450 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



system of things has 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 till things sponta- 

 neously 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 

 invisible 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 nostrils. 

 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 though invisible par- 

 ticles. That Lucretius had a strong scientific imagination 

 the foregoing references prove. A fine illustration of his 

 power in this respect, is his explanation 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, presents simply a white patch upon the 

 green hill, the jumping of the individual lambs being 

 quite invisible. 



His vaguely grand conception of the atoms falling 

 oternally through space suggested the nebular hypothesis 

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

 our visible world are to be found atoms innumerable, 

 which have never been united to form bodies, or which, if 

 once united, have been again dispersed falling silently 

 through immeasurable intervals of time and space. As 

 everywhere throughout the All the same conditions are 

 repeated, so must the phenomena be repeated also. Above 

 us, below us, beside us, therefore, are worlds without end; 

 and this, when considered, must dissipate every thought 

 of a deflection of the universe by the gods. The worlds 

 come and go, attracting new atoms out of limitless space, 

 or dispersing their own particles. The reputed death of 



* Monro's translation. In bis criticism of this work (Contemporary 

 Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman does not appear to be aware of tbe really 

 sound and subtile observations on which the reasoning of Lucretius, 

 though erroneous, sometimes rests, 



