On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics)

by Ronald Melville

  The nature, manners, habits of their parents.

  To proceed with the argument: in every body

  There is a point so small that eyes cannot see it.

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  That point is without parts, and is the smallest

  Thing that can possibly exist. It has never existed

  Separately by itself, nor ever will,

  But only as one part of something else;

  Then other and other like parts in due order

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  In close formation fill the atom up.

  Since these can have no separate existence,

  They must needs clings together in one whole

  From which they can in no way be detached.

  Atoms therefore are solid single wholes

  Cohered from smallest parts close packed together,

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  Not compounds formed by gathering of parts,

  But strong in everlasting singleness.

  To them nature allows no diminution

  Nor severance, but keeps them as seeds for things.

  Besides, unless there is some smallest thing,

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  The tiniest body will consist of infinite parts,

  Since these can be halved, and their halves halved again,

  Forever, with no end to the division.

  So then what difference will there be between

  The sum of all things and the least of things?

  There will be none at all. For though the sum of things

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  Will be completely infinite, the smallest bodies

  Will equally consist of infinite parts.

  But since true reasoning protests against this,

  And tells us that the mind cannot believe it,

  You must admit defeat, and recognize

  That things exist which have no parts at all,

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  Themselves being smallest. And since these exist

  You must admit that the atoms they compose

  Themselves are also solid and everlasting.

  Lastly, if nature, great creatress, forced

  All things to resolve into their smallest parts,

  She would have no power to rebuild anything from them.

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  For partless objects must lack the properties

  That generative matter needs—the various

  Connections, weights, blows, concourses, and movements

  By which all things are made and operate.

  Therefore those that have thought that the substance of things

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  Is fire, and the universe consists of fire alone,

  Have fallen far from valid reasoning.

  Of these the champion, first to open the fray,

  Is Heraclitus, famed for his dark sayings

  Among the more empty-headed of the Greeks

  Rather than those grave minds that seek the truth.

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  For fools admire and love those things they see

  Hidden in verses turned all upside down,

  And take for truth what sweetly strokes the ears

  And comes with sound of phrases fine imbued.

  For why, I ask, are things so various

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  If they are made of nothing but pure fire?

  Let fire be denser or more rarefied,

  So long as the parts do not differ from the whole

  Nothing would be achieved.

  The heat would be fiercer with the parts compressed

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  And fainter with them spread out and dispersed.

  That is all. In such conditions nothing more

  Could we expect, much less this world of ours,

  So various, be made from fire more dense or less.

  There is this also: if they admit that void

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  Is mixed with things, then it is possible

  For fire to be condensed and rarefied;

  But since they see so many obstacles,

  They shrink from leaving pure void in things.

  Fearing the heights, they lose the path of truth.

  Nor do they see that, once void is removed,

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  All things must be condensed and everything

  Become one single body, that cannot throw off

  Anything from itself in rapid movement,

  As blazing fire throws off both light and heat.

  So you may see that fire does not consist

  Of parts close-packed and all compressed together.

  But if they think that in some other way

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  Fires can be quenched and have their substance changed,

  If they insist on this, then all heat totally

  Will manifestly perish into nothing,

  And what is then created will come from nothing.

  For things have limits fixed; if they by change

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  Transgress them, then death follows instantly.

  Therefore within them something must remain

  Safe and secure, or you will find all things

  Return quite into nothing, and from nothing

  The stock of things reborn and growing strong.

  So therefore there are certain definite bodies

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  Which keep their nature unchanged, everlasting;

  These by their comings and goings and changing order

  Can change their nature and transform themselves.

  And these atoms are, for sure, not made of fire.

  For it would make no difference if some

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  Should split off and depart and others be added

  Or change positions, if nevertheless

  They all possessed and kept the nature of fire.

  For everything they made would still be fire.

  The truth I think is this: there are certain bodies

  Which by their impacts, movements, order, position, and shapes

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  Produce fire, and which when their order is changed

  Are changed themselves, and are not like fire,

  Nor anything else that can send out particles

  To our senses, and by impact touch our sense of touch.

  To say moreover that all things are fire,

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  And nothing in this world is real except fire,

  As this man does, seems utter lunacy.

  He uses the senses to fight against the senses,

  And undermines what all belief depends on,

  By which he knows himself this thing that he calls fire.

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  He believes that the senses truly perceive fire,

  But not the rest of things that are no less clear,

  Which seems to me both futile and insane.

  For what shall we appeal to? What can there be more certain

  Than the senses to distinguish false from true?

  And why should one remove everything else

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  And leave only fire, rather than deny

  That fire exists and leave some other thing?

  Both propositions seem equally insane.

  Those therefore who have thought that fire

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  Is the substance of things, and that the universe

  Can consist of fire, and those who have maintained

  That air is the principle for the growth of things,

  Or that water forms things by itself alone,

  Or earth makes all things and changes into them,

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  These men have clearly strayed far from the truth.

  Add those who make the elements twofold

  Combining air with fire and earth with water,

  And those who take the view that everything

  Can grow from four—fire, water, air, and earth.

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  Foremost among these is Empedocles

  Of Acragas, whom that great island bore

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bsp; In its three-cornered coasts, around which flows

  The Ionian deep with many a twisting firth

  And splashes salt spray from its green grey waves.

  Here by a narrow strait the racing sea

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  Severs its coastline from the Italian shore;

  Here ruinous Charybdis seethes, and here

  Etna’s deep murmurs threaten once again

  To muster flaming wrath, so that once more

  Its violence may vomit bursting fires,

  Once more dark lightning flashes to the sky.

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  But though this mighty isle seems wonderful

  In many ways to nations of mankind,

  Known as a land to see, rich in good things,

  And guarded by a mighty force of men,

  Yet nothing, as I think, more glorious

  Has it possessed than this man, nor more holy,

  More wonderful, more precious. From his heart

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  Divine, songs ring out clear, and tell the world

  Of his illustrious discoveries,

  So that he seems scarce born of human stock.

  Yet he, and those of whom I spoke before,

  So much inferior, so much less than he,

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  Though much they found out excellent and divine

  And from their hearts’ deep sanctuary gave forth

  Answers more holy, on surer reason based,

  Than those the Delphic prophetess pronounced

  Amid the laurels of Apollo’s tripod,

  Yet these about the origin of things

  Have crashed: great men, and great there was their fall.

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  Their first mistake is this: that they assume

  Movement exists though void has been removed,

  And allow things to be soft and rarefied—

  Air, sun, earth, rain, and animals and crops—

  While not admixing void within their bodies.

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  The second, that they acknowledge no limit at all

  To the splitting of things, nor respite to their breaking,

  Nor any least of things, the primal atoms;

  Though we see that all things have an ultimate point

  Which is the smallest thing our eyes can grasp,

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  From which you may deduce that invisible things

  Have also an ultimate point which is the smallest.

  Moreover, these first elements of theirs

  Are soft: things that we see have birth, and bodies

  Of wholly mortal nature; so by now

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  The universe must have returned to nothing,

  And all things been reborn anew from nothing.

  That both these views are false you know already.

  Then too, these elements in many ways

  Are hostile and pure poison to each other;

  So when they meet, then either they will perish

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  Or fly apart, as we see lightning flashes

  And thunderstorms and winds all fly apart

  When they have been driven together by a storm.

  And then again, if all things were created

  Out of four things, and resolved back into them,

  Why should we call them elements of things

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  Rather than, thinking in reverse, maintain

  That other things are elements of them?

  For they are born from each other, and change colour

  And their whole natures among themselves for ever.

  But if you think that fire and earth and wind,

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  The breezes of the sky, the dew that lies,

  Can so combine that in their combination

  Their natures are not changed, then clearly nothing

  Could be created from them, no animal

  Nor anything inanimate, like a tree.

  For in the mingling of this diverse mass

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  Each element in its own nature will display:

  Air will then be seen mixed up with earth

  And fire persisting side by side with moisture.

  But primal atoms in begetting things

  Must bring a nature secret and unseen,

  That nothing may stand out to bar and thwart

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  Each thing that’s made from being its proper self.

  Indeed these men trace all things back to heaven

  And heaven’s fires, and hold that fire first turns

  Itself into breezes of the air, that rain

  Is generated thence, and earth from rain

  Created, then all things return again

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  From earth, reversing order, moisture first

  Next air, then heat, and these things never cease

  Their mutual changes, moving from the sky

  To earth, from earth back to the stars of heaven.

  This primal atoms never ought to do.

  For something must survive unchangeable

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  Lest all things utterly return to nothing.

  For all things have their boundaries fixed and sure;

  Transgress them, and death follows instantly.

  Therefore since those things we mentioned earlier

  Undergo change, then they must needs consist

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  Of other things that cannot change at all,

  Of you will find all things return to nothing.

  Why not rather assume that atoms exist

  Of such a nature that if they have produced fire

  Then with a few more added or taken away

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  And motions and positions changed, they make air,

  And in this way things change from one to another?

  ‘But’, you will say, ‘the plain facts clearly show

  That from the earth into the winds of air

  All things grow, and from earth all take their food.

  And unless the season with propitious hour

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  Makes way for rain and trees reel as storm clouds break,

  And sunshine cherishes and brings them warmth,

  Crops, trees, and animals can never grow.’

  Yes, and unless we ourselves by solid food

  And tender juices were sustained, at once

  Our body would waste away, and all our life

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  From all our bones and sinews be dissolved.

  For certainly we are ourselves sustained and fed

  By fixed and certain things; and other things

  And others again by certain other things.

  No doubt the reason is that many atoms

  Common in many ways to many things

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  Are mixed in many things, commingled with them,

  So different things are fed from different sources.

  And often it is a matter of great importance

  How these same atoms combine, in what positions

  They are held, what motions they give and take.

  For these same atoms form sky, sea, land, rivers, sun,

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  The same compose crops, trees, and animals,

  And have different motions, different combinations.

  Why, in my verses everywhere you see

  Are many letters common to many words,

  But yet you must admit that words and lines

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  Differ in meaning and the sounds they make.

  Such power have letters through mere change of order;

  But atoms can bring more factors into play

  To create all things in their variety.

  Now let us examine Anaxagoras’

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  Homoeomeria, named so by the Greeks,

  Which in our language is without a name

  Because of the poverty of our native tongue.

  However, it is easy to explain the thing.


  First, when he talks about homoeomeria,

  You must understand him to believe that bones

  Are made of very small and tiny bones,

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  And flesh of small and tiny bits of flesh,

  And blood created out of many drops

  Of blood combined together, and that gold

  Can be built up from grains of gold, and earth

  Grows out of little earths, and fire from fires,

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  Water from water drops, and all the rest

  He fancies are formed on the same principle.

  But he does not conclude that void exists,

  Nor any limit to the division of things.

  Therefore on both these points he plainly errs

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  Just as those did of whom I spoke before.

  Add that he makes his elements too frail,

  If elements they are that are endowed

  With a nature similar to the things themselves,

  Suffer like them and perish, nowhere reined back

  By anything from ruin and destruction.

  Which of them under huge pressure will endure

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  And escape destruction right in the jaws of death?

  Will fire or air or water? Which of them?

  Will blood or bones? Not one, in my belief,

  But everything alike will in its essence

  Be as perishable as those things we clearly see

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  Visibly perishing, vanquished by some force.

  I call to witness what I proved before:

  That nothing ever can be reduced to nothing

  Nor anything again grow out of nothing.

  Again, since food builds up the body and nourishes it,

  Plainly our veins and blood and bones and sinews

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  Must needs be made of parts unlike themselves.

  Or if they say that all food is a mixture

  Incorporating little bits of bones

  And sinews, yes, and little drops of blood,

  All food both solid and liquid must be held

  To be composed of things unlike itself,

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  A mixture of bones and sinews, pus and blood.

  And all those things that grow out from the earth,

  If they are in the earth, earth must consist

  Of things unlike itself that spring from it.

  Take other cases, and the same words will apply

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  If flame, smoke, ashes lurk unseen in wood

  It follows that the wood must be composed

  Of things unlike itself, that rise from it.

  And here is left some small chance of escape

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  Which Anaxagoras puts to good use.

  All things, he holds, lie hidden in all things

  Mixed up with them, but only one is seen,

  The one that has the most parts in the mixture,

  Set on the surface, readier to see.

  But this is very far removed from truth.