LUCRETIUS.—What! will you not allow that the atoms, of their own accord, disposed themselves in such a manner as to produce the universe? POSIDONIUS.—We mathematicians can admit nothing but what is proved by incontestable principles. LUCRETIUS.—My principles are so. _Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti._ _Tangere enim & tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res._ From nothing nought can spring, to nothing nought return. Nought but a body can a body touch. POSIDONIUS.—Should I grant you these principles, and even your atoms and your vacuum, you can no more persuade me that the universe put itself into the admirable order in which we now behold it, than if you were to tell the Romans that the armillary sphere composed by Posidonius made itself. LUCRETIUS.—But who then could make the world? POSIDONIUS.—An intelligent Being, much more superior to the world and to me than I am to the brass of which I made my sphere. LUCRETIUS.—How can you, who admit nothing but what is evident, acknowledge a principle of which you have not the least idea? POSIDONIUS.—In the same manner as, before I knew you, I judged that your book was the work of a man of genius. LUCRETIUS.—You allow that nature is eternal, and exists because it does exist. Now if it exists by its own power, why may it not, by the same power, have formed suns, and worlds, and plants, and animals, and men? POSIDONIUS.—All the ancient philosophers have supposed matter to be eternal, but have never proved it to be really so; and even allowing it to be eternal, it would by no means follow that it could form works in which there are so many striking proofs of wisdom and design. Suppose this stone to be eternal if you will, you can never persuade me that it could have composed the “Iliad” of Homer. LUCRETIUS.—No: a stone could never have composed the “Iliad,” any more than it could have produced a horse: but matter organized in process of time, and become bones, flesh, and blood, will produce a horse; and organized more finely, will produce the “Iliad.” POSIDONIUS.—You suppose all this without any proof; and I ought to admit nothing without proof. I will give you bones, flesh, and blood, ready made, and will leave you and all the Epicureans in the world to make your best of them. Will you only consent to this alternative: to be put in possession of the whole Roman Empire, if, with all the ingredients ready prepared, you produce a horse, and to be hanged if you fail in the attempt? LUCRETIUS.—No; that surpasses my power, but not the power of nature. It requires millions of ages for nature, after having passed through all the possible forms, to arrive at last at the only one which can produce living beings.