190 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE 



space above to infinite space below with enormous velocity. 

 This velocity is conceived as the explanation of the power or 

 energy of the universe. Gravitation thus understood was a 

 property of all matter. The apparent exceptions are correctly 

 explained by Lucretius. The idea of his eternal infinite rain of 

 atoms is enough to turn one giddy ; it can be best discussed 

 after we have stated the next most singular proposition. The 

 atoms, at quite uncertain times and uncertain places, swerve a 

 very little from the straight line, then they strike, and from 

 their clashing, matter and all natural phenomena are produced. 

 As Mr. Munro translates it, ' When bodies are borne down- 

 wards sheer through void at quite uncertain times and uncertain 

 points of space, they swerve a little from their equal poise, you 

 just and only just can call it a change of inclination. If they 

 were not used to swerve, they would all fall down like drops of 

 rain through the deep void, and no clashing would have been 

 begotten nor blow produced among the first beginnings ; thus 

 nature never would have produced aught.' 



Most people will think Nature would not have produced 

 much had she started in this way, and they are probably right ; 

 this is the head and front of our philosopher's offending, and, 

 indeed, there is not much to be said in his defence. Let us, 

 nevertheless, in spite of the ridicule which from Cicero's time 

 downwards has been heaped on this unhappy doctrine of the 

 ' Declination of Atoms,' try to enter into the mind of Lucretius, 

 and to understand what he sought for and thought he had 

 found. As already said, he sought for power in the velocity 

 of the atoms power which, deflected hither and thither by 

 obstacles of all kinds, should be the origin of every motion, 

 every force observed on earth. Gravitation in its apparent 

 action seemed to show a universal tendency in one direction ; 

 this, then, he claimed as an inherent property of his atoms a 

 claim no broader than the claim made by Newton, that every 

 atom of matter should attract all other atoms at whatever 

 distance they might be and at first sight much more conceiv- 

 able ; at first sight only, for, indeed, atoms pouring onward, as 

 imagined by our author, could be no source of power. Motion 

 in mechanics has no meaning except as denoting a change of 

 relative position ; all atoms moving, as Lucretius fancied, at one 



