On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (11 page)

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

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