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bility of the atoms is no disproof of their existence (265-328).* The proof of this declaration he finds in the fact that there are many things which we know only through their effects, not through sight of the things themselves. Here belong the winds. In its broad outlines, the presentation, covering verses 265-328, is order itself. It runs as follows:

(a) Preliminary statement: The fact that the primordia are invisible is no disproof of their existence (265-268: 4 verses).

(b) Proof, lying in the demonstration that there are many things which we know only through their effects, not through sight of the things themselves (269-327: 59 verses).

These things include

(1) the winds (271-297: 27 verses);

(2) smells (298-299: 2 verses);

(3) heat, and cold, and sound (300-304: 5 verses);

(4) the particles, substantial, though unseen, whose coming and going, though undetected by the eye, are attested by the phenomena of absorption and evaporation of moisture (305-310: 6 verses);

(5) the particles, substantial, though unseen, whose going away, though undetected by the eye, is attested by the wearing away of a ring, a stone, etc. (311-321: 11 verses);

(6) the particles, substantial, though unseen, whose coming and going, though undetected by the eye, are attested by the phenomena of growth and decay. Nature often works through bodies which are imperceptible (322-327: 6 verses).

(c) Summary and restatement (328).

But within this orderliness occurs the following passage (271297):

Take first the winds. Their might, when fully roused, lashes harbors, and drives on giant ships. Sometimes, as they sweep, whirling and tearing o'er the plains, they strew their levels with huge trees, and harry the mountains with forest-rending blasts! With such mad uproar do the winds rage, venting their fury with threatening crashes. Clearly, then, the winds have body, though you see not the winds, bodies which sweep before them the sea, the lands, the clouds, harrying and tearing them with sudden, swirling fury. In a word, the winds stream onward and spread havoc even as water does, soft though its nature is, when it is borne onward in a sudden, overwhelming mass, enlarged by the copious

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Compare also the discussion above, page 407, of the four arguments cited by Lucretius in support of the Second Basic Principle. 'To-day this passage would appear as a footnote.

rains and by the downward plunge of waters from mountain heights, hurling together broken branches, yes, whole trees, till the stout bridges can not bear up against the sudden violence of the coming flood; with such fury the waters, swollen by the rains, dash themselves with might and main against the dikes. With crashing uproar the flood spreads destruction, rolling giant boulders 'neath its billows, and dashing before it whate'er seeks to bar its progress. It is in this way that the blasts of wind must be borne on, for, when, even as some mighty stream, they have flung themselves in any direction, they thrust things before them, and dash them onward with blow on blow; sometimes in eddying whirl they catch things up and sweep them away in swiftly swirling hurricane. Wherefore, again and again I say, the winds have bodies, though you see them not, inasmuch as in their deeds and in their ways we find the winds rivals of the mighty streams, whose bodies all may see.R

This discussion takes up 27 verses. That it is full of repetitions, varying versions of the one idea, is plain. A mere six verses would have been ample to prove the point at issue. Of this Lucretius himself is, in a way, conscious, for he sums up in 277. But, with a true teacher's anxious fear that he has not, after all, made his point, he restates 271-276 in 278-279. This restatement leads, easily and naturally, to the comparison, in 280-289, of the action of the winds to the action of a water-course in flood. This comparison in its turn leads to a restatement of the same simile, in 290-294. After all this Lucretius feels the need of a second summing up, in 295-297."

One other characteristic of Lucretius's treatment of his subject must be briefly considered. I mean his use of the rhetorical device called by the Romans occupatio, the forestalling of criticisms or objections. Cicero, it may be remarked in passing, is also fond of this device. Examples of it in Lucretius may be seen in 1. 159264 (the passage in which he argues that the invisibility of the atoms is no disproof of their existence); 1. 370-397 (the refutation of possible objections to the presentation of the Third Basic Principle, that there is void in all things); 1. 635-704 (a very elaborate refutation of the physical theories of the pre-Socratic philosophers); 1. 817-829; 1. 830-920 (the examination of Anaxa

This passage illustrates also the Epicurean practice of arguing from the visible to the invisible.

'Repetitions, in various connections, abound in Lucretius: so e. g., 1. 370-397 restates 1. 335-345, especially 335-342; 1. 422-429 repeats 1. 335345, 370-397; 1. 551-564 repeats 1. 225-237.

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goras's doctrine of homoeomeria); 1. 1052-1118 (refutation of the theory that everything in the universe has a centripetal tendency); 2. 308-332 (explanation of the seeming motionlessness of the universe). Here we see, again, Lucretius's supreme selfconfidence; as a rule man notices the arguments of others only when he is confident that he can annihilate them.

It remains to make certain general remarks.

The first is that, alike in its orderliness and its disorderliness, the mind of Lucretius is wholly normal. Almost invariably, in Books 1-3, the most finished parts of the poem, we can, without forcing matters, make Lucretius's discussion of a point fit into the same framework: (a) careful statement of the point to be proved; (b) proof or proofs; (c) summing up. The irregularity which gives a premature summing up, followed by a fresh proof or series of proofs, sometimes with, sometimes without, a restatement of the point to be proved, is a recurrent one.

In all this there is no hint of a mind unsound. I may add, however, that Professor Merrill 10 has noted that Pascal wrote his Pensées in the intervals of his sufferings. Recently, in reading a very delightful book, More Literary Reminiscences, by Sir Edward Cook, I came upon the following passage (77-78):

The Aeneid, says Professor Sellar, possesses the power, which distinguishes the older Latin writers, of stamping some grave or magnanimous lesson in imperishable character on the mind, and he cites as his first example a famous line from the sixth book. An instance of the power of this line occurs in a pathetic passage of our modern literature. Ruskin during his later years was subject, as is well known, to recurrent attacks of brain fever. He fought against them, and in lucid intervals between the attacks was able to write one at least of the most charming of his books. He attributes some part of his resilience to Virgil. In describing one of his illnesses and the adverse circumstance which retarded recovery, he says this: Through all such trouble-which came upon me as I was recovering, as if meant to throw me back into the grave,-I held out and recovered, repeating to myself, or rather having always murmured in my ears, at every new trial, one Latin line,

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Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito.

The second general remark is this, that a consideration of Lucretius's workmanship, its merits and its demerits, proves clearly

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that transpositions by modern scholars of verses from the places they occupy in the manuscripts of Lucretius to other places are utterly mistaken. To be sure, every editor, every student, of Lucretius is bound to consider, with the utmost care, whether the parts of Lucretius's discussion of a given point are logically and rightly ordered. He may, too, point out what, in his judgment, would be a better ordering of the material. But actual shifting of the parts of the textus receptus till it assumes the arrangement the editor prefers is a very different matter. To my mind, the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius, as we have it, is virtually as its author left it; we should ourselves leave it in that form.

Barnard College, Columbia University.

DE VITA IUVENALIS1

BY HUBERT MCNEILL POTEAT

The life of the poet Juvenal presents to the investigator a discouraging veil of obscurity which, up to the present time, has successfully defied penetration. I should be bold, indeed, were I to announce that this veil is presently to be lifted. My purpose is far more modest. I am seeking herein merely to review, hurriedly, of necessity, our slight sources of information concerning the poet, with sundry editorial comments thereon, and to present, in conclusion, my own opinion as to the facts.

It would be difficult to find an author whose works contain fewer personal touches than do Juvenal's. He retires, as it were, behind his bludgeon, whence he rains wholly impersonal blows upon vice and rascality and foreigners. Although the occasional mention of a contemporary occurrence has made it possible to fix definitely the date of composition of some of his satires, the poet persistently declines to establish any actual connection with the events of his time. Indeed, the general tone of the pieces is retrospective. The morals, not the doings, of the world about him, stir to action this vitriolic descendant of old father Lucilius. Even the names which occur here and there are, as he himself says, almost entirely of those whose ashes rest, safe and secure from the satirist's lash, under the tombs that line the Latin and Flaminian roads.

There are, it may be said, four sources from which our meagre knowledge of the poet is drawn. The first is the well-known inscription, excavated near Aquinum, which exists now only in copy, and which is believed by most scholars to refer to Juvenal himself; by others, to some relative. Unfortunately, this inscription is somewhat mutilated, but its probable meaning is that a certain Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, tribune of the first cohort of Delmatians, duumvir quinquennalis, priest of the divine Vespasian, vowed and dedicated at his own expense this offering to Ceres. The difficulty of a positive identification of this interesting record with the poet lies in the fact that the praenomen is missing.

1 Read before the Southern Section of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, April 27, 1922.

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