Certainly it was no design of the atoms to place themselves in a particular order, nor did they decide what motions each should have. But atoms were struck with blows in many ways and carried along by their own weight from infinite times up to the present.
LucretiusViolence and wrong enclose all who commit them in their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they begin.
LucretiusNo single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings - the things thus grow Until we know them and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.
LucretiusSo, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view, and reason raises it up into the shores of light.
LucretiusAt this stage you must admit that whatever is seen to be sentient is nevertheless composed of atoms that are insentient. The phenomena open to our observation so not contradict this conclusion or conflict with it. Rather they lead us by the hand and compel us to believe that the animate is born, as I maintain, of the insentient.
Lucretius