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Lucretius on Religion
a
John Colman
a
Politics department , Ave Maria University
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: John Colman (2009) Lucretius on Religion, Perspectives on Political Science, 38:4, 228-239, DOI:
10.1080/10457090903231458

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 Lucretius on Religion
JOHN COLMAN
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Abstract: A number of Enlightenment thinkers of ques-
tionable piety drew inspiration from Lucretius’s philosophic
poem On the Nature of Things. Contemporary atheists, in
their renewed vigor, have continued the Enlightenment at-
tack on faith. Our atheists have sought to create a tradition
for themselves by claiming Lucretius as an ancient exemplar
of their own impious forthrightness. This study argues that
Lucretius was more fully appreciative of the necessary and
salutary relationship between religion and politics and would
not appreciate being co-opted by either group. A return to
Lucretius may be useful in understanding the foundation of
the early modern project and revealing the imprudence of
modern atheism.
Keywords: Enlightenment, Epicurean, Lucretius, political-
theological problem, religion
ommenting on the virtues of the British
C
constitutional system, Edmund Burke
draws on the thought of Lucretius to high-
light the moderating tendencies of its prin-
ciples. According to Burke, these princi-
ples reflect the limitations inherent in the
“subordinate material world” and demarcate what can and
cannot be and the laws that define the limits of all power.
In reflecting on government, as in investigating the natural
order, the task is to discover “how the powers and ultimate
limits of each thing have been established.”1 Burke contrasts
the British system of government with the designs for the
“abstract and unlimited power of perfection” of the French
revolutionaries. The fanaticism of revolutionary fervor to “go
beyond the barrier” of limited government is the necessary
outgrowth of theoretical abstraction unhinged from practical-
ities of political life. Ultimately for Burke, an “untempered
John Colman is an assistant professor in the politics depart-
ment at Ave Maria University.
Copyright © 2009 Heldref Publications
228
spirit of madness, blindness, immorality, and impiety” de-
fines the revolutionary project.2 In his “Thoughts on French
Affairs” Burke again draws on “old Epicureans” to reveal the
motivations of Enlightenment thinking. He contrasts the athe-
ism of the revolutionaries with that of the “old Epicureans,”
who were, he suggests, “an unenterprizing race.” Enlighten-
ment atheism, implicitly identified as a new Epicureanism,
has “grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious.” Such
boldness, Burke continues, was “not formerly the character
of atheists as such.”3
Burke’s use of Lucretius to indicate the limiting power
of British constitutional principle is drawn from Lucretius’s
paean to the achievements of his supposed mentor, the “man
from Greece.” The original quotation highlights this man’s
boldness and daring, but Burke imposes a certain cautious-
ness and conservatism on the quotation. Lucretius wishes to
impart to the reader that, through direct confrontation with
traditional religious opinion, the man from Greece estab-
lished what can and cannot be and affirmed by what “deep-set
boundary stone” all things have their power limited (1:77).
Accepting that Burke did not miss this impetuous and perhaps
impious context, one might wonder about his characteriza-
tion of ancient atheism as “unenterprizing.”
Lucretius never explicitly questions the existence of the
gods, but he provides ample reason to doubt his religious
belief. In the proem to book 1, Lucretius anticipates this im-
pression by voicing the fear that Memmius, his addressee,
will believe, based on the poem, that Lucretius has embarked
on the study of blasphemy (1:80–81, 1:102–03). The poem is
presented as an apology for, or defense against, this impres-
sion. Although he initially voices a desire to win Memmius’s
friendship, that friendship appears to be a means to another
end. Lucretius’s three formulations of his intention culmi-
nate in a desire to be the first to bring genuine philosophy to
Rome. He and the moderns share a common concern: both
seek a place for philosophy in hostile political and religious
environments. Their methods differ greatly, but for both it
appears that such an accommodation can be reached only by
defending philosophy from charges of impiety.
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
Burke’s reflections suggest that the antitheological animus
of Enlightenment thinking is an inheritance from classical
Epicureanism, although somewhat transformed. The greatest
source of classical Epicureanism we possess is Lucretius’s
poem On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura). There is a
definitive boldness in the proem of book 1, but the strength
of Lucretius’s antitheological animus fades as the poem un-
folds. My purpose is to explain Burke’s remarks by following
the development of Lucretius’s account of religion. In fol-
lowing his account of the gods, I will be primarily concerned
with understanding the political dimension of religious be-
lief and the need for circumspect comportment to counteract
the city’s impression of philosophy’s impiety. The difference
between the ancient and modern Epicureans is that the an-
cient Epicurean had no political project; he merely desired
to cultivate his garden, to find a quiet place for philosophy
to exist within, if not somewhat apart from, the city.4 The
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early modern Epicureans, however, sought not merely to cul-
tivate a garden but to become masters and owners of nature.
Such a project demands that the Epicurean become politically
ambitious—or, in Burke’s words, designing and seditious.
The question remains of whether Lucretius is less enter-
prising than the new Epicureans to whom Burke refers. If
he is, why? I will begin where Lucretius does, with an ac-
count of the origins of philosophy. According to Lucretius,
philosophy starts by reflecting on and challenging the pre-
philosophic account of the whole. As a challenge to that ac-
count it must justify that challenge. Lucretius’s justification
of philosophy can only be understood after due consideration
of his account of traditional religious piety. Our intention is
to show how Lucretius focuses on the political significance
of the traditional religious teachings. Then, I will present
Lucretius’s account of the spread of religious belief, which
deepens his focus on the relationship between religion and
the political health of the community. Having followed his
outline of the political dimensions of religious belief, I will
turn to Lucretius’s new account of the gods. This account
presents an alternative view of religious piety that attempts
to shield philosophy from accusations that philosophy un-
dermines the political community. We will then be prepared
to return to the fear Lucretius voices in the proem to book
1 and to consider how well this new theology succeeds in
securing philosophy’s life in the city. To what extent does
this theology shield the city from the dangers of philosophy?
The manner in which Lucretius seeks to defend the life of
philosophy in the city and shield the city from the potentially
corrosive aspects of philosophy can only be appreciated by
serious consideration of what has been taken as the most cu-
rious aspect of the poem, its finale. Having placed it within
the context of Lucretius’s intention, and the difficulties at-
tendant to that intention, we will be in a position to consider
what Lucretius would have made of the boldness of the En-
lightenment project.
∗ ∗ ∗ Book II. We will, however, begin by trying to outline that
In the proem to book 1, Lucretius asks his reader for atten-
tive ears, for a thoughtful mind, and not to scorn what he is
about to be told before he has grasped its meaning (1:50–53).
229
He promises to set forth the highest reason of heaven and
god and to show from what basic substance nature creates
all things, gives them growth, and ultimately dissolves them
at their passing (1:54–62). These discoveries, he claims, are
not fully his own, but rather the legacy of a man from Greece
who won them through great courage. Before this man, all
men lived under the terror of religion (1:62–74). The man
from Greece was the first to raise “mortal eyes” to the high
realm of heaven, which is said to be the source of man’s
terror (1:66). This raising of the eyes is the origin of rational
investigation into the nature of things, and this first act led
the man from Greece to the path that reveals what can and
cannot be.
Lucretius issues a challenge to the stories of the poets and
the priests and asks his reader to begin with what his eyes
reveal about the nature of things. The foundation of the in-
vestigation is thus seeing with one’s own eyes, as opposed
to the hearsay of poets and priests.5 Men are gripped by fear
because they “see” many things whose causes they cannot
fathom. They therefore attribute these causes to the acts of
angry gods.6 The origin of the study of the nature of things is,
thus, revulsion at the terror that the religious account of the
whole offers to man. Such accounts are transmitted through
“invented dreams”7 and frequently take the form of threats.
The majority of men divine something about the eternal pro-
cess of creation and destruction within the nature of things
through their seeing. However, they do not continue to in-
vestigate through the senses, preferring to rely on the songs
and stories of poets and priests. These songs and stories are
ultimately attractive because they offer divine guarantees to
assuage man’s fear that the walls of the world may collapse.
This suggests that the religious account, far from being sim-
ply terrifying, may provide comfort.
Lucretius in fact acknowledges as much; he expects that
the novelty of his teaching will provoke resistance from the
reader (1:136–39). One may infer that part of the difficulty
in introducing his teachings is that a certain comfort, albeit
false, is gained through acceptance of religious myth. The
implication, which goes unmentioned, is that what science
reveals about the nature of things may be discomforting.
Although Lucretius has created some doubt about the true
character of religious myths, in so doing he has introduced
the possibility that science may reveal a truth more terrible
than that of religion. If religion is not the primary source of
terror and is in fact a source of comfort, then Lucretius must
find some other justification for introducing novel teachings.
∗ ∗ ∗
Lucretius makes surprisingly few sustained remarks on
traditional religion. When commenting upon religion, Lu-
cretius focuses chiefly on the relationship between politics
and traditional religious belief. The most significant passage
is his discussion of the procession of the Great Mother from
relationship with some brief remarks about the proem to
book 1.
The proem to book 1 begins with the pre-philosophic un-
derstanding of the nature of things, which suggests that the
 230
city and its political authority rest on their ancestral asso-
ciation with the gods. Central to this political teaching is
that to be Roman is to have kinship with the first cause or
first thing. Although the proem to book 1 accepts the gov-
ernance of Venus, Lucretius later claims that nature creates
all things (1:54–56). To challenge Venus’s governance is to
challenge the authority of the gods and their direct link to
Roman ancestry. That those who desire to look into the na-
ture of things must stand against religion is made explicit in
what comes next: Lucretius praises the man from Greece as
the first to have stood up to the priests (1:62–79; see also
5:745, 5:1218–21). The passage reads as a genuine battle be-
tween religious authority and the man from Greece, who is
depicted storming the stronghold of religion and “shattering
the imprisoning bolts of nature’s gates” (1:71), and setting
a firm boundary stone.8 A boundary stone is a demarcation
that had both political and religious significance. In Ovid we
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find this praise addressed to the god Terminus: “Thou doth
set bounds to peoples, cities and vast kingdoms; without you
every field would be a root of wrangling.”9 The man from
Greece has engaged in an enterprise that moves and then
resets what is otherwise understood to be sacred and unmov-
able. His discoveries, not the city or religious authority, are
now to determine what can and cannot be. The victory of
the man from Greece over religion is depicted as a Roman
triumph of sorts (1:75–79).
Memmius’s belief that he is committing the crime of impi-
ety by following Lucretius is, thus, well-founded by the chal-
lenge philosophy appears to pose to reigning religious and
political authority. Lucretius attempts to combat this fear by
showing Memmius that in fact it is religious belief that is
“more commonly” (1:82) responsible for crime.10 As an ex-
ample, Lucretius cites the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the hands
of her father to guarantee the safety of the Greek fleet as
it set out against Troy. Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his virgin
daughter to Diana is apparently proof enough for Lucretius to
claim, “Such great evils could religion make seem advisable”
(1:101). One might question how convincing this example is,
as it is not Roman but mythical.
Lucretius argues that the sacrifice of Iphigenia demon-
strates the great crimes for which religion is responsible,
but what exactly is the nature of Agamemnon’s crime? The
sacrifice of his daughter is certainly an example of a crime
against an innocent child, which one could argue is against
man’s fundamental attachment to his own. It is, however, a
crime meant to serve a political good in the community led
by Agamemnon. There was then a political good that the
sacrifice was intended to serve and nowhere in the story does
Lucretius say that Diana was not appeased. Neither does Lu-
cretius suggest that the men doubted that the goddess had
been appeased. One might then wonder about the effect of
losing this religious support on the political community, es-
pecially on its willingness and ability to defend itself.
Traditional piety we may suspect leads man to consider
something higher than his personal interest, such as the po-
litical community. The sacrifice shows the need to sacrifice
one’s own for the good of the city. We are thus opened to the
possibility that a political community without religious belief
would be more terrible than one with strong public worship.
Perspectives on Political Science
We are now prepared to consider Lucretius’s fullest discus-
sion of traditional piety and its relation to political health:
the procession of the Great Mother.11
Lucretius presents the poetic song about the Great Mother
as an attempt to overcome or hide the terrible fact that the
world must participate in the eternal process of generation
and corruption. The first teaching of the procession of the
Great Mother is therefore a cosmological one.12 The divinity
of the earth and its characterization as a mother suggest its
eternality and its status as a generator of life. The procession
is the fabulous outcome of man’s uneasiness with the idea
that the movement of the heavens and other cosmological
phenomena do not bode well for the longevity of the earth.
What follows are elements of human striving that endeavor
to influence this foreboding possibility.
Following the cosmological teaching, the procession turns
to earthly affairs and symbolizes what is necessary for the
health of the political community (2:604–43). First, the char-
iot of the Great Mother is yoked to lions as a symbol of
the demand that children bow before their parents. The Great
Mother’s head is circled with a mural crown, symbolizing her
protection of the city. She is surrounded by Phrygian hordes,
who the original devotees of the Great Mother and were re-
warded with grain. Grain is later revealed as her first gift, al-
lowing for permanent settlement (6:1). Eunuch priests attend
the Great Mother as a sign that those who break her covenant
are declared unfit to bear and raise children. The procession
is accompanied by an insane frenzy of knife-bearing priests
and music said to drive men with “unholy hearts” and “un-
appreciative minds” to fear the goddess’s power (2:622–23).
Men at arms follow her to symbolize that her holy covenant
demands that men fight for their fatherland. The procession
thus contributes to patriotism and allegiance to the city, which
cannot be separated from allegiance to the cosmological and
religious teaching on which these values rest.
Lucretius concludes his discussion of the procession by
stating, “Although this is set forth and related well and ex-
cellently, nevertheless it is far removed from true reasoning”
(2:644–45). According to Lucretius, religion gives rise to the
unreasonable desire, or is born of the desire, to make man at
home in what seems to be an uncaring world. It therefore can-
not be the path to happiness. However, Lucretius mitigates
his criticism with reserved praise. Although religion is far
from truth and reason, it is not by definition simply contrary
to them. Religion accepts that man is not the highest thing in
nature or the origin of its meaning, and any attempt it may
undertake to bring human things into harmony with nature
will be moderated to some degree by this understanding. Lu-
cretius directs our attention to the possibility that the religious
account, like religious belief itself, is an untrue but power-
ful response to the fundamental human experience of finding
oneself subject to a capricious and uncaring natural situation.
Lucretius’s polemical attack on religion as a delusion and a
major source of crime, from the proem to book 1, is tempered
by an understanding of religion and religious belief as indica-
tive of something meaningful in the fundamental nature of
man. According to Lucretius, religious teaching embodies a
concern, shared by philosophy, to possess knowledge of the
whole. Despite being far from truth and reason, this teaching
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
is worthy of praise because it is directed by a concern with
what is most important to human flourishing.
Lucretius’s sympathy is born of an awareness that religion
is responsive to natural human longing and that philosophy
must likewise be mindful of the needs of the political commu-
nity and political necessity.13 The procession of the Magna
Mater and the picture that we have been able to draw of tradi-
tional piety begin to suggest that religion may be responsible
for the coherence and continuation of a sound polity. If the
political community is held together by a fable, we must con-
sider the political effect of subjecting the traditional account
of religious piety to the zetetic questioning that characterizes
investigation into the nature of things. We can do so by a
close consideration of Lucretius’s account of the spread of
religion.
∗ ∗ ∗ forest men’s eyes ever looked up to the heavens. In fact,
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Immediately following his account of the emergence of
political society out of man’s original forest-dwelling condi-
tion, Lucretius promises to provide the cause of the spread of
religion in “great nations” and describe how it flourished in
“great states” (5:1161–68). The spread of religion is here as-
sociated with great nations and cities and described as coeval
with the development of political society.
The larger context of Lucretius’s account of how belief in
the gods spread amongst the “great nations” and filled the
cities with altars is the evolution, for lack of a better term,
of political life. With the invention of property and the use
of gold, the reign of kings based on the natural standards of
beauty and strength (5:1111) gave way to a situation of great
chaos and violence. Previously, the allocation of resources
according to the natural standard of strength and beauty had
limited what the majority of men could secure for their well-
being and, thus, their independence (5:1140). Greed and the
desire for revenge led to regicide, to the destruction of the
natural standard regulating men’s desires and designs, and
eventually to great violence and chaos. This eruption of chaos
revealed the selfishness that lurks violently beneath political
order and the destructive possibilities of a fanatical desire for
justice. This chaos came to an end only when men tired of
the violence and were taught to elect magistrates and institute
law (5:1145–47). The institution of law is a substitute for the
natural standards and fear that governs under kingship.
That the spread of religion immediately follows the dis-
covery of laws in Lucretius’s account suggests that he sees
religion as a politically salutary supplement to the laws.14 In
other words, religion is a means to suppress the violence that
simmers beneath political order and a remedy for man’s ex-
cessive desire for justice. Lucretius’s earlier polemic against
the tyranny and injustice of religion gives way to an under-
standing of religion as a politically salutary restraint on the
inordinate desire for justice.15 Religion is additionally pre-
sented as a necessary supplement to the limited reach of the
law. Although men might believe that in breaking the law
they can deceive all men and gods, they “must be unsure
whether it will be a secret forever” (5:1156–57). The reli-
gious supplement plays on the uneasiness with which the
majority of men carry their misdeeds.16 In contrast to the
231
criminality of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, we see that religion
can be a salutary and necessary part of political life.
The politically salutary aspects of religion may explain
why belief in the gods spread with the development of politi-
cal community proper, but this is not a sufficient explanation
of the origin of belief. The source of religious belief, as Lu-
cretius shows, is in the most fundamental nature of man.
Lucretius’s treatment presents religion as composed of con-
ventional elements but its essence as fundamentally natural
to man. Man is presented as inconceivable without religion.
In his discussion of man’s forest-dwelling existence, Lu-
cretius quietly hints as the naturalness of religion. Although
forest-dwelling men did not fear death, when suffering from
wounds inflicted on them by wild beasts they cried out to
Orcus (5:996). Their cries were born of their vulnerability
to the harshness of nature. There is no indication that the
the motions of the heavens are explicitly said not to have
caused them wonder, and they never considered that “de-
spair that everlasting darkness might hold the earth. . . for all
time” (5:973–80). However, once men did lift their eyes they
sought explanations for the ordered, and at times menacing,
motions of the heavens. Men “sought refuge” in attributing
these motions to the gods, as the men recognized the frighten-
ing possibility that the earth had a beginning and, therefore,
must also have an end (5:1211–14). The deepening of reli-
gious belief is dependent on man having become suspicious
that the walls of the world will not last forever, and that our
world will, in time, come to an end, as all composite things
must.
The full realization of this truth is only possible with the
high level of advancement in the arts that accompanies fully
formed political society. It is within political society that
man comes to see that, despite his arts, he remains no match
for the power of nature (5:1233–40).17 The extent of man’s
neediness and vulnerability and nature’s indifference only be-
comes fully apparent once he is no longer continually preoc-
cupied with finding resources for self-preservation. Through
political life and its attendant arts, man acquires ambitions
and desires that extend beyond mere self-preservation; in
contrast, the forest-dwelling men knew about nothing but
providing for their own survival (5:961). The advancement of
the arts reveals something of a mixed blessing. This advance-
ment begins to relieve man’s estate and engenders hopes that
the arts can conquer nature’s indifference. With the devel-
opment of the arts, man gains greater comfort and ease but
sees more clearly what he had already sensed: the indiffer-
ence of nature and the fate of the world. For the majority of
men, understanding this fact gives rise to a horror that seeks
comfort in divine support for the world. The advancement
of the arts is accompanied by advancement in understand-
ing of the hidden force that grinds men down. Religion is,
therefore, meant to remedy the pain stemming from the re-
alization that the objects of men’s loves and desires are not
eternal; religion seeks to harmonize what reason establishes
as incommensurate.
The foundation of religious belief is a combination of hope
and fear: hope that the walls of the world will not collapse,
and fear that man is helpless in influencing the outcome. The
 232
nature of the gods directly reflects such hope and fear. Man’s
account of the specific nature of the gods is indicative of
the true origin of religious belief. Lucretius reveals how the
ways men ascribe certain qualities to the gods shed light on
the origin of belief.
The two most significant aspects of the gods are, first,
that they are able to toil and achieve great wonders with-
out fatigue and, second, that fear of death never troubles
them (5:1169–71). That the gods achieve much without toil
demonstrates that they are able to obtain what they seek or
desire without effort, as their bodies are not an impediment
to the satisfaction of their desires. Anthropomorphizing the
gods is, according to Lucretius, born from a sense of impo-
tence in the face of nature’s power. That weakness can be
most substantially traced to man’s body, including the con-
stant need to replenish ourselves with food. That the gods
“seemed” to move without toil and loss of strength must
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mean that the gods have no need for food.18 Our need for
food is the most basic aspect of our neediness, and Lucretius
often employs the need for food metaphorically to represent
a greater neediness tied to the body. The most important
example of this metaphor occurs in Lucretius’s account of
love, where he couches a description of erotic madness in the
language of hunger (4:858–76). That the gods are free of the
need for food may indicate that they are likewise free of love.
The perfectly tranquil lives of the gods render it difficult to
imagine that they could be plagued by love.19
Such powerful creatures as the gods, men believed, could
not be easily overcome by any force; therefore, men “gave”
them eternal life. Lucretius then goes on to say that man
believed the gods to be the happiest creatures because they
did not fear death. This association drawn between the gods’
happiness and their freedom from fear of death is a projection
of man’s highest desire. The gods’ perfection is due to their
freedom from fortune and necessity. They are, accordingly,
in all respects perfectly self-sufficient, totally without need
or fear. The ideas that most move and trouble man find res-
olution in theology. A proper understanding of the nature of
the gods is, thus, an appreciation of the complexity of man’s
neediness, and the parsing of theology an essential part of
the investigation into the nature of man’s soul.
If an investigation into man’s belief about the gods is an
investigation of men’s souls, the passage that may most reveal
the source of the false additions of the mind may be found in
the finale of book 4 s account of love. This passage, surpassed
by none in hilarity, reveals with all seriousness the root of
men’s belief in the gods (4:1153–70). Man’s awareness of his
own deficiencies, neediness, and frailty gives rise to a desire
to possess something that provides him with the notion that
he may commune with, if not possess, perfection. Love and
fear of death culminate in the desire to possess the beautiful
as one’s own and forever, as the beloved becomes a goddess.
Belief in the gods is a remedy for the fear induced by the
intimation that the objects of man’s erotic attachments are
impermanent and imperfect.20
Lucretius’s explanation of belief in the gods is placed at
the end of his account of political life, because it is within
political life that man most strongly experiences his weak-
ness and insignificance. Attempts to compensate for this
Perspectives on Political Science
weakness through art only serve to aggravate his desires.
He thus gives his erotic longings and fears ever greater ex-
pression as his attempts to compensate for what he senses is
the truth about the whole are thwarted. Liberated from seek-
ing mere self-preservation, man recognizes a disharmony
between his needs and the way of the cosmos. The only way
to bring such things into harmony is for the gods to guarantee
that the walls of the world will not collapse.
∗ ∗ ∗
If we follow Lucretius’s explanations about why he com-
posed his poem, we see his final intention to be the first to
bring genuine philosophy to Rome (5:335–36). As philoso-
phy is born of, and apparently justified by, its rising against
religion, any introduction of philosophy to the city demands
that the philosophy defend itself against the charge of impiety
(Strauss, Liberalism, 79). Given the politically salutary and
irreplaceable nature of belief, philosophy’s introduction into
the community also requires a reformed account of the gods
that defends the philosophic life. Lucretius seeks to provide
such a theological justification of the philosophic life by way
of his “official” account of the gods.
Providing an account of Lucretius’s “official” theology
is particularly difficult given his procedure. Although reli-
gion provides the sub-text of the much of his poem, nowhere
does Lucretius provide a sustained account of the true na-
ture of the gods. This economy of speech is indicative of
the nature of the difficulty Lucretius faces: any defense
of the philosophic life must be made on religious grounds, as
the political community is also a religious community. Any
defense must introduce rational deliberation into theological
matters without undermining that which religion provides the
political community. Lucretius’s economy of speech is, thus,
a response to the precariousness of the relationship between
philosophy and the city and to philosophy’s understanding
of political necessity.
The gods enjoy perfect peace of mind because they do not
suffer from fear or love. In the context of Lucretius’s discus-
sion of such things and the larger context of his atomism, this
means the gods have no needs or concerns of the body. Their
bodies are accordingly exceedingly fine, which explains why
we cannot see them; they are scarcely visible to our minds.
The abodes of the gods are similarly fine. Their perfect peace
of mind of the gods results from their freedom from fear for
their bodies (i.e., death) and from the desire to transcend
their bodies (i.e., love; I:44–49; II:646–51). Instead of myths
of the gods plagued by suffering of the body and physical
exertion (III:977–1013), Lucretius provides an image of the
gods absolutely free of such suffering. They are happy not
because of the power of their bodies but because of their
independence from bodily concern.
Why, Lucretius asks, would such blessed creatures tackle a
project for our sake? (5:165–86). Lucretius’s rhetorical ques-
tion explains the power of the gods in terms not of their ac-
tions but rather what they would not seek to do. This negative
approach contrasts with statements made regarding what the
gods cannot do, given their nature and the nature of things.
Lucretius uses both of these approaches to the question of
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
the power of the gods and their intervention, or lack thereof,
in the affairs of man. Our first glimpse of the nature of the
gods is provided in the proem to book 1, where Lucretius
states that the gods enjoy their immortal lives in perfect
peace and joy, cut off from human affairs (1:45–46). The
gods enjoy their tranquility because they are not moved by
chance, fortune, or accidents, such as “slavery. . . and poverty
and wealth, freedom, war, peace, and other things at whose
arrival and departure the nature of things remains unharmed,
we are accustomed to call, as is right, accidents” (1:455–58).
The gods’ happiness comes precisely because they are free
from caring about human and political things.
That the gods cannot be disturbed from their tranquility
to undertake projects for man’s sake can best be seen in the
account of the genesis of the earth. We are told that we should
not ascribe divine origin to the earth, because the earth is so
replete with flaws that it surely cannot be the creation of
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the gods (2:167–83, 5:156–94). The essential point is that
Lucretius’s theology does not try to establish a harmony
between the nature of things and the nature of the gods.
Rather, the magnificence of the gods is their blessedness,
peacefulness, and happiness despite the disharmony.
Just as surely as the gods did not create the world, they
do not govern it. Lucretius suggests that the gods’ nature
is incompatible with such rule (2:1090–94). The boundless
whole is too large, and the innumerable worlds too vast, to be
governed by the gods. The gods are presented as both unable
and unwilling to govern the boundless whole. That the gods
cannot and would not desire to rule the whole reveals the most
essential fact about them: they are fundamentally limited in
what they can and cannot do and yet remain perfectly blessed
and happy beings, despite their limitations.
Lucretius’s account of the gods finds its complement in the
description of the life of the philosopher, the beneficence of
the man from Greece, and the understanding of genuine piety.
The glory of the man from Greece appears to reach a pinnacle
in the proem to book 5, in which Lucretius claims that the
man from Greece merits deification for his discoveries: “he
was a god, yes god” (5:8). This man deserves such high
praise because he was the first to reveal the life of reason
and, through his wisdom, brought us out of the darkness into
the light (5:9–12). The man from Greece gave us the tools
that allow us to enjoy the true pleasures of life: “But it was
not possible to live well without an untroubled mind, so that
more deservedly he seems to be a god to us, from whom
even now sweet comforts of life are spread throughout great
peoples and soothe their minds” (5:18–21).
The book 5 proem’s praise of the man from Greece is,
however, something of an exaggeration, and Lucretius issues
a correction in the proem to book 6. He states that it is not
the man from Greece that is divine but his discoveries; the
man is dead, but his wisdom lives on (6:7). After having
observed that life’s needs were “mostly” close at hand, and
that life was “about as secure as it could be,” the man from
Greece saw that the majority of men still troubled their minds
with profitless complaints (6:1–19). This was because their
minds were like vessels full of holes. The man from Greece
thus did not seek to, nor could he completely, “take life from
storms so vast and such vast darkness” (5:11), but rather
233
sought to set “due limit upon desire and fear,” and set forth
the “highest good” (6:25–26). The man from Greece thus
prescribed the life of happiness founded on the recognition
of its fundamental limits.
The man from Greece accomplished his benefaction pri-
marily through lengthy speeches about the gods (5:52–54).
The possibility of happiness amidst great peoples (5:20–21),
we might conclude, is made possible by speeches about the
gods. However, lengthy speeches about the gods are con-
spicuously absent from Lucretius’s account, replaced with
speeches on astronomical phenomena. This replacement
may be due to prudence on Lucretius’s part as they are
better suited to achieve happiness amongst great peoples.
Astronomical speeches are prudential because they may
moderate the religious views of the reader without speaking
directly of the gods. Lucretius will explain what force gov-
erns the motion of the moon, the stars, and the sun in order
that “we don’t think that they move with any divine plan”
(5:81).
This refutation of the divinity of the heavenly motions
aims to introduce a level of rational doubt into delibera-
tions on theology.21 What Lucretius seeks to do is present
an argument that scientific deliberations, even on theological
matters, can reveal the truth about the gods and strengthen
our beliefs. By arguing that piety is the ability to look at the
nature of things undisturbed, Lucretius suggests that piety
does not forbid, but rather demands, the rational investiga-
tion of the heavens (5:1194–1203). Genuine piety demands
that one have a proper account of nature in order to revere
the gods properly. Only by investigating the truth about ce-
lestial phenomena can one come to see that they are not the
acts of vengeful or beneficent gods. Lucretius asks his reader
to consider investigation into astronomy, and the nature of
things more generally, as an act of piety.
Lucretius’s account of how men moved from the obser-
vation of celestial phenomena to belief in gods concludes
with a series of questions that attempt to explain that want of
knowledge about the beginnings and begetting of the world
leads to terror, confusion, and ultimately impiety. The ques-
tions are indicative of the zetetic questioning that best char-
acterizes the philosophic life, and the ability to rest satisfied
with the limited intelligibility of the whole. True piety is to
look on nature without dismay, despite the difficulties and
limitations—that is, to live according to the limitations in-
herent in all things, which is its own pleasure, albeit a rather
austere one.22
Lucretius’s dissection and redefinition of piety may not
account for the possibility that the rational investigation of
astronomical phenomena remains potentially destructive of
the virtues necessary for the city. It is not clear that Lucretius’s
piety provides for civic attachment and political virtue as
adequately as did the procession of the Magna Mater. The
Lucretian teaching on genuine piety and the philosophic life
counters with the claim that genuine piety is only possible
by adherence to a vigorous, manly ethic. Lucretius claims
that the philosophic life is, contrary to popular opinion, one
of courage and moderation.23 The Lucretian understanding
of piety premised on a rigorous ethic may deflect hostility to
the philosophic life. By arguing that the investigation is only
 234
possible through this ethic, Lucretius defends the philosophic
life by drawing upon the virtues that sustain political life.
Charges of impiety are often linked to accusations of hedo-
nism.24 Lucretius’s ethic seeks to deflect such criticisms. His
teaching consistently takes the side of the limitations of plea-
sure: our bodies need ever so little to be satisfied (2:20–33),
and tranquility of mind can only be found through reason and
the study of the nature of things (2:34–62). Accusations of
hedonism are difficult to ascribe to Lucretius, as he has little
to say about the pleasure of philosophy. If Lucretius’s teach-
ing is hedonistic, it represents a rather austere hedonism.
Body and mind, he frequently reminds us, are satisfied only
through recognition and conformity with the essential fact of
our existence: that we are fundamentally limited creatures.
Happiness is the outcome of an ability to live within those
limitations, and to live well is to live in accord with them.
Moderation is thus consistently presented as the essential
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virtue of Lucretius’s supposed hedonism.
The other philosophic virtue of the Lucretian ethic is
courage. The courage of the philosophic life is affirmed by
the only passage that speaks of Epicurus by name. The pas-
sage compares three pairs of men: King Ancus and Homer,
Xerxes and Democritus, and Epicurus and Scipio. The juxta-
position of the contemplative life and the life of great politi-
cal action confirms the notion that the courage of poets and
philosophers in the face of death can rival that of the greatest
warriors and kings.25 It is the manner in which the great poets
and philosophers meet their death that Lucretius finds most
remarkable. The picture provided here of the courage of phi-
losophy contrasts with the vulgar view that the philosophic
life is one of idleness and uselessness. This false impression
leads to the accusation that philosophy is a life that “loiters at
the gates of death,” an accusation that is not entirely devoid
of merit (3:67).
The philosopher who willingly “loiters at the gates of
death” may display great courage, but this case does not
settle questions about the politically salutary nature of the
official account of the gods. Although the new theology at-
tempts to defend the philosophic life on theological grounds,
and the Lucretian ethic may deflect criticism of hedonism and
lack of manly virtue, there remains the difficulty of whether
Lucretius’s official teaching can provide for the community’s
political needs.26
The potentially less than politically salutary nature of
Lucretius’s official theology is revealed in the account of
lightning that is traditionally understood by most men as a
sign of divine anger. Lucretius proceeds to give an account,
the longest devoted to any single phenomenon discussed in
book 6, of the effects of lightning (6:219–38), its nature
(6:239–322), and in which times of year and seasons it is
most likely to occur (6:357–78). Lucretius concludes the
account with a series of rhetorical questions that show the
absurdity of attributing lightning to the gods and the absence
of divine justice in nature (6:379–422). Once we understand
the truth about the nature of lightning we have no need of
“Tuscan songs” seeking the hidden intent of gods (6:379–82).
A rational account of lightning would presumably help lib-
erate men from fear of gods (2:385, 2:1090–1104; 6:82–91,
6:387–422). To liberate man from fear of gods by way of a
Perspectives on Political Science
rational account of such phenomena as lightning is to release
men from the salutary restraint of fear of divine punishment.
But why present a teaching on the gods that by Lucretius’s
own indications cannot provide what is politically expedi-
ent and salutary? Lucretius does not directly address this
difficulty.
The rational account of lightning may liberate man from
the salutary restraint imposed by fear of the gods. This is,
however, just a prelude to the treatment of the irregular and
frightening phenomena of nature that concludes the poem.
Lucretius’s account of such destructive natural forces re-
veals man’s relative powerlessness in the face of nature’s
strength. Given nature’s destructive power, man’s creative
energies seem largely to be in vain. Yet by presenting the
fullness of nature’s power and seemingly random destruc-
tiveness Lucretius may be indirectly responding to the po-
tentially politically corrupting aspect of his theology. The
exposition of nature’s destructiveness and apparent indiffer-
ence to man may temper the political ambitions and desire
for glory of Memmius and other political men. If the monu-
ments to their own glory that these men seek to create are not
immune from nature’s constant generation and destruction,
the pursuit of immortality through political glory necessar-
ily appears foolish. The danger in Lucretius’s teaching lies
in accepting the theology without the ethics. To understand
the theological implications of the physics and to reject the
ethics may provide an incredibly expanded horizon for po-
litical action, potentially giving Memmius a justification of
his ambitions and sound support for a necessary ruthlessness
in political affairs.27 The conclusion to the poem may be
read as the most pointed of Lucretius’s efforts to temper such
ambitions.
∗ ∗ ∗
The conclusion to the poem has troubled many commen-
tators. The proem to book 1, together with many indications
along the way, lead the reader to believe that the conclusion
will be a culmination of a journey from darkness to light.
That the poem ends with darkness and bitterness, rather than
sweetness and light, has led to the hypothesis that Lucretius
died before he was able to complete the poem. However,
part of this dissatisfaction with the ending arises from a mis-
interpretation of Lucretius’s intention. Many read the poem
as Lucretius’s attempt to convert his readers to Epicureanism
and liberate them from the terrors inspired by religion. There-
fore, the assumption is made that to leave the reader with the
unmitigated despair of the plague must mean the poem is in-
complete. Lucretius’s true intention, however, was to defend
the philosophic life against charges of impiety. The difficulty
is that, although the community’s religious zeal endangers
philosophy, philosophy also depends on that zeal insofar as
it contributes to political order and the community’s ability to
defend itself. The conclusion is a response to this difficulty.
The promise made at the beginning of the poem to free men
of the “night of the mind” (1:146) through knowledge of the
celestial things and, thus, free men of fear of the gods appears
unfulfilled, for Lucretius continues to speak of the fears of
children in the proem to book 6 (6:35–42). That Memmius
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
will be cowed by the threats of the priests and abandon the
study of the nature of things is presented as a near certainty
in the proem to book 1: “[E]ven you today at some time or
other will be overcome by the fearful words of seers and try
to abandon us” (1:103–04). This general pessimism remains
in the proem to the final book. All Lucretius’s efforts to bring
his readers’ minds to the truth about the nature of things
will fail as they “are brought back again to ancient religious
beliefs and take on harsh masters they believe in all their
misery to be all-powerful” (6: 58–64).
Lucretius’s promise to free his reader from the night of the
mind may appear to the reader as having been rescinded by
the account of the plague that concludes the poem. The bru-
tality of nature’s indifference must leave the reader with the
impression that there can be no solace from nature. Whatever
comfort could once be derived from the contemplation of the
nature of things appears to vanish by the end of the poem.
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The contemplation of the nature of things destroys not only
solace but also the likelihood of Lucretius’s teaching ever
inspiring a movement away from the foundation myths and
cosmology of political life. The conclusion of the poem may
then be politically salutary; it is almost a guarantee that, when
confronted with this terrible truth, readers will return to their
previous religious opinions. By driving the sweetness of phi-
losophy underground, Lucretius guarantees that his search
for the truth about the whole will remain a solitary one. If
Lucretius wished to gain devotees, the ending of the poem
would appear to be a significant obstacle to that intention.
Lucretius’s account of the plague is an adaptation of
Thucydides’ account of the plague that struck Athens in
The Peloponnesian War, but with two significant differences.
Thucydides places responsibility for the terrible effect of the
plague on the Athenians’ choice to remain in the city, rather
than going out to fight the Spartans. He therefore presents
the plague as largely a product of the war. Lucretius, by
contrast, presents the plague as an entirely natural occur-
rence (6:1259–63). His account, therefore, is not a historical
retelling of an event conditioned by particular circumstances
but a picture of the last days of the human species. For this
reason, Lucretius’s account is far more terrible than Thucy-
dides.’ Second, Thucydides states that he also suffered from
the plague and that, although physicians initially did not
know what caused the plague and so were unable to cure
the sick, he suggests that they were not simply helpless: “At
first neither were the physicians able to cure it” [empha-
sis added].28 Thucydides later remarks that it was uncertain
how much medicine benefited the patient, as some who were
treated fared no better than those who were not.29 Thucy-
dides’ own sickness suggests that he was capable of engag-
ing in activity despite the plague. Although Thucydides was
afflicted, he describes not his own ailment but what other
men suffered. His recollection of their suffering suggests
that, despite being ill, he remained able to go about the city
to observe and record the suffering of others. Philosophy
according to the Thucydidean account is possible under the
most adverse circumstances.30
Lucretius is, by contrast, much more definitive about
the ineffectiveness of medicine. In his account, medicine
is impotent: “Medicine mumbled in silent fear” (6:1178).
235
Devastatingly, Lucretius has likened himself to a doctor and
his poem to the medical art earlier in the poem (1:935; 4:11).
The impotence of medicine reveals that the promise of hap-
piness that began the poem is empty. Unlike in Thucydides,
there is no suggestion that philosophy is possible under such
circumstances; the philosopher fares no better than anyone
else. Lucretius states that “all” the temples were filled with
the bodies of the dead, with the temples of the wise apparently
no exception (2:5). The great bodily suffering of the afflicted
is frequently accompanied by terrible mental distress. Men
suffered from amnesia; all mental powers failed; their minds
were deranged; and no man was seen to be untroubled by
death, sorrow, and disease (6:1159, 6:1183, 6:1203, 6:1233,
6:1240, 6:1251, 6:1280). Much more than that of Thucydides,
Lucretius’s account emphasizes that no man, regardless of the
completeness of his knowledge of the nature of things, can
withstand the plague untroubled.
The account of the plague is meant to show that the fear
engendered by the plague is fear of the end of the world. The
apocalyptic and eschatological presentation of the plague
reveals the full indifference of nature to the life of the city.
We witness in the account of the plague that fear of the end
of the world undermines attachment to the conventions of the
city, including justice. The breakdown of society is far worse
than society itself. A similar statement could apply to fear of
gods. The plague suggests that the collapse of religion is far
worse than religion itself. If anything, Lucretius’s account of
the plague reiterates that religion is positively related to the
maintenance of justice.
∗ ∗ ∗
Lucretius’s conclusion is a paradox of boldness born of
restraint. As Burke suggests, the ancient Epicureans are far
less enterprising than their modern counterparts. We are now
in a position to see how and why this is so. Of course, we can
only offer some preliminary thoughts that necessarily fail to
do justice to the depth and breadth of Enlightenment ratio-
nalism, but the general parameters of modern rationalism are
believed here to be accurate. As suggested earlier, Lucretius
and the Enlightenment thinkers share a concern for finding
a place for philosophy in the city, although their strategies
differ. For Lucretius, any accommodation with the city and
its necessarily religious foundation must remain within the
horizon of the primary philosophic virtue of moderation. The
account of the plague begins to suggest how that moderation
is animated and maintained by three principal concerns that
distinguish Lucretius’s classical rationalism from Enlighten-
ment rationalism:for the whole of politics, for the common
religious experience of his nonphilosophic readers, and for
the conditions necessary for philosophy itself. Enlighten-
ment rationalism has only a truncated or crabbed notion of
each of these concerns. Enlightenment rationalism reduces
politics to security and commodious living and disparages
pre-philosophic and religious opinions as little more than
ignorance born of fear and anxiety. Additionally, Enlight-
enment rationalistsgenerally fail to appreciate and consider
the conditions necessary for the possibility of philosophy.
These truncated concerns result from the modern rejection
 236
of the classical conclusion that no means exist for reconciling
philosophy to the city. The moderns seek reconciliation by
reducing and re-founding political life on the promise that
productive reason will satisfy our most immediate natural
desires. To better provide for those immediate needs, and
in the interest of weakening man’s religious attachments, it
was necessary for the moderns to abandon moderation. Ac-
cording to Enlightenment rationalism, moderation is not a
virtue; enterprise, acquisition, and daring are virtues. The
imperiled status of philosophy within the political commu-
nity suggested to men like Machiavelli that the only course
of action was boldness; there could be no middle way.31 Ac-
cording to Machiavelli, philosophical moderation is foolish
and dangerous because politics is immoderate.
Enlightenment rationalism adopts the Lucretian account
of the restlessness of the nature of things but, unsatisfied
with his conclusion of the impossibility of a simply secure
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and quiet life for philosophy, rejects Lucretius’s ethics. Men
such as Machiavelli drew the conclusion that, because the
nature of things involves constant motion and perpetual in-
security, the Epicurean garden was an impossible dream.32
If we understand Lucretius’s poem as an apology, we see
that Lucretius too regarded the Epicurean garden as impos-
sible. The poem as a whole reveals that, far from advocating
complete withdrawal from political life, philosophy must un-
derstand and be concerned with what moves and sustains the
political.33 Lucretius clearly maligns political life not be-
cause he fails to recognize its necessity but because he sees
its limitations. Lucretius’s classical rationalism argues that
a realistic appraisal of the relationship between politics and
philosophy can be fully recognized only by maintaining a
critical distance between the two—that is, neither running
headlong into political life after Machiavelli, nor shunning
it for an Epicurean garden. That politics tends to mirror the
restlessness within nature (2:119) means for both Machiavelli
and Lucretius moderation in the sphere of politics is not to
be expected. Lucretius’s poem teaches that were it not for
religion, despite its excesses, the natural motions of politics
would tear the political community asunder. The difficulty is
that the zeal that sustains the political community endangers
the life of philosophy. To be honest to philosophy, to the
fullness of man’s religious longing, and to politics, one must
accept that a full accommodation between the city and the
philosophic life is impossible. For Machiavelli and his mod-
ern followers, this conclusion is unacceptable. They propose
instead to transform the political by lowering the objects of
men’s concern, then satisfying those lowered concerns by
emancipating the passions and conquering nature through
the arts and sciences. The success of the modern project in-
volved a fundamental transformation of our understanding of
man and politics. Because Lucretius and the Enlightenment
rationalists share a similar conception of nature, we can be-
gin to learn from Lucretius an awareness of the costs of such
a transformation, not least of which is the cost to philosophy
itself.
For Lucretius, an appreciation of the aforementioned
concerns is born of a proper confrontation with the pre-
philosophic and religious account of the whole. Lucretius
shares with Enlightenment rationalism the view that religion
Perspectives on Political Science
is a response to something fundamental in the constitution of
man, and that it is best understood through a psychological
analysis of man’s fundamentally passionate nature. Despite
this shared understanding, Lucretius takes more seriously
the extent to which religion serves to calm man’s desire
for justice and revenge and renders men more accepting of
the injustice inevitable in political life. More important, Lu-
cretius’s account of religion shows how religion is related to
man’s most fundamental erotic longings. Contra Hobbes, re-
ligion is not simply reducible to the anxiety man feels when
confronted by the indifference or hostility of nature,34 nor is
every desire expressed in religion reducible to vainglory.35
Finally, one is not likely to suppress religious longing by try-
ing to convince men of the shallow source of those longings.
Despite modern thought’s disparagement of classical think-
ing as idealist, Lucretius’s classical rationalism may in this
respect reveal itself as based on a fuller understanding of the
nature of the human soul and therefore more genuinely real-
istic. Particularly telling in this respect is Lucretius’s critique
of political life. The primary error that moves political men
is an expectation that the erotic longings given expression in
religion can be equally satisfied through political action and
its honors.
The Enlightenment attempt to re-found political life as a
means to thwart religious longing is based on expectations
that political life will provide what men desire most. To ef-
fect such a replacement of religious longing, one must begin
by constricting both the horizon of political life and men’s
beliefs about what is required for a good life. That accom-
plished, it is necessary to create a state capable of physically
and, more important, psychologically attaching men to itself.
Lucretius’s account of political life reveals that man’s desire
for the eternal is unlikely to be calmed by either the complete
removal of religious zeal from politics or the replacement of
such zeal with an injunction to acquire. The modern solu-
tion of narrowing the scope of legitimate political questions
to remove religious passion from politics cannot be said by
any objective observer to have reduced zealotry in political
life. The attempt to soothe passions such as fear and love
through politics, rather than religion, cannot succeed, be-
cause this goal relies on politics to provide something it can-
not deliver: satisfaction for what is most essential in man’s
nature.36 Such reliance will likely come at the expense of
an ever-increasing incapacity to think for oneself and defer-
ence to others, through either majority opinion or political
authority, with regard to how and what to think. The modern
removal of much of what classical rationalism considered
political questions may not pass them into private life, but
rather remove them from consideration altogether. Hobbes,
for instance, advocates freedom of thought and conscience
but simultaneously attempts to reduce the categories about
which men think. A noteworthy example is Hobbes’s table of
the “Several Subjects of Knowledge,” which does not include
theology.37 Expectations that man’s public life can be made
universally just, equitable, peaceful, and harmonious by way
of this reduction are bound to be disappointed (3:70–94).38
Lucretius argues that man is by nature a religious animal
whose needs transcend politics and cannot be reduced to
commodious living and security. Consequently, philosophy
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
must engage and take seriously the religious account of the
whole. This will necessarily lead to a confrontation between
philosophy and the city. The Enlightenment solution to the
tenuous and dangerous place of philosophy in the city is
to serve man’s immediate, lower desires through the devel-
opment of “instruments” and “inventions” to replace man’s
metaphysical speculation.39 Montesquieu, for example, ar-
gues that the best manner of combating and “detaching the
soul from religion” is to inspire indifference to religion by
offering people the comforts produced by commerce.40 For
Lucretius, religion may be “far from truth and reason,” but
it recognizes that man’s good lies beyond mere security and
bodily pleasure. Lucretius does not invest the progression of
the arts and science with the same transformative and satis-
fying power. His description of the arts is perhaps the most
powerful classical account of human felicity made possible
by their progression, but even this progression has limita-
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tions: centrally, it aggravates and cannot remedy man’s de-
sire to overcome his irremediable position in the nature of
things. Lucretius posits an intense hubris in the belief that
man can rival nature’s power. “Who,” he asks, “is powerful
enough to rule the totality of the boundless universe, who
to hold fast in hand the powerful reins of the deep, who to
rotate all the heavens at once and to warm all the fertile
worlds with ethereal fires or to be present in all places and
times?” (2:1095–99) Religion may be guilty of falsifying the
truth about nature to make man feel at home in the world,
but reading Lucretius suggests that a similar illusion can
be found in Enlightenment faith in the progress and fruits
of science. The Enlightenment project appears as a secular
equivalent to the religious desire to make man at home in the
world. However, Lucretius suggests that the development of
the arts cannot help but ultimately render us more anxious
and unsettled. Any project to conquer nature will obscure
man’s true condition and render it more difficult for man to
understand and be reconciled to his status. In pursuit of the
false objects and promises of the arts, “the human race toils
purposelessly and in vain forever and consumes its life in
empty cares, doubtless since it does not know what the limits
of possessing things is, and in general how far true pleasure
increases” (5:1430–33). Human life cannot secure genuine
happiness in restless movement from one object of desire to
another or by rendering those objects of no concern.41
To suggest, with Hobbes, that the objects are of no concern
obliterates the distinction at the heart of the philosophical
question of how one ought to live. Religion, like philosophy,
contains an awareness of the distinction between necessary
and unnecessary, natural and unnatural, needs and desires.
Religion may not properly identify the categories, but is nev-
ertheless accepts the existence of such categories. Lucretius
is sympathetic to religion because these distinctions serve
as an entry point to the question of what is a good life. En-
lightenment rationalism succeeds because of its ability to
ascribe that question, and the aforementioned distinctions,
to the realm of metaphysical uncertainty and political irrele-
vance.42 Lucretius would likely regard the replacement of the
question of how one ought to live, alive within the religious
account of the whole, with Enlightenment rationalism’s se-
curity and commodious living not as a deepening of man’s
237
awareness of his humanity but as a barbarization of man.
It is, after all, prepolitical men who are driven exclusively
by fear for security and bodily pleasure, according to both
Lucretius and the state-of-nature theorists. Enlightenment ra-
tionalism’s hypothetical state of nature may in fact seek to
create a human mind reduced to and fixated on those concerns
that governed it in the (once hypothetical) state of nature.
This possibility leads to the question of Enlightenment
rationalism’s effect on philosophy and the philosophic life
itself. For Lucretius, philosophy originates in contemplation
and confrontation of the pre-philosophic, religious account
of the whole. He would see the Enlightenment strategy of
trying to destroy and refusing to honestly engage that per-
spective as destructive of genuine philosophy. By contrast,
reflection on the religious account gives rise to the question
of how one ought to live. The destruction or denigration of
this religious account would therefore be equivalent to the
destruction or denigration of philosophy’s most fundamen-
tal concern. Because the existence of this pre-philosophic,
religious perspective seems necessary for the existence of
philosophy and its possibility, Lucretius seeks to defend the
philosophic life as the one that is most genuinely pious and
rejects the Enlightenment solution of making society less
religious.
To achieve its end, Enlightenment rationalism must funda-
mentally transform not only what human beings understand
as a good life but also the nature of philosophy itself. Fran-
cis Bacon and his modern progeny promote philosophy as
the most effective means to achieve power and human util-
ity for the preservation of life and the satisfaction of desire.
They denigrate speculative philosophy as useless, “barren of
works,” and juvenile.43 Bacon’s judgment about the fruitless-
ness of classical philosophy does not, however, preclude him
from praising the delight of knowledge. In The Advance-
ment of Learning, Bacon approvingly quotes the proem to
book 2, where Lucretius praises the tranquility found in the
well-walled temples of the wise but, tellingly, omits the fi-
nal lines where Lucretius criticizes the folly of those who
seek mastery and power.44 In the New Organon, Bacon again
uses a carefully selected version of Lucretius to advance his
own agenda of uniting contemplation and action. Quoting
Lucretius’s praise of Athens in the proem to Book 6, Ba-
con omits that Athens’s glory was having been the home to
the man who taught that contemplation alone is the path to
tranquility. Lucretius’s praise of the man from Greece is that
he taught that happiness is secured through knowledge of
the true limits to desire and fear; contemplation is intimately
tied to moderation. Bacon’s omission thus praises Athens
exclusively for works that recreated life for man.45 The clas-
sical idea of contemplation is transformed by the addition
of a practical, productive end to which it must be directed.
According to Bacon, philosophy that is not tied to this pro-
ductive end is not really philosophy. For this reason, Bacon
refers to Lucretius dismissively as “the poet.”46
The Baconian transformation has achieved unimagined
scientific fruits, but the works of the modern architects of this
transformation leave the reader with a profound difficulty.
Take the example of Montesquieu. In the first paragraph of
the preface to The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu compares
 238
his sentiments about his times with those of Plato. Whereas
Plato was appreciative to have been born with the opportunity
to be Socrates’ student, Montesquieu is thankful that he has
been born under the regime in which he lives, which he credits
with making him who he is and defining his loves. For Mon-
tesquieu, politics and its concerns (narrowed thanks, in part,
to Montesquieu) would appear to be everything.47 Later, in
the chapter “On Contemplation,” Montesquieu defines men
as “being made to preserve, feed and clothe themselves and
to do all the things done in society.”48 Montesquieu’s philos-
ophy understands men exclusively in terms of society. The
principal thing that severs man from society is contempla-
tion and, according to Montesquieu, it is religion that unduly
gives men over to contemplation. Given their denigration of
the contemplative life, which modern enlightenment thinkers
themselves lived, it is difficult to fathom how they can foster
subsequent minds on the order of a Montesquieu—or even
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explain their own activity.
Lucretius, by contrast, may be reserved about philosophy
but is in no way incapable of or uninterested in describing
the nature of the philosophic life and justifying the choice of
that life. He describes philosophy as a life that “loiters at the
gates of death,” a life spent learning how to die. In order to
fulfill the task Lucretius identifies, philosophy must remain
exclusively contemplative and speculative. Philosophy put
into service of the conquest of nature is no longer learning
how to die but striving to overcome death. Lucretius rejects
the attempt at conquest because, for him, philosophy prop-
erly understood is the attempt to come to terms with man’s
ultimate fate. Therefore, the true ground of the conquest of
nature is fear of that fate, and belief in the possibility of such
a conquest implies that true happiness can be achieved with-
out reconciliation to this fate. To refuse death as intrinsic to
life is, for Lucretius, to surrender philosophy to the passions.
Modern rationalism seems to move between two extremes:
Hobbes’s constant reminder of the terrors of violent death in
a state of nature and Montesquieu’s call to forget death by
indulging in the pleasure of commodious living. Neither can
be said to take death seriously, and both are moved in large
measure by fear. It may also be the case that, by keeping
death at these extremes, one gains the ability to conceive of
the problem of death as having a technical or political so-
lution. The understanding narrows our conception of death,
potentially holding it captive to the politics of our own time
and regime. This failure to properly appreciate the meaning
of death in relation to life both is the product of and reifies a
truncated idea of what men most desire. This in part explains
why the moderns’ desire for immortality deals exclusively
with the perspective of the body, rather than a desire of the
soul to commune with perfection.49 Enlightenment rational-
ism is neither moderate nor courageous but immoderate and
fearful. It is, according to the Lucretian critique, a betrayal
of philosophy as such. The Lucretian account of the philo-
sophic life approaches death and love in a way that allows
the reader to appreciate the narrow confines of concern for
the body and political life and prepares the ground for the
perpetuation of the philosophic life among a select few.
A final word is in order. A reconsideration of Lucretius
may offer both a means of understanding the modern world
Perspectives on Political Science
and a corrective for its excesses. Lucretius’s appropriation
by contemporary atheists is a product of their failure to ap-
preciate his insight that religion is a natural expression of
man’s most fundamental longing. Both contemporary athe-
ists and Enlightenment rationalists have, therefore, failed to
recognize that these longings cannot be satisfied by making
man more for and of the world. Yet if we accept Burke’s
view of ancient Epicureanism as the progenitor of the mod-
ern construal of the nature of things, Lucretius’s corrective
may be useful, perhaps necessary. However, it is insufficient.
Lucretius’s account of the nature of things may invite the
more enterprising atheists to try to ennoble their zeal with
the patina of a respected tradition, blurring our ability to dis-
tinguish between classical and Enlightenment rationalism.
NOTES
1. Edmund Burke, Further Reflections on the Revolution in France,
ed. Daniel E. Ritchie (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1992), 195. See
also Lucretius, Lucretius: On the Nature of Things, trans. Walter Englert
(Newburyport, MA: Focus, 2003), book 1:lines 76–77. Future references to
this work, by book and line number, will be in parenthetical citations.
2. Burke, Further Reflections, 76–77.
3. Ibid., 237.
4. Leo Strauss, Philosophy and Law (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 36.
5. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1965), 86–89.
6. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 76.
7. Ibid., 77.
8. David West sketches this military metaphor in The Imagery and
Poetry of Lucretius (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969), 57–67.
9. Ovid, Fasti, trans. Sir James George Frazer (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1959), 107, 2:639–84.
10. To say that religion is “more commonly” responsible for crime is to
say that it is obviously not the only source of crime.
11. For a good historical treatment of the procession, see Erich S. Gruen,
Greek Culture and Roman Policy (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1990), 5–33.
12. When Lucretius takes up this cosmological teaching later in book
5, he appears reluctant to overthrow the pleasing fiction depicted in the
procession (see 5:536–64).
13. Cf. Cyril Bailey, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus (New York: Rus-
sell and Russell, 1928), 477. Like much of the classicist writing on Lucretius,
Bailey’s primary focus is on Lucretius’s physical doctrines. The classicists’
literature treats Lucretius exclusively as a natural philosopher. This focus
necessarily fails to do justice to Lucretius’s intention. To fully appreciate
the place of the physics in Lucretius, one must begin with the political
and religious difficulties that attend his primary intention. On this score the
classicists are not very helpful.
14. Compare this to the placement of Plato’s elaboration of the theology
immediately after the penal code in book 10 of The Laws. The placement of
the discussion, as with Plato, should not lead one to see Lucretius’s interest
in theology as limited only to its political usefulness.
15. See Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1977), 14.
16. Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1995), 131.
17. See James Nichols, Epicurean Political Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cor-
nell University Press, 1971), 165–66, on the development of the arts and
belief in the gods. Nichols’s book is the only other full-length study of
Lucretius’s poem that argues explicitly that the poem is a work of political
philosophy. Nichols rightly argues that the poem is not simply an elabora-
tion of Epicurean physics but primarily a study of man and society. Nichols,
however, retains the traditional understanding of the address to Memmius
as motivated by a desire for philosophic friendship. This limitation leads
Nichols to overemphasize the didactic and pedagogical nature of the poem
and not appreciate the extent of its limitations in leading men toward the
truth. Nichols’s study, therefore, fails to sufficiently detail the tension be-
tween philosophy and the city.
18. See 2: 133–50 and 4, where an account of food occupies the center
of the two halves. See also Strauss, Liberalism, 117.
19. Strauss, Liberalism, 119.
 Fall 2009, Volume 38, Number 4
20. Compare 5:1210–17, 5:821–27, and 5:432–54. It is also interesting
to compare Lucretius’s own attachment to the man from Greece from the
proems to books 5 and 6 to these passages. He begins in book 5 with the
statement that “He is a god” (5:8), but concedes he is a mere mortal in book
6: “He is dead” (6:7).
21. An interesting comparison can be found in book 1, chapter 1, of
Ptolemy’s Almagest. There Ptolemy argues that by investigating astronom-
ical phenomena one can put theology on a more rational and solid footing
without taking away from the dignity of theology.
22. Strauss, Liberalism, 85.
23. Compare this idea with Plato’s Phaedo, 68c–d and Apology 28b–d.
24. A tradition of the pious labeling atheists and their philosophic op-
ponents as Epicureans is well known. See Strauss, Preface to Spinoza’s
Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), 29. See also the
understanding of the roots of atheism as professed by Kleinias in Plato’s
Laws 886a8–b2.
25. Compare Socrates’ challenge to the life of Achilles in Republic
379a–383c and Apology, and to the theology of book X of Aristotle’s Ethics,
where the notion of the gods’ awareness or concern for man is less than
clear.
26. See Eve Adler, Vergil’s Empire (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Lit-
tlefield, 2003). The thesis of Adler’s book is that Virgil, agreeing with
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Lucretius’s account of the nature of things, sought to correct its negative po-
litical consequences by creating a new myth of the founding of Rome. The
thesis of Virgil as an improvement on Lucretius relies heavily on the idea
that Lucretius is not mindful of his own dependence on the city’s religious
foundation. My purpose is to reveal the extent to which Lucretius is not only
mindful of this problem but that the political-theological problem within his
thought emerges from this awareness.
27. See J. D. Minyard, Lucretius and the Late Republic (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1985), 18. Minyard’s thought-provoking book argues that this accep-
tance of materialist physics without ethics can be seen in action through
an analysis of the speeches of Caesar in Sallust’s recounting of the trial
of the Cataline conspirators. Another example of an Epicurean who ap-
pears to adopt the physics as it can be applied to politics but not the
ethics is Shakespeare’s Cassius from Julius Caesar. See Allan Bloom,
Shakespeare’s Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 75–
112.
28. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Thomas Hobbes (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959). See book 2, section 48, for
Thucydides’ own affliction and section 47 for the effectiveness of medicine.
See also section 51, where it is stated that medicine benefited some but not
others.
29. Ibid., section 51.
30. Ibid.
239
31. For the transformation, and corruption, of the Lucretian ideal by
Machiavelli, see Paul Rahe’s “In the Shadow of Lucretius” in History of
Political Thought, 28, no.1 (2007), 30–55. What Machiavelli sees as a con-
tradiction in Lucretius’s teaching is in fact necessity. Rahe suggests that
Machiavelli renders the Lucretian teaching consistent. The difficulty is that
it can only be made so by overcoming necessity. This overcoming is achieved
by abandoning moderation and purchased at the price of the reduction of
philosophy from a way of life to a means to another end.
32. See Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy trans. Harvey Mansfield
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), book 3, section 2; The Prince,
trans. Harvey Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chap-
ter 15.
33. Lucretius is first and foremost not a natural philosopher but a polit-
ical philosopher. The failure to appreciate this renders much of classicist
scholarship on Lucretius unhelpful.
34. Hobbes, Leviathan, 76.
35. Ibid., 42.
36. See Nichols, Epicurean Political Philosophy, 210.
37. Hobbes, Leviathan, 61.
38. Lucretius suggests that those who believe that politics can be the
source of happiness are led to a hatred of reason.
39. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan
Davidson, 1989), 8.
40. Charles de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1989), 489.
41. Hobbes, Leviathan, 70.
42. See Hobbes, Leviathan, 70; and John Locke, Second Treatise, ed.
Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 296–98.
43. Bacon, The Great Instauration, 8
44. Compare Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (Philadelphia: Paul
Dry Books, 2001), 55, with Lucretius 2:1–13.
45. Francis Bacon, The New Organon (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2000), 99.
46. See also Bacon’s essay “On Truth,” in Bacon, The Essays or Coun-
sels, Civil and Moral (Massachusetts: A.L. Burt Company, 1883), 37–40;
and Robert Faulkner’s commentary on it in Faulkner, Francis Bacon and
the Project of Progress (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), 95.
47. See Thomas Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 238.
48. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 466.
49. See for example Rene Descartes’ hope to “rid ourselves . . . of the
enfeeblement of old age” in Descartes, Discourse on Method (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 1980), 33, and the control over life and death displayed by the
scientists of Salomon’s House in Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (Arlington
Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1989), 74.