LUCRETIUS 27 



places, nor have they made agreement what motions 

 they should each assume. Not so in truth ; the 

 cause isj that they are many in number, and have 

 shifted, in changes many, all the universe over. 

 They have been driven together and tormented 

 by constant shocks from all eternity. After trying 

 in this way motions and unions of every kind, they 

 fall at length into the arrangements out of which 

 this world of ours has been formed, and by which, 

 too, it has been preserved in being through many 

 cycles when once it has been thrown into the fitting 

 motions." Again, " this world has been made by 

 Nature just as the seeds of things have chanced 

 to clash, entirely of their own accord, after being 

 driven together in many ways without purpose, 

 without foresight, without result, and at last such 

 seeds have filtered through as, when suddenly 

 thrown together, might become the germs of great 

 things of earth, sea, heaven, and of the race of 

 living things." At first no substance could be 

 seen like our substances, " but a kind of strange 

 storm and medley made of atoms of every kind, 

 whose lack of harmony caused a conflict and 

 disordered their interplaces, passages, connections, 

 weights, blows, clashings, motions, because, by 

 reason of their unlike forms and different shapes, 

 they could not all remain thus joined together, nor 

 unite in harmonious motions." 



