Episode 078 - Ethical Issues Arising In the Formation Of Societies

Welcome to Episode Seventy-Eight of Lucretius Today. I am your host Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com forum, we'll walk you through the six books of Lucretius' poem, and discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself, and we suggest the best place to start is the book, "Epicurus and His Philosophy" by Canadian professor Norman DeWitt. For anyone who is not familiar with our podcast, please visit EpicureanFriends.com where you will find our goals and our ground rules. If you have any questions about those, please be sure to contact us at the forum for more information. In this Episode 78 our goal was to read approximately Latin lines 1105 - 1240 of Book Five, but due to the important ethical implications of the subject we covered only a small part of that. So today our discussion will break well short of the material that we read, and we will come back next week to tackle the rest. Now let's join Martin reading today's text:Browne 1743[1117] But if men would govern their lives by the rule of true reason, to live upon a little with an even mind, would be the greatest riches. This little no man can fear to want; but men strive to be renowned and powerful, that their fortune may stand firm upon a lasting foundation, and the wealthy cannot fail to live at ease. All absurd! For those who labor to reach the highest honors make a very unhappy journey in the end. Envy, like a thunderbolt, strikes them from the pinnacle of their glory, and tumbles them down with scorn into an abyss of misery. So that it is much safer, as a subject, to obey, than to wish for empire and to govern kingdoms. Let those that will tire themselves in vain, and spend their blood and their sweat in climbing the narrow track of ambition (for the highest of them all are blasted with envy, as with a thunderbolt; and the higher they are, they are the more exposed) since they depend wholly upon others for their wisdom, and try things more by their ears than by their understanding. This is the present case; it always was so, and ever will be.[1136] Those kings being slain, the former majesty of their thrones, and their proud sceptres, were laid in the dust; and the diadem, the noble ornament of kings, all stained with blood, is now trodden by vulgar feet, and weeps over its expiring honors; for we eagerly spurn at what we too much feared before. The government now returned to the rabble, and the very dregs of the people, whilst everyone reached at empire, and the supreme power for himself. And therefore the wisest among them taught the rest to settle a magistracy, and to establish laws, by which they would be governed. Men grew weary of living in a state of force, and were worn out with continual bickering among themselves, and therefore, of their own accord, more readily fell under the power of Laws and the bonds of justice; for every one, in his resentment, pursued his revenge with more violence than the equity of the laws would now allow him.[1151] And therefore men were tired of this hostile way, which soured all their pleasures of life with the fears of punishment; for force and wrong entangle the man that uses them, and commonly recoil upon the head that contrived them. Nor is it easy for that man to live a secure and pleasant life who by his conduct breaks through the common bonds of peace. Though he has the cunning to deceive both gods and men, his heart always trembles for fear of being discovered; for men often talk in their sleep, and are said to reveal things when they are delirious by a disease, and to bring to light their plots that had been long concealed.[1161] And now I’ll show the cause that first dispersed the notions of the gods throughout the world, and filled the towns with altars, and ordered solemn rites to be performed, and holy ceremonies now in use, when victims smoked...