154 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



been evolved. "If you will apprehend and keep in mind 

 these things, Nature, free at once, and rid of her haughty 

 lords, is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself, 

 without the meddling of the gods." * 



To meet the objection that his atoms cannot be seen, 

 Lucretius describes a violent storm, and shows that the in- 

 visible particles of air act in the same way as the visible 

 particles of water. We perceive, moreover, the different 

 smells of things, yet never see them coming to our nos- 

 trils. Again, clothes hung up on a shore which waves 

 break upon, become moist, and then get dry if spread out 

 in the sun, though no eye can see either the approach or 

 the escape of the water- particles. A ring, worn long on 

 the finger, becomes thinner; a water-drop hollows out a 

 stone; the plowshare is rubbed away in the field; the 

 street-pavement is worn by the feet; but the particles 

 that disappear at any moment we cannot see. Nature acts 

 through invisible particles. That Lucretius had a strong 

 scientific imagination the foregoing references prove. A 

 fine illustration of his power in this respect is his ex- 

 planation of the apparent rest of bodies whose atoms are 

 in motion. He employs the image of a flock of sheep 

 with skipping lambs, which, seen from a distance, pre- 

 sents simply a white patch upon the green hill, the jump- 

 ing of the individual lambs being quite invisible. 



His vaguely grand conception of the atoms falling eter- 

 nally through space, suggested the nebular hypothesis to 

 Kant, its first propounder. Far beyond the limits of our 



1 Monro's translation. In his criticism of this work ("Contemporary Re- 

 view," 1867) Dr. Hay man does not appear to be aware of the really sound and 

 subtile observations on which the reasoning of Lucretius, though erroneous, 

 sometimes rests. 



