And the more you perceive all the bodies of matter tossing about, bring it to mind that there is no lowest point in the whole universe, nor have the first-bodies any place where they may come to rest, since I have shown in many words, and it has been proved by true reasoning, that space spreads out without bound or limit, immeasurable towards every quarter everywhere. For when quickly, again and again, they have met and clashed together, it comes to pass that they leap asunder at once this way and that for indeed it is not strange, since they are most hard with solid heavy bodies, and nothing bars them from behind. For since they wander through the void, it must needs be that all the first-beginnings of things move on either by their own weight or sometimes by the blow of another. If you think that the first-beginnings of things can stay still, and by staying still beget new movements in things, you stray very far away from true reasoning. The following extracts are taken from Book II:. Lucretius was essentially a poet who wrote the important work On the Nature of Things.
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