Episode 069 - The Eventual End of Our World

Welcome to Episode Sixty-Nine 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 check back to Episode One for a discussion of our goals and our ground rules. If you have any question about that, please be sure to contact us at EpicureanFriends.com for more information.<br /><br />In this Episode 69 we will read approximately Latin line 235-323 of Book V, and we will talk about the upcoming end of our world as we know it. Now let's join Don reading today's text.<br /><br />Browne 1743<br /><br />And further, since the body of the earth, the water, and the light breath of the air, and the hot fire, of which this universe of things consists, had all a beginning, and are all formed of mortal seeds, the nature of the world must be the same, and must die likewise. For a body whose parts and members we know were born, and were produced from mortal principles, that being must be the same in nature with its parts; it must have a beginning, and be equally mortal. And therefore when I observe the four elements (the great limbs of the world) are continually changing, are wasted away, and then renewed; I conclude that the whole world, the earth and the heavens, had a time of beginning, and will in time fall and be destroyed.<br /><br />But my Memmius, that you may not think I rashly supposed what I should have proved upon this subject, when I said that the earth and the fire were mortal, and made no doubt but the air and the water were so too, and that they began to be, and by degrees increased, you are to observe, first, that some part of the earth is burnt up by the continual strokes of the Sun, and much of it, being worn by th