144 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



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 ploughshare 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 ima- 

 gination the foregoing references prove. A fine illustra- 

 tion 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 indi- 

 vidual lambs being quite invisible. 



His vaguely grand conception of the atoms falling 

 eternally through space, suggested the nebular hypo- 

 thesis to Kant, its first propounder. Far beyond the 

 limits of our visible world are to be found atoms innu- 

 merable, 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 uni- 

 verse by the gods. The worlds come and go, attracting 

 new atoms out of limitless space, or dispersing their 

 own particles. The reputed death of Lucretius, which 

 forms the basis of Mr. Tennyson's noble poem, is in 

 strict accordance with his philosophy, which was severe 

 and pure. 



