On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (7 page)

The spirit and the nature of the mind.

And we must ask ourselves what thing it is

That terrifies our minds, confronting us

When we are awake but sickened with disease,

Or buried in sleep, so that we seem to see

And hear in their very presence men who are dead,

Whose bones lie in the cold embrace of earth.

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Nor do I fail to see how hard it is

To bring to light in Latin verse the dark

Discoveries of the Greeks, especially

Because of the poverty of our native tongue,

And the novelty of the subjects of my theme.

But still your merit, and as I hope, the joy

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Of our sweet friendship, urge me to any toil

And lead me on to watch through nights serene

In my long quest for words, for poetry,

By which to shine clear light before your mind

To let you see into the heart of hidden things.

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Therefore this terror and darkness of the mind

Not by the sun’s rays, nor the bright shafts of day,

Must be dispersed, as is most necessary,

But by the face of nature and her laws.

We start then from her first great principle

That nothing ever by divine power comes from nothing.

For sure fear holds so much the minds of men

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Because they see many things happen in earth and sky

Of which they can by no means see the causes,

And think them to be done by power divine.

So when we have seen that nothing can be created

From nothing, we shall at once discern more clearly

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The object of our search, both the source from which each thing

Can be created, and the manner in which

Things come into being without the aid of gods.

For if things came out of nothing, all kinds of things

Could be produced from all things. Nothing would need a seed.

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Men could arise from the sea, and scaly fish

From earth, and birds hatch in the sky.

Cattle and farm animals and wild beasts of every kind

Would fill alike farmlands and wilderness,

Breed all mixed up, all origins confused.

Nor could the fruits stay constant on the trees,

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But all would change, all could bear everything.

For lacking its own generative bodies

How could a thing have a mother, fixed and sure?

But as it is, since each thing is created

From fixed specific seeds, the source from which

It is born and comes forth into the shores of light

Is its material and its primal atoms.

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That is why all things cannot be born of all things,

Because in each dwells its distinctive power.

And why do roses flourish in the spring

And corn in summer’s heat, and grapes in autumn,

Unless because each thing that is created

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Displays itself when at their own due time

Fixed seeds of things have flowed together, and the seasons

Attend, and safe and sound the quickened earth

Brings tender growth up to the shores of light?

But if they came from nothing, they’ld spring up

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Quite suddenly, at uncertain intervals,

And wrong times of the year, since primal atoms

Would not be there for an unfavourable season

To restrain from generative union.

Nor would time be needed for the growth of things,

For seeds to collect, if they could grow from nothing.

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For little babes would suddenly be young men

And in a trice a tree shoot up from earth.

None of this happens, it is plain, because

All things grow slowly, as is natural,

From a fixed seed, and growing keep their character.

So you may know that each thing gets its growth

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And nourishment from its own material.

And add to this that without the year’s fixed rains

The earth cannot put forth its gladdening fruits,

Nor deprived of food can any animal

Beget its kind and keep its life intact.

So you may sooner think that many bodies

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Are common to many things, like letters in words,

Than that anything can exist without first beginnings.

Again, why could not nature fashion men so huge

That they could walk through the sea as across a ford

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And tear apart great mountains with their hands,

And outlive many living generations

If not because each thing needs for its birth

A fixed material that governs what can arise?

So we must admit that nothing can come from nothing,

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For seed is needed, from which all things created

Can spring, and burgeon into air’s soft breezes.

Lastly, since we see tilled land is better

Than untilled, and the work of hands yields better fruits,

It is plain to see that in the ground there lie

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First elements of things, which when we turn

The fertile clods with ploughshare and break up

The earth’s good soil, we start to life and growth.

But if they were not there, then without our labour

You’ld see things grow much better by themselves.

The next great principle is this: that nature

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Resolves all things back into their elements

And never reduces anything to nothing.

If anything were mortal in all its parts,

Anything might suddenly perish, snatched from sight.

For no force would be needed to effect

Disruptions of its parts and loose its bonds.

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But as it is, since all things are composed

Of everlasting seeds, until some force

Has met it, able to shatter it with a blow,

Or penetrate its voids and break it up,

Nature forbids that anything should perish.

And all those things which time through age removes,

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If utterly by its consuming power

All the material of them is destroyed,

Whence then does Venus into the light of life

Bring back the race of animals, each after its kind,

Or, when brought back, whence has the well-skilled earth

The power to nourish them and make them grow,

Providing food for each after its kind?

Whence come the rivers flowing from afar

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That feed it? Whence does ether feed the stars?

For all things mortal must have been consumed

By time illimitable and ages past.

But if through that length of time, those ages past,

Things have existed from which this world of ours

Consists and is replenished, then certainly

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They must be endowed with nature imperishable.

Therefore things cannot ever return to nothing.

Again, all things alike would be destroyed

By the same force and cause, were they not held fast

By matter everlasting, fastened together

More or less tightly in its framing bonds.

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A touch would be enough to cause destruction,

Since there would be no eternal elements

Needing a special force to break them up.

But as it is, since the bonds which bind the elements

Are various and their matter is everlasting

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They stay intact, until they meet a force

Found strong enough to break their textures down.

Therefore no single thing returns to nothing

But at its dissolution everything

Returns to matter’s primal particles.

Lastly, showers perish when father ether

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Has cast them into the lap of mother earth.

But bright crops rise, and branches in the trees

Grow green, trees grow and ripe fruit burdens them.

Hence food comes for our kind and for wild beasts,

Hence we see happy cities flower with children,

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And leafy woods all singing with young birds,

Hence cattle wearied by their swollen weight

Lie down across rich pastures, and the white milky stream

Flows from their udders. Hence the young progeny

Frisk with weak limbs on the soft grass, their youthful minds

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Intoxicated by the strong fresh milk.

Therefore all things we see do not utterly perish

Since nature makes good one thing from another,

And does not suffer anything to be born

Unless it is aided by another’s death.