On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (39 page)

With consciousness divine, since they are unable

To be animated with the breath of life.

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Another thing you cannot believe is this:

That holy dwelling places of the gods

Exist in any regions of this world.

For the nature of the gods is thin, and far removed

From our senses, and is hardly perceived by the mind.

We cannot touch it with our hands; therefore

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It cannot touch anything that we can touch.

For that cannot touch which cannot itself be touched.

Wherefore their dwelling places also must differ

From ours, being thin, like the thinness of their bodies.

This I will prove to you later at some length.

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Also, to say that for the sake of men

The gods willed the creation of the world

With all its brilliant fabric, and therefore

We ought to praise their most praiseworthy work

And think it everlasting and immortal,

And that a thing by the gods’ ancient rule

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Founded for all time for the race of men

May not by any force at any time

Be shaken, or be challenged by argument,

And turned right upside down—and to invent

Similar fictions, all this, Memmius,

Is nonsense. For what meed of gratitude

On gods immortal, blest, could we bestow

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That for our sakes they should do anything?

And what new thing after so long a time

Could tempt them in their blest tranquillity

To wish to change their old life for a new?

For to take pleasure in new things befits

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A man the old have hurt; but when past years

Have brought no ill, and life is sweet, what then

Could kindle a desire for novelty?

What ill had it been for us had we not been made?

Did our life lie in darkness and in grief

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Until creation’s light first shone abroad?

A man once born must wish to stay in life

So long as soothing pleasure keeps him there.

But he who has never tasted love of life

Or ever been enrolled among the living,

How does it hurt him not to have been made?

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Another point. The pattern of creation,

The very concept of mankind, how did it come

Into the minds of gods, that they should know

What they wanted to make, and grasp it with their minds?

How was the power of atoms ever known,

What they could do by changes of position,

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Had nature herself not given a model for creation?

So many atoms in so many ways

Smitten with blows through infinite time, and massed

By their own weights together, have combined

In every way, tried every variation,

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Of things that by them ever could be made.

No wonder then if into those positions

And into those movements they came, by which

Though always new this world is kept in being.

But even if I had no knowledge of atoms,

This from the order of the heavens itself

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And many other facts I would assert—

That in no way for us the power of gods

Fashioned the world and brought it into being;

So great the fault with which it stands endowed.

In the first place, of all that lies beneath

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The mighty sweep of sky, a greedy part

Mountains possess and forests full of wild beasts.

Rocks hold it, and vast marshes, and the sea

Which widely separates the shores of lands.

Nearly two thirds are kept from mortal use

By burning heat and constant fall of frost;

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What land is left, nature by her own power

Would choke with brambles did not man resist,

Man, for the sake of life well used to groan

Over strong mattock and cleave earth with plough.

Unless the ploughshare turn the fruitful clods

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And we, working the soil, bring them to birth,

No plants can ever of their own accord

Spring up into the melting air above.

And even sometimes when with great labour won

They fill the smiling earth with leaf and flower,

Either the sun in heaven scorches them

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Or sudden rains destroy them, or chilling frosts,

And storms with violent whirlwinds harass them.

Consider now the wild beasts’ fearsome breed,

Enemies of mankind by land and sea,

Why does nature feed them? Why do the seasons bring

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Diseases? Why does death untimely stalk abroad?

And then the child, like sailor cast ashore

By cruel waves, lies naked on the ground,

Sans speech, sans all the aids that life requires,

When nature first into the shores of light

In throes has cast him from his mother’s womb,

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And fills the place with cries—as well he might

Seeing that so great ills await his life.

But flocks and herds and wild beasts live and grow

Without the aid of rattles; they don’t want

The baby talk of nurses petting them

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Nor change of clothing with the changing year,

Nor have they need of arms or lofty walls

To guard their goods, since earth all things to all

Brings forth in bounty and nature’s skill supplies.

Well now, in the first place since earth and water

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And the light breaths of air and burning heat,

From which we see this sum of things is made—

Since these have bodies which are born and die,

Of the whole world we must believe the same.

For things of which we see that their parts and limbs

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Consist of matter which is born and dies,

We know that these same things are certainly

Subject to birth and death. So when I see

The mighty members of the world consumed

And born again, why, then I may be sure

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That heaven and earth likewise had their beginning

And in destruction too will have their end.

Please do not think that I have begged the question

When I assume that earth and fire are mortal

And do not doubt that air and water perish,

And say that they are born and grow again.

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Take the earth first. A large part of it, burnt

By constant sun and beaten by myriad feet,

Breathes out a cloud of dust and flying mists

Which strong winds scatter abroad all through the air.

Part of the soil also is washed away

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By rain, and rivers scrape away their banks;

Besides, whatever the earth throws up returns

In due proportion; and since beyond doubt we see

The mother of all to be their common grave,

Therefore, my friend, you see the earth is diminished

And then in turn increased and grows again.

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And next, there is no need of words to say

How sea, rivers, and springs are always full

With waters new and streams forever flow:

The mighty fall of waters everywhere

Makes this quite plain. But the front part of the flood

Is lifted off and drawn away, and so

In total there is no excess of water;

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Partly because strong winds sweeping its surface

Diminish it, and the sun’s high rays unravel it,

Partly because it seeps through the earth below,

The brine is filtered off, and the mass of water

Oozes back and joins the rivers at their source,

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And thence, in a column of sweet water,

Over the ground it flows along the path

Cut once by liquid foot to guide the waters.

Air next I’ll speak of, which throughout its body

Changes innumerably hour by hour.

Always whatever flows off from things is carried

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Into the great ocean of the air; unless in turn

The air gave matter back to things again

And in their flux created them anew,

All would by now be dissolved and changed into air.

Therefore forever air is born from things

And falls back into things, since it is certain

That all things are continually in flux.

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The eternal sun, rich fountain of clear light,

Forever floods the sky with radiance new,

Swiftly supplying new light in place of old.