Passage review

Lucretius is a poet and philosopher who espoused the teachings of Epicureanism in his book De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). Epicureanism argues that pleasure is good while religion is not and only atoms and void exist. In this class we did not read the whole book but a short excerpt which pertained to death and how there is no afterlife for humans. Lucretius thought that people were so afraid of death to the extent they could  not enjoy life instead they cling to superstitions and amass wealth. He does not believe that the soul or the mind will outlive the body because if they were entangled in life while would they be separated at death. He gives several examples to prove his point some are illustrative than others but they all convey the same point, the body has effect on the soul.

A good quote that best sum one of his argument is “For indeed, since the body, which was, as it were, the vessel of the soul, cannot hold it together, when by some chance it is shattered and made rare, since the blood is withdrawn from the veins, how could you believe that the soul could be held together by any air, which is more rare than our body [and can contain it less]”9(1) An example he gives is someone who is intoxicated with wine and therefore acts sluggish and his mind is impaired. Drinking wine or alcohol is a physical act but it still affect your soul or mind because it changes your personality, lower your inhibitions and reduce your cognitive functions. While the effect of alcohol on the soul and body may be cured after an hangover he gives another example to shows that the mind is not static. He observes that your maturity coincides with body growth; that is why a child knows more than a toddler ,an adult knows than a child and when we grow old both our body and mind grow feeble too. Therefore he concludes that our soul is mortal just like our bodies and it fools gold to think that our superstitions would change that.