This too you cannot possibly believe, That there are holy abodes of deities Anywhere in the world. For so tenuous Is the nature of gods, and from our senses So far withdrawn, that hardly can the mind Imagine it. And seeing that hitherto It has eluded touch or blow of hands, It must touch nothing which for us is tangible: For naught can touch that may not itself be touched. So even their abodes must be unlike Our own, tenuous as their bodies are. All this hereafter I will prove to you By plentiful argument. Further, to say That for the sake of mankind the gods willed To frame the wondrous nature of the world, And that on this account we ought to extol Their handiwork as worthy of all praise, And to believe that it will prove eternal And indestructible, and to think it sin Ever by any effort to disturb What by the ancient wisdom of the gods Has been established everlastingly For mankind’s benefit, or by argument To assail and overthrow it utterly From top to bottom, and to invent besides Other such errors--all this, Memmius, Is folly. For what advantage could our thanks Bestow upon immortal and blessed beings That for our sakes they should bestir themselves To perform any task? Or what new fact Could have induced them, tranquil hitherto, After so long to change their former life? For it seems fitting he should take delight In a new state of things, to whom the old Was painful: but for him whom in past times, While he was living in felicity, No evil had befallen, for such a one What could have kindled a desire for change? Must we imagine that their life lay prostrate In darkness and in misery, till the birth And origin of things first dawned upon them? Besides, what evil had it been to us Not to have been created? For whoever Has once been born, must wish to abide in life So long as luring pleasure bids him stay: But one who has never tasted the love of life, Nor even been numbered in life’s ranks, what harm Were it for him not to have been created? Again whence first was implanted in the gods A pattern for begetting things? Whence too The preconception of what men should be, So that they knew and imaged in their minds What they desired to make? And by what means Could they have ever ascertained the energy Latent in primal atoms, or what forms Might be produced by changes in their order, Unless Nature herself had given them first A sample of creation? For indeed These primal atoms in such multitudes And in so many ways, through infinite time Impelled by blows and moved by their own weight, Have been borne onward so incessantly, Uniting in every way and making trial Of every shape they could combine to form, That ’tis not strange if they have also fallen