On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (10 page)

No limit to the breaking of things, the atoms of matter

Would have been ground so small as ages past

Fragmented them, that nothing in due time

Could ever have been conceived from them and brought

Into the full maturity of life.

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For we see things can be dissolved more quickly

Than reconstructed. Therefore what past years

And bygone days of all eternity

Had broken up before now, dissolved and shattered,

In time remaining could never be made new.

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But as it is, a certain end is given

Of breaking, since we see all things renewed,

And fixed times stand for things after their kind

In which they can attain the flower of life.

And here’s another point. Though atoms of matter

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Are completely solid, yet we can explain

Soft things—air, water, earth, and fire—

How they are made and what force works in them,

When once we see that void is mixed with things.

But on the other hand, if atoms are soft,

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No explanation can be given how flints

And iron, hard things, can be produced; for nature

Will utterly lack a base on which to build.

Their pure solidity gives them mighty power,

And when they form a denser combination

Things can be knit together and show great strength.

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Moreover, if no limit has been set

To the breaking-up of bodies, nevertheless

You must admit that after infinite time

Bodies do survive of every kind of thing,

Not yet attacked by any form of danger;

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But since by definition they are breakable,

It is inconsistent to say they could have lasted

Through time eternal struck by endless blows.

Again, since a limit has been set

For the growth of things and for their hold on life,

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Each after its kind, and since it stands decreed

What each by nature can do and cannot,

And nothing changes, but all things are constant

So much that every kind of bird displays

Its own specific markings on its body,

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They must for sure consist of changeless matter.

For if the primal atoms could suffer change,

Under some strange compulsion, then no more

Would certainty exist of what can be

And what cannot, in a word how everything

Has finite power and deep-set boundary stone;

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Nor could so oft the race of men repeat

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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