey was cautious about inferring any connexion between chancein the world and the atomic swerve (see n. 11). But he found evidencein Epicurus and Lucretius for chance 'as an unaccountable force whichto some extent thwarts natural law' (1928, p. 325). The passages hecited do not support this view on close scrutiny.Only one passage from Epicurus himself was adduced by Bailey(p. 326). It is from the Letter o Pythocles(89) and concerns the condi-tions which must be fulfilled if a world is to come into being. 1, muchvoid is needed (?vsoXtuxkvcp 7tc). 2, 'suitable seeds' (anep[orx c=LTLac)are required 'which rush from a single world or interworld, or from19 Sandbach (p. 114) compares some anti-Epicurean remarks of Lactantius (Inst.div. iii.17.16 = Usener 370). Si enim providentia nulla est, quomodotam ordinate,tam disposite mundus effectus est? ... quomodoanimalium corpora tam providenterordinata sunt? . . . non est, inquit, providentiae opus; sunt enim semina per inanevolitantia, quibus inter se temere conglobatis universa gignuntur.20Gassendi proposed 67rco, tq Trvoaiv tX, and Madvig 4vXu for rk-n Cf.Sandbach loc. cit.

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certain kind with a certain location are necessary' (Phys. ii.199 b 34-200 a 15). The necessity is not Obtcro, that a wall must exist, but eo=06k&a , what is required f there is to be a wall. Similarly, Epicurusis asserting against Democritus the conditional necessity of suitableatomic nuclei which behave in certain specific ways (joining together(1rpoaO6azt;),tructural organisation (8uxpOpCOaeL),hange of location(pC?Xa'XC&ac ~r' ;XXov ro6nov),supply of suitable materials (ap3eU'aLqex T'iv y6vrwv mLs3Lc). Democritus perhaps supposed that the for-mation of every world was a necessary event in a strict causal sense. Ifso, Epicurus rejected his view. But this is not the point he is making inour passage.We need not linger long over the three passages from Lucretius whichBailey cites as evidence for contingency coupled with necessity in Epi-curus' conception of nature (1928, p. 326). First, Lucretius (ii.1059-62)speaks of the magnarum rerum exordia (Epicurus' ['suitable] seeds')being formed as the sources of worlds by atoms uniting together afterthey have jostled one another sponte sua, forte, temere,incassum, frustra-que. The impressive group of adverbs expresses most plainly the aim-less, unplanned preliminaries of world formation, and we may saythat they emphasize its 'chance' occurrence. But we must be morecareful than Bailey in analyzing the meaning of 'chance'. The stress isnot on uncaused movements of atoms, but on their lack of purposivemovement. It may be that some of the atoms which help to form thenuclei of worlds came together by 'swerves' or wholly spontaneousmovements. But even if Lucretius is referring to spontaneous as well aspurposeless atomic movements here, it does not follow that in the worldas experienced by us, the world as formed, spontaneous or whollyindeterminate natural events take place. Lucretius' subject here is theorigin of a world, and we have seen the importance Epicurus attachedto the necessity of 'suitable materials'. This Lucretian text is quiteneutral with respect to the problem of contingency in the world now.Secondly, the words 'fortuna gubernans', which Lucretius uses in aninvocation where he seeks to ward off the inevitable end of the world(v.107), have no more technical significance than Venus of whom Lu-cretius writes: rerum naturam sola gubernas (i.21). We must allow Lu-cretius some poetic licence in his use of traditional language. Bailey'sthird passage also comes from a context where Lucretius is writingwithout technical exactitude, the prooemium of book vi: there we findthe expression naturali . .. seu casu seu vi (30-31), but its reference isnot to two opposed aspects of nature in any general sense. Lucretius is

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speakingof Epicurus'benefits to man in pointing out both foreseeabletroubles, such as death or old age (naturalisvis), and those which donot happen with inevitable regularity. Such a use of casus does notimply that some of the troubles which afflict man are spontanieousorpurely contingent natural happenings.24The main evidence from which scholars have concludedthat Epicu-rus admitted chance as a force at work in the worldhas now been dis-cussed.26Some may find it more compellingthan I do, but whateverone's assessment, it must be weighed against the massive stress onfoederanaturae,ordocertus, ines andleges n Lucretius.But of course itwould be quite wrongto deny that Epicurusadopted, in some respectsat least, a non-deterministstandpoint. Before consideringthe basis ofthe foederanaturaewe should returnto Epicurus'strong rejectionof the'destiny of the natural philosophers',which he stated in his account ofthe wise man's disposition.Who werethese natural philosophers?The standardmodern answerhas been (Leucippus and) Democritus, and this is very likely right.26k4Sallmann, who finds no evidence that rT'x1ns a constituent of nature in Lucre-tius (p. 50), effectively dismisses the supposition that this passage contrastscausality with something else, or that it has anything to do with the swerve(p. 79). His study of natura in Lucretius deserves more attention than it hasreceived."2 Rist (p. 52 n. 4) refers to a new fragment of Diogenes of Oenoanda (publishedby Smith pp. 367-70) for 'chance in Epicurean physics'. The last complete wordsof this fragment are elrcT yap Tx-v. and Mr Smith, in his first publication of thetext, supposed that the subject-matter of the whole fragment was cosmological.In developing this interpretation he commented: 'new fr. 7 is in fact the onlyextant Epicurean passage in which -nrX- s mentioned as a physical cause' (p.367). Further study of this fragment by Diskin Clay, in association with MrSmith,has shown that even here 'rX-1has nothing to do with cosmology (Clay, 1973b).The subject-matter of the fragment appears to be a shipwreck experienced byEpicurus on a voyage to Lampsacus. In Smith's new fr. 8 (pp. 370f.) Xn isdiscussed in an ethical sense, and this must also be its function in the defectivesentence which concludes new fr. 7.' Furley (1967, pp. 174-5) is 'not quite convinced' that Epicurus criticizedDemocritus at Ep. Men. 134. He doubts whether Democritus was really a 'fa-talist' in any recognizable sense, but recognizes that Epicurus 'may have thoughtthat fatalism followed from Democritus' physical theories'. Furley suggests thatEpicurus may have had Nausiphanes in mind. Cicero (De Fato 10, 23; N.D. i.69)and Diogenes of Oenoanda (fr. 32 cols. ii and iii Chilton) associate the swerve ofatoms with Epicurus' resistance to Democritean &v&yxr;. hronology does notrule out Zeno of Citium as a determinist who may have strongly influencedEpicurus' defence of human freedom, see A. A. Long p. 61.74


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There are good reasons for thinking that Epicurusfound in his atomicpredecessorsa concept of necessity which seemed to him to underminehuman freedom and the basis of moral judgment. It is improbable,inmy opinion, that Democritusanticipatedthe Stoics in workingout theidea of a fixed sequenceof causes in any formalsense. But he may havesupposed that everything which happens in the world now, includinghuman thoughts and actions, follows inevitably from previous move-ments of atoms.In order to combat a strictly determinist theory of atomic motionEpicurus introduced the potentiality of an atom to deviate from itsnaturaldownwardmovement. For on this thesis he was able to base hisclaim that the actions of living things are not wholly necessitated by asequence of causes which stretches back to infinity (Lucret. ii.251-60).But the atomic swerve is an exception to normalatomic motion, and itseems certainthat Epicurus also differedfromDemocritusin specifyinga natural movement of atoms from which deviations exceptionallyoccur.Aristotle had complainedthat the early atomists failed to specify thenaturalmovement of atoms, and Epicuruswas probablyinfluencedbyAristotle in attributing downward movement due to weight to hisatoms.27Since, as Lucretius tells us, atoms which always moved in thisway would never make contact with one another and thus create aworld, Epicurus asserted that 'at undetermined times' and 'at un-determinedplaces' they deviate from the line of their previous move-ment by a distance nec plus quam minimum (ii.244). The absolutelyminimal deviation which an atom may make is clearly emphatic.Critics of Epicurus in antiquity ridiculed this res commenticia Cic.Fin. i. 19) and we may agree that it is nothing more than an arbitraryexpedient. But that will not help us to understand the function whichEpicurusattributed to the minimalswerve of atoms. Since he does nottell us, explicitly at least, we naturally turn to Lucretius and there wefind the existence of this atomic potentiality inferred not from un-expected or 'chance' happenings in the world but from a theoreticalpoint - the need to bring atoms into contact - and the existence ofliberavoluntas(ii.216-293).Thereareno otherphenomenawhichwe can

'2 Aristotle De caelo 275 b 29, 300 b 11. Cf. Guthrie pp. 400404. For Epicurus seeA. A. Long p. 36.75


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say were explained wholly or partially by referenceto the swerve.58 twouldno doubt be wrongto rule out the possibilityof atoms swervingin things other than the soul of living creatures. But Epicurus couldmaintain,with some plausibility, that since the soul, as he understandsit, is composed of the finest and most mobile of all atomic structures, itis only in this case that the minimalswerve of an atom breaksthroughthe fati foederaand makespossiblean observableevent - animal action- which is not wholly deter-mined y conditionsalreadypresent in theworld.29We must realize that Epicurus, in his account of phenomena,is concernednot so much with the behaviour of individual atoms aswith the behaviourof atoms in groups,compounds of atoms and void.He may have supposed that the swerve of an atom in a compound ofdenser structure than the soulhas too little powerto modify the generalconditions imposed by the shape, weight and determinatemovementsof its fellow atoms. Having accepted atomism as the best way ofcountering deist and teleological explanations of the world, Epicuruswas faced with the problemof reducinghuman behaviourto a necessaryconsequence of atomic movements. He countered this objection byintroducing the potentiality of an individual atom to initiate a newbeginningof movement; and in orderto explain the orderlyevents onwhich the Platonists and Aristotelians rested their case for inherentpurposiveness n the world,he madethe swerveabsolutelyminimal andtherefore not something which made him vulnerable to the charge ofexplaining regular phenomena by irregularcauses. Perhaps he madefreedomof action the sole observableexception to strict causality in aworldotherwise determinedby natural laws throughoutits lifespan. Isthere enoughevidence to suggest that this was Epicurus'procedure?How did Epicurus account or observableegularities n theworld?

I8 The exceptional nature of the swerve is underlined by the fact that Lucretiusintroduces his discussion of atomic motion by referring to only two kinds ofmovement - that caused by weight and movement resulting from collisions(ii.83-85). This point and the indeterminateness of the swerve speak stronglyagainst Bignone's attempt to link the swerve with the movement of Aristotle'sfifth element and the world soul of Plato Laws X (pp. 166-8).'9 Epicurus Ep. Hdt. 63 (c7q.aLoentrojAcpiq), ucret. iii.1 79-80 (persubtilematqueminutis perquam corporibus factum), 204 (mobilis egregie), 209 (quam tenui constettextura). The 'nameless' element of the soul, which above all gives soul its specificcharacter (cf. Kerferd pp. 83-5), is described by Lucret.: qua neque mobiliusquicquam nequetenuius exstat, Jnec magis e parvis et levibus ex elementis (iii.243-4).For two recent discussions of the manner in which the swerve saves freedom ofaction, see Furley (1967, Second Study) and A. A. Long pp. 56-61.76


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As Diskin Clayhas recently shown (1973a), Epicurusfound it a use-ful educationaldevice to reduce his philosophy to a number of elemen-tary propositions or axioms (a'oLXcLa). A scholium to chapter 44 ofthe Letter o Herodotus,which summarises the basis of Epicurean phys-ics, refers to Epicurus' twelve aTOqLeXC'=L,and Clay has identifiedthese with ten propositions from the Letter(38.8-44.1, 54.3-6), whichalso recur in Lucretius, and the first two Kuriai Doxai.30Clay's listincludes a set of what we may call natural laws or necessary truths,conspicuousamong which are the first: 'nothing comes into being outof nothing' and the second: 'nothingis reducedto nothing'.Two funda-mental concepts which are stated or implied in this list are 'limit' and'unlimited'.The universeis unlimited,for it containsan infinitenumberof bodies (atoms) and infinite void. There is an infinite number ofatoms with similar shapes, but the variety of atomic shapes is notinfinite, though too large to be conceived of (a7rep'X-ta).The validity of these general statements is established largely byreference o phenomena,andtheir purpose s to provide the foundationsfor a strictly mechanistic explanation of the world. By postulating aninfinite number of atoms with enormously varied shapes, Epicurus wasinfluenced by the need to account for the variety of things we experi-ence (Ep. Hdt. 42). The limit on the numberof atomic shapes was alsojustified, as Lucretiusshows, on empiricalgrounds: our sense experi-ence is not constantly subject to new colours, smells and so forth(ii.478-521). Moreover, the number of atoms which constitutes ourworldat any moment is also limited. A limited world derived from andstocked by an unlimited supply of atoms provided Epicurus with amethod of explaining the regular change and constant movement ofphenomena.

In the Letterto Pythocles (88) Epicurus describes a world as an en-closureof the heavens (7repLoXwL oip,ovou)... whichis cut off from theinfinite and terminates in a boundary (Juro'op,v gXoucrcOrOoi &rCpouxmlocz=X youacm v nr6pa). This emphatic reference to the limitednature and boundary of a world gives some conceptual and linguisticsupport to Lucretius' foedera naturae and fines. Not only is a worldlimited in time and space and the numberof its atomic constituents. Itis also, as we have seen, limited by the conditions which govern itsSo An earlier, less careful attempt to identify the srocLXEaeLwas made by DeWitt (pp. 156 f.). Clay (p. 271) finds it 'odd' that there is no mention among theseof the 'swerve' of atoms.

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initial formation.A worldarises not fromany aggregationof atoms butfrom 'suitable seeds', and these presupposeappropriatecombinationsof atoms with specific shapes. Thereis good evidence to show that thebasic materials from which the world 'grows'(the biologicalmetaphoris a notable feature of Epicurus'and Lucretius'cosmologicaldescrip-tions) are not, save in the last analysis, individual atoms but atomicnuclei, or what anotherphilosophermight have called elements.3'Epi-curus rejected the theory of four elements, but he did not entirelyabandonthe concept of an element. In a fragment of the 14th book of-reply6aewo he opposed to the Platonic doctrine of four elements thepreferableidea of those who 'do not define a specific form of fire orearth or water or air,but admit, whether freely or not, that there arisein (mechanical)mixtures certain specific kinds of formscorrespondingto each so-called essential aggregate (a&6yxpLaLq)'.32he term at5yxpLaLqhas a technical usage in Epicurus' own work to denote 'atomic com-pound', and here he is referringto a restricted class of compounds,which we may call elemental. I believe they are approximately, if notentirely, identical to the cosmic 'seeds'of which I have alreadyspoken,or what are called aua'pooctin a brief reference to world formationinthe Letter to Herodotus (73).33We have here the notion of an atomic aggregate which can serveas the seed or progenitorof a world. This idea helps Epicurusto rejectdeist accounts of the heavenly bodies. In place of directionby divinesouls or gods, the heavenly bodies behave as they do because of their"I See Bailey (1928) pp. 343-4. Attempts to find specific technical terms for thisconcept are criticized by Kerferd p. 89, who argues, however, that Epicurusmust have had a doctrine of molecules. It is clear from Lucret. v.429-31 that themagnarum rerum exordia are not individual atoms but aggregates (cf. conveniant,convecta).32 Arrighetti 29.22, 6ptZovxocqZxicp 74[up]6q&ov yns % xoco [1&]poq, 'rtyeXot6repoE etla '@v o6 6pL6pTv-rcov ,avxr&. &ar q nopMOGLgyaa&vL]aVV % &XOUS %&Xou[[a]t5 yEveCarO TLVO CXn&[r]iG)V Mz Wn xLO' kxCr-vnV0o]-aLCOA TOecaXv Nv G6Y[Zp]LGtV.The point of this passage is clearly to contrast mechanical mixtures (7rupa-OkaetL)s a way of accounting for 'essential' aggregates with an a priori notion of(Platonic) forms or elements. The words &xouat(og &xouaoLCead me to thinkthat Epicurus is saying: 'Some earlier thinkers, whether intentionally or not,have seized on the correct explanations of so-called essential substances.'33 Here 'worlds', and 'every limited compound which regularly has the sameform as things that we see', are said to be separated &xauarpocp6vL&Ekwv.ailey'sinterpretation, 'vague masses of matter' (1926 p. 245), hardly renders the forceof M&c)v.With aucrpocpx( f. conque globata of heat molecules, Lucret. ii. 154.78


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material structure. But Epicurusdoes not deny the regularityof theirmovements. 'This necessary regularity of movement must be ascribedto the inclusion of these aggregates (oua'poyc) in the cosmos at itsbeginning' (60ev8' xx.ta 'ra'&a.pX&- ka-To?xLq 'v OaUpO?WV O6rWVeVTn r&ox6ap.ou rviau 86 goE'CLuv xacd s?v & &yx9v 'MUa&v x?l 7xepEo0ovuvreXe7tamtEp. Hdt. 77). A star (n5p &aim vro a1.vea?rp(X.vov) is aresult of those atomic aggregates which joined together at the for-mation of the world.Epicurus seems to be saying that a regularevent now - the rnove-ments of the heavenly bodies - is to be traced back to the originalstructure of matter in the world. In the Letterto Pythocles (90) thispoint is confirmedand amplified:the heavenly bodiesdid not enter theworld from outside; they have developed from within, 'thanks to ad-ditions and whirlingsof certain substances with fine parts, which areeither like breath or fire,or both'. Here further limits on the structureof the heavenly bodies areimposed: only atoms already compoundedtoform breath, fire or both can constitute the stars.So far as the structure of the heavenly bodies is concerned, Epicurusseems to have claimed that the material conditions which obtain attheir formationwill continue to be valid throughout the history of theworld.In this domain at least he left no roomforuncertainty. Particularcelestial phenomena- eclipses, thunder, shooting stars - may be due toone of several different causes, but Epicurus explicitly denied thatmore than one cause can account for the nature of the heavenly bodies(Ep. Hdt. 78).Y" he history of the worldis analogousto a living thing'slife cycle. Duringits earliest stages the world grows by absorbingmorematter than it loses; then a period of stability is reached (&LqovA)during which the absorption of new matter balances the loss of atomspreviously contained; finally, the forces of destruction prevail overthose of conservation.36A static world is quite foreign to Epicurus'3' Epicurus' notion of multiple causes (7AeovcXk -p67ro;), which informs hisdiscussion of celestial phenomena throughout the Letter to Pythocles, does notconstitute any denial of causal continuity. In our world one set of causes in factwill be responsible for thunder, shooting stars, etc., but the conditions of per-ception prevent us from deciding between a series of explanations, any one ofwhich will account for the phenomenon equally well. Cf. Rist p. 40, and thepassages he cites in his n. 2. In other worlds the same phenomenon may in fact bedue to a different cause from that which is operative here. But in Ep. Hdt. 78Epicurus is claiming that his account of the heavenly bodies is valid for allpossible worlds.a6 Ep. Pyth. 89-90, Lucret. ii.1105-1149. See in general Solmsen (1953).

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cosmologyand he recognizedthat living things which were not suitablyadapted to their environment perished during the early history of theworld (Lucret. v.837-77).86But I believe he also supposed that theinitial structure of matter in the worldis sufficiently stable to establisha seriesof persistently operative causes or natural laws, and that thesecouldwithstand fundamental modificationby the gain and loss of indi-vidual atoms up to the time when the growing loss of atoms from theworld begins to disrupt its internal coherence.If the surviving words of Epicurusdo not allow us to establish thisconclusionas absolutely certain, Lucretius can be called upon to giveconfirmation.I take first a short passage from Book ii, 294-307. HereLucretius is arguingthat the proportionof matter to void in the uni-verse has never changed and he infers from this that atomic motion isinvariant. The conjunctionof changelessmatter and changeless motionsanctions the conclusionthat 'such things as have been wont to comeinto being will continue to do so', eadem condicione, ... quantumcuique datum est per foedera naturai.This proofof the invariant state of the universeis an amplificationofEpicurus'own words, and its interesting additioni o these is the men-tion of constancy of genesis within the universe.37Lucretius is notreferringto genesis within a single world, the subject I have just beenconsidering.But his very forcefuldenial of irregularchange is particu-larly strikingin its context. The topic with whichhe has just dealt is theatomic swerve, and GerhardMullermakes the excellent observationthat the 'tearingof freewill fromthe fati /oedera' (cf.rumpat andavulsa,ii.254, 257) is now followedmost appropriatelywith an emphasison the(otherwise)constant nature of motion and the foederanaturae(p. 31).It can be no accident that Lucretiusstresses motusidemimmediatelyfollowinghis account of free will and the swerve on which it depends.Motus idem and the reassertionof the /oedera naturaeadvise us to ex-pect nothing analogousto free will in the universe at large.8' This principle of the 'survival of the fittest' provides Epicurus with a means ofexplaining animal life without reference to final causes. The point is fundamentalto any comprehensive study of Epicurean responses to teleological or deist viewsof the world, but the details fall outside the scope of this paper.37 Cf. i.584-98, where Lucret. infers the unchangeability of atoms from the un-changeability of animal species; ii.700-19, where limits on atomic combinationsare inferred from the same evidence. Is there any reason to agree with Bailey(1947, p. 699) that 'Lucretius is not thinking of an observed uniformity innature' ?80


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What are the foederanaturae? I cannot discuss this question atlength, but I shouldlike to mention the interestingsuggestionof KlausReich.38He proposedto identify the foederanaturaewith the auyxptsaetor basic compounds.Accordinglyhe offered the translation 'Buindnis'(bond)ratherthan 'Gesetz' (law).As a complete explanationthis is toosimple, in my opinion. The foederanaturaecannot be identified withjust one physical constituent of the Epicureanuniverse. But it is nota-ble that Lucretiususes the expression n contexts where he is discussingthe regularity of species and the limits of change within the world(i.586; ii.302; v.57). In particular,he rejects the belief that there couldever have been Centaursor Scyllas by an appeal to these foedera.Al-though the earth contained many seeds at the time when living thingsfirst developed, hybrids are evidently impossible:sed res quaeque uo ritu proceditet omnesloederenaturaecertodiscriminaservant. v.923-4It could be that Lucretius is playing on the meaningof foedusas bothsomethingconcrete- a bond orunion of atoms with congruentshapes-and the more abstract notion of law. Lucretius indeed gives us moreevidence on the importance of the primarycompoundsin determiningorderlychange and development.The significanceof the world'sfirst structurein determining ts sub-sequent development is seen very clearly in a later passage from bookii, 1105-1117. Lucretius is discussing the world's behaviour, from itsorigin to its eventual destruction, but only the stage from birth tomaturity concernsus here. Since the birth of the world and the begin-ning of sea, earth and sun, Lucretius writes, 'many bodies have beenadded from outside and seeds (i.e. atomic nuclei) have been added allround, which the great universe brought together by hurling themabout'. This process has enabled sea, earth, sky and air to grow. 'Forfrom all regions all bodies are dispersedby impact each to their ownplace, and travel back to their own kinds, water to water etc.' Thegrowth of like by like is a very old idea, and Lucretius'formulationofthe principle s an undoubtedimitation of Empedocles.His predecessorin didacticpoetry regarded he attraction of like to like as an expressionof cosmic Love, but Lucretiuswould have found nothing analogoustothis in his Epicurean sources. It was a feature of early atomism thatbodies of symmetricalshape unite togetherby the motion of the cosmic

Pp. 125. See also Boyanc6 pp. 86 ff.

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vortex.39Epicurus modified Democritus' cosmology by interpolatingthe need for 'suitable atomicseeds', but these too must be formedfromatoms of congruentshapes. So, in the worldonce formed,the behaviourof new atoms is limited and governedby the basic structuresto whichthey are assimilated.Stability and orderarisenot from the interventionof mind but as the necessary consequence of matter in motion. Theindestructibility, size, shape, and motion of individual atoms limit thecombinationswhichthey can form,and thus in the worldas we experi-ence it definite kinds of things are evident.But a most importantclass of 'definite things' in the world, and theone from which Aristotle'sdefence of teleologicalexplanation drewitsstrongest support, is animal species. The modern critic may be willingto acknowledgethat Epicurushas a coherent, if simple, explanationofcelestial movements and otherregularnaturalphenomena the prima-ry structures of matter in the world and an infinite number of atomswith shapesappropriate o these structures.But does this, or any otherexplanation Epicuruscan offer, provide an answerto Aristotle's ques-tion, 'why does man beget man'?The essenceof reproduction s that speciesbreedtrue, and there is nodoubt that Lucretiusat least held as fixed a view of species as Aristot-le.'0We have no surviving evidence fromEpicurushimselfon zoology,and any inferencesabout his views must be drawnfrom Lucretius.Thezoological passagesin his poem deserve more detailed study than I canattempt to give here, but it does not need extensive argumentto showthat he would answerAristotle's question along the followinglines.Living things without exception are seen to originate from definiteseeds (seminibus ertis)suchthat theirgrowthis invariablytrueto type.The phenomenonof reproductionis one of Lucretius'strongest argu-ments for the existence of atoms: there must be changeless andindestructiblebodies in order that the regularity of species may bemaintained.41The changelessnessand indestructibilityof atoms, alongwith the fact that the universe contains an infinite number of atomsof every shape which it is possible for atoms to have (Lucret. i.526-7),satisfy one necessary condition of regular species - the availabilityof suitable materials.a Cf. C. W. Muller p. 74.40 Cf. i.584-98, v.923-4. Reich (p. 124) argues that Epicurus took over this doc-trine from Aristotle while abandoning the latter's belief in the eternity of theworld.41 Lucretius i.159-214, ii.584-98.82


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But the availability of suitable materialsis not a sufficient conditionfor the regularityof species. Lucretiusseems to recognizethis when heasserts that there is a certa ratio which determines the certasemina ofthings, their certagenetrixand the fact that they grow (crescentia)rueto type (ii.707ff.). He is drawingattention to the limitations on possi-ble atomic compounds- we do not see hybrids,half man and half beast,part animal and part plant. The reason for this is not only the certasemina of each species, but also the fact that in nutrition only thosecorporaare assimilated which can be joined to the structure of thecreature'sbody and move in harmony with this.42We may infer thatthe parents' atomic structure is such that any seed they produce canonly assimilate those atoms, by interaction with the environment,which fit the form predeterminedby the parents. It is a rudimentarytheory of genetics.43This theory of genetic development seems to be entirely consistentwith the explanation of regular natural phenomena I have alreadydiscussed. It is also probablethat Epicurusregardedthe regularity ofspecies as a secondexampleof the mannerin which the world'sprimarystructure has determinedits subsequent history. In his account of theoriginsof life Lucretiusinsists that the earth is the mother not only ofall vegetation but also of man and other animals (v.783-836).With thepassage of time the earth has ceased to bring forth animals, and itsfunction as mother of these has been taken over by union between thesexes of each species. But there is no suggestion that the offspringresulting from intercoursediffer in form from those producedby theearth itself. Some species have failed to survive, but those whichpersist today have not 'evolved'. Epicureanism does not anticipateDarwinian natural selection. We may conjecturewith Giussani that thefixity of species is to be traced back to the atomic structureswhich theearth contained during its time of fertility.44One passage from Lucretius is quite explicit in relating the certusordomanifest in the world now to the causes which were operative42 711-716, nam sua cuique cibis ex omnibus intus in artus I corpora disceduntconexaque convenientis 1ef/iciunt motus ... those atoms are not assimilated,quae neque conecti quoquam potuere neque intus I vitalis motus consentire atqueimitari. For the latter phenomenon on a cosmic scale cf. ii.109-11.'3 Note that Lucretius explains the behavioural characteristics of each species bythe certa vis animi determined by its own semen and seminium, iii.746-7: that is,they are transmitted genetically."4Vol. iv p. 172.

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during its earliest days (v.677-79). Lucretius is in the middle of hisexplanation of astronomicalphenomena,and he offers two reasonsforthe certum empusat which dawn appearseach day. The details of hisexplanations do not concern us here, but his emphasison 'fixed time'.Within twenty-four lines there are six instances of temporecerto,andthe phenomenonof dawn is related to other phenomenafrom biologyand meteorologywhich also occurat a fixed time. Therefore,Lucretiusconcludes, there is nothing mirabile n the regularity of dawn, and herounds off his argument:namqueubi sic fuerunt causarumexordiaprima

atque ta res mundi cecidereab origineprima,consequequoque am redeuntex ordinecerto.4"This statement was rightly interpretedby Giussaniforwhat it is - anexpression of strict causality. Events recur in a regularsequence fol-lowing the causarum exordia prima which operated at the world'sbeginning. As he put it, 'cosi si spiegano e si concilianola cecitA mec-caniche e l'assoluto impero della legge nel sistema atomico epicureo'(iv p. 172). It is instructive, if somewhat depressing,to see how latercommentatorshave evaded the plainmeaningof Lucretius'text. Robinlays stress on the wordcecidere: c'est une id6e essentielle l'':picurismeque la r6p6titionr6gulieredes ph6nomeneset leurs lois sont la cons&-quenced'une organisationspontan6edu hasard'(adloc.). CertainlytheEpicureanswished to avoid any suggestion of purposivenessin theirexplanations of orderin the world. But the emphasisof our text is noton the world'sunplannedoriginand organisationbut on the certusordowhich follows from its primary structure. Bailey declines to take aclear stand (1947 vol. iii pp. 1427-8). He approves Giussani'sinsightinto the 'scientific'significanceof Lucretius'text, but thinks he may bereadingtoo much into the lines. This chargeappliesmoreappropriatelyto Bailey, who readstoo much into Lucretius'very occasionalreferencesto casus and therebyfinds the poet 'speakingas thougheitherchance ornecessity were the ultimate cause of phenomenain the world'. Baileydoes scant justice to Lucretius when he says: 'If, as is probable, this(i.e. Giussani'sinterpretation)is the strict Epicureandoctrine, it mustbe admitted that Lucretiusis elsewhere forgetfulor not fully conscious

"I Conseque is Lachmann's emendation of consequiae read by 0 and Q. Hissuggestion has been adopted by most modern editors and even if he is wrong,there can be little doubt concerning the sense of the line.84


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of it'.46Solmsen finds our passage 'the best in the way of theory thatEpicuruscould offer to explain cosmicregularities' (1951, p. 19) but hegoes on to describe t as a 'somewhatoracularstatement which seems tocredit the atoms ... with a mysterious power to effect what the phi-losopher cannot explain': But there is nothing oracularor mysteriousabout Lucretius' words unless one approachesthem from the positionof a Platonist, an Aristotelian or a Stoic. Lucretius is offering us aclear mechanistic account of causation.But what Lucretius says here is nothing more than a gloss on Epi-curus' own explanation of regular phenomena by reference to theinitial state of things (Ep. Hdt. 77). Lucretius'causarumexordiaprimacorrespondto Epicurus'ccl g &pxq mnaovX.zt 'tCovmaapopiv TOU&COV(see p. 79). Where Epicurus explains in terms of matter, Lucretiusspeaksof causes, and these of courseareidentical. Myearliersuggestionabout Epicurus' explanation of regular phenomenaseems now to havebeen confirmed. He did refer these to the material conditions whichobtained at the formationof the world.A number of conclusionsmay now be stated. First, the consistencybetween Epicurus and Lucretiusis too great to supportthe suggestion,which has been made in the past, that the poet's emphasis on foederanaturae s a later development in Epicureanism.47 econdly, referencesto chance in Epicurus and Lucretius do not imply, as many modernscholars say, that sheer contingencyor spontaneousevents play a partin nature along with necessity. The worldarises as a result of purpose-less atomic movements, and Epicurus gave at least one spontaneousatomic movement or swerve a function in explaining the origin ofworlds. But within our world, as we know it, law-like regularities holdgood and will continue to do so as long as the basic structure of theworld remainsintact. A causal sequence, which can be traced back tothe formationof the world,determines natural events. Thirdly, human(and perhaps other animal) behaviouris not entirely dependent on thiscausal sequence.The structureof the mind is such that swerving atomsamongits constituents freebehaviourfrombeing wholly determined by4 Boyanc6's criticism of Giussani (p. 233) gives no argument against his inter-pretation.-9 This is argued by Reich. He attempts to trace the origin of the modern Natur-gesetz to Lucretius and to detect a Peripatetic influence on Lucretius - Critolaus- through a comparison of Philo De aet. mundi 55-69, which reports Critolaus'views, and Lucret. v.878-924. His hypothesis seems to me unnecessarily com-plicated. More generally cf. De Lacy (1948).

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nomenaand thus discharge gods and final causes fromany place in theworld,he could make only the most minimalconcession to spontaneousor purely contingent events. The atomic swerve is nec plus quammini-mum, and I conjecture that the scope of its operation in the world isequally minimal.At least it does not have power to counter the validaeaevi leges and undermine the powers of nature, which are offered inplace of the dominion of gods to those ignari quid queat esse,quid nequeat, inita potestasdeniquecuiquequanamsit rationeatquealte terminushaerens.(Lucret. v. 88-90)Universityof Liverpool

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viii, 159-98Boyanc6, P. (1963), LucrUceet l'A'picurisme, ParisBr6hier, E. (1948), Histoire de la philosophie, vol. 2, ParisBrieger, A. (1884), Die Urbewegungder A tome und die Weltentstehungbei Leukippund Demokrit, HalleCherniss, H. (1935), Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy, BaltimoreChilton, C. W. (1967), Diogenes of Oenoanda, Leipzig, TeubnerClay, D. (1973a), 'Epicurus' Last Will and Testament', Archiv fu.r GeschichtederPhilosophie 55, 252-80- (1973b), 'Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 7',Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 14.1, 49-59De Lacy, P. and E. A., (1941) Philodemus: On Methods of Inference, PhilologicalMonograph X of the American Philological Association, PhiladelphiaDe Lacy, P. (1948), 'Lucretius and the History of Epicureanism', Transactions ofthe American Philological Association, 79, 12-23-(1969), 'Limit and Variation in the Epicurean Philosophy', Phoenix 23, 104-113De Witt, N. W. (1954), Epicurus and his Philosophy, MinneapolisEdmunds, L. (1972), 'Necessity, Chance and Freedom in the Early Atomists',Phoenix 26, 342-57Ernout, A. and Robin, L. (1925), Lucrdtius: CommentaireEx6getique, ParisFarrington, B. (1967), The Faith of Epicurus, LondonFurley, D. J. (1966), 'Lucretius and the Stoics', Bulletin of the University ofLondon Institute of Classical Studies 13, 13-33-(1967), Two Studies in the GreekA tomists, Princeton University Press

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