On The Nature Of Things

Of the Nature of Things Translated by William Ellery Leonard Book II, Book III Lucretius ************* Introduction Of the works of Lucretius, only On the Nature of the Universe has survived and been passed through history to us. On the Nature of the Universe is quintessentially Epicurean. Lucretius' commitment to the views of Epicurus are quite clear from the very early parts of his own work. At the beginning of Book Three, Lucretius offers a brief praise to Epicurus. He writes, "O you who first amid so great a darkness were able to raise aloft a light so clear, illumining the blessings of life, you I follow." Here, Lucretius develops the metaphysical position known as materialistic atomism that undergirds Epicurus' own views. Materialistic atomism is the view that all of the objects in the universe are composed, fundamentally, of tiny, indivisible particles, or "atoms." Atom translates fairly straightforwardly as "without parts." Thus, atoms are simple substances, indivisible because they are not composite entities. On Lucretius' view, and following Epicurus, the universe is initially composed totally of simple atoms cascading in straight paths through the void; they are not connected to another and there are no objects, yet, they are composed of more than a single atom. Complex entities only arise when the simple atoms begin to swerve. At some point, the atoms swerved into one another and began a chain of interactions, ever more complex and ever more organized into complexes of atoms that could then interact with other complexes by crashing into them. On this view, then, the universe and all that exists within it, is reducible to simple physical entities, or atoms, that themselves behave entirely on the basis of physical principles of cause and effect. Given this view of the physical structure of the universe, a structure of which humans are merely another part, it is not surprising that Lucretius should argue that consciousness, perception, sensation, etc., are merely the byproducts of a fairly sophisticated and complex collection of atoms. Nevertheless, the byproducts are not indicative of the existence of anything more than that collection of atoms. That is, these qualities of human beings (sensation, perception, et al) should not be thought to entail anything like an immortal soul, for example. Instead, like nearly all the atomists, Lucretius understands death to be the end of these qualities — that is, the end of consciousness. The argument is fairly straightforward. Lucretius argues that the mind is a part of the body in the same way that a hand is part of the body or that the feet or the eyes are parts of the body. Given this, the mind must be composed of atoms in the same way that the hands, feet, and eyes are. The hand stands in the same part-to-whole relation to the body that the atoms stand to the hand. We know that the mind is a part of the body from our observations of its working. For example, the mind suffers when the body does, it seems to share feeling with the body. Given that the mind suffers when the body suffers, it must be the case that it is part of the body and as part of the body shares the same death the body experiences. Reading BOOK II PROEM 'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds Roll up its waste of waters, from the land To watch another's labouring anguish far, Not that we joyously delight that man Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet To mark what evils we ourselves be spared; 'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains, Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught There is more goodly than to hold the high Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise, Whence thou may'st look below on other men And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed In their lone seeking for the road of life; Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank, Pressing through days and