Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

64 /-27 to /-28


must find something with greater authority which could all on its own
refute what is false by means of what is true. But what should be given
greater authority than the senses? Will reason, which derives from a
false sense-perception, be able to contradict them, when it is completely
derived from the senses? And if they are not true, all of reason becomes
false as well. Will the ears be able to criticize the eyes, or the eyes the
touch? Furthermore, will the taste organs of the mouth quarrel with the
touch, or will the nose confute it, or the eyes disprove it? In my view,
this is not so. For each sense has been allotted its own separate jurisdiction,
its own distinct power. And so it is necessary that we separately perceive
what is soft and cold or hot and separately perceive the various colours
and see the features which accompany colour. Similarly the mouth's taste
is separate, and odours come to be separately, and sounds too are separate.
And so it is necessary that one set of senses not be able to refute another.
Nor, moreover, will they be able to criticize themselves, since they will
at all times have to command equal confidence.


On the Nature of Things: 2.216-293 excerpts [1-28]



  1. On this topic I want you to learn this too, that when the atoms
    move straight down through the void by their own weight, they deflect
    a bit in space at a quite uncertain time and in uncertain places, just
    enough that you could say that their motion had changed. But if they
    were not in the habit of swerving, they would all fall straight down
    through the depths of the void, like drops of rain, and no collision would
    occur, nor would any blow be produced among the atoms. In that case,
    nature would never have produced anything.

  2. And if by chance someone thinks that heavier atoms, in virtue
    of their more rapid motion straight through the void, could fall from
    above on the lighter atoms, and that in this way the blows which generate
    the productive motions could be produced, he has strayed very far from
    the true account. For everything which falls through water or light air
    must fall at a speed proportional to their weights, simply because the
    bulk of the water and the fine nature of the air can hardly delay each
    thing equally, but yield more quickly to the heavier bodies, being over-
    whelmed by them. But by contrast, at no time and in no place can the
    empty void resist any thing, but it must, as its nature demands, go on
    yielding to it. Therefore, everything must move at equal speed through
    the inactive void, though they are not driven by equal weights. Therefore,
    heavier atoms can never fall upon lighter atoms from above, nor can they
    by themselves generate blows which will produce change in the motions
    through which nature produces things. Again and again, that is why it

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