De Rerum Natura

Lucretius

Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. William Ellery Leonard. E. P. Dutton. 1916.

  1. But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind,
  2. Constraining thee to sundry arguments
  3. Against belief that from insensate germs
  4. The sensible is gendered?- Verily,
  5. 'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed,
  6. Are yet unable to gender vital sense.
  7. And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs
  8. This to remember: that I have not said
  9. Senses are born, under conditions all,
  10. From all things absolutely which create
  11. Objects that feel; but much it matters here
  12. Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose
  13. The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed,
  14. And lastly what they in positions be,
  15. In motions, in arrangements. Of which facts
  16. Naught we perceive in logs of wood and clods;
  17. And yet even these, when sodden by the rains,
  18. Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies
  19. Of matter, from their old arrangements stirred
  20. By the new factor, then combine anew
  21. In such a way as genders living things.
  22. Next, they who deem that feeling objects can
  23. From feeling objects be create, and these,
  24. In turn, from others that are wont to feel
  25. . . . . . .
  26. When soft they make them; for all sense is linked
  27. With flesh, and thews, and veins- and such, we see,
  28. Are fashioned soft and of a mortal frame.
  29. Yet be't that these can last forever on:
  30. They'll have the sense that's proper to a part,
  31. Or else be judged to have a sense the same
  32. As that within live creatures as a whole.
  33. But of themselves those parts can never feel,
  34. For all the sense in every member back
  35. To something else refers- a severed hand,
  36. Or any other member of our frame,
  37. Itself alone cannot support sensation.
  38. It thus remains they must resemble, then,
  39. Live creatures as a whole, to have the power
  40. Of feeling sensation concordant in each part
  41. With the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel
  42. The things we feel exactly as do we.
  43. If such the case, how, then, can they be named
  44. The primal germs of things, and how avoid
  45. The highways of destruction?- since they be
  46. Mere living things and living things be all
  47. One and the same with mortal. Grant they could,
  48. Yet by their meetings and their unions all,
  49. Naught would result, indeed, besides a throng
  50. And hurly-burly all of living things-
  51. Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts,
  52. By mere conglomeration each with each
  53. Can still beget not anything of new.
  54. But if by chance they lose, inside a body,
  55. Their own sense and another sense take on,
  56. What, then, avails it to assign them that
  57. Which is withdrawn thereafter? And besides,
  58. To touch on proof that we pronounced before,
  59. Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls
  60. To change to living chicks, and swarming worms
  61. To bubble forth when from the soaking rains
  62. The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all
  63. Can out of non-sensations be begot.
  1. But if one say that sense can so far rise
  2. From non-sense by mutation, or because
  3. Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth,
  4. 'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove
  5. There is no birth, unless there be before
  6. Some formed union of the elements,
  7. Nor any change, unless they be unite.
  8. In first place, senses can't in body be
  9. Before its living nature's been begot,-
  10. Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed
  11. About through rivers, air, and earth, and all
  12. That is from earth created, nor has met
  13. In combination, and, in proper mode,
  14. Conjoined into those vital motions which
  15. Kindle the all-perceiving senses- they
  16. That keep and guard each living thing soever.
  17. Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength
  18. Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er,
  19. And on it goes confounding all the sense
  20. Of body and mind. For of the primal germs
  21. Are loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout,
  22. The vital motions blocked,- until the stuff,
  23. Shaken profoundly through the frame entire,
  24. Undoes the vital knots of soul from body
  25. And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed,
  26. Through all the pores. For what may we surmise
  27. A blow inflicted can achieve besides
  28. Shaking asunder and loosening all apart?
  29. It happens also, when less sharp the blow,
  30. The vital motions which are left are wont
  31. Oft to win out- win out, and stop and still
  32. The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow,
  33. And call each part to its own courses back,
  34. And shake away the motion of death which now
  35. Begins its own dominion in the body,
  36. And kindle anew the senses almost gone.
  37. For by what other means could they the more
  38. Collect their powers of thought and turn again
  39. From very doorways of destruction
  40. Back unto life, rather than pass whereto
  41. They be already well-nigh sped and so
  42. Pass quite away?
  43. Again, since pain is there
  44. Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up,
  45. Through vitals and through joints, within their seats
  46. Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight,
  47. When they remove unto their place again:
  48. 'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be
  49. Assaulted by no pain, nor from themselves
  50. Take no delight; because indeed they are
  51. Not made of any bodies of first things,
  52. Under whose strange new motions they might ache
  53. Or pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.
  54. And so they must be furnished with no sense.