The poem of Lucretius contains a full exposition of the theological, physical, and moral system of Epicurus. It has been remarked by an able writer, “that all the religious systems of the ancient Pagan world were naturally perishable, from the quantity of false opinions, and vicious habits, and ceremonies that were attached to them.” He observes even of the barbarous Anglo Saxons, that, “as the nation advanced in its active intellect, it began to be dissatisfied with its mythology. Many indications exist of this spreading alienation, which prepared the northern mind for the reception of the nobler truths of Christianity(439).” A secret incredulity of this sort seems to have been long nourished in Greece, and appears to have been imported into Rome with its philosophy and literature. The more pure and simple religion of early Rome was quickly corrupted, and the multitude of ideal and heterogeneous beings which superstition introduced into the Roman worship led to its total rejection(440). This infidelity is very obvious in the writings of Ennius, who translated Euhemerus’ work on the Deification of Human Spirits, while Plautus dramatized the vices of the father of the gods and tutelary deity of Rome. The doctrine of materialism was introduced at Rome during the age of Scipio and Lælius(441); and perhaps no stronger proof of its rapid progress and prevalence can be given, than that Cæsar, though a priest, and ultimately Pontifex Maximus, boldly proclaimed in the senate, that death is the end of all things, and that beyond it there is neither hope nor joy. This state of the public mind was calculated to give a fashion to the system of Epicurus(442). According to this distinguished philosopher, the chief good of man is pleasure, of which the elements consist, in having a body free from pain, and a mind tranquil and exempt from perturbation. Of this tranquility there are, according to Epicurus, as expounded by Lucretius, two chief enemies, superstition, or slavish fear of the gods, and the dread of death(443). In order to oppose these two foes to happiness, he endeavours, in the first place, to shew that the world was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that the gods, who, according to the popular theology, were constantly interposing, take no concern whatever in human affairs. We do injustice to Epicurus when we estimate his tenets by the refined and exalted ideas of a philosophy purified by faith, without considering the superstitious and polluted notions prevalent in his time. “The idea of Epicurus,” (as is observed by Dr Drake,) “that it is the nature of gods to enjoy an immortality in the bosom of perpetual peace, infinitely remote from all relation to this globe, free from care, from sorrow, and from pain, supremely happy in themselves, and neither rejoicing in the pleasures, nor concerned for the evils of humanity—though perfectly void of any rational foundation, yet