POSIDONIUS.—We have already agreed, in our first colloquy, that it is extremely improbable that a rock could compose the “Iliad.” Will a ray of the sun be more capable of composing it? Suppose this ray a hundred thousand times more subtile and rapid than usual, will this light, or this tenuity of parts, produce thoughts and sentiments?
LUCRETIUS.—Perhaps it may, when placed in organs properly prepared.
POSIDONIUS.—You are perpetually reduced to your perhaps. Fire, of itself, is no more capable of thinking than ice. Should I suppose that it is fire that thinks, perceives, and wills in you, you would then be forced to acknowledge that it is not by its own virtue that it has either will, thought, or perception.
LUCRETIUS.—No; these sensations will be produced not by its own virtue, but by the assemblage of the fire, and of my organs.
POSIDONIUS.—How can you imagine that two bodies, neither of which can think apart, should be able to produce thought, when joined together?
LUCRETIUS.—In the same manner as a tree and earth, when taken separately, do not produce fruit, but do so when the tree is planted in the earth.
POSIDONIUS.—The comparison is only specious. This tree has in it the seeds of fruit: we plainly perceive them in the buds, and the moisture of the earth unfolds the substance of these fruits. Fire, therefore, must possess in itself the seeds of thought, and the organs of the body serve only to develop these seeds.
LUCRETIUS.—And do you find anything impossible in this?
POSIDONIUS.—I find that this fire, this highly refined matter, is as devoid of the faculty of thinking as a stone. The production of a being must have something similar to that which produced it; but thought, will, and perception have nothing similar to fiery matter.
LUCRETIUS.—Two bodies, struck against each other, produce motion, and yet this motion has nothing similar to the two bodies; it has none of their three dimensions, nor has it any figure. A being, therefore, may have nothing similar to that which produced it, and, in consequence, thought may spring from an assemblage of two bodies which have no thought.