On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (8 page)

Well now, since I have taught that things cannot be created

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From nothing, nor, once born, be summoned back to nothing,

Lest you begin perchance to doubt my words,

Because our eyes can’t see first elements,

Learn now of things you must yourself admit

Exist, and yet remain invisible.

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The wind, its might aroused, lashes the sea

And sinks great ships and tears the clouds apart.

With whirling tempest sweeping across the plains

It strews them with great trees, the mountain tops

It rocks amain with forest-felling blasts,

So fierce the howling fury of the gale,

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So wild and menacing the wind’s deep roar.

Therefore for sure there are unseen bodies of wind

Which sweep the seas, the lands, the clouds of heaven,

With sudden whirlwinds tossing, ravaging.

They stream and spread their havoc just as water

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So soft by nature suddenly bursts out

In spate when heavy rains upon the mountains

With huge cascades have swollen a mighty flood,

Hurling together wreckage from the woods

And whole trees too; nor can strong bridges stand

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The sudden force of water coming on,

So swirling with great rains the river rushes

With all its mighty strength against the piers.

It roars and wrecks and rolls huge rocks beneath its waves

And shatters all that stands in front of it.

So also must be the motion of the wind

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When it blasts onward like a rushing river.

Wherever it goes it drives on all before it,

Sweeps all away with blow on blow, or else

In twisting eddy seizes things, and then

With rapid whirlwind carries them away.

Wherefore again and yet again I say

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That winds have hidden bodies, since they rival

In character and action mighty rivers

Possessed of bodies plain for all to see.

Consider this too: we smell different odours

But never see them coming to our nostrils.

We can’t see scorching heat, nor set our eyes

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On cold, nor can we see the sound of voices.

Yet all these things must needs consist of bodies

Since they are able to act upon our senses.

For nothing can be touched or touch except body.

And clothes hung up beside a wave-tossed shore

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Grow damp, but spread out in the sun they dry.

But how the moisture first pervaded them

And how it fled the heat, we do not see.

The moisture therefore is split up into tiny parts

That eyes cannot perceive in any way.

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Then too, as the sun returns through many years,

A ring on a finger wears thin underneath,

And dripping water hollows out a stone,

And in the fields the curving iron ploughshare

Thins imperceptibly, and by men’s feet

We see the highways’ pavements worn away.

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Again, bronze statues by the city gates

Show right hands polished thin by frequent touch

Of travellers who have greeted them in passing.

Thus all these things we see grow less by rubbing,

But at each time what particles drop off

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The grudging nature of our vision stops us seeing.

Lastly, whatever time and nature add to things

Little by little, causing steady growth,

No eyes however keen or strained can see.

Nor again when things grow old and waste away,

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Nor when cliffs overhanging the sea are worn

By salt-consuming spray, can you discern

What at each moment each of them is losing.

Therefore nature works by means of hidden bodies.

Yet all things everywhere are not held in packed tight

In a mass of body. There is void in things.

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To grasp this fact will help you in many ways

And stop you wandering in doubt and uncertainty

About the universe, distrusting what I say.

By void I mean intangible empty space.

If there were none, in no way could things move.

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For matter, whose function is to oppose and obstruct,

Would at all times be present in all things,

So nothing could move forward, because nothing

Could ever make a start by yielding to it.

But in fact through seas and lands and highest heaven

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We see before our eyes that many things

In many different ways do move; which if there were no void,

Would not so much wholly lack their restless movement,

But rather could never have been produced at all,

Since matter everywhere would have been close-packed and still.

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And however solid things are thought to be

Here is proof that you can see they are really porous.

In rocky caverns water oozes through,

The whole place weeping with a stream of drops.

Food spreads to every part of an animal’s body.

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Trees grow and in due time put forth their fruits,

Because all over them through trunks and branches

Right from the deepest roots food makes its way.

Sounds pass through walls, and fly into closed buildings,

And freezing cold can penetrate to the bones.

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But if there were no void for bodies to pass through

You would not see this happen in any way.

Lastly, why do we see some things weigh heavier

Than others, though their volume is the same?

For if there is as much matter in a ball of wool

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As there is in lead, the weight must be the same,

Since it is the function of matter to press downwards.

But void, by contrast, stays forever weightless.

Therefore a thing of equal size but lighter

Declares itself to have more void inside it,

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But the heavier by contrast makes proclaim

That it has more matter in it and much less of void.

Therefore there is beyond doubt admixed with things

That which we seek with keen-scented reasoning,

That thing to which we give the name of void.

And here I must forestall what some imagine,

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Lest led astray by it you miss the truth.

They say that water yields to scaly fish

Pressing against it, and opens liquid ways,

Because fish as they swim leave space behind them

Into which the yielding waves can flow together;

And that likewise other things can move about

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And change their place, though every place is filled.

All this is based on reasoning wholly false.

For how, I ask you, shall the fish advance

Unless the water gives way? And how shall the water

Be able to move back when the fish cannot move?

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Either then all bodies must be deprived of movement,

Or we must say that void is mixed with things,

So that each can take the initiative in moving.

My last point is this: if two moving bodies

Collide and then bounce far apart, all the space between them

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Must be void until it is occupied by air.

And however quickly air flows in all round,

It cannot at once fill all the vacant space;

It must fill first one place and then the next

Until it gains possession of the whole.

If anyone thinks that when bodies have sprung apart

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What happens is that the air becomes compressed,

He’s wrong; for in this case a void is made

That was not there before, and likewise

A void is filled which previously existed.

Air cannot be compressed in such a way;

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Nor if it could, could it, I think, without void

Shrink into itself and draw its parts together.

Wherefore whatever pleas you may advance

To prolong your argument, yet in the end

You must admit that there is void in things.

And many another proof I can adduce

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To scrape up credit for my arguments.

But to a mind keen-scented these small traces

Suffice: from them you’ll grasp the rest yourself.

As mountain-ranging hounds find by their scent

The lair of beast in leafy covert hid

Once they have got some traces of its track,

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So one thing after another you by yourself

Will find that you can see, in these researches,