The maxim of Lucretius, that nothing arises save by the death of something else, meets us still in our crawling immortality. And his art of accepting and enjoying what the conditions of our being afford also has a perennial application. Dante, the poet of faith, will tell us that we must find our peace in the will that gives us our limited portion. Goethe, the poet of romantic experience, will tell us that we must renounce, renounce perpetually. Thus wisdom clothes the same moral truths in many cosmic parables. The doctrines of philosophers disagree where they are literal and arbitrary,--mere guesses about the unknown; but they agree or complete one another where they are expressive or symbolic, thoughts wrung by experience from the hearts of poets. Then all philosophies alike are ways of meeting and recording the same flux of images, the same vicissitudes of good and evil, which will visit all generations, while man is man. * * * * * [1] Lucretius, iv. 834, 835: Nil ... natumst in corpore, ut uti Possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum. [2] Ibid., I. 1115-18: Alid ex alio clarescet, nec tibi caeca Nox iter eripiet, quin ultima naturai Pervideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus. [3] Lucretius, i. 264, 265: Alid ex alio reficit natura, nec ullam Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adiuta aliena. [4] An excellent expression of this view is put by Plato into the mouth of the physician Eryximachus in the _Symposium_, pp. 186-88. [5] Lucretius, i. 1-13: Æneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, Alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa Quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis Concelebras; per te quoniam genus omne animantum Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis: Te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli, Adventumque tuum: tibi suaves daedala tellus Submittit flores; tibi rident aequora ponti, Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. Nam simul ac species patefactast verna diei, Et reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni; Aëriae primum volucres te, diva, tuumque Significant initum, perculsae corda tua vi. [6] Lucretius, i. 24, 28-30, 41-43, 140-44: Te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse.... Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem: Effice, ut interea fera moenera militiai Per maria ac terras omnes sopita quiescant.... Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus aequo animo, nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti.... Sed tua me virtus tamen, et sperata voluptas Suavis amicitiae, quemvis sufferre laborem Suadet, et inducit noctes vigilare serenas, Quaerentem, dictis quibus et quo carmine demum Clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti. [7] Lucretius, ii. 1139-41, 1148-49, 1164-74: