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On the Nature of Things

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Not to be confused with The Nature of Things, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television show about natural science.

In his epic poem, the Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius argued (among many things) that everything in the universe is composed of tiny atoms moving about in an infinite void, rather than being the creation of deities as was common belief.
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In his epic poem, the Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius argued (among many things) that everything in the universe is composed of tiny atoms moving about in an infinite void, rather than being the creation of deities as was common belief.

On the Nature of Things is a first century BC epic poem by Lucretius that grandly proclaims the reality of man's role in a universe without a god to help him along. It is a statement of personal responsibility in a world in which everyone is driven by hungers and passions with which they were born and do not understand.

Contents

Seeing with compassion

''Literally, the title translates as '"On the Nature of Things"'/ The title is sometimes translated as "On the Nature of the Universe"', perhaps in order to reflect the scale of its subject matter. Lucretius's view is austere, but nevertheless he points out that a few enlightened individuals can escape periodically from their own hungers and passions and look down with compassion on poor humanity, including themselves, who are on average ignorant, unhappy, and yearning for something better than what they see around them. Personal responsibility then consists of speaking and living personal truth.

Accordingly, On the Nature of the Universe (Latin: Dē rērum nātūrā) is Lucretius's personal statement of truth to an ignorant audience. He hopes that someone will hear, understand, and pass on a seed of truth to help improve the world.

The poem consists of the following main arguments.

The Swerve

The problem that arises from an entirely deterministic and materialistic account of reality is free will. Lucretius maintains that the free will is possible through the random tendency for atoms to swerve (Latin: clinamen).

Lucretius's skepticism

Lucretius maintained that he could free mankind from fear of the gods by demonstrating that all things occur by natural causes without any intervention by the gods.

I will explain by what forces nature steers the courses of the Sun and the journeyings of the Moon, so that we shall not suppose that they run their yearly races between heaven and earth of their own free will [i.e., are gods themselves] of that they are rolled round in furtherance of some divine plan.... (V, 76-81)
However, when he set out to put this plan into practice, he limited himself to showing how one, or several different, naturalistic accounts could explain certain natural phenomena. He was unable to tell his readers how to determine which of these alternatives might be the true one. (Alioto 1987, p. 97)

Let us now take as our theme the cause of stellar movements.
*First let us suppose that the great globe of the sky itself rotates....
*There remains the alternative possibility that the sky as a whole is stationary while the shining constellations are in motion. This may happen
:*because swift currents of ether ... whirl round and round and roll their fires at large across the nocturnal regions of the sky. Or
:*an external current of air from some other quarter may whirl them along in their course. Or
:*they may swim of their own accord, each responsive to the call of its own food, and feed their fiery bodies in the broad pastures of the sky.
One of these causes must certainly operate in our world.... But to lay down which of them it is lies beyond the range of our stumbling progress. (V, 510-533)

Characters in the drama

There are several characters in the drama of this epic poem. Epicurus is a teacher who passed to Lucretius the light of understanding. The character Religion is a monster that attacks men from the sky and seeks to destroy truth. Epicurus wins against Religion because he explains to the comprehending person the vast and infinite universe, and brings a sudden realisation of what can be and what cannot be. This sudden understanding of the underlying atoms, void, and possible interactions of the universe will free individuals from the inherited fears of gods and of death.

Here are the words of Lucretius translated to English by William Ellery Leonard and provided by courtesy of the Gutenberg e-text project. [link]

Whilst human kind
Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed
Before all eyes beneath Religion--who
Would show her head along the region skies,
Glowering on mortals with her hideous face--
A Greek [Epicurus] it was who first opposing dared
Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand,
Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke
Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky
Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest
His dauntless heart to be the first to rend
The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
And thus his will and hardy wisdom won;
And forward thus he fared afar, beyond
The flaming ramparts of the world, until
He wandered the unmeasurable All.
Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports
What things can rise to being, what cannot,
And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
Wherefore Religion now is under foot,
And us his victory now exalts to heaven. (I, 62-79)

What draws men to religion?

Lucretius has compassion for those men who do not understand the mechanisms of the universe that gave them birth. He felt these ignorant and unfortunate men need religion to explain where they came from, why good things sometimes occur, and what could possibly shield them from the misfortunes they see fall upon others.

Nor [is this the place] to pursue the atoms one by one,
To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
But some men, ignorant of matter, think,
Opposing this, that not without the gods,
In such adjustment to our human ways,
Can nature change the seasons of the years,
And bring to birth the grains and all of else
To which divine Delight, the guide of life,
Persuades mortality and leads it on,
That, through her artful blandishments of love,
It propagate the generations still,
Lest humankind should perish. When they feign
That gods have stablished all things but for man,
They seem in all ways mightily to lapse
From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew
What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare
This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based
Upon the ways and conduct of the skies--
This to maintain by many a fact besides--
That in no wise the nature of the world
For us was builded by a power divine--
So great the faults it stands encumbered with:
The which, dear Memmius, later on, for thee
We will clear up. Now as to what remains
Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought. (II, 167-183)
Lucretius wrote this epic poem to "Memmius", who may be the Gaius Memmius who in 58 BC was a praetor, a judicial official deciding controversies between citizens and between citizens and the government. There are over a dozen references to "Memmius" scattered throughout the long poem in a variety of contexts in translation, such as "Memmius mine", "my Memmius", and "illustrious Memmius". Apparently, Lucretius wrote On the Nature of Things in an attempt to convert Gaius Memmius to atomism, but was unsuccessful.

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