Character of the Atoms
Bodies, again,Are partly primal germs of things, and partlyUnions deriving from the primal germs.And those which are the primal germs of thingsNo power can quench; for in the end they conquerBy their own solidness; though hard it beTo think that aught in things has solid frame;For lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout,Through hedging walls of houses, and the ironWhite-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burnWith exhalations fierce and burst asunder.Totters the rigid gold dissolved in heat;The ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame;Warmth and the piercing cold through silver seep,Since, with the cups held rightly in the hand,We oft feel both, as from above is pouredThe dew of waters between their shining sides:So true it is no solid form is found.But yet because true reason and nature of thingsConstrain us, come, whilst in few verses nowI disentangle how there still existBodies of solid, everlasting frame—The seeds of things, the primal germs we teach,Whence all creation around us came to be.First since we know a twofold nature exists,Of things, both twain and utterly unlike—Body, and place in which an things go on—Then each must be both for and through itself,And all unmixed: where’er be empty space,There body’s not; and so where body bides,There not at all exists the void inane.Thus primal bodies are solid, without a void.But since there’s void in all begotten things,All solid matter must be round the same;Nor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hidesAnd holds a void within its body, unlessThou grant what holds it be a solid. Know,That which can hold a void of things withinCan be naught else than matter in union knit.Thus matter, consisting of a solid frame,Hath power to be eternal, though all else,Though all creation, be dissolved away.Again, were naught of empty and inane,The world were then a solid; as, withoutSome certain bodies to fill the places held,The world that is were but a vacant void.And so, infallibly, alternate-wiseBody and void are still distinguished,Since nature knows no wholly full nor void.There are, then, certain bodies, possessed of powerTo vary forever the empty and the full;And these can nor be sundered from withoutBy beats and blows, nor from within be tornBy penetration, nor be overthrownBy any assault soever through the world—For without void, naught can be crushed, it seems,Nor broken, nor severed by a cut in twain,Nor can it take the damp, or seeping coldOr piercing fire, those old destroyers three;But the more void within a thing, the moreEntirely it totters at their sure assault.Thus if first bodies be, as I have taught,Solid, without a void, they must be thenEternal; and, if matter ne’er had beenEternal, long ere now had all things goneBack into nothing utterly, and allWe see around from nothing had been born—But since I taught above that naught can beFrom naught created, nor the once begottenTo naught be summoned back, these primal germsMust have an immortality of frame.And into these must each thing be resolved,When comes its supreme hour, that thus there beAt hand the stuff for plenishing the world.
So primal germs have solid singlenessNor otherwise could they have been conservedThrough aeons and infinity of timeFor the replenishment of wasted worlds.Once more, if nature had given a scope for thingsTo be forever broken more and more,By now the bodies of matter would have beenSo far reduced by breakings in old daysThat from them nothing could, at season fixed,Be born, and arrive its prime and top of life.For, lo, each thing is quicker marred than made;And so whate’er the long infinitudeOf days and all fore-passed time would nowBy this have broken and ruined and dissolved,That same could ne’er in all remaining timeBe builded up for plenishing the world.But mark: infallibly a fixed boundRemaineth stablished ’gainst their breaking down;Since we behold each thing soever renewed,And unto all, their seasons, after their kind,Wherein they arrive the flower of their age.
Again, if bounds have not been set againstThe breaking down of this corporeal world,Yet must all bodies of whatever thingsHave still endured from everlasting timeUnto this present, as not yet assailedBy shocks of peril. But because the sameAre, to thy thinking, of a nature frail,It ill accords that thus they could remain(As thus they do) through everlasting time,Vexed through the ages (as indeed they are)By the innumerable blows of chance.
So in our programme of creation, markHow ’tis that, though the bodies of all stuffAre solid to the core, we yet explainThe ways whereby some things are fashioned soft—Air, water, earth, and fiery exhalations—And by what force they function and go on:The fact is founded in the void of things.But if the primal germs themselves be soft,Reason cannot be brought to bear to showThe ways whereby may be created theseGreat crags of basalt and the during iron;For their whole nature will profoundly lackThe first foundations of a solid frame.But powerful in old simplicity,Abide the solid, the primeval germs;And by their combinations more condensed,All objects can be tightly knit and boundAnd made to show unconquerable strength.Again, since all things kind by kind obtainFixed bounds of growing and conserving life;Since Nature hath inviolably decreedWhat each can do, what each can never do;Since naught is changed, but all things so abideThat ever the variegated birds revealThe spots or stripes peculiar to their kind,Spring after spring: thus surely all that isMust be composed of matter immutable.For if the primal germs in any wiseWere open to conquest and to change, ‘twould beUncertain also what could come to birthAnd what could not, and by what law to eachIts scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clingsSo deep in Time. Nor could the generationsKind after kind so often reproduceThe nature, habits, motions, ways of life,Of their progenitors.
And then again,Since there is ever an extreme bounding point
Of that first body which our senses nowCannot perceive: That bounding point indeedExists without all parts, a minimumOf nature, nor was e’er a thing apart,As of itself,—nor shall hereafter be,Since ’tis itself still parcel of another,A first and single part, whence other partsAnd others similar in order lieIn a packed phalanx, filling to the fullThe nature of first body: being thusNot self-existent, they must cleave to thatFrom which in nowise they can sundered be.So primal germs have solid singleness,Which tightly packed and closely joined cohereBy virtue of their minim particles—No compound by mere union of the same;But strong in their eternal singleness,Nature, reserving them as seeds for things,Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.
Moreover, were there not a minimum,The smallest bodies would have infinites,Since then a half-of-half could still be halved,With limitless division less and less.Then what the difference ‘twixt the sum and least?None: for however infinite the sum,Yet even the smallest would consist the sameOf infinite parts. But since true reason hereProtests, denying that the mind can think it,Convinced thou must confess such things there areAs have no parts, the minimums of nature.And since these are, likewise confess thou mustThat primal bodies are solid and eterne.Again, if Nature, creatress of all things,Were wont to force all things to be resolvedUnto least parts, then would she not availTo reproduce from out them anything;Because whate’er is not endowed with partsCannot possess those properties requiredOf generative stuff—divers connections,Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby thingsForevermore have being and go on.