 Section 3 of On the Nature of Things. And now let us also examine the homoomerea of anxagoras, as the Greeks call it. Nor does the poverty of our native tongue indeed allow us to name it in our own language. But it is easy, however, to explain in words the thing itself, which, as the origin of things, he calls homoomerea. He thinks, that is to say, that bones are produced from small and minute bones, so likewise that flesh is generated from small and minute particles of flesh, and that blood is formed from many drops of blood meeting together. His of opinion, moreover, that gold may consist of crumbs of gold, and that earth may be a concrete of little earths, that fire may be from fires and moisture from moistures. Other things he imagines and supposes to be produced in a similar way. Yet, he does not allow that there is anywhere a void in things, or that there is any limit to the division of bodies. Wherefore, in both these respects he seems to me to err equally with those of whom we have before spoken. Add to this, that he supposes principles which are too frail, if indeed they are principles which are made to be endowed with, like nature as the things themselves that are produced from them, and equally suffer and decay, nor does anything withhold them from destruction. For what portion of them will endure under violent oppression, so as to escape the solution under the very teeth of death? Will it be fire, or moisture, or air? Which of these? Or will it be blood or bone? Not one of all those substances, as I conceive, since everything universally will be equally perishable as those things which we see manifestly perish from before our eyes, when overcome by any violence. But I call to witness the positions which I have before proved, that neither can things be reduced to nothing, nor again grow up from nothing. Moreover, since food, almonds, and nourishes the body, we may understand that veins and blood and bones and nerves consist of heterogeneous parts. For if these philosophers shall say that all food is of a mixed substance, and contains in itself small elements of nerves and bones, and also veins and particles of blood, it will follow that both all solid food and liquid itself must be thought to consist of such heterogeneous matters, and to be mixed up of bones and nerves and veins and blood. Besides, if whatever bodies grow from the earth are previously latent in the earth, life must consist of all those heterogeneous matters which spring from earth. Transfer this reasoning to other objects, and you may likewise use the same phraseology. In wood, for instance, if there is concealed flame and smoke and ashes, wood must necessarily consist of the heterogeneous particles of those substances. Here, some slight opportunities left to the sect of philosophers for eluding the arguments of their adversaries, an opportunity of which Annex Sagoras avails himself, by alleging that, although he thinks all things lie secretly mixed with all things, yet that that alone appears on the surface of each, of which there are most particles mixed in the composition of each, and placed more as it were in readiness and in front, which, however, is far removed from just reasoning. For, if this hypothesis were correct, it might naturally be expected also that corn, when it is broken by the overwhelming force of the millstone, would exhibit some token of blood, or something of those substances which are nourished in our bodies, that when we rub stone against stone, blood should flow. In light manner also, it would be probable that herbs would send forth drops of a sweet liquid, and of similar tastes, such as are the drops of milk, that issue from the udder of the sheep. And without doubt, you might also suppose that frequently, when clods of earth are broken, rudiments of the several kinds of herbs and corn and leaves of trees would appear, scattered about, and be proved to lie hid in the earth, in minute particles, or, over, that in wood, when it is broken, ashes and smoke and small particles of fire would be found to lie concealed. Of which occurrences, since manifest experience shows that none take place, we may understand that substances are not so mixed with substances. But if Annex Agra's were right, the common seeds of many things must lie secretly mixed, in many ways, among other things. But you will say, it often happens that, on the high mountains, the extreme tops of tall trees, when near to one another, are rubbed together, the strong south winds compelling them to act thus, until they shine with a flash of flame bursting forth. It is so, and yet the fire is not inherent in the wood, but there are in it many seeds of heat, which, when they have become confluent by friction, produce a conflagration in the woods. But if positive flame were hidden in the woods, the fire could not be concealed for any length of time, but would openly consume the forests and burn up the groves. Do you now see, therefore, what we remarked a little before, that it is frequently of great consequence with what other elements, and in what position the same elements are combined, and what motions they reciprocally impart and receive, and that the same elements a little altered in respect to each other, produce fire from wood, ignis elignis, just as also the words themselves consist of elements or letters a little changed, when we denote wood and fire, ligna atque ignis, by distinct appellations. Finally, if you think that whatever things you see in the visible world could not be conceived to have been formed without supposing the primary particles of matter to be endowed with a nature similar to the things formed from them, your original elements of things by these hypotheses become mere absurdities and fall to the ground. For the consequence of such a supposition will be that you must have primary particles, which, as the origin of laughter, are themselves convulsed with tremulous fits of laughter, and others which, as the originals of weeping, be do their own faces and cheeks with salt tears. And now give me your attention as to what remains. Learn and hear more fully and plainly. Nor does it escape my knowledge how obscure these matters are, but the great hope of praise has struck my heart with her powerful therses, and has, at the same time, infused into my breast a pleasing love of the muses, with which, inspired, I now wonder in vigorous thought over the treckless regions of the priorities trodden before by the foot of no poet. It delights me to approach the untasted fountains and to drink, and it transports me to pluck the fresh flowers, and to obtain a distinguished chaplet from my head from those groves, whence the muses have hitherto veiled the temples of no one. In the first place, because I give instruction concerning mighty subjects, and proceed to free the mind from the closely confining shackles of religion. In the next place, because I compose such listed verses concerning so obscure a subject touching everything with the grace of poetry, since such ornament also seems not unjustifiable or without reason. But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter warm wood to children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may find its slips diluted, and may, in the meantime, drink up the bitter juice of the warm wood, and, though deceived, may not be injured, but rather recruited by such a process, may acquire strength. So now I, since this argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in sweetly speaking Piarian verse, and, as it were, to tinge it with the honey of the muses. If perchanced by such a method, I might detain thy attention upon my strains, until thou lookest through the whole nature of things, and understandest with what shape and beauty it is adorned. But since I have taught that atoms of matter entirely solid, pass to and fro perpetually, unwaisted through all time, come now, and let us unravel whether there be any limit to their aggregate or not. Also let us look into that which has been found to be vacancy, or the room and space in which things severally are done, and learn whether the whole is entirely limited, or extends unbounded and unfathomably profound. All that exists therefore, I affirm, is bounded in no direction, for, if it were bounded, it must have some extremity. But it appears that there cannot be an extremity of anything, unless there be something beyond, which may limit it, so that there may appear to be some line farther than which this faculty of our sense cannot extend. Now since it must be confessed that there is nothing beyond the whole, the whole has no extremity, nor does it matter at what part of it you stand, with a view to being distant from its boundary. And as much as whatever place anyone occupies, he leaves the whole just as much boundless in every direction. Besides, if all space which is, be supposed to be bounded, and if anyone should go forward as far as possible, even to what he thinks its extreme limits, and should throw or attempt to throw a flying dart, whether would you have that dart hurled with vigorous strength, go on in the direction in which it may have been propelled, and fly far forwards, or do you rather prefer to think that something would have powered your hindering stop it? For one of the two alternatives you must of necessity admit and adopt, of which alternatives either cut off escape from you, and compels you to grant that the whole extends without limit. Since, whether there is anything to stop the javelin, and to cause that it may not go on in the direction in which it was aimed, and fix itself at the destined termination of its flight, or whether it is born onwards beyond the supposed limit, it evidently did not begin its flight from a boundary of the whole. In this manner I will go on with you, and wheresoever you shall fix the extreme marginal space, I will ask you what then would be the case with the javelin. The case will be that a limit can nowhere exist, and that room for the flight of the javelin will still extend its flight. Further, if all the space of the entire whole were shut in, and bounded on all sides by certain limits, the quantity of matter in the universe would before this time have flow together to the bottom, by reason of its solid weight. Nor could anything be carried on beneath the canopy of heaven, nor indeed would there be a heaven at all, or light of the sun. For all matter from sinking down for an infinite space of time would be accumulated at the bottom of the whole. But now it is evident no rest is given to the atoms of the primary elements, because no part of the universe is completely and fundamentally lowest, whether the atoms might, as it were, flow together, and where they might fix their seat. And therefore all things are always carried on in all parts in perpetual motion, and the lowest atoms of matter, or those which we may conceive to be the lowest, stirred up from the infinite of space, are supplied for the generation of things. Moreover, in things before our eyes, object seems to bound object. The air sets a boundary to the hills, and the hills to the air. The land limits the sea, and the sea, on the other hand, limits the entire land. But as to the whole, there is nothing beyond it that can bound it. The nature, therefore, of space, in the extent of the profound whole, is such a vast, which neither famous rivers in their course can run through, though flowing for an eternal length of time, nor, by passing on, can at all cause that less distance should remain for them to go. To such a degree, on every side, vast abundance of room lies open for all things, all limit being set aside everywhere and in every direction. Besides, nature herself prevents the whole of things from being able to provide bounds for itself, inasmuch as she compels body to be bounded by that which is vacant, and that which is vacant to be bounded by body. That so, by this alternate bounding of one by the other, she may render all infinite. Else, moreover, if one or other of these did not bound the other by its simple nature, so that one of them, the vacuum, for instance, should extend unlimited, neither the sea, nor the land, nor the bright temples of heaven, nor the rays of mortals, nor the sacred persons of the gods, could subsist for the small space of an hour. Where the body of matter, driven abroad from its union, would be borne dispersed through the mighty void, or rather, in such a case, never having been united would never have produced anything, since, when originally scattered, it could not have been brought together. For certainly, neither the primary elements of things dispose themselves severally in their own order by their own counsel or sagacious understanding. Not assuredly, did they agree among themselves what motions it should produce. But because being many, and changed in many ways, they are, for an infinite space of time agitated, being acted upon by forces throughout the whole, they thus, by experiencing movements and combinations of every kind, at length settle into such positions, by which means the sum of things being produced exists. And the sum of things, when it was once thrown into suitable motions, being also maintained in that state through many long years, causes that the rivers recruit the greedy sea with large floods of water, and that the earth, cherished by the heat of the sun, renews its productions, also that the rays of living creatures flourishes on decay, and that the gliding fires of heaven live. Which effects atoms could by no means produce, unless an abundant supply of matter could arise from the infinite of space, when everything that is produced is accustomed to repair in time the parts lost. For, as the nature of animals, when deprived of food, wastes and the case losing its substance, so must all things fall away, as soon as matter, and by any means from its course, has failed to supply itself. Nor can impacts, as some may imagine, produced externally on all sides, keep together the entire whole, or whatever of matter has been combined into a whole. For though some external impacts may strike frequently, and thus may sustain here and there apart, until others succeed, and the requisite number of impacts for securing any particular portion may be completed. Yet, at times, the bodies producing the impacts are compelled to rebound, and at the same moment to give the primary atoms of things space and time for flight, so that they may be carried away free from the aggregate. It is necessary, therefore, for such compression by impact, that many atoms should again and again rise up into action from the surrounding parts. And besides, in order that the impacts may be given insufficient numbers, an infinite quantity of matter is requisite on every side. And in these matters, O Memius, be very far from believing that which some say, namely that all things tend to the center of the whole, and that therefore the nature and substance of the world stand without any percussions or pressures from without, and that the highest and lowest parts, as we call them, cannot be resolved or thrown back in any direction, because all things strive towards the middle. If indeed you do believe that anything as the earth, according to them, can rest upon itself in the middle, and that those heavy bodies which are on the lower part of the earth, all tend upwards or to the center, and rest upon the earth, although placed in a reverse position to ourselves, like the shadows of things which we every day see in the water with their lower parts uppermost. And in like manner, they contend that the animals beneath us range about with their feet upwards, nor can fall back from the earth into the lower parts of heaven, more than our bodies can spontaneously fly off into the upper parts of heaven. That when they see the sun, we behold the stars of night, and that they share the times of heaven, the hours of light and darkness, alternately with us, and past nights corresponding in time to our days. But a vain delusion must have devised all these things for foolish men, mistaken in that they have embraced a wrong opinion at the commencement. For there can be no middle where vacuum and space are infinite, nor even if there were a middle, would anything at all rest there more on that account, than it would stay there for any other far different reason. Since all near place and space which we call empty, must whether through the center or through what is not the center yield equally a passage to equal weights in whatsoever direction their motions stand. Nor is there any place at which when bodies have arrived they can make a stand in vacuo, having lost the force of weight. Nor again must that which is vacant give support beneath anything, but must proceed to yield that passage through it which its nature requires. These therefore cannot be held in combination under such a hypothesis, namely that they are influenced by a tendency to the center. This set of philosophers are in error, moreover, in as much as they do not suppose that all particles stand to the center, but only those of earth and water, as the liquid of the sea and the great floods from the mountains, and those which are contained, as it were, in early substances, but set forth on the other hand that the subtle air of heaven and warm fire are at the same time carried away from the center, and that from this cause the whole sky twinkles around us with stars, and the flame of the sun is fed throughout the blue expanse of heaven, since all the heat fleeing from the center collects in those parts. For the generations of men also, they say, are fed from the earth by food rising from the center, nor could the extremities of the branches of the trees produce leaves if the earth did not gradually supply sustenance to each from the ground. While they add that the heaven above covers all things roundabout, lest the walls of the world, being dissolved into their constituent atoms, should suddenly fly, like winged flames through the vast void, and lest other things should follow in like manner. Lest, moreover, the regions of heaven containing the thunder should fall from above, and the earth should hastily withdraw itself from under our feet, and all human beings, dissolving their bodies into their elements, should pass away in the midst of the mingled ruin of things of earth and heaven through the deep inane, so that, in a moment of time, no relics should exist of them, except desert space and blind atoms. For, whosoever you shall suppose atoms to be first absent from their proper place, that part will be the gate of death to all things. By that part, the whole crowd of material elements will rush forth abroad. These things, if you shall understand, let on by my humble effort, for one proposition will appear plain from another. Dark night will not prevent your progress, or hinder you from seeing clearly in the last depths of nature, so we factually will truth-skindle light for truths. End of Section 3. Section 4 of On the Nature of Things. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Raven Notation. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. Translated by John Selby Watson. Book 2. Part 1. It is sweet when the winds disturb the waters on the vast deep. To behold from the land the great distress of another. Not because it is a joyous pleasure that any one should be made to suffer, but because it is agreeable to see from what evils thou thyself art free. It is also sweet to contemplate the contending forces of war arrayed over the plones without any share of thy own in the danger. But nothing is sweeter than to occupy the well-defended serene heights raised by the learning of the wise. From whence thou mayst look down upon others and see them straying in all directions, wandering about to find the best path of life. Contending in intellectual power, vying with each other in nobleness of birth and striving by excessive labour, night and day, to rise to the highest power and to obtain the government of affairs. O wretched minds of men, o blind souls, in what darkness of life and in how great dangers is this existence of whatever duration it is, past. We may not see that the nature of every man demands nothing more for itself, but that he, from whose body pain is removed and absent, may exercise his mind with a pleasurable feeling exempt from care and fear. We are sensible, therefore, that very few things are necessary to the nature of the body. Those things, namely, which are of such a kind that they may keep off pain and that they may afford, at the same time, many pleasures. Nor does nature herself ever require higher gratification. If there are not, in the houses of men, golden images of youths holding in their right hands blazing lamps in order that light may be supplied for the nocturnal feast, and if their dwelling neither gleams with silver nor glitters with gold, nor harps cause the arched and gilded roofs to resound. Nevertheless, when they have stretched themselves upon the soft grass near a stream of water under the boughs of a high tree, they socially, though with no great wealth, gratify their senses with pleasure, especially when the weather smiles upon them, and the seasons of the year sprinkle the green grass with flowers. Nor do hot fevers sooner depart from the body if you are tossed on woven figures and blushing purple, than if you are obliged to lie under a plebeian covering. For which reason, since neither riches nor nobility, nor the glory of a kingdom, are of any profit as to our body, we must further suppose that they are of no profit to the mind, unless, perchance, when you see your legions moving with energy over the surface of the plane, stirring up the images of war, or, when you see your fleet sailing with animation and spreading far abroad upon the water, religious fears alarmed at these things, flee affrighted from your mind, and the dread of death then leaves your time undisturbed and free from care. But if we see that such suppositions and expectations are ridiculous and merely objects of derision, and that in reality the fears and pursuing cares of men dread neither the sound of arms nor cruel weapons, and mingle boldly among kings and rulers of affairs, nor shrink before the brightness gleaming from gold or the shining splendour of a purple garment, why do you doubt but that to produce these effects is wholly the office of reason, especially when all our life labours under the darkness of ignorance. For as children tremble and fear everything in thick darkness, so we in the light fear sometimes things which are not more to be feared than those which children dread, and imagine about to happen in the dark this terror of the mind, therefore, it is not the rays of the sun or the bright arrows of day that must dispel, but the contemplation of nature and the exercise of reason. Attend now, therefore, and I will explain to thee by what motions the generative bodies of matter produce various things and resolve them when produced, and by what force they are thus compelled to act and what activity has been communicated to them for passing through the mighty void of space. Do thou remember to give thyself wholly to my words? For assuredly, matter does not constantly cohere as being closely condensed in itself, since we see every object diminished and perceive that all things flow away, as it were, through length of time and that age withdraws them from our eyes. While, nevertheless, the sum of all seems to remain undecayed and this happens for this reason that the particles of matter which depart from each object lessen the object from which they depart and endow with increase the object or objects to which they have transferred themselves and oblige the former to decay, but the latter, on the contrary, to flourish. Nor do they continue always in the place to which they have gone, and thus the sum of things is perpetually renewed and the races of mortal men subsist by change and transference from one to the other. Some nations increase, others are diminished, and in a short space of time, tribes of living creatures are changed by successive generations and, like the races, deliver the torch of life from hand to hand. If you think that the elemental atoms of things can remain at rest and can, by remaining at rest, generate fresh motions of things, you stray with a wide deviation from true reason. For, since the primary particles of all things wander through the void of space, they must necessarily be all carried forwards by their own gravity, or, as it may chance, by the force of another body. For when, being often moved, they, meeting, have struck against one another, it happens that they suddenly start asunder in different directions. Since neither is it to be wondered at that body should do so, which are of the utmost hardness and of solid weight, nor is it to be observed, does anything behind oppose their motion, and that you may, the more clearly understand that all the atoms of matter are tossed about and kept in motion. Remember that in the sum of the whole, or in the entire universe, there is no lowest place, nor has it any point where the primary atoms may make a stand. Since space is without bound and limit and shows of itself by many indications that it extends around infinite in every direction, and this has been proved by indisputable argument, which immensity of space being admitted, there was evidently allowed no rest to the primary atoms passing through the void profound, but rather driven by perpetual and constant motion. Part, when struck by other atoms, rebound to a great distance, and part also, when struck, rebounding only to short distances, are caught and intertwined, as it were, by the stroke of the particles that come in contact with them. And whatsoever particles being brought together in a more close conjuries, rebound only to small distances as being involved by their own entangling shapes. These form the strong substance of rock and the rigid consistence of iron and a few other things of their kind and of similar hardness. Other particles, again, which wander through the vast void of space, fly, when struck, far off, and rebound away to great distances. These supply to us the thin air and radiant light of the sun. And many atoms, besides, wander through the great void, which are rejected by combinations of bodies and have nowhere been able, admitted into union, to associate their motions with other atoms. Of which circumstance, as I can see, an example and image is, from time to time, moving and present before our eyes. For behold, whensoever the beams of the sun pour themselves through a trink in the dark parts of houses, you will see in the light of the rays many minute particles throughout the open space, mingled together in many ways and, as it were, in perpetual conflict, exhibiting battles and fights, contending in companies, nor allowing any pause to their strife, being agitated by frequent concussions and separations. So that you may conjecture from this spectacle what it is for the primary particles of things to be perpetually tossed about in the great void. Assuredly, a small thing may give an example and trace is leading to the knowledge of great things. On this account, it is more fitting that you should give your attention to these motes, which seem to confuse one another in the rays of the sun, because such disorders signify that there secretly exist tendencies to motion, also in the principles of matter, though latent and unapparent to our senses. For you will see there, among these atoms in the sunbeam, many, struck with imperceptible forces, change their course and turn back, being repelled sometimes this way and sometimes that, everywhere and in all directions. And doubtless, this errant motion in all these atoms proceeds from the primary elements of matter, for the first primordial atoms of things are moved of themselves. And then these bodies which are of light texture and are, as it were, nearest to the nature of the primary elements, being urged by secret impulses of those elements, are put into motion and these later themselves, moreover, agitate others which are somewhat larger. Thus motion ascends from the first principles and spreads forth by degrees, so as to be apparent to our senses and so that those atoms are moved before us, which we can see in the light of the sun, though it is not clearly evident by what impulses they are thus moved. And now, O Memius, what activity and swiftness of motion has been given to the original atoms of matter you may learn from what follows. In the first place, when Aurora sprinkles the earth with new light and the various birds flitting through the pathless groves fill every part amid the soft air with their liquid notes, how suddenly, at such a time, the rising sun overspreading all things is wont to clothe them with his rays, we observe to be visible and manifest to all. But that heat and clear light which the sun sends forth do not pass through mere empty space, on which account it is compelled to go more slowly because it has thus to force a passage through the flood of air, nor do the particles of heat pass every one singly but connected and combined together, for which reason they are, at the same time, both retarded by one another and externally obstructed so as to be obliged to proceed less rapidly. But the primordial atoms, which are of pure solidity when they pass through empty space and nothing external retards them, and when, moreover, they themselves, being one and uncompounded in all their parts, are to that one place born onwards by their own tendency, to which they have begun to proceed, must be thought, it is evident, to excel in swiftness and to be carried forward much more rapidly than the light of the sun and to run through a much greater region of space in the same time as the beams of the sun traverse the heaven. For neither have they to delay, being retarded by deliberation, how they shall proceed, nor have they to pursue the neighbouring atoms, one after the other, that they may learn by what method everything is to be done. End of Section 4. Section 5 of On the Nature of Things. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Raven Notation. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, translated by John Selby Watson. Book 2, Part 2. But some ignorant persons in opposition to these opinions think that the nature of matter cannot, without the will and providence of the gods, be ordered so suitably to human plans and conveniences as to change the seasons of the year and to produce the fruits of the earth and to effect also other things in which the directness of life, divine pleasure, prompts mortals and herself leads them to engage, so that they may propagate their kind through the allurement of gratification, lest the race of men should perish. For whose sake, when they imagine that the gods settled all things, they seem in all respects to have departed far from just reasoning? Although I were ignorant of the primary elements of things were, yet this I could venture to assert from a contemplation of the nature of heaven itself and to demonstrate from many other things that the world was by no means made for us by divine power, although these opinions incur reprehension among the generality of mankind. Which matters are mimeous? I will make clear to you hereafter. We will now explain what remains to be said concerning the motions of atoms. This is near the place, as I think, in discussing these subjects to make plain to you that no corporeal substance can, of its own proper force, be born and advanced upwards, lest the particles of flame should deceive you in this matter. For though they are produced upwards and take increase upwards, yet also the smiling corn and groves have their growth upwards, though all weights, as far as is in them, are born downwards. Nor when fire springs up to the roofs of houses and consumes the beams and rafters with a swift flame, is it to be thought that it does so without a compelling force, as is the case, for example, when blood, sent forth from our body, spouts out, springing up on high and sprinkling abroad a purple stream. Do you not see also with how strong a force the liquid substance of water repels beams and logs of wood? Do you not observe how the more we have on any occasion, urge them straight downwards and have powerfully pressed them down with great force and with difficulty, so the more eagerly the water cast them back and sends them upwards, so that they rise up and leap forth with a larger portion of their substance? And yet we do not doubt, I suppose, that these bodies, as far as is in them, are all born downwards through empty space. Thus, accordingly, flames must also have the power to rise when driven up through the air of heaven, although their own weights, as far as is in them, strive to draw them downwards. Do you not, moreover, see that meteors in the night, flying through the heights of heaven, draw long tracks of flame in whatever directions nature has given them a passage? Do you not see shooting stars fall to the earth? The sun also, from the highest point of the sky, spreads abroad his heat on all sides and covers the fields with his light. The heat of the sun, therefore, also tends downwards to the earth, and you observe likewise the lightnings fly through the oblique showers, the fires bursting from the clouds rush sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, and the body of flame falls very frequently to the earth. In reference to these subjects also, we wish you to understand this, that the particles of matter, when they are born downwards, straight through the void of space, do for the most part, by their own weights. At some time, though at no fixed and determinate time, and at some points, though at no fixed and determinate points, turn aside from the right line, but only so far as you can call the least possible deviation. But unless the atoms were accustomed to decline from the right line, they would all fall straight down, through the void profound, like drops of rain through the air, nor would there have been any contact produced or any collision generated among the primary elements, and thus nature would never have produced anything. But if, perchance, anyone believes that the heavier bodies, as being born more swiftly, straight through the void of space, might fall from above on the lighter ones, and thus produce concussions, which might give rise to generative movements. He deviates and departs far from just reasoning. For whatsoever bodies fall downwards through the water and the air, they of necessity must quicken their motions according to their weights, in as much as the dense consistence of water and the subtle substance of the air cannot equally retard everybody, but yield sooner to the heavier bodies being overcome by them. But on the contrary, a pure vacuum can afford no resistance to anything in any place or at any time, but must constantly allow it the free passage which its nature requires, for which reason all bodies, when put into motion, must be equally born onwards, though not of equal weight through the unresisting void. The heavier atoms will, therefore, never be able to fall from above on the lighter, nor of themselves, produce concussions which may vary the motions by which nature performs her operations. For which cause it must again and again be acknowledged that atoms decline a little from the straight course, though it need not be admitted that they decline more than the least possible space, lest we should seem to imagine oblique motions and truth should refute that supposition. For this we see to be obvious and manifest that heavy bodies, as far as depends on themselves, cannot, when they fall from above, advance obliquely, a fact which you may yourself see. But who is there that can see that atoms do not at all turn themselves aside, even in the least from the straight direction of their course? Further, if all motion is connected and dependent and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a certain order, and if the primary elements do not produce any commencement of motion by deviating from the straight line to break the laws of fate, so that cause may not follow cause in infinite succession. Whence comes this freedom of will to all animals in the world? Whence, I say, is this liberty of action rested from the fates by means of which we go wheresoever inclination leads each of us? Whence is it that we ourselves turn aside and alter our motions, not at any fixed time, nor in any fixed part of space, but just as our mind has prompted us? For doubtless in such matters, his own will gives a commencement of action to every man, and hence motions are diffused through the limbs. Do you not see also that when the barriers on the racecourse are set open at a certain instant, yet the eager strength of the horses cannot spring forward so suddenly as the inclination itself desires? For the whole mass of matter throughout the whole body, excited in all the members, must be collected and aroused simultaneously into action, that it may second the desire of the mind in connection with it, so that you may see that the commencement of motion is produced from the heart, and that the tendency to act proceeds in the first place from the inclination of the mind, and is then spread onwards through the whole body and its members. Nor is this similar to the case in which we go forwards when impelled by a blow from the great strength and violent compulsion of another person, for then it is evident that the whole matter of the entire body moves and is hurried onwards against our consent until the will, acting throughout the members, has reigned it back. Do you now see therefore that although external force drives along many men, that is, often drives men along, and compels them frequently to go forwards against their will and to be hurried away headlong, yet that there is something in our breast which can struggle against and oppose it, according to the direction of which also the aggregate of matter within us is at times obliged to be guided throughout our several limbs and members, and when driven forward is curbed and sinks down into rest, wherefore you must necessarily confess that the same is the case in the seeds of matter, and that there is some other cause for motion besides strokes and weight, from which this power is innate in them, since we see that nothing can be produced from nothing. For weight forbids that all effects should be produced by strokes and as if by external force, but the circumstance that our mind itself is not influenced merely by internal necessity in performing every action and is not, as if under subjection, compelled only to bear and suffer. This circumstance, the slight declination of the primordial atom's causes, though it takes place neither in any determinate part of space nor at any determinate time. Nor was the general body of matter ever more condensed together or, on the other hand, distributed in parts at greater intervals than it is at present, for to that body neither does any increase ever take place, nor is any diminution made from it through decay, for which reason, in whatever motion the atoms of primordial seeds are now, in the same motion they were in past time, and hereafter will always be moved in a similar manner, and whatever things have been want to be produced will still be produced under like circumstances, and will exist and grow and acquire strength, as far as has been granted to each by the laws of nature, nor can any influence change the sum of things. For neither is there any part of space to which any kind of matter can fly off from the whole, nor, again, is there any part from which any new force, having arisen there, can burst in upon the whole, and thus change the entire order of things and alter its movements. In these matters, it is not at all to be regarded as wonderful, why, when all the primordial elements of things are in motion, yet the whole of things seems to stand in perfect rest, except whatever individual thing exhibits motion in its own body. For the entire nature of original principles lies far removed from our senses, and beneath them, for which cause, when you cannot see the thing itself, its motions must also hide themselves from your eyes, especially when even many things that we can see, nevertheless often conceal their motions from us, as being separated from us by a great distance. For frequently upon a hill, we may observe a flock of woolly sheep spread about, cropping the rich pasture, wheresoever the grass, gemmed with fresh dew, calls and invites each, while the full-fed lambs sport and frisk about with delight. All which objects, from a distance, appear to us confused, and only a whiteness, as it were, seems to rest upon the green hill. Also, when vast legions fill all the parts of a plain, stirring up the image of war, the gleam of arms then raises itself to the sky, and all the land around glitters with grass, while a sound is excited by the force, beneath the feet of the men, and the neighbouring hills, struck with the noise, re-echoed the shouts for troops to the stars of heaven, and the cavalry, at the same time, swiftly wheel about, and suddenly charge across the plains in the centre, shaking them with their violent onset. All these are distinct objects, and yet there is a certain spot on the high hills, whence, if you look down, they seem to rest on the ground as one body, and only a continuous brightness to settle over the field. Attend now, O Memius, and learn, in the next place, of what nature the primordial elements of things are, and how very different they are in their forms, how they are varied by manifold shapes. Not that a few only are endeared with the like-form, for those alike are innumerable, but because, throughout the whole, all are not similar to all, but are varied with great differences. Nor is this wonderful, for since the abundance of them is such that, as I have shown, there is neither any limit nor some of them, they must not and cannot, assuredly, be all universally endowed with a like figure and like shape to all others. Decide. Consider the human race, and the mute swarms of fishes swimming in the sea, and the abundant herds of cattle and wild beasts, and the various birds, which frequent the pleasant places about the waters, upon the banks of rivers, fountains, and lakes, and which, flitting through the trees, traverse the pathless groves, of which select any one you please in the several kinds for contemplation, and you will still find that they differ from one another in their forms. Nor, indeed, could the progeny, by any other means, know its mother, or the mother, her progeny, whereas we see that inferior animals, much less than men, are known to each other. For, on many occasions, a calf, sacrificed at the frankincense burning altars, falls before the beauteous temples of the gods, pouring forth a warm stream of blood from its breast, but the mother, meanwhile, deprived of her young, wandering through the green forests, leaves traces imprinted on the ground with her cloven feet, surveying all places with her eyes, if anywhere she may discern her last offspring, and then, standing still, fills the leafy grove with her complaints. She also frequently goes back to look at the store, penetrated with regret for her calf, nor are the tender willows, or the grass fresh with dew, or any streams gliding level with the top of their banks, able to soothe her feelings, and drive away her sudden affliction. Nor can any other forms of calves, over the fertile pastures, divert her attention, or lighten her of her care, so perseveringly does she require some shape that is familiar and known to her. Moreover, the tender kids with their tremulous voices know, as they plainly indicate, their horned dams and sheep distinguished the bleeding of the butting lamb, and thus, as nature requires, each hastens invariably to its own milky udder. Lastly, contemplate any sorts of corn, and still you will not find the whole of each in its own kind, or all the grains of each, to have such a mutual resemblance, but that some difference will run between their forms. And, in like manner, we see the various sorts of shells paint the lap of the earth, where the sea, the gentle waves, strews the bibular sand on the winding shore. Again and again, therefore, I repeat, the primordial atoms of things, since they exist in their own nature and are not fashioned to a certain shape by the hand of one artificer, must likewise circulate through the universe in certain shapes, dissimilar one from another. It is very easy for us, then, by the clear guidance of reason to explain why the flame of lightning passes through the air with much more penetration than our fire, which arises from fuel of the earth. But you may justly argue that the celestial fire of lightning, as being more subtle, consists of smaller atoms, and therefore flies through diminutive passages, which this fire of ours, taking its rise from wood and produced by torches, cannot enter. Besides, light passes through horn, but water is repelled by it. Why? Unless that the atoms of light are less than those of which the genial liquid of water consists. Wine also, we observe to flow as quickly as possible through a strainer, but thick oil, on the contrary, moves through it slowly, because, as it appears, the latter either consists of larger atoms, or of such as are more hooked and involved with one another. And thus it happens that the individual atoms, not being so quickly detached from their coherence with each other, cannot so easily pass through the individual pores of any body. To this is added that the liquids of honey and milk are moved about in a mouth with a pleasant sensation to the tongue, but, on the contrary, the bitter substance of well-mood and acrid scentsary torment the palate with a disagreeable taste, so that you may easily infer that those things which can affect the senses with pleasure consist of smooth and round particles, but that, on the other hand, whatever things seem bitter and rough, are held united together of particles more hooked, and that, on this account, they are accustomed, as it were, to tear away to our feelings and to wound the skin of our body at their entrance. Furthermore, all things which are pleasing to the senses, and all which are to the touch unpleasant, are opposed to each other, being formed of atoms of a different shape, that you may not, perchance, imagine that the sharp strider of the creaking saw consists of elements equally smooth with the melodious notes of music, which musicians form upon the strings, awaked, as it were, by their swiftly moving fingers, and that you may not suppose that atoms of like form penetrate the nostrils of men when they burn offensively smelling carpuses, and when the stage is freshly sprinkled with Sicilian saffron and the altar, near at hand, exhales pansy and odours, nor conceive that pleasing colours which can feast the eye with delight, and those which are, as it were, pungent to the sight and compel us to shed tears, or which seem ugly and hideous with a repulsive look, consist of like seminal atoms. For every object, whatever it be, that soothes the sense of the beholder's, is not produced without some smoothness in its elements, but, on the contrary, whatever is of a disagreeable and rough consistence, has not been formed without something offensive in its material principles. There are some atoms also which are neither justly thought to be smooth, nor altogether hooked with bent points, but rather to be furnished with small angles, slightly jutting out, and which have the power, rather to titillate the sense than to wound it, of which kind of atoms consist pickle and the taste of elecampane. Moreover, that warm fire and cold frost penetrate the feelings of the body differently, as being composed of atoms pointed in different ways. The touch of each is a sufficient indication. For the touch, the touch, oh sacred deities of heaven, is the sense of the body, and is affected either when something external insinuates itself through the pause, or when something which is generated in the body hurts or delights it in issuing forth, as in the genial exercises of Venus, or when the seeds from striking against each other raise a tumult in the body itself, and, by mutual agitation, confirm the sense, as if, for example, you yourself should strike any part of your own body and make trial of this sensation, for which reason forms of substance, which can excite various feelings, must necessarily be far different in their elementary principles. Further, those bodies that seem to us hard and dense must necessarily consist of particles more locked with one another, and be held closely compacted, as it were, by branching atoms, among which kind of bodies, adamantine rocks, naturally adapted to despise blows, stand preeminently in the first rank, as well as stout flints, and the strength of hard iron, and brazen hinges, which, as they support the weight of their gates, make a loud, grating sound. Those bodies, indeed, which are liquid and of a fluid substance, must consist more than harder bodies of smooth and round atoms, for a draft of poppy juice is even as yielding, and as much of a liquid as a draft of water. Since their several collections of particles are not held together rigidly among themselves, and their progress along a descent is valuable and easy, all things, moreover, which you should see scattered themselves in the short space of time, as smoke, clouds, and flames must necessarily, if they do not wholly consist of smooth and round particles, yet not be banned together with complex ones, so that, being as they are, they may have a pungent effect upon the body, and penetrate rocks, but cannot cohere together, a power which we all see to be granted to thorns. You may easily understand, therefore, that they do not consist of hooked and complicated, but of acute atoms. But that you should observe the same bodies, which are fluid, to be bitter, as is the liquid of the sea, is by no means to be wondered at by anyone. For that which is fluid consists of smooth and round particles, and with these smooth and round particles are mixed pungent particles causing pain, nor yet is it necessary that these atoms should hold themselves together by being hooked, for you may be certain that though the particles are rough, they are yet globose, so that they may flow among those of the liquid, though at the same time they may hurt the sense. And that you may, the more certainly believe that rough are mixed with smooth particles, of both of which, for instance, the mass of the waters of the ocean consists, there is, I may mention, a method of separating them, and considering them apart. The same water of the sea, for example, becomes sweet when it is often filtered through the earth, so that it may flow, as you may sometimes see, into a trench and thus lose its saltness. For it leaves above or near the surface of the earth, the particles of bitter salt, which are rough and jagged, so that they may easily adhere in the earth. Which point, since I have now demonstrated, I shall proceed to join with it another proposition, which, depending on this, derives its credit from it, that the primary atoms of things vary in figure, but only with a limited number of shapes. If this were not so, some seminal principles would, moreover, necessarily be of an immense bulk of body. For this is evident, because within the same individual minute frame of any one seminal principle, the figures or arrangements of its parts cannot vary much among themselves. Since suppose that the primary principles consist of a certain definite number of very small parts, say three, or increase them if you please by a few more, assuredly when, after arranging all those parts, and altering the place of the highest and lowest parts of that one body, and changing the right for the left, you shall have tried in every way what representation of forms each arrangement of the whole of that body offers. If, per chance, you shall wish still further to vary its forms, you will have to add other parts, and from thence will follow in like manner that a third arrangement will require still more, if you shall wish by a third arrangement still to vary its forms. An increase in bulk, therefore, does upon the variation of shapes, for which reason you cannot believe that seminal principles differ from one another by an infinite variety of shapes. Lest, by such a supposition, you should make some to be of immense bulk, which I have already shown that it is not possible to prove. And if such were the case, if the figures of atoms were infinite, barbaric garments, and shining melibo and purple, tinged with the dye of shellfish from Thessaly, as well as the golden brood of peacocks, painted with smiling beauty, would lose their estimation in your eyes, being thrown into the shade by the new beauty of fresh objects, the perfume of nerve and the taste of honey would be despised, and the melodies of swans and the tunes of fevers varied on the chords of the lyre, would in like manner be silenced as being outdone by something new, for in every class of things some new thing might arise more excellent than others, which are now thought the best, or all things might also fall back into a worse state, as we have said that they might possibly rise to a better. For in a retrograde order one thing might arise time after time, more disagreeable than others preceding it to the nostrils, ears and eyes and taste of the palette. Since this, however, is not so, but a certain limit set to things in both directions, as to what is bad and what is good confines the whole, you must have necessity admit that the particles of matter also vary from one another, only by shapes that are finite in number. Lastly, a distance, so to speak, has been defined from the heat of summer to the freezing cold of winter and has been measured back from cold to heat in like manner. For the whole year is, or consists of, heat and cold, and the moderate warmth of spring and autumn lie between both the other two seasons, filling up the whole in succession. The seasons of spring and autumn therefore, as made and appointed, are kept distinct by a limited portion to each, since they are marked on each side by two points and shut in on the one hand by heats and on the other side by rigid frosts. Since I have now proved this, I shall proceed to join with it another observation, which, depending on this, derives its credit from it that the primordial atoms of things which are formed of a like figure one to the other are infinite in number. For since the diversity of their forms is finite, it necessarily follows that those which are alike are infinite, or it would appear that the sum of matter would be finite, which I have proved to be impossible. Since I have shown this, I will now, give me your attention, demonstrate in a few sweetly sounding verses that the atoms of matter support the whole of things from all eternity by a succession of movements on every side. For though you see in any particular region certain animals to be more rare than others and observe nature in those less rare to be more productive, yet in another region and district and in distant lands, it is possible that there may be many animals of that kind and that the deficiency of their numbers in one place may be compensated in another. Just as we see in the race of quadrupeds to be especially the case with the snake-handed elephants, with many thousands of which India is defended as with an ivory rampart, so that it cannot be at all penetrated, so great is the multitude of those beasts in that country, but of which we see very few specimens among us. But yet that I may, if you wish, grant this also, let there be in your imagination any single creature you please, existing alone with its own natural body and to which there may be no creature similar in the whole round of the earth, yet unless the quality of the seeds of matter from which that creature may be formed and generated shall be infinite in number, it will neither be possible for it to be produced nor, moreover, if it could be produced to grow up and be nourished. For let your eyes conceive, i.e., imagine that you see, the generative atoms of any single thing being limited in number, tossed about through the whole of space. Whence, I ask, where, by what force and by what means will they, meeting together, unite amid so vast an ocean of matter and so mighty a confusion of dissimilar particles? They have, as I think, no method of combining themselves. But, as when great and numerous shipwrecks have arisen, the vast sea is one to scatter abroad floating benches, hollow fragments of vessels, sailyards, prows, masts, and oars, so that the ornaments of sterns may be seen swimming on all the coasts of the earth and may give admonition to mortals to resolve to avoid the treachery and violence and deceit of the faithless sea, nor on any occasion to be too credulous when the insidious flattery of the calm, deep smiles. So if you, in this case, shall once settle for yourself that certain primordial atoms are finite in number, you must then allow that the different agitations of matter will necessarily toss them about, scattered as they will be, forever, so that they can, at no time, being driven together, unite in combination, or, if they should unite, remain in combination, or swell with increase, both of which, if ex-manifest-proof, shows to occur before our eyes, namely, that things are produced and that, when produced, they have the power to increase. It is therefore evident that, in every class of beings, the primordial elements of things, from which all are supplied, are infinite in number. Nor, therefore, in as much as original elements are infinite, can the movements of things which are destructive to vital existence always prevail or bury its safety forever, though neither, on the other hand, can motions productive of generation and increase always preserve things which have been formed? Thus a war of principles, grown up from the infinite space of the past, is carried on with equal strife. The vital principles of things prevail sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, and are prevailed over in their turn. The whale which infants raise, when they come forth to view the regions of light, is mixed with funeral lamentations, nor has any night followed a day, or any morning followed a night, which has not heard groans, the attendance of death and gloomy obsequies, mixed with the weak cries of infants coming into the world. End of section five.