ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE

BOOK II:  MOVEMENTS AND SHAPES OF ATOMS

What joy it is, when out at sea the storm winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring! [1] Not that anyone's afflictions are in themselves a source of delight; but to realize from what troubles you yourself are free is joy indeed. What joy, again, to watch opposing hosts marshaled on the field of battle when you have yourself no part in their peril!  But this is the greatest joy of all: to possess a quiet sanctuary, stoutly fortified by the teaching of the wise, and to gaze down from that elevation on others wandering aimlessly in search of a way of life, pitting their wits one against another, disputing for precedence, struggling night and day [2] with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth and power. O joyless hearts of men! O minds without vision! How dark and dangerous the life in which this tiny span is lived away! Do you not see that nature is barking for two things only, a body free from pain, a mind released from worry and fear for the enjoyment of pleasurable sensations?

So we find that the requirements of our bodily nature are few indeed, no more than is necessary to banish pain, and also to spread out [3] many pleasures for ourselves. Nature does not periodically seek anything more gratifying than this, not complaining if there are no golden images of youths about the house, holding flaming torches in their right hands to illumine banquets prolonged into the night. [4] What matter if the hall does not sparkle with silver and gleam with gold, and no carved and gilded rafters ring to the music of the lute? Nature does not miss these luxuries when men recline in company on the soft grass by a running stream under the branches of a tall tree and refresh their bodies pleasurably at small expense. Better still if the weather smiles upon them, and the season of the year stipples the green herbage with flowers. Burning fevers flee no swifter from your body if you toss under figured counterpanes and coverlets of crimson than if you must lie in rude homespun. [5]

If our bodies are not profited by treasures or titles or the majesty of kingship, we must go on to admit that neither are our minds. Or tell me, Memmius, when you see your legions thronging the Campus Martius [6] in the ardor of mimic warfare, supported by ample auxiliaries and a force of cavalry, magnificently armed and fired by a common purpose, does that sight scare the terrors of superstition from your mind? Does the fear of death retire from your breast and leave it carefree? Or do we not find such resources absurdly ineffective? The fears and anxieties that dog the human breast do not shrink from the clash of arms or the fierce rain of missiles. They stalk unabashed among princes and potentates. They are not awestruck by the gleam of gold or the bright sheen of purple robes.

Can you doubt then that this power rests with reason alone? All life is a struggle in the dark. [7] As children in blank darkness tremble and start at everything, so we in broad daylight are oppressed at times by fears as baseless as those horrors which children imagine coming upon them in the dark. This dread and darkness of the mind cannot be dispelled by the sunbeams, the shining shafts of day, but only by an understanding of the outward form and inner workings of nature.

And now to business. I will explain the motion by which the generative bodies of matter give birth to various things, and, after they are born, dissolve them once more; the force that compels them to do this; and the power of movement through the boundless void with which they are endowed. It is for you to devote yourself attentively to my words.

Be sure that matter does not stick together in a solid mass. For we see that everything grows less and seems to melt away with the lapse of time and withdraw its old age from our eyes. And yet we see no diminution in the sum of things. This is because the bodies that are shed lessen the thing they leave but enlarge the thing they join; here they bring decay, there full bloom, but they do not settle. So the sum of things is perpetually renewed. Mortals live by mutual interchange. [8] One race increases by another's decrease. The generations of living things pass in swift succession and like runners hand on the torch of life. [9]

If you think that the atoms can stop and by their stopping generate new motions in things, you are wandering far from the path of truth. Since the atoms are moving freely through the void, they must all be kept in motion either by their own weight or on occasion by the impact of another atom. [10] For it must often happen that two of them in their course knock together and immediately bounce apart in opposite directions, a natural consequence of their hardness and solidity arid the absence of anything behind to stop them. [11]

As a further indication that all particles of matter are on the move, remember that the universe is bottomless: there is no place where the atoms could come to rest. As I have already shown by various arguments and proved conclusively, space is without end or limit and spreads out immeasurably in all directions alike. [12] It clearly follows that no rest is given to the atoms in their course through the depths of space. Driven along in an incessant but variable movement, some of them bounce far apart after a collision while others recoil only a short distance from the impact. From those that do not recoil far, being driven into a closer union and held there by the entanglement of their interlocking shapes, are composed firmly rooted rock, the stubborn strength of steel and the like. Those others that move freely through larger tracts of space - few and far between, springing far apart and carried far by the rebound - these provide for us thin air and blazing sunlight. Besides these, there are many other atoms at large in empty space that have been thrown out of compound bodies and have nowhere even been granted admittance so as to bring their motions into harmony.

This process, as I might point out, is illustrated by an image [13] of it that is continually taking place before our very eyes.  Observe what happens when  sunbeams are admitted into a building and shed light on its shadowy places. You will see a multitude of tiny particles mingling in a multitude of ways in the empty space within the actual light of the beam, as though contending in everlasting conflict, rushing into battle rank upon rank with never a moment's pause in a rapid sequence of unions and disunions. From this you may picture what it is for the atoms to be perpetually tossed about in the illimitable void. To some extent a small thing may afford an illustration and an imperfect image of great things. Besides, there is a further reason why you should give your mind to these particles that are seen dancing in a sunbeam: their dancing is an actual indication of underlying movements of matter that are hidden from sight. There you will see many particles under the impact of invisible blows changing their course and driven back upon their tracks, this way and that, in all directions. You must understand that they all derive this restlessness from the atoms. It originates with the atoms, which move of themselves. Then those small compound bodies that are least removed from the impetus of the atoms are set in motion by the impact of their invisible blows and in turn cannon against slightly larger blows. So the movement mounts up from the atoms and gradually emerges to the level of our senses, so that those bodies are in motion that we see in sunbeams, moved by blows that remain invisible. [14]

And now, Memmius, as to the rate at which the atoms move, you may gauge this readily from these few indications. First, when dawn sprays the earth with newborn light and the birds, flitting through pathless thickets, fill the neighborhood according to their kind with liquid notes that glide through the thin air, it is plain and palpable for all to see how suddenly the sun at the moment of his rising drenches and clothes the world with his radiance. But the heat and the bright light that the sun emits do not travel through empty space. Therefore they are forced to move more slowly, cleaving their way as it were through waves of air. And the atoms that compose this radiance do not travel as isolated individuals but linked and massed together. Thus their pace is retarded by one dragging back another as well as by external obstacles. But, when separate atoms are traveling in solitary solidity through empty space, [15] they encounter no obstruction from without and move as single units, being composed of their own parts, [16] on the course on which they have embarked. Obviously therefore they must far outstrip the sunlight in speed of movement and traverse an extent of space many times as great in the time it takes for the sun's rays to flash across the sky ....<No wonder that men> cannot follow the individual atoms, so as to discern the agency by which everything is brought about.

In the face of these truths, [17] some people who know nothing of matter believe that nature without the guidance of the gods could not bring round the changing seasons in such perfect conformity to human needs, creating the crops and those other blessings that mortals are led to enjoy by the guide of life, divine pleasure, which coaxes them through the arts of Venus to reproduce their kind, lest the human race should perish. Obviously, in imagining that the gods established everything for the sake of men, they have stumbled in all respects far from the path of truth. Even if I knew nothing of the atoms, I would venture to assert on the evidence of the celestial phenomena themselves, supported by many other arguments, that the universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections. All this, Memmius, I will elucidate for you at a later stage. [18] Now let me complete my account of atomic movements.

Now, I should judge, is the place to insert a demonstration that no material thing can be uplifted or travel upwards by its own power. Do not be misled by the particles that compose flame. The fact that all weights taken by themselves tend downwards does not prevent lusty crops and trees [19] from being born with an upward thrust and from growing and increasing upwards. Similarly, when fires leap up to the housetops and lick beams and rafters with rapid flame, it must not be supposed that they do this of their own  accord with no force to fling them up. Their behavior is like that of blood released from our body when it spouts forth [20] and springs aloft in a gory fountain. Observe also with what force beams and rafters are heaved up by water. The more we have shoved them down into the depths, many of us struggling strenuously together to push them under, the more eagerly the water spews and ejects them back again, so that more than half their bulk shoots up above the surface. And yet, I should judge, we have no doubt that all these, taken by themselves, would move downwards through empty space. It must be just the same with flames: under pressure they can shoot up through the gusty air, although their weight, taken by itself, strives to tug them down. Do you observe how the nocturnal torches of the sky in their lofty flight draw in their wake long trails of flame in whatever direction nature has set their course? Do you see how stars and meteors fall upon the earth? The sun from the summit of the sky scatters heat in all directions and sows the fields with light. The sun's radiance therefore tends also towards the earth. Note again how the lightning flies through the rainstorms aslant. The fires that break out of the clouds rush together, now this way, now that; often enough the fiery force falls upon the earth. [21]

In this connection there is another fact that I want you to grasp. When the atoms are traveling straight down through empty space by their own weight, at quite indeterminate times and places they swerve [22] ever so little from their course, just so much that you can call it a change of direction. If it were not for this swerve, everything would fall downwards like raindrops through the abyss of space. No collision would take place and no impact of atom upon atom would be created. Thus nature would never have created anything.

If anyone [23] supposes that heavier atoms on a straight course through empty space could outstrip lighter ones and fall on them from above, thus causing impacts that might give rise to generative motions, he is going far astray from the path of truth. The reason why objects falling through water or thin air must accelerate their fall in proportion to their weight is simply that the matter composing water or air cannot obstruct all objects equally, but is forced to give way more speedily to heavier ones. But empty space can offer no resistance to any object in any quarter at any time, so as not to yield free passage as its own nature demands. Therefore, through undisturbed vacuum all bodies must travel at equal speed though impelled by unequal weights. [24] The heavier will never be able to fall on the lighter from above or generate of themselves impacts leading to that variety of motions out of which nature can produce things. We are thus forced back to the conclusion that the atoms swerve a little - but only by a minimum, [25] or we shall be caught imagining slantwise movements, and the facts will prove us wrong. For we see plainly and indisputably that weights, when they come tumbling down, have no power of their own to move aslant, so far as meets the eye. But who can possibly perceive that they do not diverge in the very least from a vertical course?

Again, if all movement is always interconnected, the new arising from the old in a determinate order - if the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new movement that will snap the bonds of fate, [26] the everlasting sequence of cause and effect - what is the source of the free will possessed by living things throughout the earth? What, I repeat, is the source of that willpower snatched from the fates, whereby we follow the path along which we are severally led by pleasure, swerving from our course at no set time or place but at the bidding of our own hearts? [27] There is no doubt that on these occasions the will of the individual originates the movements that trickle through his limbs. Observe, when the starting-barriers are flung back, how the racehorses in the eagerness of their strength cannot break away as suddenly as their hearts desire. For the whole supply of matter must first be mobilized throughout every member of the body: only then, when it is mustered in a continuous array, can it respond to the prompting of the heart. So you may see that the beginning of movement is generated by the heart; starting from the voluntary action of the mind, [28] it is then transmitted throughout the body and the limbs. Quite different is our experience when we are shoved along by a blow inflicted with compulsive force by someone else. In that case it is obvious that all the matter of our body is set going and pushed along against our will, till a check is imposed through the limbs by the will. Do you see the difference? Although many men are driven by an external force and often constrained involuntarily to advance or to rush headlong, yet there is within the human breast something that can fight against this force and resist it. At its command the supply of matter is forced at times to take a new course through our limbs and joints or is checked in its course and brought once more to a halt. So also in the atoms you must recognize the same possibility: besides weight and impact there must be a third cause of movement, the source of this inborn power of ours, since we see that nothing can come out of nothing. For the weight of an atom prevents its movements from being completely determined by the impact of other atoms. But the fact that the mind itself has no internal necessity to determine its every act and compel it to suffer in helpless passivity - this is due to the slight swerve of the atoms at no determinate time or place. [29]

The supply of matter [30] in the universe was never more tightly packed than it is now, or more widely spaced out. For nothing is ever added to it or subtracted from it. It follows that the movement of atoms today is no different from what it was in bygone ages and always will be. So the things that have regularly come into being will continue to come into being in the same manner; they will be and grow and flourish so far as each is allowed by the laws of nature. The sum of things cannot be changed by any force. For there is no place into which any kind of matter might escape out of the universe or out of which some newly risen force could break into the universe and transform the whole nature of things and reverse their movements.

In this connection there is one fact that need occasion no surprise. Although all the atoms are in motion, their totality appears to stand totally motionless, [31] except for such movements as particular objects may make with their own bodies. This is because the atoms all lie far below the range of our senses. Since they are themselves invisible, their movements must also elude observation. Indeed, even visible objects, when set at a distance, often disguise their movements. Often on a hillside fleecy sheep, as they crop their lush pasture, creep slowly onward, lured this way or that by grass that sparkles with fresh dew, while the full-fed lambs gaily frisk and butt. And yet, when we gaze from a distance, we see only a blur - a white patch stationary on the green hillside. Take another example. Mighty legions, waging mimic war, are thronging the plain with their manoeuvres. [32] The dazzling sheen flashes to the sky and all around the earth is ablaze with bronze. Down below there sounds the tramp of mighty marching men's feet. A noise of shouting strikes upon the hills and reverberates to the celestial vault. Wheeling horsemen gallop hotfoot across the midst of the plain, till it quakes under the fury of their charge. And yet there is a vantage-ground high among the hills from which all these appear immobile a blaze of light stationary upon the plain.

And now let us turn to a new theme - the characteristics of the atoms of all substances, the extent to which they differ in shape and the rich multiplicity of their forms. Not that there are not many of the same shape, but they are by no means all identical with one another. And no wonder. When the multitude of them, as I have shown, is such that it is without limit or total, it is not to be expected that they should all be identical in build and configuration. [33]

Consider the race of men, the tribes of scaly fish that swim in silence, the lusty herds, the creatures of the wild and the various feathered breeds, those that throng the vivifying watery places, by river-banks and springs and lakes, and those that flock and flutter through pathless woodlands. Take a representative of any of these diverse species and you will still find that it differs in form from others of its kind. Otherwise the young could not recognize their mother, nor the mother her young. But we see that this can happen, and that individuals of these species are mutually recognizable no less than human beings.

Here is a familiar instance. [34] Outside some stately shrine of the gods incense is smoldering on the altar. Beside it a slaughtered calf falls to the ground. From its breast it breathes out a hot stream of blood. But the bereaved dam, roaming through green glades, scans the ground for the twin- pitted imprint of familiar feet. Her eyes rove this way and that in search of the missing young one. She pauses and fills the leafy thickets with her plaints. Time and again she returns to the byre, sore at heart with yearning for her calf. Succulent osiers and herbage fresh with dew and her favorite streams flowing level with their banks -a ll these are powerless to console her and banish her new burden of distress. The sight of other calves in the lush pastures is powerless to distract her mind or relieve it of distress. So obvious is it that she misses something distinctive and recognized.

In like manner, baby kids [35] hail their own long-horned dams with quavering voices. Frisky lambs pick out their own mothers from the bleating flock. So, at nature's bidding, each usually runs to its own milk-swollen udder.

Among ears of corn, whatever the kind, you will not find one just like another; but each will be marked by some distinctive feature. The same holds good of the various shells we see painting the bosom of the land where the sea with pliant ripples laps on the thirsty sands of its winding shore. Here, then, is proof upon proof that in the stream of atoms likewise, since they exist by nature and are not handmade to a fixed pattern, there are certain individual differences of shape flying about.

On this principle it is quite easy to explain why the fire of lightning is far more penetrative than our fire which springs from earthly torches. You can say that the heavenly fire of the lightning is of finer texture, being composed of smaller atoms, and can therefore pass through apertures impervious to this fire of ours, which springs from wood and is generated by a torch. [36] Again, light passes through horn, [37] but rain is dashed back. Why, if not because the particles of light are smaller than those that form the life-giving drops of water? We see that wine flows through a strainer as fast as it is poured in; but sluggish oil loiters. This, no doubt, is either because oil consists of larger atoms, [38] or because these are more hooked and intertangled and, therefore, cannot separate as rapidly, so as to trickle through the holes one by one.

Here is a further example. Honey and milk, when they are rolled in the mouth, cause an agreeable sensation to the tongue. But bitter wormwood and astringent centaury screw the mouth awry with their nauseating flavour. [39] You may readily infer that such substances as titillate the senses agreeably are composed of smooth round atoms. Those that seem bitter and harsh are more tightly compacted of hooked particles and accordingly tear their way into our senses and rend our bodies by their inroads.

The same conflict between two types of structure applies to everything that strikes the senses as good or bad. You cannot suppose that the rasping stridulation of a screeching saw is formed of elements as smooth as the notes a minstrel's nimble fingers wake from the lyre-strings and mould to melody. You cannot suppose that atoms of the same shape are entering our nostrils when stinking corpses [40] are roasting as when the stage is freshly sprinkled with saffron of Cilicia [41] and a nearby altar exhales the perfumes of the Orient. You cannot attribute the same composition to sights that feast the eye with color and those that make it smart and weep or that appear loathsome and repulsive through sheer ugliness. Nothing that gratifies the senses is ever without a certain smoothness of the constituent atoms. Whatever, on the other hand, is painful and harsh is characterized by a certain roughness of matter. Besides these there are some things that are not properly regarded as smooth but yet are not jagged with barbed spikes. These are characterized instead by slightly jutting ridges such as tickle the senses rather than hurt them. They include such things as wine-lees and piquant endive. Hot fire, again, and cold frost stab the senses of our body with teeth of a different pattern, as we learn from the different way they affect our sense of touch. For touch and nothing but touch (by all that men call holy!) is the essence of all our bodily sensations. [42] whether we feel something slipping in from outside or are hurt by something born in the body or pleasurably excited by something going out in the generative act of Venus. [43] It is touch again that is felt when the atoms are jarred by a knock so that they are disordered and upset the senses: strike any part of your own body with your hand, and you will experience this for yourself. There must, therefore, be great differences in the shapes of the atoms to provoke these different sensations.

Again, things that seem to us hard and stiff must be composed of deeply indented and hooked atoms and held firm by their intertangling branches. [44] In the front rank of this class stand diamonds, with their steadfast indifference to blows. Next come stout flints and the strength of hard iron and bronze that stands firm with shrieking protest when the bolt is shot.  Liquids, on the other hand, must owe their fluid consistency to component atoms that are small and round. For poppy-seed can be drawn off as easily as if it were water; the globules do not hold one another back, and when they are jolted they tend to roll downhill as water does. A third class is constituted by things that you may see dissipated instantaneously, such as smoke, clouds and flames. If their atoms are not all smooth and round, yet they cannot be jagged and intertangled. They must be such as to prick the body and even to penetrate rocks but not to stick together; so you can readily grasp that substances prickly to the senses are made of atoms which are sharp-pointed but not entangled.

Do not be surprised to find that some things are both bitter and fluid as, for instance, sea water. This, being fluid, consists of smooth round atoms. It causes pain because of the admixture of many rough atoms. There is no need for these to be held together by hooks. Evidently they are spherical as well as rough, so that they can roll round and yet hurt the senses. It can be shown that Neptune's bitter brine results from a mixture of rougher atoms with smooth. There is a way of separating the two ingredients and viewing them in isolation by filtering the sweet fluid through many layers of earth so that it flows out into a pit and loses its tang. It leaves behind the atoms of unpalatable brine because owing to their roughness they are more apt to stick fast in the earth.

To the foregoing demonstration I will link on another fact which will gain credence from this context: the number of different forms of atoms is finite. If this were not so, some of the atoms would have to be of infinite magnitude. [45] Within the narrow limits of any single particle, there can be only a limited range of forms. Suppose that atoms consist of three minimum parts, or enlarge them by a few more. When by placing parts at top or bottom and transposing left and right you have exhausted all the possible variations of the shape of the whole atom that can be produced by rearranging its parts; then you are obviously left with no means of varying its form further except by adding other parts. Thence it will follow, if you wish to vary its form still further, that the arrangement will demand still other parts in exactly the same way. Variation in shape goes with increase in size. You cannot believe, therefore, that the atoms are distinguished by an infinity of forms; or you will compel some of them to be of enormous magnitude, which I have already proved to be demonstrably impossible.

Were it not so, the richest robes of the Orient, resplendent with the Meliboean [46] purple of Thessalian murex, or the gilded breed of peacocks, bright with laughing luster, would pale before some new color in things. The fragrance of myrrh and the flavor of honey would fall into contempt. The death notes of the swan and the intricate melody of Phoebus' lyre would be silenced in like manner. For whatever might be would always be surpassed by something more excellent. And, as all good things might yield to better, so might bad to worse. One thing would always be surpassed by another more offensive to nose or ear or eye or palate. Since this is not so, but things are bound by a set limit at either extreme, you must acknowledge a corresponding limit to the different forms of matter. Similarly there is a limited range, from fire to the icy frosts of winter and back again. There are extremes of heat and cold, and the intermediate temperatures complete the series. They have been created, therefore, a limited distance apart, since the extremes are marked at either end with two points, one made intolerable with flames, the other by stiff frosts. [47]

To the foregoing demonstration I will link on another fact, which will gain credence from this context: the number of atoms of any one form is infinite. Since the varieties of form are limited, the number of uniform atoms must be unlimited. Otherwise the totality of matter would be finite, which I have proved in my verses [48] is not so. I have shown that the universe is kept going by an infinite succession of atoms, so that the chain of impacts from all directions remains unbroken.

You may object that certain species of animals appear to be relatively rare, so that nature seems less fertile in their case. But some other zone or environment in lands remote may abound in these, so as to make good the deficiency. [49] As the outstanding instance among quadrupeds, we may note the snaky-handed elephants. Countless thousands of these must have gone to the making of that impenetrable ivory wall with which India is barricaded. [50] Such is the abundance of these beasts, of which we see only very few samples.

Let us suppose for argument's sake that one unique object exists, with a body formed by birth - an object unlike anything else in the whole world. Unless there is an infinite supply of matter from which, once conceived, it can be brought to birth, it will have no chance even of being created, no prospect of further growth or replenishment. Let us further assume that a finite number of atoms generative of one particular thing are at large in the universe. What then will be the source or scene, the agency or mode, of their encounter in this multitudinous ocean of matter, this welter of foreign bodies? I see no possible means by which they could come together. Consider, when some great flotilla has been wrecked, how the mighty deep scatters floating wreckage - thwarts and ribs, yard-arms and prow, masts and oars; how stern-posts are seen adrift off the shores of every land - a warning to mortals to shun the stealth and violence and cunning of the treacherous sea and put no faith at any season in the false alluring laughter of that smooth still surface. [51] Just so will your finite class of atoms, if once you posit such a thing, be scattered and tossed about through all eternity by conflicting tides of matter. They could never be swept together so as to enter into combination; nor could they remain combined or grow by increment. Yet experience plainly shows that both these things happen: objects can be born, and after birth they can grow. It is evident, therefore, that there are infinite atoms of every kind to keep up the supply of everything.

The destructive motions can never permanently get the upper hand and entomb vitality for evermore. Neither can the generative and augmentative motions permanently safeguard what they have created. So the war of the elements that has raged throughout eternity continues on equal terms. [52] Now here, now there, the forces of life are victorious and in turn vanquished. With the voice of mourning mingles the cry that infants raise when their eyes open on the sunlit world. Never has day given place to night or night to dawn that has not heard, blent with these infant wailings, the lamentation that attends on death and somber obsequies. [53]

In this connection there is one fact that you should keep signed and sealed and recorded in the archives of memory: there is no visible object that consists of atoms of one kind only. Everything is composed of a mixture of elements. The more qualities and powers a thing possesses, the greater variety it attests in the form of its component atoms.

In the first place the earth contains in itself the atoms with which the measureless ocean is perpetually renewed by streams that roll down coolness. It also contains matter from which fires can arise: in many places the soil is set alight and burns, and subterranean fires sustain the furious outrush of Etna. [54] It contains in addition the stores out of which it can thrust up thriving crops and lusty orchard-trees for the races of men and provide rivers and foliage and lush pasture for the wild beasts of the mountain. That is why this one being has earned such titles as Great Mother of the Gods, Mother of Beasts and progenitress of the human frame. [55]

This is she who was hymned by learned Greek poets of old. They pictured her a goddess, [56] driving a chariot drawn by a yoke of lions. By this they signified that the whole mighty mass hangs in airy space: for earth cannot rest on earth. They harnessed wild beasts, because the fiercest of children cannot but be softened and subdued by the duty owed to parents. [57] Upon her head they set a battlemented crown, because earth in select spots is fortified and bears the weight of cities. Decked with this emblem even now the image of the Holy Mother, Cybele, is borne about the world in solemn state. Various nations hail her with time-honored ceremony as the Idaean mother. [58] To bear her company they appoint a Phrygian retinue, because they claim that crops were first created [59] within the bounds of Phrygia and spread from there throughout the earth. They give her eunuchs as attendant priests, to signify that those who have defied their mother's will and shown ingratitude to their parents must be counted unworthy to bring forth living children into the sunlit world. A thunder of drums attends her, tight-stretched and pounded by palms, and a clash of hollow cymbals; hoarse-throated horns bray their deep warning, and the hollow pipe thrills every heart with Phrygian strains. [60] Weapons are carried before her, symbolic of rabid frenzy , [61] to chasten the thankless and profane hearts of the rabble with dread of her divinity. So, when first she is escorted into some great city and mutely enriches mortals with some wordless benediction, they strew her path all along the route with a lavish largesse of copper and silver and shadow the mother and her retinue with a snow of roses. Next an armed band, whom the Greeks call Curetes, join in rhythmic dances, merry with blood and nodding their heads to set their terrifying crests aflutter, whenever they joust together among the Phrygian bands. They call to mind those Curetes of Dicte, who once upon a time in Crete, as the story goes, drowned the wailing of the infant Jove by dancing with swift feet, an armed band of boys around a boy, and rhythmically clashing bronze on bronze, lest Saturn should seize and crush him in his jaws and deal his mother's heart a wound that would not heal. [62] That perhaps is why they attend in arms upon the Great Mother. Or else they signify that the goddess bids men be ready to defend their native earth staunchly by force of arms and resolve to shield their parents and do them credit. It may be claimed that all this is aptly and admirably devised. It is nevertheless far removed from the truth. For it is essential to the very nature of deity that it should enjoy immortal existence in utter tranquility, aloof and detached from our affairs. It is free from all pain and peril, strong in its own resources, exempt from any need of us, indifferent to our merits and immune from anger. In fact, the earth is and always has been an insentient being. The reason why it sends up countless products in countless ways into the sunlight is simply that it contains atoms of countless substances.

If anyone [63] elects to call the sea Neptune and the crops Ceres and would rather take Bacchus' name in vain than denote grape juice by its proper title, we may allow him to refer to the earth as the Mother of the Gods, provided that he genuinely refrains from polluting his mind with the foul taint of superstition.

It often happens that fleecy flocks and martial steeds and horned cattle crop the herbage of a single field under the same canopy of sky and quench their thirst with the water of a single stream; yet they live according to their own kind and severally keep the nature of their parents [64] and copy their behavior. So varied is the store of matter in every sort of herb and in every stream.

Furthermore every individual animal of any species is a whole composed of various parts - bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, sinews: and these are all widely different, being formed of differently shaped atoms. [65] Again, whatever can be set on fire and burnt must conceal in its body, if nothing else, at least the matter needed for emitting fire and radiating light, for shooting out sparks and scattering ashes all around. If you mentally examine anything else by a similar procedure, you will find that it hides in its body the seeds of many substances and combines atoms of various forms.

You see that many objects are possessed of color and taste together with smell. Principal amongst them are those many offerings <which when kindled make the altars of the gods to smoke.> Their component matter must therefore be multiform. For scent penetrates the human frame where tint does not [66] go;  tint creeps into the senses by a different route from taste. So you may infer that they differ in their atomic forms. Different shapes therefore combine in a single mass, and objects are composed of a mixture of seeds. Consider how in my verses, [67] for instance, you see many letters common to many words; yet you must admit that different verses and words are composed of different letters. Not that there is any lack of letters common to several words, or that there are no two words composed of precisely the same letters; but they do not all alike consist of exactly the same components. So in other things, although many atoms are common to many substances, yet these substances may still differ in their composition. So it can rightly be said that the human race differs in its composition from crops or orchard trees. It must not be supposed that atoms of every sort can be linked in every variety of combination. If that were so, you would see monsters coming into being everywhere. Hybrid growths of man and beast [68] would arise. Lofty branches would spread here and there from a living body. Limbs of land-beast and sea-beast [69] would often be conjoined. Chimeras [7o] breathing flame from hideous jaws would be reared by nature throughout the all-generating earth. But it is evident that nothing of this sort happens. We see that everything is created from specific seeds and born of a specific mother and grows up true to type. We may infer that this is determined by some specific necessity. In every individual the atoms of its own kind, derived from all its food, [71] disperse through its limbs and link together so as to set going the appropriate motions. But we see extraneous matter cast back by nature into the earth; and much is expelled from the body, [72] under the impact of blows, in the form of invisible particles which could not link on anywhere or harmonize with the vital motions within so as to copy them.

Do not imagine that these laws are binding on animals alone. The same principle determines everything. As all created things differ from one another by their entire natures, so each one must necessarily consist of distinctive forms of atoms. Not that there is any lack of atoms of the same forms; but objects do not all alike consist of exactly the same components. Since the seeds are not identical, they must differ in their intervals, paths, attachments, weights, impacts, clashes and motions. These do not merely distinguish one animal body from another but separate land from sea and hold the whole sky apart from the earth. [73]

Give ear now to arguments that I have searched out with an effort that was also a delight. Do not imagine that white objects derive the snowy aspect they present to your eyes from white atoms, [74] or that black objects are composed of a black element. And in general do not believe that anything owes the color it displays to the fact that its atoms are tinted correspondingly. The primary particles of matter have no color whatsoever, neither the same color as the objects they compose nor a different one. If you think the mind cannot lay hold of such bodies, you are quite wrong. Men who are blind from birth and have never looked on the sunlight have knowledge by touch of bodies that have never from the beginning been associated with any color. It follows that on our minds also an image can impinge of bodies not marked by any tint. Indeed the things that we ourselves touch in pitch darkness are not felt by us as possessing any color.

Having proved that colorless bodies are not unthinkable, I will proceed to demonstrate <that the atoms must be such bodies.)

First, then, all colors may change completely, and all <things that change color also change themselves.) But the atoms cannot possibly <change color). For something must remain changeless, or everything would be absolutely annihilated. For, if ever anything is so transformed as to overstep its own limits, this means the immediate death of what was before. So do not stain the atoms with color, or you will find everything slipping back into nothing. [75]

Let us suppose, then, that the atoms are naturally colorless and that it is through the variety of their shapes that they produce the whole range of colors, a great deal depending on their combinations and positions and their reciprocal motions. You will now find it easy to explain without more ado why things that were dark-colored a moment since can suddenly become as white as marble - as the sea, for instance, when its surface is ruffled by great winds, is turned into white wave-crests of marble luster. You could say that something we often see as dark is promptly transformed through the churning up of its matter and a reshuffling of atoms, with some additions and subtractions, so that it is seen as bleached and white. If, on the other hand, the waters of the sea were composed of blue atoms, they could not possibly be whitened: for, however you may stir up blue matter, it can never change its color to the pallor of marble.

It might be supposed that the uniform luster of the sea is made up of particles of different colors, as for instance a single object of a square shape is often made up of other objects of various shapes. [76] But in the square we discern the different shapes. So in the surface of the sea or in any other uniform luster we ought, on this hypothesis, to discern a variety of widely different colors. Besides, differences in the shapes of the parts are no hindrance to the whole being square in outline. But differences in color completely prevent it from displaying an unvariegated luster.

The seductive argument that sometimes tempts us to attribute colors to the atoms is demolished by the fact that white objects are not created from white material nor black from black, but both from various colors. [77] Obviously, white could much more readily spring from no color at all than from black, or from any other color that interferes and conflicts with it.

Again, since there can be no colors without light and the atoms do not emerge into the light, it can be inferred that they are not clothed in any color. For what color can there be in blank darkness? Indeed, color is itself changed by a change of light, according as the beams strike it vertically or aslant. [78] Observe the appearance in sunlight of the plumage that rings the neck of a dove and crowns its nape: sometimes it is tinted with the brilliant red of a ruby: at others it is seen from a certain point of view to mingle emerald greens with the blue of the sky. In the same way a peacock's tail, profusely illuminated, changes color as it is turned this way or that. These colors, then, are produced by a particular incidence of light. Hence, no light, no color.

When the pupil of the eye is said to perceive the color white, it experiences in fact a particular kind of impact. When it perceives black, or some other color, the impact is different. But, when you touch things, it makes no odds what color they may be, but only what is their shape. The inference is that the atoms have no need of color, but cause various sensations of touch according to their various shapes.

Since there is no natural connection between particular colors and particular shapes, atoms might equally well be of any color irrespective of their form. Why then are not their compounds tinted with every shade of color irrespective of their kind? We should expect on this hypothesis that ravens in flight would often emit a snowy sheen from snowy wings, and that some swans would be black, being composed of black atoms, or would display some other uniform or variegated color. [79]

Again, the more anything is divided into tiny parts, the more you can see its color gradually dimming and fading out. When red cloth, for instance, is pulled to pieces thread by thread, its crimson or scarlet color, than which there is none brighter, is all dissipated. From this you may gather that, before its particles are reduced right down to atoms, they would shed all their color.

Finally, since you acknowledge that not all objects emit noise or smell, you accept that as a reason for not attributing sounds and scents to everything. On the same principle, since we cannot perceive everything by eye, we may infer that some things are colorless, just as some things are scentless and soundless, and that these can be apprehended by the percipient mind as readily as things that are lacking in some other quality. [80]

Do not imagine that color is the only quality that is denied to the atoms. They are also wholly devoid of warmth and cold and scorching heat: they are barren of sound and starved of savour, and emit [81] no inherent odor from their bodies. When you are setting out to prepare a pleasant perfume [82] of marjoram or myrrh or flower of spikenard, which breathes nectar into our nostrils, your first task is to select so far as possible an oil that is naturally colorless and sends out no exhalation to our nostrils. This will be least likely to corrupt the scents blended and concocted with its substance by contamination with its own taint. For the same reason the atoms must not impart to things at their birth a scent or sound that is their own property, since they can send nothing out of themselves; nor must they contribute any flavor or cold or heat, whether scorching or mild, or anything else of the kind.

These qualities, again, are perishable things, made pliable by the softness of their substance, breakable by its crumbliness and penetrable by its looseness of texture. They must be kept far apart from the atoms, if we wish to provide the universe with imperishable foundations on which it may rest secure; or else you will find everything slipping back into nothing.

At this stage you must admit that whatever is seen to be sentient is nevertheless composed of atoms that are insentient. [83] The phenomena open to our observation do not contradict this conclusion or conflict with it. Rather they lead us by the hand and compel us to believe that the animate is born, as I maintain, of the insentient.

As a particular instance, we can point to living worms, emerging from foul  dung [84] when the earth is soaked and rotted by intemperate showers. Besides, we see every sort of substance transformed in the same way. Rivers, foliage and lush pastures are transformed into cattle; the substance of cattle is transformed into our bodies: and often enough our bodies go to build up the strength of predatory beasts or the bodies of the lords of the air. So nature transforms all foods into living bodies and generates from them all the senses of animate creatures, just as it makes dry wood blossom [85] out in flame and transfigures it wholly into fire. So now do you see that it makes a great difference in what order the various atoms are arranged and with what others they are combined so as to impart and take over motions?

What is it, then, that jogs the mind itself and moves and compels it to express certain sentiments, so that you do not believe that the sentient is generated by the insentient? Obviously it is the fact that a mixture of water  and wood and earth cannot of itself bring about vital sensibility. There is one relevant point you should bear in mind: I am not maintaining that sensations are generated automatically from all the elements out of which sentient things are created. Everything depends on the size and shape of the sense-producing atoms and on their appropriate motions, arrangements and positions. [86] None of these is found in wood or clods of earth. And yet these substances, when they are fairly well rotted by showers, give birth to little worms, because the particles of matter are jolted out of their old arrangements by a new factor and combined in such a way that animate objects must result.

Again, those [87] who would have it that sensation can be produced only by sensitive bodies, which originate in their turn from others similarly sentient - <these theorists are making the foundations of our senses perishable>, because they are making them soft. For sensitivity is always associated with flesh, sinews, veins - all things that we see to be soft and composed of perishable stuff.

Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that particles of these substances could endure everlastingly. The sensation with which they are credited must be either that of a part or else similar to that of an animate being as a whole. But it is impossible for parts by themselves to experience sensation: all the sensations felt in our limbs are felt by us as a whole; a hand or any other member severed from the whole body is quite powerless to retain sensation on its own. [88] There remains the alternative that such particles have senses like those of an animate being as a whole. They must then feel precisely what we feel, so as to share in all our vital sensations. How then can they pass for elements and escape the path of death, since they are animate beings, and animate and mortal are one and the same thing? Even supposing they could escape death, yet they will make nothing by their combination and conjunction but a mob or horde of living things, just as men and cattle and wild beasts obviously could not combine so as to give birth to a single thing. If we suppose that they shed their own sentience from their bodies  and acquire another one, what is the point of giving them the one that is taken away? Besides, as we saw before, from the fact that we perceive birds' eggs turning into live fledglings and worms swarming out when the earth has been rotted by intemperate showers, we may infer that sense may be generated from the insentient.

Suppose someone [89] asserts that sense can indeed emerge from the insentient, but only by some transformation or some creative process comparable to birth. He will be adequately answered by a clear demonstration that birth and transformation occur only as the result of union or combination. Admittedly sensation cannot arise in any body until an animate creature has been born. This of course is because the requisite matter is dispersed through air and streams and earth and the products of earth: it has not come together in the appropriate manner, so as to set in mutual operation those vivifying motions that kindle the all-watchful senses which keep watch over every animate creature.

When any animate creature is suddenly assailed by a more powerful blow [90] than its nature can withstand, all the senses of body and mind are promptly thrown into confusion. For the juxtapositions of the atoms are unknit, and the vital motions are inwardly obstructed, until the matter, jarred and jolted throughout every limb, loosens the vital knots of the spirit from the body and expels the spirit in scattered particles through every pore. What other effect can we attribute to the infliction of a blow than this of shaking and shattering everything to bits? Besides, it often happens, when the blow is less violently inflicted, that such vital motions as survive emerge victorious: they assuage the immense upheavals resulting from the shock, recall every article to its proper courses, break up the advance of death when it is all but master of the body and rekindle the well-nigh extinguished senses. How else could living creatures on the very threshold of death rally their consciousness and return to life rather than make good their departure by a route on which they have already traveled most of the way?

Again, pain occurs when particles of matter have been unsettled by some force within the living flesh of the limbs and stagger in their inmost stations. When they slip back into place, that is blissful pleasure. [91] It follows that the atoms cannot be afflicted by any pain or experience any pleasure in themselves, since they are not composed of any primal particles, by some reversal of whose movements they might suffer anguish or reap some fruition of life-giving bliss. They cannot therefore be endowed with any power of sensation.

Again, if we are to account for the power of sensation possessed by animate creatures in general by attributing sentience to their atoms, what of those atoms that specifically compose the human race? Presumably they are not merely sentient, but also shake their sides with uproarious guffaws and besprinkle their cheeks with dewy teardrops [92] and even discourse profoundly and at length about the composition of the universe and proceed to ask of what elements they are themselves composed. If they are to be likened to entire mortals, they must certainly consist of other elemental  articles, and these again of others. There is no point at which you may call a halt, but I will follow you there with your argument that whatever speaks or laughs or thinks is composed of particles that do the same. Let us acknowledge that this is stark madness and lunacy: one can laugh without being composed of laughing particles, can think and proffer learned arguments though sprung from seeds neither thoughtful nor eloquent. Why then cannot the things that we see gifted with sensation be compounded of seeds that are wholly senseless?

Lastly, we are all sprung from heavenly seed. All alike have the same father, from whom all-nourishing mother earth receives the showering drops of moisture. [93] Thus fertilized, she gives birth to smiling crops and lusty trees, to mankind and all the breeds of beasts. She it is that yields the food on which they all feed their bodies, lead their joyous lives and renew their race. So she has well earned the name of mother. In like manner this matter returns: what came from earth goes back into the earth; what was sent down from the ethereal vault is readmitted to the precincts of heaven. Death does not put an end to things by annihilating the component particles but by breaking up their conjunction. [94] Then it links them in new combinations, making everything change in shape and color and give up in an instant the gift of sensation it has just acquired. So you may realize what a difference it makes in what combinations and positions the same elements occur, and what motions they mutually pass on and take over. You will thus avoid the mistake of conceiving as permanent properties of the atoms the qualities that are seen floating on the surface of things, coming into being from time to time and as suddenly perishing. Obviously it makes a great difference in these verses of mine in what context and order the letters are arranged. For the letters which denote sky, sea, earth and rivers also denote crops, trees and animals. If not all, at least the greater part is alike. But differences in their position distinguish word from  word. Just so with actual objects: when there is a change in the combination, motion, order, position or shapes of the component matter, there must be a corresponding change in the object composed.

Give your mind now to the true reasoning I have to unfold. A new fact is battling strenuously for access to your ears. A new aspect of the universe is striving to reveal itself. But no fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. Equally, there is nothing so mighty or so marvelous that the wonder it evokes does not tend to diminish in time. Take first the pure and undimmed luster of the sky and all that it enshrines: the stars that roam across its surface, the moon and the surpassing splendor of the sunlight. If all these sights were now displayed to mortal view for the first time by a swift unforeseen revelation, what miracle could be recounted greater than this? What would men before the revelation have been less prone to conceive as possible? Nothing, surely. So marvelous would have been that sight - a sight which no one now, you will admit, thinks worthy of an upward glance into the luminous regions of the sky. So has satiety blunted the appetite of our eyes. [95] Desist, therefore, from thrusting out reasoning from your mind because of its disconcerting novelty.  Weigh it, rather, with discerning judgment. Then, if it seems to you true, give in. If it is false, gird yourself to oppose it. For the mind wants to discover by reasoning what exists in the infinity of space that lies out there, beyond the ramparts of this world -  that region into which the intellect longs to peer and into which the free projection of the mind does actually extend its flight.

Here, then, is my first point. In all directions alike, on this side or that, upward or downward through the universe, there is no end. This I have shown, [96] and indeed the fact proclaims itself aloud and the nature of space makes it crystal clear. Granted, then, that empty space extends without limit in every direction and that seeds innumerable in number are rushing on countless courses through an unfathomable universe under the impulse of perpetual motion, it is in the highest degree unlikely that this earth and sky is the only one to have been created [97] and that all those particles of matter outside are accomplishing nothing. This follows from the fact that our world has been made by nature through the spontaneous and casual collision and the multifarious, accidental, random [98] and purposeless congregation and coalescence of atoms whose suddenly formed combinations could serve on each occasion as the starting-point of substantial fabrics - earth and sea and sky and the races of living creatures. On every ground, therefore, you must admit that there exist elsewhere other clusters of matter similar to this one which the ether clasps in ardent embrace.

When there is plenty of matter in readiness, when space is available and no cause or circumstance impedes, then surely things must be wrought and effected. You have a store of atoms that could not be counted out by the whole population of living creatures throughout history. You have the same natural force to congregate them in any place precisely as they have been congregated here. You are bound therefore to acknowledge that in other regions there are other earths and various tribes of men and breeds of beasts.

Add to this the fact that nothing in the universe is the only one of its kind, unique and solitary in its birth and growth; everything is a member of a  species comprising many individuals. Turn your mind first to the animals. You will find the rule applies to the brutes that prowl the mountains, to the double-breed [99] of men, the voiceless scaly fish and all the forms of flying things. So you must admit that sky, earth, sun, moon, sea and the rest are not solitary, but rather numberless. For a firmly established limit is set to their lives also and their bodies also are a product of birth, no less than that of any creature that flourishes here according to its kind.

Bear this well in mind, and you will immediately perceive that nature is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods. [100] For who - by the sacred hearts of the gods who pass their unruffled lives, their placid aeon, in calm and peace! - who can rule the sum total of the measureless? Who can hold in coercive hand the strong reins of the unfathomable? Who can spin all the firmaments alike and foment with the fires of ether all the fruitful earths? Who can be in all places at all times, ready to darken the clear sky with clouds and rock it with a thunderclap - to launch bolts that may often wreck his own temples, or retire and spend his fury letting fly at deserts with that missile which often passes by the guilty and slays the innocent and blameless? [101]

After the natal [102] season of the world, the birthday of sea and lands and the uprising of the sun, many atoms have been added from without, many seeds contributed on every side by bombardment from the universe at large. From these the sea and land could gather increase: the dome of heaven could gain more room and lift its rafters high above the earth, and the air could climb upwards. From every corner of the universe atoms are being chipped and circulated to each thing according to its own kind: water goes to water, earth swells with earthy matter; fire is forged by fires, ether by ether. At length everything is brought to its utmost limit of growth by nature, the creatress and perfectress. This is reached when what is poured into the veins of life is no more than what flows and drains away. Here the growing- time of everything must halt. Here nature checks the increase of her own strength. The things you see growing merrily in stature and climbing the stairs of maturity step by step - these are gaining more atoms than they lose. The food is easily introduced into all their veins; and they themselves are not so widely expanded as to shed much matter and squander more than their age absorbs as nourishment. It must, of course, be conceded that many particles ebb and drain away from things. But more particles must accrue, until they have touched the topmost peak of growth. Thereafter the strength and vigor of maturity is gradually broken, and age slides down the path of decay. Obviously the bulkier anything is and the more expanded when it begins to wane, the more particles it sheds and gives off from every surface. The food is not easily distributed through all its veins, or supplied in sufficient quantities to make good the copious effluences it exudes. It is natural,  therefore, that everything should perish when it is thinned out by the ebbing out of matter and succumbs to blows from without. The food supply is no longer adequate for its aged frame, and the deadly bombardment of particles from without never pauses in the work of dissolution and subdual.

In this way the ramparts of the great world also will be breached and collapse in crumbling ruin about us. For everything must be restored and renewed by food, [103] and by food buttressed and sustained. And the process is doomed to failure, because the veins do not admit enough and  nature does not supply all that is needed. Already the life-force is broken. The earth, which generated every living species and once brought forth from its womb the bodies of huge beasts, has now scarcely strength to generate tiny creatures. [104] For I assume that the races of mortal creatures were not let down into the fields from heaven by a golden cord, [105] nor generated from the sea or the rock-beating surf, [106] but born of the same earth that now provides their nurture. The same earth in her prime spontaneously generated for mortals smiling crops and lusty vines, sweet fruits and gladsome pastures, which now can scarcely be made to grow by our toil. We wear down the oxen and wear out the strength of farmers, we wear out the ploughshare and find ourselves scarcely supplied by the fields that grudge their fruits and multiply our toil. Already the ploughman of ripe years shakes his head with many a sigh that his heavy labors have gone for nothing: and, when he compares the present with the past, [107] he often applauds his father's luck. In the same despondent vein, the cultivator of old and wilted vines decries the trend of the times and rails at heaven. He grumbles that past generations, when men were old-fashioned and god-fearing, supported life easily enough on their small farms, though one man's holding was then far less than now. He does not realize that everything is gradually decaying and going aground onto the rocks, [108] worn out by old age.

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