Furthermore Without fixed annual seasons for the rain Earth could not put her gladdening produce forth, Nor yet, if kept apart from nourishment, Could living creatures propagate their kind Or sustain life: so that with greater reason You may think many things have many atoms In common, as we see that different words Have common letters, than that anything Can come to being without first elements. Again, why could not nature have produced Men of such mighty bulk, that they could wade Through the deep places of the sea, or rend Huge mountains with their hands, or in one life Overpass many living generations, If not because there has been set apart A changeless substance for begetting things, And what can thence arise is predetermined? Therefore we must confess this truth, that nothing Can come from nothing, since seed is required For each thing, out of which it may be born And lift itself into the air’s soft breezes. Lastly, since it is evident that tilled lands Excel the untilled, and yield to labouring hands A richer harvest, we may thence infer That in the earth there must be primal atoms, And these, labouring its soil, we stimulate To rise, when with the coulter we turn up The fertile clods. But if none such existed, We should see all things without toil of ours Spring forth far richer of their own accord. Furthermore nature dissolves each form back Into its own first particles, nor ever Annihilates things. For if aught could be mortal In all its parts, then it might from our eyes Be snatched away to perish suddenly. For there would be no need of any force To cause disruption of its parts, and loosen Their fastenings. But in fact each is composed Of everlasting seeds; so till some force Arrives that with a blow can shatter things To pieces, or can penetrate within Their empty spaces, and so break them up, Nature will not permit the dissolution Of anything to be seen. Again, if time Utterly destroys, consuming all the substance Of whatsoever it removes from sight Through lapse of ages, out of what does Venus Bring back into the light of life the race Of living creatures each after its kind? Or, once brought back, whence does the daedal earth Feed and increase them, giving nourishment To each after its kind? Whence do its own Fountains and far-drawn rivers from without Keep full the sea? Whence does the ether feed The stars? For infinite time and lapse of days Surely must long since have devoured all things Formed of a body that must die. But if Throughout that period of time long past Those atoms have existed out of which This universe of things has been composed And recomposed, ’tis plain they are possessed Of an immortal nature: none of them Therefore can turn to nothing. Then again