第13章

Nor, when the fires will leap from under round The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed They act of own accord, no force beneath To urge them up.'Tis thus that blood, discharged From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft And spatters gore.And hast thou never marked With what a force the water will disgorge Timber and beam? The deeper, straight and down, We push them in, and, many though we be, The more we press with main and toil, the more The water vomits up and flings them back, That, more than half their length, they there emerge, Rebounding.Yet we never doubt, meseems, That all the weight within them downward bears Through empty void.Well, in like manner, flames Ought also to be able, when pressed out, Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though The weight within them strive to draw them down.

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?

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: