Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/41

 On Lucretius. 31 of a nature the least conceivable, and never has existed apart by itself, and never hereafter will be able so to exist, since it is ipsum, airo Kdff avro, essentially part of the other, i. e. the atom." The atom, he goes on to say, consists of such cacumina, not brought together, but which have existed side by side from all eternity. "First one part, then another, and still another like part in fixed order," t$qs, as Epicurus says, "fill up in close- serried mass the nature of the atom." And since these parts cannot exist alone, they must necessarily adhere inseparably; so far therefore from shewing that atoms are destructible, this is only another proof that they are of solid singleness, that "they closely cohere, massed together of parts which are the least conceivable, not formed from a bringing together of those parts (illarum), but, rather, strong in everlasting singleness." He then goes on to say, that unless there be such a minimum, or so- called part of an atom, which cannot exist alone, there will be no limit to the division of things. " But (623) since reason protests against this, you must admit that points exist so small as to be possessed of no parts, and which are of a nature the least conceivable," i.e. which cannot have an independent ex- istence, " and since such points (ea) exist, those primal elements too," viz. the atoms of which these minima are part, " you must allow to be solid and everlasting. Again, (si, not m, which ruins the sensed if nature were to reduce all things into parts the least conceivable," i. e. go beyond the atom in her subdivision of things, "she could reproduce nothing out of them, because things which have no parts (nullis not multis) cannot possess the quali- ties, which generating matter must possess, the varios con- neocus" &c. ; and which the atoms of Lucretius do possess. Lu- cretius nexts proceeds to refute the doctrine of Heraclitus, adopted by the [Stoics, and therefore hateful to an Epicurean, that fire is the primary material of all things. Now the altera- tions introduced into the above passage by all editors from Lambinus downwards (the learned marginal annotator of one of the Florentine MSS. of whom I have spoken above, understands the general drift of the argument) destroy all connexion between it and the succeeding passage. Quapropter, Lucretius says (635), " Wherefore they who believe that the universe consists of fire alone, are widely mistaken. At the head of whom comes Heraclitus to do battle, famous for his obscurity rather among