On the Nature of Things. Тит Лукреций Кар

strokes

           Which cause those divers motions, by whose means

           Nature transacts her work. And so I say,

           The atoms must a little swerve at times—

           But only the least, lest we should seem to feign

           Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.

           For this we see forthwith is manifest:

           Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go,

           Down on its headlong journey from above,

           At least so far as thou canst mark; but who

           Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve

           At all aside from off its road's straight line?

           Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked,

           And from the old ever arise the new

           In fixed order, and primordial seeds

           Produce not by their swerving some new start

           Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate,

           That cause succeed not cause from everlasting,

           Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands,

           Whence is it wrested from the fates,—this will

           Whereby we step right forward where desire

           Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve

           In motions, not as at some fixed time,

           Nor at some fixed line of space, but where

           The mind itself has urged? For out of doubt

           In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself

           That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs

           Incipient motions are diffused. Again,

           Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time,

           The bars are opened, how the eager strength

           Of horses cannot forward break as soon

           As pants their mind to do? For it behooves

           That all the stock of matter, through the frame,

           Be roused, in order that, through every joint,

           Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire;

           So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered

           From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds

           First from the spirit's will, whence at the last

           'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.

           Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move,

           Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers

           And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough

           All matter of our total body goes,

           Hurried along, against our own desire—

           Until the will has pulled upon the reins

           And checked it back, throughout our members all;

           At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes

           The stock of matter's forced to change its path,

           Throughout our members and throughout our joints,

           And, after being forward cast, to be

           Reined up, whereat it settles back again.

           So seest thou not, how, though external force

           Drive men before, and often make them move,

           Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,

           Yet is there something in these breasts of ours

           Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?—

           Wherefore no less within the primal seeds

           Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight,

           Some other cause of motion, whence derives

           This power in us inborn, of some free act.—

           Since naught from nothing can become, we see.

           For weight prevents all things should come to pass

           Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force;

           But that man's mind itself in all it does

           Hath not a fixed necessity within,

           Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled

           To bear and suffer,—this state comes to man

           From that slight swervement of the elements

           In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.

           Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed,

           Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps:

           For naught gives increase and naught takes away;

           On which account, just as they move to-day,

           The elemental bodies moved of old

           And shall the same hereafter evermore.

           And what was wont to be begot of old

           Shall be begotten under selfsame terms

           And grow and thrive in power, so far as given

           To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.

           The sum of things there is no power can change,

           For naught exists outside, to which can flee

           Out of the world matter of any kind,

           Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring,

           Break in upon the founded world, and change

           Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.

      ATOMIC FORMS AND THEIR COMBINATIONS

           Now come, and next hereafter apprehend

           What sorts, how vastly different in form,

           How varied in multitudinous shapes they are—

           These old beginnings of the universe;

           Not in the sense that only few are furnished

           With one like form, but rather not at all

           In general have they likeness each with each,

           No marvel: since the stock of them's so great

           That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum,

           They must indeed not one and all be marked

           By equal outline and by shape the same.

           Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks

           Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams,

           And joyous herds around, and all the wild,

           And all