Most students who have given serious attention to the subject
would admit, I think, that Lucretius was a poet of quite extra-
ordinary talent, that he combines an almost prophetic fervour with
a supreme mastery of the techniques of poetical composition and
that as a consequence of this combination of earnestness and skill
he has produced one of the most profoundly moving poems in the
whole history of literature. But while admitting all this, scholars
tend with a perplexing unanimity to deny Lucretius' intellectual
originality. Lucretius, it is suggested, was great as a translator and
versifier. The system of ideas which he expounded can be found
ready made in Epicurus. Lucretius' contribution was to translate
the system of Epicurus into the Latin language and expound it in
a tour de force of high poetry. Of original thought in Lucretius there
is, in the received opinion, little trace. For this negative attitude
there may be a historical reason. Lucretius made his greatest impact
on the thought of the Western world in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries of our era. This was precisely the period when the atomic
theory of matter and the mechanistic interpretations of the findings
of science were most challenging to thoughtful men. ( Dalton New
System of Chemical Philosophy appeared in 1808). Moreover the
ethical implications of these views, hedonism and utilitarianism,
were to some most challenging to others most disturbing. In both
these fields the thought of Lucretius seemed like exciting anticipa-
tions of modern conclusions -- in cosmology the views of Boyle,
Newton, and Dalton; in ethics the views of Hume, Bentham, and
Mill. Now in both these fields Lucretius was admittedly a follower
of Epicurus. In passage after passage of luminous verse he acknowl-
edges his obligation to the master whom he held divine. ² No one
can accuse Lucretius of failing to acknowledge sufficiently his obli-
gations.

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