Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura Book Five, Lines 772-1104 (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Lucretius' account of the origin of life, the origin of species, and human prehistory is the longest and most detailed account extant from the ancient world. It represents the culmination of a rationalist tradition of culture-history that has its roots in the Presocratic philosophers whose theories are now sadly fragmentary. Of the Presocratics, the zoogonic theory of Empedocles is the best preserved, and it has long been observed that Lucretus' and Empedocles' theories are fundamentally similar. Both give an anti-teleological mechanistic account of zoogony and the origin of species that does away with the need for any divine aid or design in the process, and accordingly their theories have been seen as forerunners of Darwin's theory of evolution. Indeed Lucretius was the main focus for attacks by creationists until the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, and still has a place in creationist 'black museums' of evolutionary theorists. This commentary locates Lucretius in both the ancient and modern contexts, and treats Lucretius' ideas as very much alive rather than as historical concepts. The recent revival of creationism, with challenges made by creationists to evolutionists, makes this study particularly relevant to contemporary debate. Indeed, many of the central questions posed by creationists are those Lucretius attempts to answer.


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