12 Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Book II (Lines 842–1174)

1. Module Introduction: The Enduring Magic of Lucretius

This module examines the concluding movements of Book II of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, a text that stands as a testament to the power of independent reason and scientific speculation. In his 1924 foreword to the Diels edition, Albert Einstein characterized Lucretius as an “independent man” who, despite lacking the empirical data of modern science, possessed a profound “scientific and speculative curiosity.” Lucretius’s genius lies in his ability to imagine a world governed not by the caprice of gods, but by the “causal connectedness of everything.”

The physical transmission of this philosophy is equally remarkable. Naturalist David Attenborough identifies the 1515 Aldine edition, printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius, as a vital milestone. This edition was the Renaissance equivalent of a “Penguin paperback”—a portable, elegant volume set in italic script that allowed classical wisdom to travel in the pockets of scholars. Attenborough describes such books as “memes” in the Dawkinsian sense: vessels of human experience and wisdom embedded and handed down outside the biological body across generations.

“The work of Lucretius will work its magic on anyone who does not completely wrap himself in the spirit of our time and, in particular, occasionally feels like a spectator of the intellectual attitude of his contemporaries. One sees here how an independent man equipped with lively senses and reasoning, endowed with scientific and speculative curiosity… imagines the world.” — Albert Einstein, 1924

“One of my most precious books is Lucretius. It was published in Venice in 1515 by Aldus Manutius, who was a Venice printer who published the equivalent of Penguin in paperbacks. All great classical authors, or most of them, were published by Aldus Manutius in a small book in a wonderfully elegant italic script typeface… they are things in which the human experience is embedded and handed down from generation to generation, outside the body.” — David Attenborough, 2014

2. Part I: The Colorless Atom (Lines 842–864)

ATOMOS NEC COLOREM NEC ODOREM NEC SVCVM NEC FRIGVS NEC CALOREM HABERE (841a)

3. Part II: The Emergence of Sensation (Lines 865–1057)

DE INSENSILI SENSILE GIGNI (864a)

Philological Note Albert Einstein observed that Lucretius ascribes only “geometric-mechanical” qualities to atoms. According to this worldview, qualities such as “warmth, coldness, color, odor, [and] taste” are not inherent in the atoms themselves but are instead the results of the specific movements and configurations of these atoms. Sensation is thus an emergent property of matter in motion.

4. Part III: The Infinity of Worlds (Lines 1058–1104)

APIROS MVNDOS (1057a)

Lucretius places a “firm confidence” in the “regular motion of immutable atoms” as the foundational proof for the existence of infinite world-systems. He argues that since matter and space are infinite, the accidental collisions of atoms must necessarily produce other worlds beyond our own.

5. Part IV: The Birth and Multiplicity of Worlds (Lines 1105–1143)

MVNDVM NATVM ET MVLTOS SIMILIS (1104a)

The Mechanical Worldview

Einstein notes that Lucretius, as a “faithful disciple of Democritus and Epicurus,” was guided by the need to persuade his readers of the atomistic-mechanical worldview. While his stated goal was the liberation of humanity from religious fear, the text’s underlying focus remains the intelligibility of the world through the causal connectedness of atoms.

6. Part V: The Aging Universe (Lines 1144–1174)

IAM SENEM MVNDVM ET OMNIA PVSILLA NASCI (1143a)

The poet concludes by dismantling the myth of a “golden age,” arguing instead that the “flaming walls of the universe” (flammantia moenia mundi) and the earth itself are subject to the same mechanical laws of addition and eventual loss that govern all matter.

Critical Apparatus for Book II

Testimonia

• Cicero (Ad Quintum fr. II 9,3): Notes that the poems of Lucretius have “many flashes of genius, yet much art.”
• Cornelius Nepos (Attic. 12,4): Groups Lucretius with Catullus as the most elegant poets of the age.
• Vitruvius (IX Praef. 16): Describes Lucretius as one who disputes “of the nature of things” (de rerum natura).
• Ovid (Amor. I 15, 22): Predicts the “sublime” verses of Lucretius will only perish when the world itself ends.
• Seneca (Ep. ad Luc. 110,6): Cites Lucretius on the confusion of the mind (animi confusio).
• Quintilian (X 1,87): Describes Lucretius as “elegant in his own matter, but difficult.”
• Jerome (Chron.): Records the tradition that Lucretius composed his books during “intervals of insanity” and that Cicero corrected them.

Conspectus Siglorum

• O (Oblongus): Codex Leidensis Vossianus Lat. Fol. 30 (9th Century).
• Q (Quadratus): Codex Leidensis Vossianus Quadratus 94 (9th Century).
• G (Gottorpienses): Schedae Haunienses (8 fragments from the 9th Century).
• V (Vindobonenses): Schedae Vindobonenses priores, folios 9–14.
• U (Vindobonenses): Schedae Vindobonenses posteriores, folios 15–18.

Note on Schedae Vindobonenses (V and U)

These fragments are of primary importance for the lines covered in this module. The manuscript evidence for Book II, lines 642–1174, relies heavily on the Vindobonenses (V), specifically Folios 9 through 11. Folio 9v contains the transition to the discussion of the colorless atom (841a), while Folios 11r and 11v preserve the concluding imagery of the aging world and the exhausted earth.

Technical Metadata for Pressbooks

• Latin Text: Hermann Diels, T. Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura, 1923 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung).
• Foreword Context: Albert Einstein, 1924.
• Digital Catalog Reference: SFU Library Aldine Collection (1515 Venice Edition by Aldus Manutius).