Chapter XXV. From the Constitution of the Universe. From the Same

‘OR who can endure to hear that this great house, which consists of heaven and earth, and, because of the great and manifold wisdom displayed upon it, is called the Cosmos, has been set in order by atoms drifting with no order at all, and that disorder has thus become order?

‘Or how believe that movements and courses well regulated are produced from an irregular drift? Or that the all-harmonious quiring of the heavenly bodies derives its concord from tuneless and inharmonious instruments?

‘Also if there be but one and the same substance of all atoms, and the same imperishable nature, excepting, as they say, their magnitudes and shapes, how is it that some bodies are divine, and incorruptible, and eternal, or at least, as they would say, secular according to him who so named them, both visible and invisible, visible as the sun, and moon, and stars, and earth and water, and invisible as gods, and daemons, and souls? For that these exist, they cannot, even if they would, deny.

‘And the most long-lived are animals and plants; animals, in the class of birds, as they say, eagles, and ravens, and the phoenix; and among land animals, stags, and elephants, and serpents; but among aquatic animals, whales: and among trees, palms, and oaks, and perseae; and of trees some are evergreen, of which some one who had counted them said there were fourteen, and some flower for a season, and shed their leaves: but the greatest part both of plants and animals die early and are short-lived, and man among them, as a certain holy Scripture said of him, “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live.” [1]

‘But they will say that variations in the bonds which connect the atoms are the causes of the difference in duration. For some things are said to be packed close and fastened tightly together by them, so that they have become close textures extremely difficult to unloose, while in others the combination of the atoms has been weak and loose in a greater or less degree, so that either quickly or after a long time they separate from their orderly arrangement: and some things are made up of atoms of a certain nature shaped in a certain way, and others of different kinds of atoms differently arranged.

‘Who is it then that distinguishes the classes, and collects them, and spreads them abroad, and arranges some in this way for a sun, and others in that way to produce the moon, and brings together the several kinds according to their fitness for the light of each separate star? For neither would the solar atoms, of such a number and kind as they are, and in such wise united, ever have condescended to the formation of a moon, nor would the combinations of the lunar atoms ever have become a sun. Nay, nor would Arcturus, bright though he is, ever boast of possessing the atoms of the morning star, nor the Pleiades those of Orion. For it was a fine distinction drawn by Paul when he said, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.” [2]

‘And if their combination, as of things without life, took place unconsciously, they required a skilful artificer: and if their conjunction was involuntary and of necessity, as in things without reason, then some wise leader of the flock presided over their gathering. But if they have been willingly confined to the performance of a voluntary work, some marvellous architect took the lead in apportioning their work; or acted as a general who, loving order, does not leave his army in confusion and all mixed up together, but arranges the cavalry in one place, and the heavy-armed infantry separately, and the javelin-men by themselves, and the archers apart, and the slingers in the proper place, that those of like arms might fight side by side.

‘But if they think this example a jest because I make a comparison between large bodies and very small, we will turn to the very smallest.’

Then he adds next to this:

‘But if there were neither word, nor choice, nor order of a ruler laid upon them, but they by themselves directing themselves through the great throng of the stream, and passing out through the great tumult of their collisions, were brought together like to like not by the guidance of God, as the poet says,[3] but ran together and gathered in groups recognizing their own kin, then wonderful surely would be this democracy of the atoms, friends welcoming and embracing one another, and hastening to settle in one common home; while some of them rounded themselves off of their own accord into that mighty luminary the sun, in order to make day, and others flamed up into many pyramids perhaps of stars, in order to crown the whole heaven; while others are ranged around, perchance to make it firm, and throw an arch over the ether for the luminaries to ascend, and that the confederacies of the common atoms may choose their own abodes, and portion out the heaven into habitations and stations for themselves.’

Then after some other passages he says:

‘But these improvident men, so far from discerning what is invisible, do not see even what is plainly visible. For they seem not even to observe the regular risings and settings either of the other bodies, or the most conspicuous, those of the sun, nor to make use of the aids bestowed through them upon mankind, the day lighted up for work, and the night overshadowing for rest. For “man,” says the Scripture, “will go forth to his work and to his labour until the evening.” [4]

‘Nay, they do not even observe that other revolution of the sun, in which he completes determinate times and convenient seasons and solstices recurring in undeviating order, being guided by the atoms of which he consists. But though these miserable men, the righteous, however, as they believe, be unwilling to admit it, yet “Great is the Lord that made him, and at His word he hasteneth his course.” [5]

‘For do atoms, O ye blind, bring you winter and rains, that the earth may send up food for you and all the living creatures thereon? And do they lead on the summer, that ye may also receive the fruits of the trees for enjoyment? And why then do ye not worship the atoms, and offer sacrifice to the guardians of your fruits? Ungrateful surely, for not consecrating to them even small first-fruits of the abundant gifts which ye receive from them.’

And after a short interval he says:

‘But the stars, that mixed democracy of many tribes, constituted by the wandering atoms ever scattering themselves abroad, marked off regions for themselves by agreement, just as if they had instituted a colony or a community, without any founder or master presiding over them; and the border-laws towards neighbouring nations they faithfully and peacefully observe, not encroaching beyond the boundaries which they have occupied from the beginning, just as if they had laws established by these royal atoms.

‘Yet these do not rule over them: for how could they, that are non-existent? But listen to the oracles of God:[6] “In the judgement of the Lord are His works from the beginning; and from the making of them He disposed the parts thereof. He garnished His works for ever, and the beginnings of them unto their generations.”’

And after a few sentences he says:

‘Or what phalanx ever marched across the level ground in such good order, none running on ahead, none falling out of rank, none blocking the way, nor lagging behind his company, as in even ranks and shield to shield the stars move ever onward, that continuous, undivided, unconfused, unhindered host?

‘Nevertheless, by inclinations and sidelong deviations, certain obscure changes of their course occur. And yet those who have given attention to these matters always watch for the right times and foresee the places from which they each rise. Let then the anatomists of the atoms, and dividers of the indivisible, and compounders of the uncompounded, and definers of the infinite, tell us whence comes the simultaneous circular revolution and periodical return of the heavenly bodies, wherein it is not merely one single conglomeration of atoms that has been thus casually hurled out as from a sling, but all this great circular choir moving evenly in rhythm, and whirling round together. And whence comes it, that this vast multitude of fellow travellers without arrangement, without purpose, and without knowledge of each other, have returned together? Rightly did the prophet class it among things impossible and unexampled that even two strangers should run together: “Shall two,” he says, “walk together at all, except they have known each other?’” [7]

After speaking thus, and adding numberless other remarks to these, he next discusses the question at length by arguments drawn from the particular elements of the universe, and from the living beings of all kinds included in them, and moreover from the nature of man. And by adding yet a few of these arguments to those which have been mentioned, I shall bring the present subject to an end.