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To show this was a quality production the pages bear a variety of woodcut motifs, illustrated Capital letters and panels used for decorative purposes. In the 18th century Pugin collected such ornaments into an illustrated sourcebook. Epicurus said we should lead a tranquil and happy life. He believed the
two major sources of distress in life were fear of death and fear of the
gods. His atomistic ideas overcame both of these. He said fear of the
Gods was a fear of punishment in the after-life but if the soul was just
a collection of atoms that flew apart at death to be recombined in new
forms then there was nothing to fear from an afterlife because there wasnt
one. Lucretius in De rerum natura several times tries to comfort
his readers by arguing against the immortality of the soul. He also argues
that anything that is divine must be eternal, unchanging, happy and tranquil
so concludes that the gods, being divine, cannot be burdened with the
problem of governing the universe or with listening to the grovelling,
pleading miserable prayers of men as this would make the gods unhappy
therefore they are not able to , or are prevented from hearing our prayers.
Furthermore, as we are composite things, we break apart upon death but
the gods cannot do that as they are unchanging. So Epicurus and Lucretius
do not argue against the existence of the Gods but state they must already
exist in the simplest of forms such as an atom and are quite separate
from the rest of the universe which they neither perceive nor interfere
with but just float along in a state of eternal happiness. So there is
nothing to fear from death or the retribution of the gods. Lucretius did not believe the world was formed by a Divine creator. It
is too flawed. The area available for human habitation is intruded upon
by mountains, rocks, swamps, forests, oceans, deserts. Even the areas
man can cultivate need constant toil and they may be destroyed by flooding,
drought, frost, violent winds or ravaged by wild beasts and pests. No,
our world was created by the random interaction of atoms and it is imperfect.
The binding and unbinding of atoms causes the gradual emergence of new
worlds and the gradual disintegration of the old one with no divine intervention.
It is a random event. We were not created for some special purpose or
cause but we exist as result of the laws of physics. You can now understand
why the work of Lucretius upset the early church and was driven underground
or destroyed.
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