Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high, The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky, How after them they draw long trails of flame Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?How stars and constellations drop to earth,
Seest not? Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven
Sheds round to every quarter its large heat,
And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light: Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth. Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly;
Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds, The fires dash zig-zag--and that flaming power Falls likewise down to earth.
In these affairs
We wish thee also well aware of this:
The atoms, as their own weight bears them down Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, In scarce determined places, from their course Decline a little--call it, so to speak,
Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows
Among the primal elements; and thus
Nature would never have created aught.
But, if perchance be any that believe
The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne Plumb down the void, are able from above To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows Able to cause those procreant motions, far From highways of true reason they retire. For whatsoever through the waters fall,
Or through thin air, must quicken their descent, Each after its weight--on this account, because Both bulk of water and the subtle air
By no means can retard each thing alike,
But give more quick before the heavier weight; But contrariwise the empty void cannot,
On any side, at any time, to aught Oppose resistance, but will ever yield, True to its bent of nature. Wherefore all,
With equal speed, though equal not in weight,
Must rush, borne downward through the still inane. Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above
Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering 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?
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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.
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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
