The nature, manners, habits of their parents.
To proceed with the argument: in every body
There is a point so small that eyes cannot see it.
600
That point is without parts, and is the smallest
Thing that can possibly exist. It has never existed
Separately by itself, nor ever will,
But only as one part of something else;
Then other and other like parts in due order
605
In close formation fill the atom up.
Since these can have no separate existence,
They must needs clings together in one whole
From which they can in no way be detached.
Atoms therefore are solid single wholes
Cohered from smallest parts close packed together,
610
Not compounds formed by gathering of parts,
But strong in everlasting singleness.
To them nature allows no diminution
Nor severance, but keeps them as seeds for things.
Besides, unless there is some smallest thing,
615
The tiniest body will consist of infinite parts,
Since these can be halved, and their halves halved again,
Forever, with no end to the division.
So then what difference will there be between
The sum of all things and the least of things?
There will be none at all. For though the sum of things
620
Will be completely infinite, the smallest bodies
Will equally consist of infinite parts.
But since true reasoning protests against this,
And tells us that the mind cannot believe it,
You must admit defeat, and recognize
That things exist which have no parts at all,
625
Themselves being smallest. And since these exist
You must admit that the atoms they compose
Themselves are also solid and everlasting.
Lastly, if nature, great creatress, forced
All things to resolve into their smallest parts,
She would have no power to rebuild anything from them.
630
For partless objects must lack the properties
That generative matter needs—the various
Connections, weights, blows, concourses, and movements
By which all things are made and operate.
Therefore those that have thought that the substance of things
635
Is fire, and the universe consists of fire alone,
Have fallen far from valid reasoning.
Of these the champion, first to open the fray,
Is Heraclitus, famed for his dark sayings
Among the more empty-headed of the Greeks
Rather than those grave minds that seek the truth.
640
For fools admire and love those things they see
Hidden in verses turned all upside down,
And take for truth what sweetly strokes the ears
And comes with sound of phrases fine imbued.
For why, I ask, are things so various
645
If they are made of nothing but pure fire?
Let fire be denser or more rarefied,
So long as the parts do not differ from the whole
Nothing would be achieved.
The heat would be fiercer with the parts compressed
650
And fainter with them spread out and dispersed.
That is all. In such conditions nothing more
Could we expect, much less this world of ours,
So various, be made from fire more dense or less.
There is this also: if they admit that void
655
Is mixed with things, then it is possible
For fire to be condensed and rarefied;
But since they see so many obstacles,
They shrink from leaving pure void in things.
Fearing the heights, they lose the path of truth.
Nor do they see that, once void is removed,
660
All things must be condensed and everything
Become one single body, that cannot throw off
Anything from itself in rapid movement,
As blazing fire throws off both light and heat.
So you may see that fire does not consist
Of parts close-packed and all compressed together.
But if they think that in some other way
665
Fires can be quenched and have their substance changed,
If they insist on this, then all heat totally
Will manifestly perish into nothing,
And what is then created will come from nothing.
For things have limits fixed; if they by change
670
Transgress them, then death follows instantly.
Therefore within them something must remain
Safe and secure, or you will find all things
Return quite into nothing, and from nothing
The stock of things reborn and growing strong.
So therefore there are certain definite bodies
675
Which keep their nature unchanged, everlasting;
These by their comings and goings and changing order
Can change their nature and transform themselves.
And these atoms are, for sure, not made of fire.
For it would make no difference if some
680
Should split off and depart and others be added
Or change positions, if nevertheless
They all possessed and kept the nature of fire.
For everything they made would still be fire.
The truth I think is this: there are certain bodies
Which by their impacts, movements, order, position, and shapes
685
Produce fire, and which when their order is changed
Are changed themselves, and are not like fire,
Nor anything else that can send out particles
To our senses, and by impact touch our sense of touch.
To say moreover that all things are fire,
690
And nothing in this world is real except fire,
As this man does, seems utter lunacy.
He uses the senses to fight against the senses,
And undermines what all belief depends on,
By which he knows himself this thing that he calls fire.
695
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
700
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
705
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,
710
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.
715
Foremost among these is Empedocles
Of Acragas, whom that great island bore
&n
bsp; 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
720
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.
725
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
730
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,
735
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.
740
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.
745
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,
750
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
755
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
760
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
765
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,
770
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
775
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
780
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
785
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
790
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
795
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
800
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
805
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
810
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
815
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,
820
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
825
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’
830
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
Are made of very small and tiny bones,
835
And flesh of small and tiny bits of flesh,
And blood created out of many drops
Of blood combined together, and that gold
Can be built up from grains of gold, and earth
Grows out of little earths, and fire from fires,
840
Water from water drops, and all the rest
He fancies are formed on the same principle.
But he does not conclude that void exists,
Nor any limit to the division of things.
Therefore on both these points he plainly errs
845
Just as those did of whom I spoke before.
Add that he makes his elements too frail,
If elements they are that are endowed
With a nature similar to the things themselves,
Suffer like them and perish, nowhere reined back
By anything from ruin and destruction.
Which of them under huge pressure will endure
850
And escape destruction right in the jaws of death?
Will fire or air or water? Which of them?
Will blood or bones? Not one, in my belief,
But everything alike will in its essence
Be as perishable as those things we clearly see
855
Visibly perishing, vanquished by some force.
I call to witness what I proved before:
That nothing ever can be reduced to nothing
Nor anything again grow out of nothing.
Again, since food builds up the body and nourishes it,
Plainly our veins and blood and bones and sinews
860
Must needs be made of parts unlike themselves.
Or if they say that all food is a mixture
Incorporating little bits of bones
And sinews, yes, and little drops of blood,
All food both solid and liquid must be held
To be composed of things unlike itself,
865
A mixture of bones and sinews, pus and blood.
And all those things that grow out from the earth,
If they are in the earth, earth must consist
Of things unlike itself that spring from it.
Take other cases, and the same words will apply
870
If flame, smoke, ashes lurk unseen in wood
It follows that the wood must be composed
Of things unlike itself, that rise from it.
And here is left some small chance of escape
875
Which Anaxagoras puts to good use.
All things, he holds, lie hidden in all things
Mixed up with them, but only one is seen,
The one that has the most parts in the mixture,
Set on the surface, readier to see.
But this is very far removed from truth.
On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) Page 7