Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam.
The apprehension of this principle—a principle common to all the ontological systems of antiquity—is the first step in the enquiry, as to what are the original substances out of which all creation comes into being and is maintained. The proof of this principle is the manifest order and causation recognisable in the world. If things could arise out of nothing, all existence would be confused and capricious. The regularity of Nature subsists—
Materies quia rebus reddita certast
Gignundis e qua constat quid possit oriri.
The complement of this first principle is the proposition that no thing is annihilated, but all existences are resolved into their ultimate elements. As the first is a necessary inference from the existence of universal order, the second is proved by the perpetuity of creation and the observed transformation of things into one another.
The original substances out of which all things are produced, and into which they are ultimately resolved, are found to be certain primordial particles of matter or atoms, which are called by various names—'materies,' 'genitalia corpora,' 'semina rerum,' 'corpora prima.' Some of these names, it may be observed, are expressive not only of their primordial character, but also of a germinative or productive power. The objection that these atoms are invisible to our senses is met by showing that there are many invisible forces acting in Nature, the effects of which prove that they must be bodies,—
Corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res.
In addition to bodily substance there must also be vacuum or space; otherwise there could be no motion in the universe, and without motion nothing could come into being. The existence of matter is proved by our senses, of vacuum by the necessity of there being space for matter to move in, and also by the varying density of bodies. But besides body and vacuum there is no other absolute substance—
Ergo praeter inane et corpora tertia per se
Nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqui.[379]