cies and the
fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities
of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and
under certain conditions.

{218}

To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius
points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction;
_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it
otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he
points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death
that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening
of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living
things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the
eternal stars. Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted
all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.
Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and
the forces necessary to their destruction. Finally, apparent
violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm
it. The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may
reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which
feed on them.

Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so
all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible. The
same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which
lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets. There are odours also that
float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices. There
is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone,
{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing. There is the gradual
invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by
dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the
streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as
they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into
along the shore.

That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions
on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest
things, as we see in dripping caves. There is the food also which
disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle. Voices pass
through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones. Things equal
in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a
lump of lead. So much for Lucretius.

F