Hierocles," de Fato et Providentia," p. 10. fays, the Platonists imagine, it is fufficient to look abroad into the world, and fee that stones and mud are not beings of infinite perfection; for whatfoever is abraúso, self-exiftent, as Scaliger calls the Deity, can have no bounds fet to its excellency: For what can hinder the utmoft perfection in that being which depends only on itself? Now if he could have proved, that nothing is made of nothing, Providence had at once been overthrown; but the reader will eafily difcern, that after all his great labour, and the mighty bustle he makes, he in effect proves no more than what no man denies; that is to fay, that nothing within the compals and circumference of nature is produced from nothing. And, therefore, Lactantius, 2. Int. 10. fpeaking of this argument of the Epicureans, had reason to say, "Sin autem intra naturæ vires contineri voluerit Epicurus, non effet cur à nobis non laudaretur. Conftat enim ex nihilo nihil fieri poffe naturæ viribus." If Epicurus would be content, that this propofition fhould be interpreted to extend no farther than to things within the strength of nature, we fhould have no reafon not to approve it: For it is most certain, that nothing is made of nothing by the ftrength and power of nature. There is not, therefore, any reafon to fear whatever arguments can be brought against the power of God, fince those which the most penetrating wit of Lucretius has been able to advance, are fo weak; for if his impious doctrine could have been defended, he certainly was capable of defending it: Si pergama dextra Defendi poffent, certe hac defenfa fuiffent. a greater difpofition in one feafon of the year than Ver. 216. He means in the fpring; the season Ver. 222. Ver. 231. These eight verfes contain his fourth argument, which he has taken from the neceflity of food and nourishment, and is no lefs cogent than the others. For fince the earth can bring forth nothing without rain; and fince animals, when deprived of food and nourishment, can neiVer. 192. Epicurus, in the epiftle to Herodo- ther propagate their kinds, nor even fupport their tus, has comprehended in a few words this first own lives; who can be fo weak as to believe, that argument, which Lucretius brings to prove, that either animals, or the fruits of the earth, are pronothing is made of nothing, as in run öv-duced out of nothing, it being moft evident, that τος, τὰν γὰρ ἐκ πάντος ἐγίνεται ἄν, ασερμάτων δὲ ὐδὲν which is exactly what Lucretius fays more at large in these eighteen verses. If things were produced from nothing, then every thing would proceed from every thing: there would no need of feed, but men would start up out. of the earth, beafts and fish would drop out of the ky, &c. Now fince all things do not proceed from all things: but certain proper feeds are neceffary, he rightly concludes, that nothing is produced from nothing. Nor indeed can any thing be objected against this argument, inafmuch as it extends only to things within the power of nature; for fo far it holds good, but no farther. be Ver. 210. The preceding argument, to prove that nothing is made of nothing, was brought from the fir rife and beginning of things. He now in twelve verfes proves the fame propofition by another argument, drawn from the conftant and never changing effects of the seasons in which the things are brought forth. For why fhould rofes be produced only in the fpring, why fruits in fummer, and grapes in autumn, and not any or all of them in winter, if matter contributEd nothing to their production, fince there is not matter is effentially neceffary for the production and nourishment of all things? Nay, we ought rather to conclude, that there are certain feeds, of which things are compofed, as words are of let ters. Ver. 239. His fifth argument, in these fourteen verfes, is taken from the fixed and determinate fize and duration of things: For if men, for example, were produced of nothing, whence comes it to pafs, that they are conftantly fo weak and little? Whence proceeds this fhortnefs of life, and the other inconveniences and imperfections of mankind: But admit, that men proceed from certain feeds, and of a certain matter, and all those things will be easily accounted for, and even appear neceffary and unavoidable. This argument holds good with the fame reftriction as the former; but not without fome diftinction: For nature feems to have prescribed no bounds to the fize of fome inanamate things. Fire, for example, if you continue to fupply it with ftill more and more fuel, it ftill grows bigger and bigger: But to all things that have life, to plants as well as animals, nature has fixed certain bounds of growth and magnitude: For things Ver. 243. As the giants were feigned to be; of whom, Virgil, Georg. i. ver. 288. Ter funt conati imponere Pelio Offam And on them would have heap'd Olympus too at laft. But this fable of the giants fight with the gods was not invented by the Grecks, but came from the eastern nations, and arofe from the true ftory of the building of the lower of Babel. Ver. 253. The poet had obferved, that corn, trees, flowers, &c. are improved and bettered by human industry; from whence he brings his fixth and laft argument, to prove that nothing is made of nothing, and reasons thus in thefe eight verses. All this is occafioned by certain hidden feeds. For what would induftry and labour avail, if those things were produced from nothing? It would indeed be vain and useless: And whofoever should undertake to cultivate nothing, would do nothing. Nay, what can hinder plants, that are produced from nothing, from improving and growing every year more fair and fruitful of their own accord? Ver. 261. Hitherto Lucretius has been proving, that nothing is made of nothing. But now, in these two verfes, he proposes another principle which is a confequent of the former, viz. that nothing is annihilated, or reduced into nothing. Ver. 263. In thefe feven verfes, he brings his firft argument against the annihilation of things, and reasons to this purpose, from the common refolution of compound bodies. For, fays he, if things refolved into nothing, or were mortal in all their parts, there would be no need of force or violence to diffolve any of them: But as every thing would be produced, and appear on a fudden, without the endeavour or force of any other thing; fo without the force or violence of any other thing Jikewife, every thing would perifh, not by a dif folution of its parts; but withdrawn from our eyes, would vanish away in a moment of time, and thus refolve into nothing. For the reafon why force is requifite to diffolve each thing is, because it confifls of feeds that remain after its diffolution. Ver. 270. His fecond argument, to prove that nothing is reduced into nothing, is contained in thefe fifteen verfes. Animals, fays he, which, as I have already proved, are not made out of no. thing, are born daily, and die daily. The foun. tains perpetually fupply waters, of which rivers and the fea confift, &c. Now whence could all these things proceed, if there were not fome immortal feeds, that remain after the diffolution of the bodies? For who is fo void of fenfe, as not to grant that the firft matter of things, if it were fometimes fubject to perish, must have been to. tally confumed in the infinite fucceffion of years, that has paffed away fince the beginning of things; infomuch, that nothing of it would be now left to repair and renew the things that are daily dy ing? fun and ftars were fires, that required nourish. Ver. 277. For the Epicureans held, that the ment to feed and keep alive their flames; and that they were nourished by the vapours and exhalations that rife from the earth and fea. Nor was this the opinion of Epicurus only, but of the Stoics likewife. Nay, we may trace this belief even to before the age of Zeno. But to answer this question of Lucretius, and give a probable reason of the perpetual supply of waters to fountains and rivers, we may have recourfe to the invention that Cowley found out to juitify his -Eternal fountain of all waves, Where there vast court the mother waters keep, And undisturb'd by moons in filence fleep; And stablish an abyfs, or deep gulf of waters, into which the fea difcharges itself, as rivers do into the fea; and thus there is a perpetual circulation of water, like that of the blood in human bodies; and this Lucretius himfelf owns in fome measure, Book vi. ver. 627. For to refer the ori ginal of fountains to condensation, and afterwards to a diffolution of vapours under the earth, is one of the most unphilofophical opinions in all Ariftotle. Befides, fuch an abyfs of waters is very agreeable to the fcriptures; for Jacob bleffes Jofeph with the bleflings of the heavens above, and with the bleffings of the depth beneath; that is, with the dew and rain of heaven, and with the fountains and rivers that arife from the deep; and conformably to this, Efdras asks, What habitations are in the heart of the fea, and what veins in the root of the abyfs? Thus too at the end of the deluge, Mofes fays, "That God ftopped the windows of heaven, and the fountains of the abyss." Ver. 285. In these thirteen verfes, he urges his third argument, and fays, that it is evident, that nothing is annihilated, because the fame force is not fufficient to diffolve all things; for it is in vain for any man to object, that the fame force cannot diffolve all things, because the principles of bodies are joined together by different textures. For what would that difparity of texture avail, what even the principles themfelves, if they can be reduced into nothing, are not able to refift, or hold good even against the flightest touch? But admitting there are certain principles, which are eternal, then indeed a reafon may be given from the diffimilitude of their contexture with one ano ther, why the fame force is not alike fufficient to diffolve all things. Ver. 291. For the eternity of the feeds alone would fignify nothing, unless there were a diflimilitude of them likewife, without which there can be no union or connection of things; and, therefore, though the first bodies were eternal, yet the compounds would not, for that reafon only, remain entire one moment of time. Ver. 298. But because there are many things which, as they diffolve, vanish both from our fight and touch, to that degree, that they seem totally to perish, he, in thefe eighteen verfes, obviates that objection, and flows, that even the rain, which, when it falls upon the earth, dries away, and chiefly may feem to vanish, does not, nevertheless, perish, but fupplies matter for the growth of all manner of plants and trees, and to enable them to bring forth their feveral fruits in great abundance, for the nourishment and fupport of men, birds, and beafts. We cannot, therefore, believe, that the leaft particle of the showers entirely perishes, fince fo many excellent things are renewed and repaired by them. Laftly, He conclades, that nothing returns to nothing, fince nature produces one thing out of another, and never any thing new; but makes use of the matter of another thing that had been diffolved before. See the note on v. 957. B. ii. Ver. 314. This agrees with the maxim of Ariftotle, lib. i. " de generat et corrupt." 'II 7501 φορά, ἀλλὰ γίνεσις, ἡ τεδειγίνεσις ἀλλὰ φθορά. The corruption of one thing is the generation of another, and the generation of one thing is the corruption of another. Ver. 316. But that he may not dispute to no purpose, while his Memmius will perhaps diftruft the validity of all the arguments he has hitherto brought to establish his atoms, because those etermal principles and feeds of things, in themselves, and apart from the bodies which they compofe, are imperceptible to the sense, and, by reason of their exility, too fmall and fubtle not to efcape the fight, even of the fharpeft and most piercing eye, he brings feveral inftances of corporeal subfances, to which no man denies an existence, though they are invisible to the eye. First, of the wind, in thirty-three verfes, whofe force and violence, fays he, whoever thoroughly confiders how it toffes and disturbs the fea, with what fury it drives the fhips, &c. will acknowledge it to be corporeal, though no eye could ever discover its particles; and this too the more readily, if he refiects, that winds rush on in the fame manner as rapid rivers do, when their waters are fwoln with rain, and bear before them whatever opposes their courfe; and that rivers are bodies, the fenfes themselves moft plainly demonftrate. Virgil feems to have imitated this description of a stormy wind, in the first Æneid, v. 86. and Lucan, lib. v. Ver. 322. Virgil, Georg. i. ver. 318. defcribes the force of the wind in the like manner : Omnia ventorum concurrere prælia vidi; Qualis, Hyperboreas aquilo cum denfus ab orig Dryd. Ver. 333. Thus too Virgil defcribes the rapidity of the Po, Georg. i. v. 481. Proluit infano contorquens vortice sylvas Then rifing in his might the king of floods Dryd. And the violence of a Torrent, Æn. II. ver. 305. -Ceu rapidus montano flumine torrens Sternit argos, fternit fata læta, boumque labores, Præcipitefque trahit fylvas: ftupet infcius alto Accipiens fonitum faxi de vertice pastor. Thus, deluges descending on the plains, Sweep o'er the yellow ear, deftroy the pains Of lab'ring oxen and the peasant's gains; Flocks, folds, and trees, an undiftinguifh'd prey. Unroot the foreft oaks, and bear away The shepherd climbs the cliff, and fees from far The wafteful ravage of the watery war. Dryd. Ver. 349. In thefe eight verfes, he farther teaches, that it is but reafonable to allow that there may be in nature certain corporeal principles imperceptible to the fight, fince all men confefs that there are fuch things as odours, founds, heat, and cold, though no man ever faw any of them; and yet who doubts but that all of them are bodies, fince they affect and move the fenfes, and confequently touch them? for the Epicureans held, that whatever could touch, or be touched, that, and that only, was truly a body. Thus Ariftotle, lib. iv. Phyf. aufc. ce vas Tangere enim et tangi nifi corpus nulla poteft res. Ver. 357. He brings another example of an invifible body, in these fix verses: Water, fays he, is a body, and yet experience teaches, that it is fometimes divided into particles too fmall to be feen. Linen or woollen clothes, fpread abroad near the fea, will grow damp, and the heat of the fun will dry them again; yet no man ever faw thofe particles of water, either rifing from the fea, and fixing themselves in the clothes, or retiring from them. Ver. 363. In these ten verfes, he gives several other instances to the fame effect: Rings grow thin with long wearing; drops of rain, by often falling on ftones, will make them hollow; the pavement of the streets wear with treading on them; nay, we fee that even brafs ftatues will wear with frequent touching. Now, from all thefe things thus worn and diminished, certain corporeal particles must fly away, though, whoever fees them must be sharper fighted than" aut aquila, aut ferpens epidaurius :" either an eagle or a ferpent. Ver. 364. Ovid fays this admirably well in lib. iv. de Pon. Epift. x. Gutta cavat lapidem, confumitur annulus ufu, is another thing befides body, that is, a void, which void he thus defines; a place untouched and empty, that is to fay, a space that neither touches, nor is touched, that can neither act tor fuffer. Thus in Book iii. ver. 781, he says: Or else because, like empty space, 'tis fuch As is fecure from stroke, or free from touch. Laertius, lib. x. fays, that Epicurus called the void an intangible nature, and a region. Empiricus, lib. ii. adv. Phyf. fays, that it is called an intan gible nature, because of its being exempt from all impulfe by touch; or, to use the words of Arnobius, lib. vii. adv. Gent. "quod omni tactu fit incontigua," that is to fay, because it makes no refiftance to touch. Thus Epicurus and Lucretius call that only a void which is incorporeal in its nature, that is, which can ad nothing, nor fuffer nothing, but only yields a free paflage through itself to all bodies. Now, Empiricus says, that they called this intangible nature a void, because it is deftitute of body; a space, because it contains bodies; and a region, because bodies are moved in it. Thus Aristotle, 3 Phys. vii. defines the void, a place in which nothing is; that is to fay, as he himself explains it, a place in which nothing corporeal, no body is. He goes yet farther, and fays, that it is a property of the void to be full and empty; full when it is; filled with body, empty when it is void of all body, almost in the fame fenfe as we commonly fay a veffel is full when it is filled with any liquor, but empty when there is no liquor in it, unless in the empty veffel, the air, which is a body, fupplies the place of the liquor, by which means the veffel is not entirely empty, but would be empty if neither the air nor any other body came into it. This being premifed, will help us to understand the following arguntents of Lucretius, by which he strives to prove, that there is a void in the universe. Ver. 387 The first argument to prove a void, is contained in these fifteen verses, and, the better to comprehend the force of it, imagine the uni verfe, if there be no void or empty space inter fperfed in it, to be a vast heap of matter, thronged, crowded, conftipated, and wedged in on all parts to fuch a degree, as not to be capable of receiving into its bulk the least corpuscle whatever; for, if there be nothing that is not full, then no Ver. 373. In the last place, he teaches, in the place remains to be filled; therefore, either a new eighth verfe, that certain corporeal particles are body will not be admitted, or it will be placed added to things that grow and increafe, and taken in the very place that is already taken up by fome from thofe that decreafe and diminish; but that other body: and thus the fame place will conthose particles too are invifible even to the fharp-tain two different bodies, that must be penetrat eft eye. Epicurus has expreffed all this very briefly in the epiftle to Herodotus: πᾶν τε μέγεθος μὴ είναι ωερί άτομως; the atoms have no magnitude; and, ἐδέποτε γειν "Ατομος ἔφθη αἴσθησει· for an atom is not vifible to the fenfe. But Democritus believed that fome atoms may be very big. Ver. 381. Having thus proved that there are certain corporeal principles of things, he is now going to enter upon another fubject, and in the fixth verfe he teaches, that, in the universe, there ing into each other on all fides, which no man will pretend is poffible to be done by the force of nature. By this we fee too, whether it be poífible for any one of the bodies that are feated in that immenfe mafs of matter to be moved out of its place, and to take the place of another. Certainly, if it find a place already full, it must of neceflity drive away the body that poffeffes and fills that place. And if all things are full, whi ther shall that body be driven? Shall that again thrust away another? The fame difficulty will re tern upon us, and be continued for ever; therefore, unless there were a void interfperfed in all things, all things would be crowded to fuch a degree, that not only nothing in the whole univerfe could be moved from its place, but it would be even impoffible to give a reason, and explain how any thing can be generated because a local motion is abfolutely necessary for the generation of all things: and without a void there can be no motion whatever: nothing could move any more than do thofe flints and shells, that are fometimes found in the very heart of huge stones, and in the entrails of the hardest rocks. Aristotle, in 4 Phyf. 6. offers almost the fame argument, which he had collected from Democritus and Leucippus, whofe opinions Epicurus followed. Aoxa abra, fays Laertius in Democritus, speaking of that philofopher, τάθε ἀρχὰς εἶναι τῶδ' ὅλων ἄτομες καὶ air He believed atoms and void to be the principles of all things; but Epicurus more truly held, that the void affords nothing befides place and difcrimination; and, indeed, though it be mixed with all bodies, yet it is in no wife to be admitted as any constituent part of them; and, therefore, Plutarch wittily expreffes body by red 11, and void by rò unèiv, as if he had faid body is fomething, void nothing, which fenfe we must be fure to bear in mind, and carry about with us, in order to comprehend a right and true meaning of our poct. Ver. 412 in thefe thirteen verfes is contained bis fecond argument, by which he proves, that there is a void, becaufe fome bodies penetrate into, and diftil through the things that seem to be moft fold. Thus water foaks through ftones; Douriff.ment conveys itfelf into all the members of animals; the fap rifes into the trunks and branches of trees; founds pierce through walls; and coid penetrates the flesh and nerves, pay, even into the very bones; none of which could ever be, were there not between the particles of thofe folid things, fome Imall void spaces, through which those bodies work their way. paffage, or leave a space behind them; but the water could not give way, unless there were an empty place for it to retire to. And therefore we must allow a void mixed with bodies, or deny the poflibility of all motion whatever. Ver. 439. These fix verfes contain his fourth argument; which indeed is strong and valid. For if two smooth broad bodies meet, and are parted on a sudden, a void will be caused by their diffi. lition. For all manner of matter must have been compressed and driven away by the meeting of those two bodies, and therefore the space that opens between them, as they part, will be void of all body for what can fill it up? Shall the air, or any fubtle matter? Impoffible: for how fubtle foever you imagine the matter to be, you neverthelefs leave a void, because that air or subtle matter, whatever it be, cannot be imagined to poffefs and fill up in one inftant of time all the space that. two fuch broad and flat bodies will difclofe, and lay open at parting. Ver 445 Our tranflator has rendered this paffage of his author a little obfcurely: but the meaning of Lucretius is this. It may, fays he, be objected against my laft argument, that when these two flat bodies meet, the air that is intercepted between the furfaces of them is condensed, or at least lies hid in the cavities of the furfaces of thofe bodies; for no bodies are perfectly fmooth. Now when thofe hodies feparate, the intercepted air is rarified, and poffefics and fills up all the space that is difclofed and laid open by the separation of those parting bodies. But Lucretius anfwers this objection thus, urging fill his former affertion: When thefe two bodies are feparated, a void muft of neceflity be made, (for this cannot be denied, fince they did, at leaft a fome places, touch one another), and that void muit be filled up again with air; and thus the foregoing argument holds good, and proves what it advances. However, he infifts yet farther; at least says he, that intercepted air is not totally condensed, or even grant that it be fo, yet it follows from that condenfation that there is a void: because it is abfurd to pretend, that ore fame heap of matter can take up more room at one time than it does at another, unless there were a void. Befides, from fuch a contraction and condenfation of the air, this abfurdity will follow, that what was before ginted to be full, must now be empty; and, wice verfa, what was empty, full: And even let it be granted, that fuch a con preffion of the dif Ver. 425. But because fome, and among them joined and loosned parts of the air could be ef Ariftotle lib. 4 Phyf. 7. Cic. lib 4. Academ, etfected; yet even that would even be extremely dif Seneca, lib 2. Nat. Quæft. 7 indeavour to elude the force of thefe arguments, by objecting that there is no need of a void for the motion of bodies, fince in a full, bodies may officiofly give way to one another; because whatever body is moved, leaves a face to be poflefied by that oody, which it thrufts out of its place as water gives way to the fish that fwim forward, and ftrait fows into the place they left. But Lucretius anfwers, that unicis the water gave way, the fish could not move forward, nor open themselves a TRAMS. II. Ver. 415. The third argument to prove a void takes up their ten veries, and is brought from the different weight of thing, that are of the fame buik and figure. And, indeed why of two bodies of a like fize and hap、 fhould one weigh more than the other, except beca fe in one of them there is more of body to which weight is raural, and the other anore of void, which has Do weight at all. tressed without an in erfpertion of void; for otherwife all things would be full, folid, and mere bodies. whole properties ro ways admitting of penetration, could not possibly fuffer the least condenfation. This is the tense of the text of Lucretins, which the English does not fully exprefs. Ver. 455. The poet here tells Memous, that he could allege many other arguments to prove a void but he leaves it to him to gather the reft out of those he has mentioned: For, fays he, it is with philofophers as with hounds; and when they A a |