Book I

...

149

There is one simple point we have to start from:

The gods never made a single thing out of nothing.

Because, if one things frightens people, it is

that so much happens, on earth and out in space,

the reasons for which seem somehow to escape them,

and they fill in the gap by putting it down to the gods.

That is why, once we know that nothing can come from nothing,

we are on the right track already and likely to see

how everything starts and goes on in an ordered sequence

and nothing at all is merely the work of the gods.

.

Consider: if things could be made from nothing,

there would be no such thing as the cycle of generation,

you could breed men from the sea, and the land would produce

all kinds of fishes and birds, and out of the sky

herds of cattle would come tumbling; wild animals would

turn up in deserts or farmyards without any reason;

You could not count on an apple-tree giving you apples,

but any sort of tree would produce any fruit.

If everything did not have its seminal elements

how would we ever know what anything comes from?

But, as it is, the origins are from fixed seeds

and everything comes to the shores of light

the moment its matter has reached the right point of development.

No question of undiscriminating creation

when everything has its seeds within itself.

.

Besides, have you thought why roses come in spring,

corn ripens in the heat, and the grapes in autumn?

It is because their seeds are so determined

and all creation happens when it must.

It needs only the season, and the vivid earth

as it were finds it safe to produce what it does.

If things came out of nothing, they would come from nothing,

turning up at odd times in a random way;

They would have no natures to hold them to their course

nor elements answering only to certain seasons.

There would be no question of interval after coition

before the child appeared, if we came from nothing.

Young men would disconcertingly spring up from cribs

And full-grown trees would appear in a flash from the ground.

As such things do not happen, but on the contrary

everything grows and changes little by little

and all growth follows the laws of particular species,

it proves that everything is made from its own material.

.

225

Besides, if all the things time removes from our sight

were really destroyed and all their matter consumed,

how would the animal world be saved from destruction,

as generation does save it? Or how would the earth

have ingenuity to continue to feed it?

How would the sea get fed by the springs and rivers?

Or how would the sky find food for its flocks of stars?

None of these things would happen, if mortal bodies

had been consumed by time in the infinite past.

But if, in the space of past and the time gone by,

there have always been elements ready for re-confection,

they are by nature immortal, that is certain

and that is why they cannot return to nothing.

.

All objects would be destroyed by a single cause

if there were not eternal matter to hold them together

more or less tightly, in various patterns or systems.

A touch would be enough to produce destruction.

If things were not composed of permanent elements,

any force would at once unravel the pattern.

As it is, patterns hold together in various ways

but substance is always identical and eternal

and so things hold until a force is encountered

which is just enough to rip their particular texture.

So you see once more that nothing returns to nothing:

What happens is that things revert to their common elements.

.

The rains are gone, when the upper air has thrown them

into the lap of our darling mother the Earth,

but the shining harvests come, the branches turn green,

the trees grow upwards, then are borne down by the fruit

and so our race is fed, and the animals too;

The happy cities flower with their crops of children,

the leafy woods sing out with the new year’s birds;

The well-fleshed herds sink down in the happy grass

and the udders swell to bursting with each day’s milk;

The lambs are driven to dance on their tottering legs

and play as if mothers’ milk had turned their brains.

Nothing indeed is lost of perceptible things.

One thing is made of another, and nature allows

no new creation except at the price of death.

.

You know I have said creation out of nothing

is nonsense and so is destruction of things to nothingness.

But since you may doubt the validity of a doctrine

requiring the existence of invisible elements [atoms],

I should like to draw your attention to certain bodies

which must be allowed to exist, although we can’t see them.

.

Think of the winds, which beat up the sea with their blows,

wrecking the largest vessels, scattering the clouds,

and sometimes driving a hurricane over the plains,

strewing great trees on the ground, and with shattering blasts

lashing the mountaintops: a roaring fury,

there is rage to come in their smallest menacing murmur.

No doubt at all, the winds are invisible bodies

which sweep across the sea, the earth and the sky

and toss the clouds and carry them off in a storm.

You may compare them and the damage they do

to what is done by water, whose nature is gentle—

yet when the rivers are swollen by terrible downpours

collected on mountain slopes and sent hurtling down,

they carry before them branches and even whole trees;

No bridges are strong enough for the sudden onrush: they crumple.

The river, carrying the rains in its arms,

crashes against the piers and pushes them forward;

They fall with a roar, and they are under the water,

immense blocks: nothing could stand against the river.

So with the winds; it must be, their action is similar

for like a river they lash wherever they choose,

overturning whatever impedes them in one or several assaults;

Sometimes they lift and carry things upwards in an eddying swirl.

It proves, it must prove, that winds are invisible bodies,

for by their action and habit they rival the rivers

which no one denies are made of a substance which is visible.

.

Or again, take smell. We perceive all manner of odors

but never observe one on its way to our noses.

Nor does sight communicate blazing heat or cold wither

or enable us to detect or distinguish a sound;

Yet the nature of all these things must of course be physical

since otherwise they could not impress our senses

—for impression means touch, and touch means the touch of bodies.

.

Then observe, if you hang clothes out where the waves are breaking,

they get wet, just as they dry if they’re spread in the sun.

Yet nobody ever saw how the damp gets into them

or how it gets out when the weather is hot.

It follows that moisture must be composed of particles

so small it is not possible they should be seen.

In the same way, if you wear a ring on your finger,

after many years it will wear perceptibly thin;

A drip will hollow a stone; the blade of a plow

in time will secretly wear away in the fields;

And paving-stones grow smooth and thin with crowds

who tread on them year by year; by a city gate you may see

a statue of bronze with the right hand worn

where travelers have kissed it as they went on their way.

These things diminish, we see, little bylittle,

but what is lost at any particular time

is something that nature does not allow us to see

any more than she allows us to see what is added

to bodies in the course of their natural growth.

The same is true of what is taken away

from bodies when they are wasted by time and age;

and there are half-eaten cliffs overhanging the sea,

but who ever saw the salt removing a mouthful?

Nature does all these things with invisible substances.

.

Not everywhere, however, is crowded with matter,

for nature is such that everything has its emptiness.

This is a necessary part of the lesson,

without which nature would continue to mystify you

and my theories would in fact be incomplete.

There is the void—the emptiness of unoccupied space,

without which, clearly, nothing could ever move.

The function of matter is to get in the way;

If there were no space, nothing could ever move,

but everything would get in the way of everything else.

Nothing would ever give, and nothing would budge.

But in fact we see the seas move, the earth, the clouds,

the stars sweep by, and everything has its movement.

If there were no such thing as emptiness, none of this could happen,

nothing indeed could ever change or begin;

There would be closed-packed matter and that would be all.

.

The fact is, things which appear to us to be solid

are really made of somewhat rarefied stuff.

That is why water drips through the roof of a cave

and it looks as if thick slabs of rock had burst into tears;

That is how food distributes itself through a body;

Trees grow, and manage in time to produce fruit

because what they feed on is carried from roots to the trunk

and so in the end to the very tip of the branches.

Noises don’t stop at a wall but are carried right through—

it makes no difference that the house is shut up.

The cold gets into our bones: and none of these things

could happen, unless there were spaces matter could go through.

.

And why is it some things weigh a lot more than others

although the volume is exactly the same?

A lump of bread and a lump of wool, for example?

The difference must be in the proportion of matter.

The nature of matter is to press everything down

while the nature of void is to be without weight.

It follows that, with objects of equal volume,

the lighter must be the one which contains more emptiness

and the heavier must be the one which contains more matter

while the void it contains must be accordingly smaller.

This demonstrates that the composition of things

includes, as well as matter, some empty space.

.

Here I must warn you against a plausible theory

which some people have advanced, and which might mislead you.

Its proponents say that water gives way to the fish

as it swims, and opens a passage for it to pass,

because there is a space left behind the fish

into which the liquid can flow: and this, they say, demonstrates

how other things can change place, although space is full.

This explanation rests on erroneous reasoning,

for how, after all, can the fish find a way to move forward

if the water does not give way to it? And how can the water

give way to the fish, unless the fish can move forward?

For either one has to deny that bodies can move

or else admit they contain an empty element

which makes it possible for movement to begin.

.

And then, if two flat objects are brought together

and at once rebound, the space that is made between them

is filled up with air, but, however quickly the air moves,

it cannot fill up the whole space instantaneously:

The process of filling, though rapid, happens by stages.

.

If anyone should maintain, when the two bodies separate,

that condensation of air is what makes it possible,

he is wrong: for that would mean a vacuum created

where there wasn’t one before, while the vacuum which did exist

had somehow been filled up. Air cannot condense

in such a manner, I think, or if it were possible,

it would not be without the existence of space

in the air itself, into which its parts could withdraw

—so though you might hesitate at these objections,

you would have to admit that void does exist.

...

I could go on adding to the arguments I have adduced

if I felt I had to scrape together a proof,

but the indications I have given are enough

for so intelligent a reader as yourself.

Just as the dogs, merely by using their nose,

succeed in finding their quarry under a fern

once they have got the scent and can follow it up,

so you can find one consequence after another

in an inquiry like this, like following a thread

through every obscurity until you light on the truth.

...

But now I must get back to what I was saying.

The whole of nature consists of two elements:

There are material bodies, and there is the void

in which they are situated and through which they move.

The existence of material bodies is plain to the senses;

If we were not sure of that self-evident starting-point,

we would have no basis for more abstruse constructions.

For all proof rests in the end on a basis of sense.

As for void, or space, or if you will call it emptiness:

We know that this it exists because if it did not, bodies

could not be anywhere, nor would they be able to move

—a point I demonstrated a few lines back.

.

There is indeed nothing whatever of which you can say

that exists apart from matter and emptiness,

as if there were some third element in the universe.

For if there were, it would not exist without size

—how large or small, is a matter of indifference—

and if it were sensible, even to the lightest touch

it would be classified with material objects;

If it could not be touched it would be incapable

of offering the slightest resistance to any body,

which amounts to saying that it would be void.

.

Besides, if a thing exists it must either act

or else be acted upon by other agents,

or provide a space in which other things can exist.

But only material objects can act and be acted on,

and only void can provide a space.

Apart from emptiness and material objects

there can be no third element in nature

—no third which could have an effect on our senses

or be the subject of any reasoning.

You will find that everything which can be named

is either inherent in the two basic elements

or is the effect of something that happens to them.

The inherent qualities are those which cannot be separated

without destroying the nature of the object:

As weight in rocks, heat in fire, and wetness in water,

or tangibility in material objects

and in space—or void—intangibility.

On the other hand, servitude, poverty and riches,

liberty, war, and settlements, and so on,

which leave material bodes unchanged in their nature

are things which happen to bodies—we might say, events.

.

Time has no existence by itself

and it is only from the perception of things

past, present, and future that the mind is aware of it.

There never was anyone who had even a glimpse of time

apart from the movement of things and the contrast of rest.

.

So it is absurd to suggest that the Trojan War

or the rape of Helen, has some sort of real existence

when the ages in which these notable things occurred

—like the people they happened to—have been swept away.

Whatever happened is no more than just a happening

—other places or times, perhaps it makes no difference.

For if there had been no matter to form the bodies

and no empty space in which they could perform,

Paris would not have been there to get excited

nor Helen in such a shape as to set him on

and the famous wars would not have happened at all.

No wooden horse could have turned out a load of Greeks

into the darkness, to set the town alight.

You can see from that, all that has gone on in the past

has no existence, as matter and void have,

but rather should be regarded as so many happenings

which have occurred to material bodies in space.

.

The bodies themselves are of two kinds:

Primary particles and complex bodies composed of primaries.

These first particles are of such an invincible hardness

that no force can alter them or extinguish them.

It is not easy to imagine such a body

so full of itself as the be entirely solid:

For lightning travels with ease through the walls of houses

and so do all kinds of sound; iron glows in the fire

and even stones break up in a violent heat.

Gold, which seems hard enough, can grow liquid too,

and so can bronze, which falls like a block of ice.

Warmth goes through sliver, and so indeed does the cold

so that when we hold a sliver cup in our hands

we feel the iced wine rise as it is poured.

Enough to convince us that nothing is really solid.

.

Yet, if one thinks about it and looks at the evidence,

it does turn out, as I’ll explain in a very few verses,

that there are particles made of solid and changeless matter

which are the basic constituents of the universe

from which all things are made.

.

First of all, since it is clear that nature is twofold,

consisting of elements of quite different kinds:

Body, and space in which all events take place;

These two must be quite separate from each other.

For where there is space with nothing in it but void,

there can be no body there;

And where there is body,

there clearly cannot be void by any means.

So the particles are quite solid and have no space within them.

.

Since there is emptiness in created things,

it must be surrounded by something solid:

For how could things hide such emptiness in their interior

if there were no material around to hide it?

And what could this be except a collection of particles

arranged to form a sort of screen for the void?

Matter, consisting entirely of solid particles,

can be eternal, though everything made of it dies.

.

Then, if there were no such thing as empty space,

everything would be solid; on the other hand,

if there were not bodies which filled up all the space

they occupied so that nothing else could intrude,

the universe would be nothing but emptiness.

But matter and space, are in fact, alternatives:

They cannot be both in one place.

The world is neither made up entirely of the one nor of the other,

and this mixed nature of things would only be possible

if there were bodies which did not give way to the void.

.

These bodies—the particles—cannot break up at a blow,

nor can anything get past their outer defenses,

nor can they yield or give way to whatever may come

—all these are points that I have already made.

It is evident, therefore, that without an admixture of void,

nothing could crash or break or be split in two,

nor even get soaked, or penetrated by cold,

nor even eaten by fire, the general destroyer.

The more unoccupied space each object contains,

the more it will give way to the things which destroy it.

.

Besides, it is clear, if matter had not been eternal,

before now everything would have returned to nothing

and everything we now see would have come from nothing.

But I have already proved that nothing can be created

from nothing, nor can creation disintegrate into nothing.

There must be, therefore, immortal elements

into which all things in time can be dissolved

and from which all things can be renewed once again.

These elements must be of a solid simplicity

for how, otherwise, could they last through so many ages

and take part endlessly in the renewal of things?

.

And how, if nature had not provided some end

to the destruction of things, could matter have held

against the breaking up through so many ages,

or how could things be conceived and brought to maturity

in any measure of years, and last out their time?

For everything that we see is more easily broken

than put together again: the procession of days

and endless duration of all the time gone by

would surely have broken up everything, crushed and dissolved it,

so that nothing could be re-made in the time that remains.

But some end to destruction indeed has been fixed,

for do we not see that everything is renewed?

And definite times fixed for the life of everything,

and everything in due time arrives at its flower?

And this too: although you have the most solid material

in the basic particles, these can easily give you

the soft and fluid: as air, earth, water and mist.

How they are formed and behave is easy to see

once the existence of void is admitted,

but if you imagined the basic ingredients were soft,

how could you ever arrive at iron or flint?

You could not explain them: there would not be in all nature

the qualities out of which such stuff could be made.

So then: it is the strength of solid simplicity

lies a the root of creation; the more or less density

of basic particles makes up the strength of each object.

.

Since the limits of growth and living for every species

are fixed as if by an immutable law,

which also defines what they can and cannot do

and nothing is ever changed: but so fixed indeed

that all the different birds in a perfect order

show their unchangeable markings according to species;

Could these things happen without immutable matter?

For if the original particles were not stable

but liable to give way to modifications,

how could it be so determined what things are born?

Or how could there be the certain limits there are

to what each species can do and the turn of its nature?

And how could the generations bring back as they do

the character, movements and habits of those before them?

.

The original particles, although themselves invisible,

must have limits, which means: a series of points;

And these must be the smallest bodies in nature without parts;

Points moreover which never existed in isolation,

or never could so exist, since they are only parts of another body

—units which, joined together with others like them,

make up the bodies of the original particles.

And since these points have no existence apart,

they must remain eternally glued together.

So the particles are of solid and simple nature,

made up of crowded irreducible points

and not the product of any act of assembly,

but such that they have always existed in that conjunction:

No kind of separation or any subtraction

from the particles which are the seeds of everything.

.

For if there were no such thing as a minimal entity,

the smallest bodies would have infinite parts;

There would be no end to the foolish arithmetic

of dividing by half, by half, and by half again.

And in that case there would be no difference of size

between the smallest thing and the infinite universe,

Because however large you supposed the latter,

the former, just like it, would be made up of infinite parts.

This is something that reason simply cannot accept,

and the mind has no alternative but to admit

the existence of parts which cannot be further divided

—the minimal natural entities, finite points.

And since they exist, they must be solid and changeless.

.

Once may add, that if it had been the habit of nature

to reduce things to their irreducible parts,

nothing could ever again have been made form them;

For things which have not the benefit of any parts

would not have the qualities of productive matter

—the power of interaction and the movement which are

the normal ways in which things ever happen.

...

Now perhaps you will see—as I have already explained it—

why it matters so much how the particles lie,

in what position, or how they push one another?

With very small changes, the identical particles

make wood or fire, just as you may say the same letters

—or almost the same—will produce the words fir or fire,

with different sounds and certainly different meanings.

...

My theory is that bodies of solid matter

—the particles—move through the ages and are indestructible.

The question now is: are they of limited number?

And is place, void, space, in which everything must happen,

finite itself, or does it stretch out without limit

in all directions without any end at all?

...

The universe is in fact without limit of any kind,

for if it had it would have to have an outside.

Nothing can have an outside unless there is something beyond it;

So the point can be seen at which it ceases to be

and beyond which the senses could not follow it.

There can be no such point for the whole creation;

If one thinks of the whole there can be nothing outside it,

it can have no limit or measure, you could not conceive it.

It does not matter what position you occupy,

space must stretch an infinite distance in every direction.

...

Let us suppose for a moment that space is finite;

Then let someone proceed to the furthest boundaries

and throw a spear beyond the point where he is.

You then have to choose whether you think it will travel

in the direction he sends it, as far as you like,

or whether you think that something will get in the way.

With neither answer can you avoid the conclusion

that the universe stretches out on all sides forever,

for whether the spear finds something in the way

and cannot proceed, or whether the way is open,

the point it started from is not the end of the universe.

In this manner one can go on, and wherever you put the limit

I shall ask: Now, where is the spear?

There is no point at which you can set a boundary;

The more space you give the spear, the further it goes.

If indeed the sum of total existing space

were bounded in fact by limits on every side,

matter would then fall down and lie on the floor of the universe

and this indeed would have happened long ago

and there would have been no events at all after that.

There would not even be sky, or the light of the sun

for all the matter there is would stay piled up

in a heap produced by endless ages of sinking.

However, as things are, the particles have no rest

and we may be sure there is no bottom of things

on which they could settle down and take their rest.

Always and everywhere, there is ceaseless motion,

as hurtling particles of eternal matter

supply what is need out of infinite space.

...

1021

It was certainly not by design that the particles fell into order,

they did not work out what they were going to do,

but because many of them by many chances

struck one another in the course of infinite time

and encountered every possible form and movement,

that they found at last the disposition they have,

and that is how the universe was created:

Particles, kept together for so many years,

when by a chance they had found harmonious movements,

brought it about that rivers flow into the sea

to keep it going, while earth by the heat of the sun

renews its products, and living creatures breed on

and the gliding lights in the sky are never put out.

Certainly none of these things could do as they do

if there were not an infinite store of matter

from which they could make up their losses whenever they need.

For just as an animal cannot live without food

since his flesh will waste away; so it is with all things

which must replenish their matter or disappear.

.

Coda

If you learn these things, which requires no great labor

since one thing follows quite simply from another,

then you will not stumble—nor the secrets of nature

shall be dark to you. One thing lights up another.

Book II

...

So now I will tell you how the generative particles

bring different things into being and then dissolve them,

how they move, what the forces are which control them,

and with what velocity they are propelled through the emptiness:

These are the issues for which I require your attention.

.

Matter is certainly not glued firmly together,

since everything we see wears out and grows less

so that everything seems to flow away in the end,

concealing its final decrepitude from our eyes

while the universe as a whole somehow goes on.

This is because the particles which escape

from one object attach themselves to another

and so one thing will grow old and another flower.

That is not all: for everything is renewed

and mortals live by preying on one another.

Some kinds of creatures increase, while others diminish;

In a little time there is a new generation,

as the torch is handed on by Olympic runners.

.

There are those who think that particles can stop moving

and then start again after reaching a point of rest,

but that is an intellectual deviation.

For, since they move through emptiness,

each must be carried along by its own weight

or else by impact from another particle;

For if they hit one another they jump away—

hardly surprising, since they are very hard bodies,

heavy and solid, with no obstructions behind them.

.

To understand how matter is agitated,

you have to remember the universe has no bottom

nor any other point at which things can stop,

being that space is without limit

—spreading out on every side immeasurably—

a point which has already been fully demonstrated.

.

With this arrangement, there is no question

of any particle being anywhere at rest in the void,

but all are moved for ever in varying directions.

Some hit and rebound to a considerable distance,

while others recoil but a little way from the shock;

And the ones which are separated by smaller intervals

are those whose shapes are such that they get entangled:

These form the substance of the hardest rocks and of iron

and other things of similar weight and density.

Those particles which jump a long way apart

—and these are, relatively, a small number only—

leaving wide spaces between, make up such substances

as the thin air and the bright rays of the sun.

.

Many particles wander in the great void,

some of them reject and stray from substances,

having found no group that they could belong to.

A model and image of such wandering particles

is something we have daily before our eyes:

Just look when sunbeams shine in a darkened room;

you will see many tiny objects twisting and turning

and moving here and there where the sunlight shows.

It’s as if they were in an unending conflict

with squadrons coming and going in ceaseless battle,

now forming groups, now scattering, and nothing lasting.

From this you can imagine the agitation

of the genetic particles in the great emptiness,

so far at any rate as so small an example

can give any hint of infinite events.

.

Or you might say that it is worthwhile to study

the way in which the motes of dust dance in a sunbeam

because the behavior of these tiny objects

gives us a notion of that of invisible particles.

You will see many of these sailing dust-motes

impelled no doubt by collisions one cannot detect,

change direction, and turn off this way or that.

Surely their movement depends on that of the particles.

.

The particles are of course the first things to move;

Then it is the turn of the smallest groups

which are, so to say, the next in the order of forces

that are shaken by an impulse from the particles

till they in turn hit something a little bigger.

So movement arises from the original particles

and continues in series until it reaches our senses

and we see at last the motes which dance in the sunbeams,

even though at this stage collisions are not perceptible.

.

Memmius, my next subject is the velocity of particles

and it can be disposed of in very few words.

When first the dawn comes scattering its new light

and the miscellaneous birds, here and there in the woods,

begin to fill the air with their fluid song,

how suddenly does the sun as it rises up

pour its light over everything! This is a spectacle

which we have witnessed over and over again.

And yet the warmth that the sun puts out, and the light,

do not travel in absolute emptiness, there is something to hinder them;

.

They have to swim, so to speak, through waves of air.

Moreover, the particles of heat do not come singly

but tangled up or joined together in masses;

So they impede one another, and find themselves bumping

against other particles; their travel is relatively slow.

But the original particles, heavy and dense,

traveling through the great emptiness—nothing impedes them

no doubt because they are so much of a unity—

are carried forward without any change of direction.

They must certainly be distinguished for speed

and move much faster than the rays of the sun,

passing over the same distance in much less time

than it takes sunbeams as they move through the sky.

.

216

There is something more to be learned about this matter:

As bodies are borne on down through the void by their own weight,

at uncertain times and places, they give way a little

to one side or another in a slight deflection.

.

If they did not, then everything would fall down,

like drops of rain falling forever through emptiness,

there would be no occasion for encounters of elements

and if one did not strike another there would be no creation.

.

For if anyone thinks that the heavier bodies could

fall on the lighter, because they fall down more swiftly,

and that this could be the origin of the encounters

which bring about the movements of generations,

they are certainly wandering a long way from the truth.

Anything falling through water or through the air

no doubt must gain in speed as it has more weight

because the body of water and the nature of air

are such that they cannot offer equal resistance

to everything, but give way fast to the heaviest:

But the void has no power of resisting anything

at any time whatsoever or at any place;

Its nature is to give way, and so it does.

It follows that the void is passive and everything falls

through it at equal speed whatever its weight

and therefore there is no question of lighter elements

being fallen upon from above, so having encounters

which might produce the movements required by nature.

.

It is clear as day that there must be some slight deflection

in elements as they fall, but only the slightest;

We must avoid the suggestion of slantwise motion

for it is a matter of common observation

that heavy bodies do not fall out of the vertical.

If they fall they fall, you have only to look to see this.

Yet to say that nothing suffers the slightest deflection

is to go beyond what observation shows.

.

Again, if all motion is always one long chain,

and if everything is so determined,

and if the elements could never swerve

so that they break the order of fate

so that cause does not follow cause infinitely,

How would living creatures everywhere come by that freedom

which enables the will to wrench itself loose from fate

and us to go up and down the world as we like?

We change direction not because it is time to do so

or because we are where we must, but because we want to.

Without a doubt, it is our wills that begin these movements

which are carried out through our limbs.

Haven’t you seen, at the moment the barriers open

at the start of a race, the horses, as if hesitating,

unable to throw themselves forward as fast as they want to?

The whole of their matter has to be brought into motion,

which means that the messages have to run through their bodies

till every bit is altered and moves with the mind.

As you see, the impetus comes from within;

The movement starts in the mind and in the will;

From there it spreads through the limbs and through the whole body.

.

It is not at all the same thing when we move at the instance

of an overpowering force, or simply because someone pushes us.

In that case the material of the whole body

obviously moves in spite of us, hurried onwards

until the will succeeds in curbing it.

The fact is that external forces may move us

and hurry us onwards by the scruff of our necks;

Yet in spite of this, there still is something inside us

which can put up a struggle and get in the way of them.

It is this which controls the material of our bodies

and by a certain adjustment of our limbs

brings them up in their flight and returns them to rest.

.

There must for this reason be in the elements

some cause of movement other than weights and collisions

from which we could derive our innate free will:

for we know nothing is ever produced from nothing.

The existence of weight means that all is not done by collision,

as it were by external force; but the mind would be reduced

to inner necessities for our very least action

and so defeated as to suffer and bear without choice

if it were not for the tiny swerves which happen to elements

in times and places which are in no way determined.

.

The total supply of matter was never more close-packed

than it is now, nor was it ever more scattered:

For nothing is added to it or taken away.

And so the movement of elements at the present

is exactly as it has been in times gone by,

which is just the same as it will be in the future:

The way that things have been produced is the way the they will be,

The same conditions of being and growth and strength

as each thing has been given by the law of nature

will continue, and nothing will change the whole of nature.

For there is nothing outside it to which any matter

could make an escape; nor again is there anything anywhere

from which a new force could break in and so change

the course of nature, or disrupt the pattern of movement.

.

It is nothing to wonder at, when you think about it,

that although the elements are in ceaseless motion

the universe as a whole appears to be stationary

except so afar as particular bodies are moving.

We are dealing with things which are too small for perception

when we speak of elements: and since the bodies themselves

are too small to be seen, so naturally are their movements.

Indeed, with things which are visible, there is concealment,

often of movements, which distance can often erase.

For example, when flocks of sheep are devouring a hillside,

drifting about as the sparkling dew on the pasture

tempts them to this bit or that, while the lambs full of milk

play around the ewes, or amiably butt one another:

All this is completely confused from a distance

and looks like a patch of white on the green of the hill.

In the same way it happens that legions may be on exercise,

filling the plain with an imitation battle,

with cavalry dashing about and making the ground shake;

The flashes of their arms and their armor reaching the sky

and making the earth seem brilliant as well as noisy;

The whole accompanied by vociferous shouting

which echoes from mountains and seems to go up to the starts

yet there will be a place high up in the mountains

from which all this looks like a bring spot on the plain.

.

Now let us look at the nature of the elements

And how they differ from one another in shape;

You will see that there is extraordinary variety:

Not that the number in any one group is small

But that in general they are not completely alike.

No wonder: since the stock of them is so great,

unlimited, as I have taught—one might say, infinite—

there is plenty of room for variety and it would be odd

if all of them were of identical size and shape.

.

381

It is easy enough to explain why a streak of lightning

has so much more penetration than a flame

of the sort which flickers off the top of our torches.

You may say that the fire from the sky is much more subtle

and that the elements it consists of are smaller

so that it easily finds its way through interstices

impermeable by the flame of a torch made of pine.

.

In the same way light can travel through sheets of horn

but rain cannot: why, if it were not that the elements

which make up light are smaller than those of water?

.

And wine will run through a strainer as fast as you like

while oil will dawdle and go through drop by drop;

Either the elements making up oil are bigger

or else they are hooked and catch on one another,

which means that they cannot very easily separate

as they have to do in order to go through the mesh

because they must go through the openings one by one.

.

478

Here I would add a refinement to my theory

which follows from what I have said: that the elements

have only a finite variety of shapes.

If it were otherwise, some elements necessarily

would have themselves to be of infinite size.

As long as they are small there is no possibility

of more than a limited variation in shape.

Imagine an element divided in three small parts,

or not much more; then try to arrange those parts

in any manner you will, in a single body.

You can put the top to the bottom or the left or the right

and try any other combination of changes

to produce a modification of the whole shape:

You will soon arrive at the point where, to effect any change,

you will have to add new parts; and if you continue

with new arrangements, you will find for similar reasons

that you will need to add new parts.

.

You will see that increase of size will follow inevitably

from multiplication of shapes: and you cannot believe

in an infinite variety in the shapes of elements

without admitting that some are of monstrous proportion;

I have shown that this is something you cannot prove.

.

.

Likewise, from fire to the freezing frosts of winter

is a finite distance, whichever way you look at it;

Between them is every degree of heat and cold

and altogether these make up a perfect series.

So created objects differ in finite ways

since the bounds of their sensible qualities are so marked

at one end by flames, at the other end by hard frost.

.

To this I would add another not unconnected point;

It is that the number of elemental bodies

which are of similar shape, is bound to be infinite;

For since the number of shapes has been shown to be finite,

it must be, for otherwise you would be asserting

that the supply of matter is limited; which it is not,

as indeed I showed, in a few not ill-sounding verses,

when I was explaining how material elements

out of the infinite hold up the ordered universe

by raining upon it a continuous series of blows.

.

730

Another point now from my delightful studies.

You should not suppose the whiteness you see in an object

means whiteness in its elements, or that black objects

come from elements which themselves are black;

Nor indeed, whatever color an object has,

that it is made of elements of that color.

The elements of matter have no color at all,

neither like the objects they form nor yet unlike them.

.

If you think that colorless bodies are inconceivable,

I can only tell you that you are a long way astray.

For those who are born blind and have never seen

the light of the sun, still know bodies by touch

from the earliest age, with no conjunction of color.

So it is evident that the mind can form

an idea of objects without the assistance of color;

And we ourselves find, touching things in the dark,

that we feel them, though we have no sensation of color.

.

May I now reinforce the point by a little theory?

Any color can change into any other

—which is not consistent with nature of elements.

There must be something unchangeable in the elements

if everything is not to turn into nothing,

for nothing can change so as to change its nature

without the extinction of what it was before.

Do not therefore attribute color to elements;

You would be on the way to destroying the whole creation.

.

On the other hand, if you take it there is no color

in elements, but that they are of various shapes

which can produce and change the whole range of colors

and if you go on to attribute a proper importance

to their position and movements and interrelations;

You will find no difficulty in explaining how

something which a moment before was black as coal

should suddenly change and look as white as marble:

As the sea, when tremendous winds have stirred up its waters,

is turned into waves with a white sheen.

You would say that something we often see as black

will, when there is some disorder in its elements

and some are added and some taken away,

appear immediately as shining white.

If the elements of the sea were in fact sea-blue

they could not be white, it is as simple as that:

But however you jumbled them up they would still be blue

and nothing could ever turn them into white.

...

.

1023

Now turn your mind towards the truth of reason.

It is a new matter now that will reach your ears,

something to make the sum of things seem different.

Nothing is ever so easy that it does not seem difficult

the first time you try to take it in,

nor anything so great a wonder that in time

it ceases to cause even the least surprise.

Consider the clear blue color of the sky

and all that it contains, the stars that wander in it,

the moon, the incomparable brightness of the sun:

If all these were presented now to mortals

for the first time and suddenly met their eyes,

could anyone say there was anything more magnificent

or could any nation have dared to imagine such things?

I think not, for it would be such a wonder.

Yet, as it is, people are thoroughly weary of looking at them;

They hardly deign to raise their eyes for the purpose.

Do not, I beg you, be so frightened of novelty

as to reject what is reasonable: sharpen your judgment;

weigh what I say and, and if it strikes you as true,

give in; if false, prepare to come to grips with it.

The mind seeks to understand, in the limitless spaces

extending out beyond the walls of the world,

what may be there for the intelligence to grasp

and so to speak flies through space to see what it is.

.

First then, in whatever direction you travel from here,

to left or right, upwards or downwards, or any way,

there is no end to the universe. I have said it;

The thing itself shouts it; the nature of space will have it so.

Since that is so, the void spreads out infinitely

and elements in unlimited numbers float

in many ways, driven in endless movement,

can there then be the slightest possibility

that this one globe of earth and this one sky

should be all there is, and the rest of matter do nothing?

Especially as the world is made by nature

and all the elements crashed into one another

in innumerable ways without result or purpose

until at last they were thrown into such conjunctions

as suddenly produced the wonderful world,

the earth, the sea, the sky and all living creatures.

Again and again you are driven to this conclusion:

That there must somewhere else have been other conjunctions

like those which are held here in the jealous grasp of ether.

.

Besides, wherever there is matter to hand

and place for it, and no cause to prevent it,

the matter must indeed turn into things.

For if the number of elemental bodies

is such that a whole age could not reckon it up

and if the force of nature remains the same

to throw the wandering elements to and fro

in the same way as here, it must be admitted

there are other worlds in other parts of the universe

and other races of men and of wild beasts.

.

Consider moreover that in the whole of nature

there is not a thing unique and without antecedents

and most must be classified as one of a kind.

Take first of all the animals, you will see it is so.

It is so with the wild beasts roaming in the mountains,

the human race itself, as well as the silent

shoals of fish and the flying creatures.

On the same principle you must admit that the sky,

the earth, the sun, moon, sea and all the rest of it

are not unique, but there are countless numbers of them;

for these are things which have a term to their lives

and which are as dependent on the body

as any creature of an abundant species.

.

If you keep these things in mind, nature will seem

to be on her own, free of presumptuous masters,

doing everything herself with no help from the gods.

For I appeal to the holy hearts of the gods,

which in tranquil peace pass untroubled days and a life serene:

Who can rule everything? Who can have all space

safe in his hand as if he held a rein?

Who can turn all the skies, or bring enough

ethereal fire to warm up all the fruitful worlds?

Ready in every time and in every place

to make shadows with clouds and shake the skies with thunder?

And then send lightning, which often

strikes on the gods’ own temples, and in desert places

falls pointlessly, and often misses the guilty

to take instead the life of innocent people?

.

When the world was born, and after the sea’s first day,

after the earth and sun had been formed together,

new matter came to join them from outside;

New elements were thrown in from the great universe:

So sea and earth could grow, and so appeared

the palace of the sky and the high roofs

were built far from the earth and then air came.

For wherever it came from, the great rain of blows

sent every element to the appropriate object;

moisture to moisture and earth added to the earth;

The fire joined up with fire, and ether with ether;

until creative nature finished the job

and bought each substance to its fullest growth

as happens when what passes into the veins of life

is no more than flows out and passes away.

Then is the time when everything comes to a stop

and nature reins back any further increase.

For when anything that you see is growing happily

and gradually, step by step, approaches maturity,

it is taking in more elements than it gives out,

for food is readily taken into its veins

and it is not so laxly made that it loses particles

faster than the ages can replace them.

Of course, our bodies ordinarily lose quite a lot,

that is evident enough: but they take in more

until the day when they reach the summit of growth.

From then on, little by little, age breaks us up

and we flow away to the worse side of things.

The larger anything is—the bigger the surface

once growth has stopped—then the more it scatters around

and elements leave it then in all directions.

Food is no longer easily absorbed in the veins;

Not enough is kept to replace the outflowing tide,

so what is needed to make up the loss

as must be done if there is to be renewal.

All bodies perish when the outflow leaves them rarefied;

They succumb at last to the elements from outside.

Food, sooner or later, is not enough for old age,

the body cannot withstand all the shocks from without

which beat upon in and finally get the better of it.

.

And so it will be at last with the walls of the world

which are falling into decay in a crumbling ruin.

For it is food which is necessary for renovation

to keep them upright or merely to sustain them;

But the time comes when the veins cannot take in enough

or it may be that nature does not provide enough food.

.

Coda

Already the old plowman shakes his head

to see that all his work has come to nothing:

When he compares the present with the past

he may well praise the fortunes of his father.

He will go on about old times, recalling

how men lived easily on far less land

and plots of ground were smaller;

He does not understand that things grow worse,

that all things move to death, worn out by age.