“Homer and Hesiod, whom we own great doctors of theology, Said many things of blissful gods that cry for large apology— That they may cheat, and rail, and lie, and give the rein to passion, Which were a crime in men who tread the dust in mortal fashion.” * * * * * “All eyes, all ears, all thought, is God, the omnipresent soul; And free from toil, by force of mind, he moves the mighty whole.” BLACKIE. The noble conception of Deity entertained by Xenophanes was soon perverted. We find his pupil PARMEN’IDES “the Great” in the next century doing away with the personality of God, and confounding the divine nature with pure being, which he made equivalent to thought. DEMOC’RITUS, of Abde’ra in Thrace (460-357 B.C.), known as the laughing philosopher from his constantly deriding the weaknesses of men, put forth the _atomic theory_,—that the universe is made up of countless minute, intangible atoms, and that in the motion of such atoms, round and fiery, consisted the movements of the mind and soul. God had no place in this philosophy; matter, time, space, and motion, were eternal. Bodies were formed by the fortuitous concurrence of atoms; and by the affinities and motions of atoms in the vacuum that made up the universe, all natural phenomena were produced. Such was the wisdom of one who laughed at the follies of his fellows, and is stated to have put out his own eyes that nothing might distract the current of his thoughts. =School of Epicurus.=—The materialism of Democritus was at a later day elaborated by EPICURUS (born on Samos about 340 B.C.) into a system of philosophy which gained so many converts that we are told whole cities could not contain the friends and followers of its author. According to the Epicurean philosophy, chance governed the world of atoms; there was no life beyond the grave. The gods were immortal, but were mere figure-heads, enjoying an emotionless inactivity, indifferent alike to the vices and fortunes of men: most likely Epicurus did not believe in any gods at all, but allowed their existence, as nonentities, that he might not shock the prejudices of the Athenians. Pleasure he made the chief end of life; but with him pleasure was not sensual indulgence; it lay in freedom from pain, the sober exercise of reason, and the nobler enjoyments of man’s higher nature. Such a doctrine, it is plain, was but too easy of perversion. The pure, high-toned “pleasure” of the moral Epicurus degenerated with the voluptuaries and profligates that adopted his tenets into the vilest excesses, and the very name _epicure_ is applied to one unduly addicted to the gratifying of the appetite.