On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (27 page)

For when they are without body they’re not plagued

With illnesses or cold or hunger. No,

The body it is that suffers all these ills

And the mind is often sick through contact with it.

Suppose, however, that they find it useful

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To have a body to enter, there’s no way

That they can do this. Spirits therefore do not

Make bodies for themselves. Nor is it possible

That they creep into bodies already made;

For then they’d never make the subtle links

They have with body, and the touch of common feeling.

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Another point. Why are lions strong and fierce

And foxes cunning, and deer timid and swift,

And every animal has its character

Born in it, when its life begins? It’s breed

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That does this, the fixed power of mind conjoined

Working with body to establish it.

But if it were immortal and could pass

From body to body, then the behaviour

Of animals would be all mixed up. The hound

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Would flee before the charging stag’s attack,

The hawk would tremble, flying through the air

From the dove pursuing it. Reason, in men

No more, to the wild beasts of the field

Would move her seat. So false it is to say

That an immortal spirit can be altered

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By a change of body. For that which changes is

Dissolved and therefore perishes, since its parts

Are transposed, and move from their positions.

Wherefore throughout the limbs these parts must be

Capable of being dissolved and in the end

Die when the body dies, along with it.

But what if human spirits always go

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Into human bodies? Then I still ask why

A foolish spirit can be made of a wise one,

Why children are never wise, and why a foal,

Well trained though it may be, can’t match a horse.

No doubt they’ll tell you that in a tender body

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The mind becomes tender. But even if this is so,

The spirit must still be mortal, since being changed

In the body it loses so much life and feeling.

And how could any mind in any body

Grow strong and reach the longed-for flower of life

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Unless from the beginning it were its consort?

Why does it want to flee from limbs grown old?

Does it fear that a rotting corpse will be its prison

Or that its house worn by the years will fall

And crush it? But the immortal has no dangers.

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And really it is ridiculous to imagine

That spirits at the coupling and birth of animals

Stand waiting to get in, immortal spirits

Awaiting mortal bodies, numberless,

Jostling and fighting to get in. Unless, that is,

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They’ve made some sort of contract among themselves,

First come first served, that puts an end to squabbling.

To continue. A tree can’t grow in the sky, nor clouds

Float in the sea, nor fish live on dry land,

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Nor blood exist in logs nor sap in stones.

Everything has its place, certain and fixed,

Where it must live and grow and have its being.

So mind cannot arise without the body

Alone, nor exist apart from blood and sinews.

But if the mind (and this would be much easier)

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Could be by itself in head or shoulders or heels

And be born in any part, still it would stay

In the same man, the same vessel, enclosed.

And since, within the body, mind and spirit

By a fixed rule and ordinance are given

The place where they may live and grow apart,

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It is clearly all the more impossible

For them to live and last outside the body.

Wherefore when body has died you must confess

That spirit through body torn has also died.

It really is quite stupid to suppose

That mortal with immortal can be joined

And feel as one and act upon each other.

What could be more absurd and inconsistent

And contradictory than this: that mortal

Linked with immortal could weather furious storms?

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Few things there are that last eternally.

First, solid bodies that repel assaults,

And allow nothing to penetrate them

And break apart the close-knit parts within,

Such as the atomic particles of matter

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The nature of which we have described before;

Next, things which last through all the length of time

Because no blow can hit them; such is the void,

Which stays untouched and nothing can ever strike it;

Next, things which have no space around them

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Into which they can dissolve and be dispersed;

Such is the eternal sum of the sum of things.

Outside it nowhere any place exists

Into which its elements can spring away,

And nothing exists to impact it or destroy it.

But if you think the spirit is immortal

Because it’s fortified against all forms of death,

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Or nothing ever comes to do it harm

Or, if it does, for some reason turns back

Repulsed before we can see what harm it does,

Yet many ills and dangers harass it.

It sickens when the body itself is sick;

But that’s not all; for often something comes,

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Some doubt about the future that tortures it,

Racks it with fear and wears it out with worry.

Remorse about the past for evil done

Bites it, with madness and forgetfulness,

And lethargy’s black waters cover it.

Therefore death nothing is to us, nothing

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That matters at all, since mind we know is mortal.

Long years ago, when the Phoenicians

Were coming in upon us from all sides,

When the world shook with the tumult of war

And quaked, and shivered to the heights of heaven,

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When all men doubted where by land and sea

The victory would lie, we were untroubled.

So, when the end shall come, when the close bonds

Of body and spirit that hold us here shall part

And we shall be no more, nothing can harm us

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Or make us feel, since nothing of us remains,

Though earth be joined with sea and sea with sky.

And if it were true that mind and spirit can still

Have feeling torn from the body, that means to us

Nothing, since the marriage bonds of body and spirit

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Weld us together in one single whole.

No more, again, if time should after death

Collect our matter and bring it back, and if

The lights of life were given back to us,

Would that concern us, not one whit, when once

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Our memory of ourselves has passed away.

And nothing now comes back to us from that self

That was before, nor from it now can fear

Or anguish ever touch us.

When you review the whole past length of time

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Existing measureless, and think how mixed

And various the motions of matter are,

You will easily believe that the same seeds

Of which we now are made, have often before

Been placed in the positions they are now in.

But memory cannot recall it, since in between

A great gulf is fixed, a halt of life, and all

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The wandering motions have been scattered far

From things we know. If in a future time

A man is to suffer pain and misery,

He must exist, or else he could not feel it.

But death makes this impossible and forbids

The man to exist to whom these ills could come.

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Therefore we may be certain that in death

There is nothing to fear, that he who does not exist

Cannot feel pain, that it makes no difference

Whether or not a man has been born before,

When death the immortal has taken his mortal life.

So when you see a man resent his fate

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That after death his body in the tomb

Must rot, or perish in flames or by wild beasts,

You will know that he rings false, that in his heart

Lies deep some hidden sting, though he denies

That he believes there’s feeling after death.

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