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The religio which Lucretius hated, and from which he strangely hoped that the atomistic materialism of Epicurus had finally delivered mankind, has its roots in the sombre and confused superstitions of the savage. Fear, as Statius and Petronius tell us, created the gods of this religion.
Panels on exterior of rotunda just below dome, by Zimm, representing progress and influence of art. Eastern panel, "Struggle for the Beautiful"; in center, Truth; at sides, Persistence and Strength, struggling with centaurs, symbols of materialism.
When we are speaking of matter, it will seem as if we were inclining to idealism; when we are speaking of mind, it will seem as if we were inclining to materialism. Neither is the truth.
"That which is not" provokes an inquiry into what is, Being. Dualism, Monism, Materialism and Idealism are all discussed, the conclusion being that the Sophist is a counterfeit of the Philosopher, a wilful impostor who makes people contradict themselves by quibbling. The Politicus carries on the discussion. In this dialogue we may see the dying glories of Plato's genius.
And yet they were going wrong: the great cycle had begun its down-trend; they were already preparing the way for our fool-headed materialism. In the Seven against Thebes Aeschylus protested against the current of the age. Three years later, Athens, impatient of criticism, turned on him. He is acting in one of his own plays one that been lost.
"You come here from your young planet, representing a race that is still struggling with the lower forms of materialism, and find us so much in advance of your condition that perhaps you imagine we are perfect. We ourselves know we are far from that state, especially since we have been able to compare our development with the higher civilization of the people who once lived on our comet."
This "unendurable debt of honor" paid, however, he proceeds to attack the idealistic humanitarianism which Feuerbach had made the basis and sanction of his ethical theories. Although Feuerbach had arrived at the materialistic conclusion, he expressed himself as unable to accept materialism as a doctrine.
We know the hideousness of all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the struggle for subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as the one subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means of intellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere of materialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis" would provide a remedy for all this.
And in close connection with speculations about matter, the cause of which they could not settle, was indifference to the spiritual nature of man, which they could not see, and all the wants of the soul, and the existence of the future state, where the soul alone was of any account. So atheism, and the disbelief of the existence of the soul after death, characterized that materialism.
In any society the ideal must be the banishment of the more sensuous; the refinement of it will only repeat the continued experiment of history the end of a civilization in a polished materialism, and its speedy fall from that into grossness.
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