40 Or-; TIlE l\'ATURE OF THINGS

tion. In supposing that the gods have arranged everything for the benefit
of humanity, these thinkers have obviously deviated far from the path of
sound judgment in every respeet. For even if I had no knowledge of the
primary elements of things, I would venture to deduce from the actual
180 behavior ofthe sky, and from many other facts, evidence and proof that
the world was by no means created for us by divine agency: it is marked
by such serious flaws. Later, Memmius, I will make this plain to you; 14
but now I will complete my explanation of the movements of atoms.

I feel that I have now reached the point in my argument when I should
establish for you the further principle that no corporeal thing can by its
own force be carried upward or travel upward. In this connection, do not
be deceived by the particles of flames. Certainly flames tend upward at
their birth and as they increase, and lustrous crops and trees grow upward
190 too, though all bodies, left to themselves, are drawn downward by their
weight. But when fires leap up to the roofs of houses and lick beams and
rafters with dal1ing flame, it must not be supposed that they do this
spontaneously and shoot up without any external constraint. The situa-
tion is similar to that when blood let from our body springs spUl1ing up in
the air and sprinkles gore. Do you not observe too with what force water
spits out beams and timbers? When a team of us has struggled to depress
them with all our might, the more we have thrust them straight down, the
more impetuously the water spews them up and returns them to the
200 surface, causing the greater part of their bulk to emerge with a leap. And
yet we do not doubt, I think, that all these substances, left to themselves,
are carried downward through empty space. Flames must be no excep-
tion: when subjected to pressure, they are able to mount upward through
the breezy air; but the natural tendency of their weight is to fight to pull
them down. Again, do you not observe the high-flying torches of the
nocturnal sky trailing long trains of name in whatever direction nature
210 has given them passage? Do you not perceive stars falling to earth? The
sun from the zenith distributes its heat in every direction, and broadcasts
its radiance upon the fields; thus the sun's heat, also, inelines toward the
earth. You perceive lightning flashes streaking crosswise through rain-
stonns, when, now from this side, now from that, the fires tear out of the
clouds and dart together; frequently the force of their flame falls upon the
earth.

In this eonnection, I am anxious that you should grasp a further point:

when the atoms are being drawn downward through the void by their

14. 182: The reference is to 5.195 234. Lines 2.177-181 arc almost identical to
5.195 199.
BOOK Two 41

property of weight, at absolutely unpredictable times and places they

deflect slightly from their straight course, to a degree that could be 220
described as no more than a shift of movement. If they were not apt to
swerve, all would fall downward through the unfathomable void like
drops of rain; no collisions between primary elements would occur, and
no blows would be effected, with the result that nature would never have
created anything. 15
Anyone who happens to believe that heavier atoms are carried straight
through the void more swinIy than lighter ones, fall on them from above,
and so cause the blows capable of producing the movements necessary
for ereation, is diverging far from the path of sound judgment. Every- 230
thing that drops through water and unsubstantial air falls with a velocity
propOliional to its weight, because the body of water and air with its fine
nature are unable to retard all bodies equally, but yield more quickly to
the superior power of heavier objects. On the other hand, empty void
cannot offer any resistance to any object in any pali at any time: it must
give way at once in conformity to its own nature. Thus all the atoms,
despite their unequal weights, must move with equal velocity as they
shoot through the unresisting void. The heavier will therefore never be 240
able to fall on the lighter from above, or of themselves cause the blows
determining the varied movements that are the instruments of nature's
work.
So I insist that the atoms must swerve slightly, but only to an infi-
nitesimal degree, or we shall give the impression that we are imagining
oblique movements--a hypothesis that would be contradicted by the
facts. For it is a plain and manifest matter of observation that objects with
weight, lell to themselves, cannot travel an oblique course when they
plunge from above--at least not perceptibly; but who could possibly 250
perceive that they do not swerve at all from their vertical path?
Moreover, if all movements are invariably interlinked, if new move-
ment arises from the old in unalterable succession, if there is no atomic
swerve to initiate movement that can annul the decrees of destiny and
prevent the existence of an endless chain of causation, what is the source
of this free will possessed by living creatures all over the earth? What, I
ask, is the source of this power of will wrested from destiny, which
enables each of us to advance where pleasure leads us, and to alter our
movements not at a fixed time or place, but at the direction of our own 260
minds? For undoubtedly in each case it is the individual will that gives
the initial impulse to such actions and channels the movements through
the limbs.

15. 216-293: On the theory of the atomic swerve, see pp. xxvi-xxvii.