077 · Pierre De Lattre

Latin original

English version

Principium cuius hinc nobis exordia sumet,
nullam rem e nihilo gigni diuinitus umquam.
Quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnis,
quod multa in terris fieri caeloque tuentur,
quorum operum causas nulla ratione uidere
possunt ac fieri diuino numine rentur.

Quas ob res ubi uiderimus nil posse creari
de nihilo, tum quod sequimur iam rectius inde
perspiciemus, et unde queat res quaeque creari
et quo quaeque modo fiant opera sine diuom.

Titus Lucretius Carus,
De rerum natura,
Liber I

There is one simple point we have to start from:
The gods never made a single thing out of nothing.
Because, if one things frightens people, it is
that so much happens, on earth and out in space,
the reasons for which seem somehow to escape them,
and they fill in the gap by putting it down to the gods.

That is why, once we know that nothing can come from nothing,
we are on the right track already and likely to see
how everything starts and goes on in an ordered sequence
and nothing at all is merely the work of the gods.

Lucretius,
On the Nature of Things,
Book I