 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and this is the fifth of six lectures on Lucretius, this one about Epicurean cosmology and anthropology in De Rerum Natura Book 5, and I'm using the translation of Cyril Bailey, which is available in the public domain through the Internet Archive. Now, Book 5 comes after we've already established that there are an infinite number of atoms moving in an infinite void space, that these atoms combine to form larger structures, eventually structures large enough for us to perceive that some of these structures are living and have souls that those, some of those souls are capable of sensation, desire, and thought. In this book, we then get an account of the formation of, as it were, structures of human beings coming together and forming organizations like the family unit and cities and kingdoms, and we also get an account of large the largest scale structures in the cosmos, the sun, moon, stars, and so on. And so we are fully dealing with the macroscopic level of natural history, anthropology and cosmology, having passed from basic physics and the basic propositions of atomism, and then onto the psychological issues of the human soul and the senses, now on to anthropology and cosmology, which we build on the basis of the basic propositions and physical assumptions of the microscopic principles of nature that were inferred from macroscopic phenomena, but now we're explaining the macroscopic phenomena themselves and drawing out their ethical implications for our views about death, for our views about desire, for our views about relating to other people. And we get an account in the course of a life history of kind of decline where one step before the death with which the entire poem ends. And in this book Lucretius gives us reminders that he believes the entire world to be destructible and that it's in a process of erosion and decline. Now, more on the structure of this book specifically starts out with a poem or introduction that again is a praise and in fact deification of Epicurus. And then the rather extensive arguments, almost 1400 lines of arguments about the mortality and destruction of the world, the causes of astronomical and cosmological phenomenon, an account of the origin of life on Earth and the development of human civilization essentially down to the present time. And the finale describes the rapid progress in technology and in historical time and Lucretius expresses a somewhat ambivalent attitude about the value of that technological progress. Now, the problem, like earlier books begins with praising Epicurus and in fact calling him Godlike, essentially deifying him, describing the greatness of his accomplishment compared with all other human inventions, including agriculture and vina-culture. Survival is possible without these things. We don't have to grow food, we can hunt and gather it, we don't have to drink wine and so forth, but a good life is not possible without these things, nor is it possible without a tranquil mind and that is what Epicurus offers. And his deeds are compared with the mythic deeds of Heracles or Hercules, how much greater the accomplishments of Epicurus are, because he frees our mind and ridds us of horrible vices like greed and petulance, lust, luxury and laziness. He vanquishes these enemies, not with swords, but with his words. Now, an overview of the arguments begins with a review of what's already been established. Lucretius reviews how things have come to be and pass away, always in accordance with the basic principles of atomism described in the first two books, how the mind and soul is born along with and as part of the body, as shown in book three and all of its functions in book four, and how we are misled into thinking that the dead live on. He announces then what is still to come, that the world itself has at least metaphorically been born and so it's mortal and will die or be destroyed, the regions of land, sea and sky, how they became differentiated and will eventually collapse and become intermixed again, the size and courses of the sun, moon and stars, an account of the origin of life on earth, the development of human society, including speech, religious belief and technology. He declares throughout that no intelligent mind has created or directed any of this, doesn't direct the motions of the sun, moon and stars, nor creates the plants and animals on earth according to any divine plan. This realization removes a false conception of the gods and allows us to see them truly as the Epicureans do, as perfectly tranquil beings that are set apart from all of nature. And this allows us to see the true nature of things, not as designed or created by some super powerful intelligence, but in what way each thing has its power limited in its deep set boundary stone by nature. And he admits that it is strange to say that the whole world will be destroyed, including the sea, earth and the sky, but he can prove this by appeal both to plain facts of perception and to the arguments of pure reason gathered from the earlier books. All of these will show that all things can fall in with a hideous, rending crash. Now, he's also concerned to show that the world is not a living divine thing. So he argues against the view that earth and sun and sky, sea and stars and moon are of some kind of divine body and thus must abide forever. And such arguments seem to be aimed at the kind of view expressed in Plato's timeus where he argues that the cosmos is one gigantic living creature. This is a view that in a modified form was also adopted by the Stoics. Lucretius doesn't say who his arguments are aimed at, and they seem primarily aimed at the older anthropocentric anthropomorphic conception of the cosmos that we find in Plato. Now, it's already been shown that souls and minds can only grow and abide in very specific kinds of body, in fact, only in very specific parts of specific kinds of body. And when a body has been too badly damaged, no soul can possibly subsist in it. This is the cause of death. So it's absurd to think that the soul could exist in, quote, crumbling sods of earth or in the fire of the sun or in water or the high coasts of heaven. Since these things cannot possibly admit souls, they cannot be alive and so we cannot think that the world as a whole is alive. In general, the earth is not a suitable habitat for the gods. There's too much instability, corrosion and destruction in this region, which would upset their tranquil minds. Thus they must exist in the inter-mundial spaces, the voids that exist between worlds and offer no resistance or risk of penetration. Furthermore, the world is not a creation for the sake of human beings. It's not a living animal in its own right and it's not a set of tools designed for the sake of humans. And he gives many reasons for this to think that it's absurd that the gods created the world for our own sake or that they will go on and eternally keep maintaining it for our sake. After all, a god could drive no benefit, even amusement from creating a world for the sake of human beings, nor would it save humans from any evil had they not been created. One who's never been born has no way of being harmed or helped. So there is no apparent motive for this creation of the whole world. Also, there's no pattern for a god to model as a craftsman does in creating the world. Rather, the state of the world appears to be the result of infinite material bodies moving in the infinite void for an infinite amount of time, combining in every possible way so that, quote, it is no wonder if they have fallen also into such arrangements and have passed into such movements as those whereby the present sum of things is carried on ever and again replenished. Furthermore, the imperfections of the world show that it cannot have been created by a god for our sake. Too many things in the world are hostile to humans or just useless. Wild beasts and disease are far too common. Human children are born helpless compared to animals that are hostile to humans. And Lucretius asks, why do the seasons of the year bring maladies? Why does death stalk abroad before her time, referring to pestilences and plagues with which the whole poem ends? Furthermore, the world is not an eternally living thing or a device or design created for human use. Rather, it's just a composite structure like any other visible thing. And so, like any other visible thing and like any other composite structure, it is subject to destruction. Anything which has parts is destructible and must have been generated or constructed through a combination of those parts. And this world has parts. It has lands, continents, oceans, atmosphere made up of air, fire, etc. Therefore, it must be subject to destruction. The earth we see is clearly subject to erosion by the effects of wind and water on soil and river banks, for example. And the water we see all flows dissipates and evaporates. The fire that reaches us through raised the sun supplies light, but this light is dissipated and interrupted every night. Just as the light of torches can be extinguished, so the light from these stars and even our own sun must flow from a similar source that will eventually all be used up and extinguished. The image of mountains crumbling and stones being worn over time by wind or water and the collapse of stone buildings or monuments show the gradual erosion and destruction of the world. Even monuments created to commemorate everlasting human glories and events or images of divine gods erode and corrode. The air that surrounds the crumbling earth, he says, is likewise subject to change and thus to pollution and destruction. In fact, he says human existence is a fairly recent phenomena. The legends that we have of historical floods and conflagrations, if you believe them, also show that the world is destructible. There's no reason why one element like fire or water can't just overwhelm and destroy the others in our cosmos. Furthermore, an independent argument, whatever is indestructible, must be solid and impenetrable, like the atoms, or be intangible, like the void, or have nothing outside of it into which it could be dispersed, like the whole universe. But the world isn't an atom, nor is it void, nor is it the whole universe. Thus, it must not be indestructible. Now, this should be compared with an argument in Book 3 in which a similar argument was applied to show the mortality of the soul. The soul is not an individual atom. The soul is not void, and the soul is not the universe. Thus, the soul must be mortal and subject to destruction. So the world is subject to destruction. He often says that the world is mortal, but that's a metaphorical way of speaking, since, as we just saw, he doesn't believe that the world is alive or a living creature. How then did the world come into being? If it wasn't born like a living creature, or designed by some intelligent craftsmen or God, or if the atoms didn't intelligently arrange themselves, how did this world we see come into being? Lucretius says it's by random collisions of an infinite number of atoms in an infinite void space over an infinite amount of time. All combinations must occur, and so the one that we see and that we live in and that we are must have occurred, and so it has. Initially, there was a great state of chaos. There was no solar system, no constellations, no separation of land, water, and sky, no plants, no animals. But, quote, only a fresh formed storm, a mass gathered together of first beginnings of every kind whose discord was waging war and confounding interspaces, paths, interlacing, weights, blows, meetings, and motions, because owing to their unlike forms and diverse shapes, all things were unable to remain in union, as they do now, and to give and receive harmonious motions. So an utterly chaotic beginning, followed by parts and particles being separated out and joining together, like to like, so that things get set apart from one another. Earth goes to earth, so you form lands and water to water, forming seas and air to air and fire to fire, forming the skies, and so on. Highly entangled and heavy bodies sink down and sink through lighter bodies, so earth sinks through water, and water sinks through air, and air sinks through the ether, and this is why we ultimately see a kind of layered effect and separation of these gross bodies like earth, water, air, and fire. The sun and moon are up there in a sort of intermediary state between the earth and the outermost stars, so the sun and moon must be heavier than those more ethereal bodies, but lighter than the earth itself and its atmosphere, hence they've sunken closer but remain outside. The heavier elements will always sink further down until they arrive at some kind of rest, while the lighter elements will rise up until they start gliding. Now some basic points about cosmology. First, how do the bodies in the sky move, and Lucretius gives multiple explanations. It's either because there is a zone between outer space and the earth. Now a few more basic points about cosmology. First, how do the bodies in the sky or in space move? Lucretius gives multiple possible explanations. It's either because there's a zone between outer space and the area around the earth in which air or fire is flowing, so as to push or pull these around, like a river does the scoops on a water wheel, or they're moved by some force like ether that is beyond them from our perspective, that's outside of them, or they simply move themselves of their own accord. So Lucretius following Epicurus's scientific method admits that he can't be certain about which of these causes is operative. Is it something farther than we can see, or is it something closer in that we can't see, or are they moving themselves? But he provides all of the possible options. That is, he focuses on what causes are possible and reasons that every possible cause will be realized somewhere in the universe in the fullness of time. Now notice that he only needs to show the possibility of a materialist explanation of these phenomena according to any of the causes in order to satisfy his purpose, liberating us from fear of the gods and death. So any of those explanations will give a natural cause and not require us to think that the gods arranged everything the way it is. The earth may be assumed to be essentially at rest in the middle of the cosmos. He says in the sense that it's in a kind of organic equilibrium with our cosmic surroundings, meaning our atmosphere and outer space. But our cosmos, keep in mind, is but one of an infinite plurality of worlds. And there's no reason to assume that we're located in the middle of the universe, or even that we occupy any special place in it at all. Now, another thing that Lucretius tries to explain is the size of the sun, moon, and stars. They appear to be a certain size, but presumably they're a different size than they appear to be. So he says of the sun, nor can the sun's blazing wheel be much greater or less than it is seen to be by our senses. A very ambiguous statement. Does it seem to our senses to be smaller? Does it seem to our senses to be large? Well, he says it's exactly what it does seem to our senses. The closeness of the sun, he points out, is evident from the fact that we can feel its heat. And fires whose heat we can feel are about as large as they appear to our senses to be. And he says that the same is true of the moon, whether its illumination is caused by itself or by another luminous body. Its closeness is evident from the clarity of its outline and the details that we can see in it, even with the naked eye. And the same, he says, must be true of the fixed stars. We can estimate their size by analogy to how terrestrial lights affect our senses. So there is not, he claims, a big difference between the apparent size of these bodies and their actual size. Keep in mind that it's important for Epicureans to maintain that our senses do not deceive us since they are the basis for all other knowledge. So our senses can't be conveying to us that the sun or moon is a much different size than they actually are, or else we could be misled by that. Now, other astronomical phenomena are explained fairly briefly. Again, Lucretius admits that he can't offer a single explanation that's certain to be the exact explanation of all of these phenomena. The circuits of the sun and moon are given an explanation that's attributed to Democritus, that the outer parts of the circle move more swiftly than the inner parts. And so the sun, which is closer to the circle of the earth, moves more slowly than the other stars. And the moon, which is even closer, moves more slowly than the sun. Another possible explanation is briefly mentioned that there are steady currents of error that move these things like clouds, and they do so at differential rates. Night, he says, could be explained either by the extinction of the sun each night, or the same sun traveling under the earth, and dawn could be caused by the sun sending rays towards us, or that fires collect and restart a sun on fire with each new day. He doesn't take a position on which of those is true. Either of them will relieve us from the idea that a god is directing the course of the sun. Multiple explanations are also given for the varying periods of day and night throughout the year, the phases of the moon, and eclipses. The next topic is the natural history of life on earth. And this is a truly extraordinary part of the poem. He discusses the earth and its sort of infancy in the various stages of its growth into the current state of decline. He suggests that plants and trees first grew on earth and animals and human beings only later. Many of the living things were spontaneously generated from the earth and nourished by it, hence the popular idea of mother earth that's mentioned in earlier books. But now mother earth is aged and she's not as fecund, indicative of an overall decline. Initially, deformed and defective creatures of every kind were generated. He mentions hermaphrodites, creatures without feet or hands or mouths, but nature forbade their increase. Nor could they reach the coveted bloom of age, nor find food, nor join in the work of Venus, by which he means they could not reproduce. Thus the many necessities for their survival and propagation as a species could not be secured, and so many of these ancient species went extinct. The only ones that survived are those that could either propagate and survive themselves or secure human protection because of their usefulness. The species that did survive had selective advantages, for example lions, courage, stag, swiftness, foxes, cunning and so forth, or they were useful to humans as oxenar as beasts of burden. Those to whom nature gave no advantages, he says, nature brought their kind to destruction. And so here we see a kind of principle of natural selection. Not a full theory of evolution because Lucretius never talks about one kind of animal mutating or changing or evolving into another kind, but the principle of survival of the fittest natural selection and extinction of unfit species is clearly present here and directly or indirectly had an influence on Darwin's theory. Now Lucretius also refutes the existence of other mythical animals like centaurs or giants. These things, he says, exceed the bounds of the laws of nature and so they never really existed. He can either account for the belief in such creatures by supposing that they had existed but then went extinct or just debunk their existence altogether. Now after the general account of life on earth, Lucretius then describes the development of human life, beginning with an account of primitive human beings. Now this Epicurean anthropology or anthropogony that is theory of the origin of human beings is set within the context of his wider zoogony or theory of the origin of animal life. And so the origin of human beings and animals is continuous and of course human beings are just another kind of animal, another natural being just like the animals. Lucretius describes there being other older kinds of humans, primitive humans who were hardier, who did not practice agriculture but hunted and gathered the abundant fruits that at that point the earth produced. They drank water from fresh sources, they had no fire or clothing or any customs or laws between them, they just slept on the open ground not fearing the darkness. They did have a greater fear of wild beasts but they did not in general suffer more or enjoy pleasure any less than do modern humans. So not knowing medicine they couldn't heal their wounds but they also didn't inflict wounds in mass casualty wars or shipwrecks like we do now. And yes they died more often of starvation but they didn't die of obesity like we do now. So despite our progress we haven't fundamentally improved our level of pleasure or happiness. Now eventually human society in more complex modes of interaction developed. The invention of huts, skins and fire was accompanied by the pairing off of women and men to form a home unit for the sake of mating. And with their offspring in this household the gradual softening of the human race begins. So it begins with exposure to fire which weakens and reduces their tolerance for cold. Now the use of fire he says could have just been discovered accidentally by the effects of forest fire causing caused by lightning or by the friction of falling trees scraping together and cooking was inspired by observing the softening effects of the sun's rays on fruits and so forth. So humans just kind of imitate these natural effects and take advantage of these natural effects that happen. It's not because they were given fire by a god like Prometheus they just accidentally or through their own resources took advantage of it. At this point neighbors started joining in friendship with other neighbors for the sake of avoiding violence or in order to gain protection for women and children in the household quote with cries and gestures they taught by broken words that it's right that all men have pity on the weak. Now they could not thereby obtain a kind of concord but they could maintain what he calls a kind of covenant or what we would now call a social contract. Otherwise there would be no way that the human race could have survived down to the present day. And humans were driven to develop language as a convention just as children are driven by their own speechlessness to gesture at things that they need or want. So it was because of necessity that we started developing these gestures and expressions in order to convey our needs. Language was not invented by a single intelligent person or a god who spread it to others. Rather the human invention of sounds expresses natural and primitive desires and fears and this is paralleled by other animals who also use sounds to express their fear or pain or pleasure as do dogs horses birds etc. Now the origin of monarchical or kingly power Lucretius says quote and day by day those who excelled in understanding and were strong in mind showed them more and more how to change their former life and livelihood for new habits and for fire. So kings or really powerful people founded cities and built citadels for their own protection and then divided cattle and lands to others on their on the basis of their beauty, strength and genius. So he gives an account of sort of the origin of distributive justice strong and exceptional individuals, founding cities, building citadels and thus acquiring more property which they distribute to other people on the basis of their virtues like beauty, strength and intelligence. But the invention of wealth which followed these kingly distributions and was accompanied by the introduction of gold led to a devaluation of virtues like strength and beauty in favor of riches. Riches always beat out strength or beauty. So at this point Lucretius digresses to offer a moral exhortation to a way of life that recognizes that it is quote great riches to a man to live thriftily with a calm mind for he can never lack a little. So he rails against greed, desire for more money, more wealth, more riches and ambition for power as being vain and empty pursuits that pointlessly cause misery. Now the origin of law, order and punishment in this primitive condition. The pursuit of power which Lucretius has just exhorted Memius against is blamed for the slaying of these kings and the overthrowing of these of this monarchical power and the slaying of the first kings resulted in a kind of anarchy because men are eager to trod under foot that which they have most feared quote and so things would pass to the utmost dregs of disorder when every man sought for himself the power and the headship. So you have a kind of return to a state of nature. Kings are not able to maintain order. It's anarchical chaos. Every person fighting with every other person to secure the means of safety and survival. Well, people then become exhausted of living in this violence and so become ready to submit of their own accord to laws which prevent it and thus there are established laws and magistrates in order to curb the wrath and vengeance in this state of nature and the establishment of regimes of punishment produced the fear of punishment to discourage and deter this violence and chaos and encourage instead a calm peaceful and just lifestyle and the fear of punishment is effective even to this day at securing this peace and calm and even at deterring hidden crimes. So even if you don't think you will be punished the regimes of punishment that hang over us plague our conscience with guilt and we never feel sure that we won't be uncovered that our crimes won't be uncovered and thus the fear of punishment keeps us in check. Now Lucretius gives an account of the history of religion that is also set within the context of this naturalistic account of the development of human civilization. So he effectively gives us a natural history of religion. He says that dreams of humanoids moving and speaking and performing marvelous feats of strength and power and being invulnerable to harm appeared to early humans and caused them to suppose that these super powerful and even immortal things actually exist and thus they imagined that these gods exist that resemble humans and lacking explanations for the origin and apparent order of the world including great things like the sun moon and stars and puzzling things like meteorological phenomena lightning and thunder early humans attributed these to those superpowered beings that appeared in their dreams. The problem is that such an explanation of meteorological and cosmological events then produces a new anxious care concern and fear about these super powerful beings and what they can do. The idea that thunder bolts storms and earthquakes might be inflicted by these superpowered beings as a kind of punishment is terrifying to humans and so they live in fear of the gods. Lucretius next gives an account of the development of metals and military technology. Metals again weren't given to us by a certain god like Hephaestius but were discovered accidentally after finding shiny objects molded into the forms of hollows in the ground after forest fires and it dawned on primitive people that they might melt the same metals into any other shape that they could mold them into so they created metal tools and they tried various combinations until the invention of different alloys like bronze and eventually bronze became even more valuable than gold because of its usefulness. Iron he says developed later than bronze. Bronze tools were used for agriculture and war and had tended to make the person who was equipped with bronze weapons and armor invulnerable but the spread of iron technology led to an equalization of this military power. He also has an interesting and somewhat puzzling discussion of the use of animals in warfare. Horses were used in war before the introduction of chariots he says. The Carthaginians introduced elephants into warfare but experiments with bulls, boars and lions using them in war were also introduced but they proved useless since they were just as likely to turn on the army that deployed them as they were to attack the enemies. Thus these kinds of things tended to destroy the people deploying them and so were abandoned and are no longer used in warfare. Now Lucretius expresses skepticism about these possibly legendary stories which he describes in incredibly graphic and gory detail very poetic but he insists that they must have happened somewhere in the universe if not here than in other inhabited worlds. Next Lucretius describes the development of some domestic technologies like clothing and farming and also the origin of music. So plated garments, preceded woven ones. Lucretius says that originally men who are naturally more skillful than women worked wool but then they handed over the working of wool to women once farming was discovered. Sewing and grafting were learned by observing effects of berries and acorns falling to the ground. This gave them the idea to implant shoots into the ground and little by little they experimented with making various kinds of plants grow and thus learned to cultivate the soil. Again they weren't instructed in how to do this by some god or goddess like Demeter instead they observed what was happening around them or accidentally happened on the powers of doing these things. Singing again wasn't learned from a god but by imitating birds. Wind instruments were invented by observing the wind whistling through hollow reeds. The sweet melodies that are produced by singing voices and musical instruments were enjoyed and encouraged people to dance and Lucretius argues that primitive music afforded just as much pleasure to primitive peoples as our sophisticated music does to the accomplished players of today. Showing again that despite improvements and increases in technology the fundamental conditions of life and our happiness and pleasure have not changed. Now in the finale Lucretius describes the steady progress of this technology but mixes it with an exhortation to the limitation of desires very much in line with Epicurean ethics. People he points out are generally content with what they have until something new comes along and then they tend to struggle with in order to get that new thing. So originally people were delighted with having acorns for food and having straw beds but now they despise these things and want harder to get things like very soft mattresses and cooked food. So for example when the use of wild beast pelts for clothing was discovered it was considered such a great discovery that men must have fought to the death for possession of these pelts but then wearing pelts fell into contempt and cloth garments were preferred and then cloths dyed purple or embroidered with gold were wanted and fought over all while a poor man's cloak or even wearing pelts would provide equivalent protection. So we're driven to great labors and pains in order to secure things and possess them consume them which are unnecessary for our pleasure and our livelihood and we're even drawn into wars and driven to seafaring for the sake of acquiring totally unnecessary possessions. And finally he describes how by observing the sun and moon and stars primitive peoples learned the order of the seasons and began to keep track of the passage of time and then to record events like the foundation of cities, the cultivation of fields, the sailing of ships, they wrote these into poetic histories. Written accounts however came shortly after these original oral poetic compositions but all of this culture is very recent. The arts of shipbuilding, agriculture, city building, laws, roads, clothing, etc all continues to progress but it remains an open question whether this progress is beneficial or harmful to the humans. And so Lucretius ends the book on a very ambivalent point.