None of these things is found in wood or clods,
Yet these, when rotted as it were by rain,
Produce small worms, because the bodies of matter,
Moved by a new thing from their ancient order,
900
Combine in a way that must make living creatures.
Further, those who maintain that sentient things
Can be created from things sentient,
Themselves from other sentient things created,
Make the foundations of our senses perishable,
Because they make them soft; for all sensation
Is linked with flesh, veins, sinews, all of which
905
Being soft consist of substance which is mortal.
However, let us assume, for the sake of argument,
That these things last for ever. Then they must
Either have the sensation of a part
Or else instead be like whole animals.
But parts can have no feeling by themselves:
910
Sensation in our limbs involves the whole body.
A hand or any part severed from the body
Cannot retain sensation on its own.
It follows that they are like whole animals.
So they must have the same feelings as ourselves
915
So as to share in all our vital senses.
How then can they be called first elements
And escape the paths of death? They are animate,
And animate and mortal are the same.
Even if they could, their unions and combinations
920
Would make nothing more than a crowd of living things,
Any more than men and cattle and wild beasts
By combination could make anything.
But if they were to give up from their bodies
Their own power of feeling, and acquire another one,
What was the point of giving them in the first place
925
What is taken away? Besides, as we saw before,
Since we see eggs of birds produce live chicks
And worms swarm out when by untimely rains
Earth has been rotted, then we may be sure
That sense can be produced from the insentient.
930
Suppose, however, someone should maintain
That sense can indeed arise from the insentient,
But is produced by some process of change
Or by some kind of birth that gives it being,
It will suffice to prove quite clearly to him
That birth does not occur without previous union,
935
And nothing changes except by combination.
There can be no sensation in any body
Until the living thing itself is born;
Because of course its matter is held dispersed
In air and rivers and earth and earth-born things,
940
And has not yet assembled, nor combined
Within itself the vitalizing motions
By which the all-perceiving senses kindled
See to the safety of all living things.
Consider this also: some living creature
Is suddenly prostrated by a blow
More powerful than its nature can withstand,
945
And all the senses then of mind and body
Are stunned, and thrown at once into confusion.
For all the arrangements of the primal atoms
Are broken up, the vital motions checked
Deep down inside, until the substance fails,
Battered through every limb, and loosens all
The vital knots that bind the soul to body
950
And scatters it, forced out through every pore.
What else are we to think a blow can do
Than shatter what it strikes and break it up?
And often, when a blow strikes with less force,
The vital motions that remain will win,
955
Yes, win, and calm its vast disturbances,
Recalling every part to its own course
And shattering the impetus of death
Now all but lord and master of the body,
Kindling once more sensations almost lost.
How else could creatures at the door of death
960
Return to life, their minds restored again,
Rather than make their exit by a route
They have travelled almost to the end, and pass away?
Pain occurs when particles of matter
Attacked by some force in the limbs and flesh
Quiver and tremble in their deep abodes;
965
And when they settle back into their places
That is a soothing joy. So you may know
That atoms cannot suffer any pain
Nor in themselves experience any pleasure,
Since they possess no primal particles
From whose new movements they might feel distress
970
Or reap some fruit of life-giving delight.
Therefore they cannot be endowed with senses.
And if, to enable animals to feel,
We must attribute senses to their atoms,
What are we then to say about those atoms
Which give the human race its character?
975
Doubtless they shake their sides and rock with laughter
And weeping oft bedew their cheeks with tears,
Engage in long and brilliant disputation
About the mix of things that makes the world,
And then proceed to enquire about themselves
To find what atoms they themselves are made of.
For if they resemble complete mortal men,
980
They must also consist of other particles
And those in turn of others, and then others;
There’s nowhere you could dare to call a halt.
Indeed, I will follow you in your argument
And say that whatever speaks and laughs and thinks
Must be composed of parts that do the same.
But if we see that this is raving madness,
985
That a man can laugh who has no laughing atoms,
And think and proffer learned arguments
Though sprung from seeds not wise or eloquent,
Why should not things we see possessing feeling
Be made of seeds entirely without senses?
990
Lastly, we are all sprung from heavenly seed,
All from the same one father, him from whom
Life-giving mother, kindly earth, receives
Sweet showers of moisture, by which fertilized
She brings forth shining crops and joyful trees,
Brings forth mankind and all the breed of beasts,
995
And yields the food on which all feed their bodies,
To lead sweet lives and propagate their kind.
Wherefore she rightly has earned the name of mother.
And what before was made from earth returns
To earth, and what came down from ether’s shores
1000
Borne back again the halls of heaven receive.
And death does not destroy things when they die
So as to bring destruction to their atoms,
But breaks their combination everywhere,
And then makes new conjunctions, making all things
To change their shapes and colours and receive feeling,
1005
And in an instant yield it up again.
So you may recognize how much it matters
How these same atoms combine, in what positions,
What motions mutually they give and take.
Then you will not suppose that what we see
1010
Floating upon the surface of things, sometimes
Being brought to life, then dying suddenly,
Are qualities of everlasting atoms.
Moreover in my verse it matters much
How letters are arranged and linked with others.
The same denote sky, sea, land, rivers, sun,
1015
The same denote crops, trees, and animals,
And, if not all, by far the greater part
Are alike; but the position decides the meaning.
So with real things, when the combination of their atoms,
Their motions, order, forms, shapes, and positions
1020
Are changed, the thing itself must change.
Now give your mind, please, to true reasoning.
A new thing now is struggling urgently
To reach your ears, a new aspect of creation
Is striving to reveal itself.
1025
But nothing is so simple that at first
It is not more difficult to believe it than to doubt it,
And nothing so mighty and so marvellous
That men do not in time abate their wonder.
Take first the bright pure azure of the sky
1030
And all the sky contains—the wandering stars,
The moon, and glorious radiance of the sun—
If all these suddenly, unexpectedly,
For the first time appeared to mortal men,
What would they name more wonderful, what less likely
1035
That men before they saw it should believe it?
Nothing, I think—so marvellous the sight.
But now, long sated with this glorious vision,
Men do not care, and no one lifts his head
To look up to the shining realms of heaven.
Therefore forbear, dismayed by novelty,
1040
To thrust out reason from your mind. No. Weigh it
With judgement keen, and then if it seems true
Give in, or if false, gird yourself to fight.
For since the sum of space is infinite
Spreading beyond the ramparts of the world,
1045
The mind desires by reasoning to find
What may exist there far away, the bourne
To which the exploring intellect aspires,
To which the mind’s thrust flies forever free.
This is my first point. Everywhere around us
On either side, above, below, throughout the universe,
There is no end. I have proved this, and the facts themselves
1050
Shout it aloud. Deep space shines clear to see.
Now since space lies in all directions infinite
And seeds in number numberless for ever
Fly all around in countless different ways
Through an unfathomable universe
Perpetually driven by everlasting motion,
1055
It must be deemed in high degree unlikely
That this earth, this sky, alone have been created,
And all those bodies of matter outside do nothing.
And added proof of this lies in the fact
That nature made this world. The seeds of things
In random and spontaneous collision
In countless ways clashed, heedless, purposeless, in vain
1060
Until at last such particles combined
As suddenly united could become
The origins always of mighty things,
Of earth, sky, sea, and breeds of living creatures.
Wherefore again and again I say you must admit
That in other places other combinations
Of matter exist such as this world of ours
1065
Which ether holds in ardent fond embrace.
And note this too—when matter is abundant
And space is there, and nothing checks and hinders,
Then action and creation must take place.
And if there exists so great a store of atoms
1070
As all the years of life on earth could never number,
And if the same great force of nature stands
Ready to throw the seeds of things together
In the same way as they have here combined,
Then of necessity you must accept
That other earths exist, in other places,
1075
With varied tribes of men and breeds of beasts.
Add to this that nothing in the universe
Is born unique and grows unique, alone,
But all belong to a species, very many
Of the same kind. Consider animals:
1080
You’ll find this rule applies to the wild beasts
That roam the mountains, to the human race,
To the dumb shoals of fish, to all things that fly.
Therefore likewise one must accept that sky
And earth and sun, moon, sea, and all else that exists
1085
Are not unique, but in number numberless.
No less a deep-set boundary stone of life
Awaits them, no less from a birth their bodies sprang,
Than those that here on earth of every kind
Abound, and multiply their generations.
If you know these things well, you’ll see at once
1090
That nature is free, no slave to masters proud;
That nature by herself all things performs
By her own will without the aid of gods.
For—by the gods who in their tranquil peace
Live ever quiet in a life serene—
Who has the strength to rule the sum of things
Immeasurable, to hold beneath his hands
1095
Bridled and reined the unfathomable deep,
To turn the firmaments of all the heavens,
Warm all the fertile worlds with heavenly fires,
At all times present and in every place,
That can make darkness with his clouds, and shake
The sky serene with thunder, and with lightning
1100
Oft shatter his own temples and then departing
Let fly at deserts, raging with that bolt
That often spares the guilty, but brings death
To men whose lives are innocent and blameless?
Since the first natal hour of the world,
1105
The day when earth and sea were born, and sun
Had first its rising, atoms have been added
In multitudes from outside, many seeds
Added from out the mighty universe,
Thrown all together by its ceaseless motion;
That increase might be given to land and sea,
The realms of sky extend their bounds, and lift
1110
Their lofty buildings far above the earth;
That air might rise. For blows from every side
Supply to each thing its own special atoms.
All join their own kind; water goes to water,
Earth is increased by elements of earth,
And fires are forged by fire, and ether by ether,
1115
Until to the utmost limit of their growth
Nature at last has brought them, great perfectress,
Great mother and creatress of the world.
And this is reached when into the veins of life
No more is given than passes out away.
Here for all things the advance of life must halt,
1120
Here nature checks the increase of her powers.
For all things that you see in cheerful growth
Scale step by step the ladder of ripe years,
Take into themselves more things than they discharge,
While food flows smoothly into all the veins<
br />
1125
And they themselves are not so loosely knit
As to shed matter freely and to squander
More than their life absorbs in nourishment.
For though we must accept that many bodies
Flow off from things and pass away, more must be added,
Until they have touched the topmost peak of growth.
1130
Then the strong vigour of maturity
Age slowly breaks and melts into decay.
And when growth stops, the larger a thing is
And wider, the more particles it throws off
And scatters them on all sides everywhere.
1135
Food does not easily penetrate the veins,
Nor in proportion to the flow outpoured
Is there enough to bring to birth again
All that is needed, and make good the loss.
So death comes rightly, when by constant flow
All things are thinned, and all things, struck from without
1140
By an increasing hail of blows, succumb;
Since at the end great age finds food to fail,
And without ceasing bodies from outside
Beating on things subdue them and destroy them.
So shall the ramparts of the mighty world
1145
Themselves be stormed and into crumbling ruin
Collapse. Even now the world’s great age is broken
1150
And earth worn out scarce bears small animals,
She who created all the generations
And brought to birth huge bodies of wild beasts.
No golden chain, I think, from heaven on high
Let down the breeds of mortals to the fields;
Nor sea nor waves that break upon the rocks
1155
Created them. From the same earth they sprang
That now supplies their nurture from her body.
Herself the shining crops and joyful vineyards
By her own will first made for mortal men;
Herself gave forth sweet fruits and joyful pastures,
Which now our toil scarce brings to growth and increase.
1160
We wear out oxen, wear out the strength of farmers,
Wear down the ploughshare in fields that scarce can feed us,
So do they grudge their fruits and multiply our toil.
And now the aged ploughman shakes his head
With many a sigh that all the weary labour
Of his strong arms has fallen away in vain,
1165
And when he compares times present with times past
Oft praises then the fortunes of his father.
And looking on his old and worn-out vines,
The husbandman bewails the march of time
And rails at heaven, and grieves that men of yore
In old god-fearing days could easily
1170
Within the confines of a narrow plot,
Far smaller then than now, support their lives.
On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) Page 12
