BRAHMIN.—I understand you. You mean, that a gardener might obtain clear sunshine weather, at a time which God had ordained from all eternity to produce rains; and that a pilot should have an easterly wind, when a westerly wind ought to refresh the earth, as well as the seas? My good father, to pray as we ought is to submit one’s self wholly to Providence. So good evening to you. Destiny requires I should now visit my Brahminess.
JESUIT.—And my free-will urges me to give a lesson to a young scholar.
DIALOGUES BETWEEN LUCRETIUS AND POSIDONIUS.
FIRST COLLOQUY.
POSIDONIUS.—Your poetry is sometimes admirable; but the philosophy of Epicurus is, in my opinion, very bad.
LUCRETIUS.—What! will you not allow that the atoms, of their own accord, disposed themselves in such a manner as to produce the universe?
POSIDONIUS.—We mathematicians can admit nothing but what is proved by incontestable principles.
LUCRETIUS.—My principles are so.
Ex nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti.
Tangere enim & tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res.