In supporting his atomic theory of cosmology, biology and ethics, in refutation of the theological hypotheses of the Platonists and the Stoics, based, they claimed, upon “a study of nature and the laws of logic,” Epicurus offered what he regarded as logical evidence against the doctrine that the world was ever created or that it is the product of beneficent design. Professor Weber summed up the doctrine of Epicurus, as derived from the writings of the Poet, Lucretius; the biographer, Diogenes Laertius; and other authors of lives of the philosophers of ancient Greece, in the following words (translated by Dr. Frank Thilly, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Missouri): “The absolute creation and absolute destruction of the world are [according to both Democritus and Epicurus] out of the question. Creation in the proper sense of the term is impossible. In order to convince ourselves that the world is not the work of the gods, we have simply to consider the nature of its alleged creators, on the one hand, and its imperfections, on the other. Why should such perfect and supremely happy beings, who are self-sufficient and have no need of anything, burden themselves with creating the world? Why should they undertake the difficult task of governing the universe? “Let us, however, suppose for a moment that the world is their product. If they have created it, they have created it either eternally or in time; in the former case, the world is eternal; in the latter we have two possibilities: either creation is a condition of divine happiness, and then the gods were not supremely happy for an entire eternity, inasmuch as they did not create the world until after the lapse of an eternity of inaction; or, it is not, and in that case, they have acted contrary to their innermost essence. Moreover, what could have been their purpose in making it? Did they desire a habitation? That would be equivalent to saying that they had no dwelling-place for a whole eternity, or at least, none worthy of them. Did they create it for the sake of man? If they made it for the few sages whom the world contains, their work was not worth the trouble; if they did it in order to create wicked men, then they are cruel beings. Hence it is absolutely impossible to hold that creation is the work of the gods. “Let us examine the matter from the stand-point of the world. How can we assume that a world full of evils is the creation of the gods? What have we? Barren deserts, arid mountains, deadly marshes, uninhabitable arctic zones, regions scorched by the southern sun, briars and thorns, tempests, hailstones and hurricanes, ferocious beasts, diseases, premature deaths; do they not all prove that the Deity has no hand in the government of things? Empty space, atoms and weight, in short, mechanical causes, suffice to explain the world; and it is not necessary for metaphysics to have recourse to the theory of final causes.”[24]