Language and atomic theory in Lucretius

Author(s): Alexander Dalzell

Source: Hermathena, No. 143, In honor of D. E. W. Wormell (Winter 1987), pp. 19-28
Published by: Trinity College Dublin
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23040871
Accessed: 04-02-2016 20:48 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Trinity College Dublin is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hermathena.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Language and atomic theory in
Lucretius

by Alexander Dalzell

It is now almost half a century since the publication of Paul

Friedlander's influential paper on the 'atomistic' nature of Lucre
tius' language.1 The significant role which alliteration and asson
ance play in the poetry of Lucretius seemed to Friedlander to require
an explanation, and that explanation he sought in the poet's theory
of language. Friedlander was well aware that puns and word-play
are a characteristic feature of much of the literature of the Roman
Republic andthat in demonstrating a fondness for purely verbal
effects Lucretius did not differ much from many of his predecessors
and contemporaries. But what, in Friedlander's view, set Lucretius
apart from other writers was the conscious way in which he con
nected stylistic practice with atomic doctrine. Five times in the first
two books of the De rerum natura the arrangement of atoms in an
object is compared to the arrangement of letters in a word. For
Friedlander this is not just an apt illustration of atomic doctrine,
but a sort of manifesto about the nature of language — 'realities
about language and nature', is how he describes it. In this paper I
want to examine the notion of an 'atomistic doctrine of language',
and to consider what evidence there is that Lucretius held it.
There is an obvious and simple sense in which all language is
'atomic', since words are created from the basic units of the alpha
bet. But clearly Friedlander meant more than this. He wanted to
establish a logical connection between words of similar sound and
he supported this contention with the Epicurean notion of the
'natural' origin of language. What Epicurus meant by this has been
the subject of much discussion. Friedlander does not enter into the
debate, but he shows how he understands the theory to operate in
practice by citing instances where similarity of meaning is reinforced
by similarity of sound: in other words, onomatopaeic effects and

etymological relationships prove that language is in some sense

'natural.' There can be no doubt that Lucretius was intrigued by
the etymological relationships of words, and his poem is full of
such examples of word-play as mater/terra,flamen/fiumen,callida . . .
Calliope and the like. Verbal effects of this sort are an important
element in the texture of the poem. But for Friedlander they are
19

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 A. Dalzell

more than that; they are also evidence of a peculiarly Epicurean

way of looking at language.
On the face of it this is an improbable theory. It was the Stoics,
not the Epicureans, who were most fascinated with etymology and
who backed up their speculations with a rational theory of language.
Moreover Lucretius' comparison of the atoms with the letters of the
alphabet concentrates, as we shall see, on the way in which the
same letters can be rearranged to form different words. This is how
an acrostic works, but it is not the usual pattern for etymologies.
There is no reason to expect that 'dog' and 'god' will be related
because they are composed of the same letters. Friedlander himself
seems uneasy about his own thesis, for he admits it will not account
for all examples of word-play in Lucretius ('Our interpretation may
and perhaps must overemphasize the facts,' p.24).
The first occurrence in Lucretius of the comparison between
atoms and the letters of the alphabet is at i. 196-198:

ut potius multis communia corpora rebus

multa putes esse, ut verbis elementa videmus,
quam sine principiis ullam rem existere posse.

Lucretius is defending the basic principle on which his physical

theory is founded, that nothing arises from nothing. He argues that
everything must have a 'seed' from which it is created and by means
of which it is able to increase. Thus, for example, crops need rain
and animals need food in order to grow. The point of the analogy
is not easy to discern. Bailey describes these lines as a 'digression,
almost a parenthesis, irrelevant to the main argument.' In fact it is
not so much a digression as an anticipation; for the point which
Lucretius makes is developed later on with the help of the same
analogy (see ii. 589-599, 660-699). But in Book 1 the reader must
be content with the merest sketch of an argument. The fact that the
poet can introduce the letter analogy so elliptically is proof, if that
were needed, that we are dealing with a traditional illustration
borrowed from the writings of the philosophers. From such a
compressed reference it is impossible to draw any conclusions about
the poet's theory of language. All that Lucretius says is that many
things share the same atomic shapes just as words share the same
letters.
The second example is more helpful:

nimirum quia multa modis communia multis

20

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Language and atomic theory in Lucretius

multarum rerum in rebus primordia mixta

sunt, ideo variis variae res rebus aluntur.

atque eadem magni refert primordia saepe

cum quibus et quali positura contineantur
et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque;
namque eadem caelum mare terras flumina solem
constituunt, eadem fruges arbusta animantis,
verum aliis alioque modo commixta moventur.

quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis

multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest
confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti.

(i. 814-26)

Here again we are dealing with the growth of plants and animals.
Empedocles, we are told, explained the phenomenon of growth by
his doctrine of the four elements. Lucretius counters with a re
statement of the atomist position. It is the atoms, he argues, which
are responsible for the growth of things and which in fact constitute
the Empedoclean elements themselves. Atoms combine and recom
bine in different patterns, just as the letters of the alphabet can
be rearranged in different patterns to form different words. The
emphasis throughout is on diversity. The same letters reappear in
words which 'differ in sound and meaning' {et re et sonitu distare
sonanti). There is no suggestion that such words are etymologically
related (though of course in particular instances they might be). It
is their distinctness, not their relatedness, which is stressed, and it is
distinctness which is essential for the argument if the extraordinary
diversity of the world is to be explained. Nothing in this passage
supports an 'atomistic' theory of language, if by that we mean a
logical relationship between words composed of similar elements.
The argument in this paragraph, as in the previous example, is
elliptical and difficult to follow. The problem arises in part from
the way in which Lucretius uses the comparison. Sometimes the
point of the analogy is that words have many common elements
(cf. multa elementa . . . communia, line 824); on other occasions the
emphasis is on limits: just as the whole vocabulary of a language is
generated from the letters of the alphabet, so all things are composed
of a limited number of atomic shapes. In this passage the notion of
'common elements' predominates, but both ideas are present. The
reader will not grasp the full force of the argument until he encoun
ters the doctrine of atomic shapes in Book 2. Giussani may be right
in supposing these lines a later addition to Book l.2
The third passage is the most important for Friedlander's thesis:

21

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 A. Dalzell

iamne vides igitur, paulo quod diximus ante,

permagni referre eadem primordia saepe
cum quibus et quali positura contineantur
et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque.
atque eadem paulo inter se mutata creare

ignis et lignum? quo pacto verba quoque ipsa

inter se paulo mutatis sunt elementis,
cum ligna atque ignis distincta voce notemus.

(i. 907-14)

In the previous passage the letter analogy was used against

Empedocles, here it is turned against Anaxagoras. Lucretius is
attacking the proposition that there is a portion of everything in
everything. The supporters of Anaxagoras, he tells us, explained
the sudden eruption of a forest fire by supposing that elements of
fire (along with elements of everything else) are always present in
a tree. Lucretius rejects this explanation and argues that the atoms
which form the tree can recombine to form fire, just as the letters
in the Latin word for 'wood' (lignum) can be rearranged (with some
additions and subtractions) to form the word for 'fire' (ignis). This
is a brilliant and witty adaptation of the traditional illustration,
and it comes closer than any of the other examples to supporting
the thesis which Friedlander wishes to defend. But even here it is
doubtful if we are intended to see a subtle point about the nature of
language. The only observation of a linguistic sort which Lucretius
makes on this passage is that ignis and lignum are 'distinct in sound'
(distincta voce). It is unlikely that he is suggesting an etymological
or 'natural' relationship between the two words. Traditional ety
mology had different theories about lignum. Varro (probably cor
rectly) derives it from lego (lignum is 'that which is gathered');3
Isidore suggests a connection with the Greek root Xuxv-.4 A few
lines earlier in the same passage (891-92) we are told that wood
produces not just fire, but ash and smoke as well. It is simply an
accident of language that lignum and ignis have three letters in
common, while nothing similar can be done with cinerem and fumum
(line 891). The theory of an 'atomistic doctrine of language' cannot
be supported with such evidence as this.
The remaining examples come from Book 2. The first of these
follows the long allegory of the Magna Mater:

quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis

multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necesse est

22

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Language and atomic theory in Lucretius

confiteare alia ex aliis constare elementis;

non quo multa parum communis littera currat
aut nulla inter se duo sint ex omnibus isdem,
sed quia non vulgo paria omnibus omnia constant.
sic aliis in rebus item ....
(ii. 688-95)

The argument to which these lines are attached runs as follows:

The earth is the mother of all things; since it nourishes sheep and
horses and oxen and many other creatures, it must contain elements
of many different kinds. Other things which change their form or
exhibit different qualities must also be composed of atoms of various
shapes. So in my verses, although there are many letters common
to many words, some words contain different letters and all are not
alike. This bald summary shows how awkwardly the analogy fits
its context. One can understand why Mueller bracketed the lines
and Giussani transposed them to follow 714. The language of the
passage is very similar to that of i. 823ff., but the thrust of the
argument is different. In the earlier paragraph it is the 'common
elements' in which Lucretius is primarily interested. Here he wants
to show that atoms exist in a great variety of shapes, and for this
the comparison with the Latin alphabet, with its 21 letters, is not
entirely apt. The poet wriggles somewhat uncomfortably: 'in my
verses there are letters common to words — and
many many yet
— not
you must admit that my verses are formed of different letters
but what they have many letters in common'! As we have seen
before, the analogy is being stretched to encompass two points at
the same time — the 'common elements' and the creation of diversity
out of a limited number of constituent parts. It is the second which
is most appropriate to the present context.
Finally, a short passage near the end of Book 2:

quin etiam refert nostris in versibus ipsis

cum quibus et quali sint ordine quaeque locata;
namque eadem caelum mare terras flumina solem

significant, eadem fruges arbusta animantis;

si non omnia sunt, at multo maxima pars est
consimilis; verum positura discrepitant res.
sic ipsis in rebus item. . . .
(ii. 1013-19)

Bailey described these lines as 'a patchwork passage, hastily com

posed by Lucretius as he was seized with the thought of using his
illustration once again.'5 Clearly solem and mare are not formed from

23

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 A. Dalzell

the same letters and lines 1015-6 will make sense only if eadem is
interpreted to include all the letters of the Latin alphabet. But in
that case it is difficult to construe the following couplet: 'If all (all
of what?) are not alike. . . Munro wanted to remove lines 1015
16 and Brieger and Giussani bracketed the whole passage. But
given the lack of precision with which Lucretius uses this analogy,
it is probably better to keep the text and to accept the illustration
as somewhat loosely applied. Once again there is a confusion
between the two uses of the analogy. The point of the comparison
is that the rearrangement of the atoms in the physical world is like
the rearrangement of the same (or almost the same) letters in a
word. But the examples cited in lines 1015-16 (like fruges and
animantis) have very few letters in common. Nor are the words
related in meaning. There is nothing here to suggest the matching
of sound and sense.
There is good reason to believe that the illustration which Lucre
tius uses in these passages goes back to the beginnings of atomism.
Aristotle employs the same illustration to clarify the argument of
Leucippus and Democritus, that atoms differ only in shape, order,
and position.6 As we have seen, Lucretius plays with the comparison
in a number of different ways, though the point of his argument is
not always clear; sometimes in fact it is so unclear that critics have
suspected textual difficulty. There are two main lessons which
Lucretius draws from the analogy, that the same elements in a
different order produce a different result, and that a limited number
of elements can produce a great variety of different shapes. These
two are not always sharply differentiated. But the point which is
stressed most frequently is that a rearrangement of the same, or

similar, elements produces something qualitatively different. Fried

lander's 'atomistic doctrine' would require a rearrangement of
similar letters to produce a similar or related result. But that is not
the point which the Lucretian analogy is designed to make.
None of this might matter very much if we were dealing
simply
with an intriguing theory to explain a stylistic preference. But there
is a larger issue which lurks in the background of this
inquiry. Those
who credit Lucretius with an 'atomistic' theory of claim
language
that the poet was not simply indulging an idiosyncratic interest,
but that the theory is solidly supported by the Epicurean doctrine
of the natural origin of language. The evidence for the Epicurean
position on this ancient and complex question is unfortunately
scanty and difficult to interpret. The matter has been much dis
cussed in recent years and there is no need to review all the

24

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Language and atomic theory in Lucretius

evidence again.7 But something must be said about our present

understanding of the issue in so far as it affects the 'atomistic theory
of language.'
Later tradition classed the Epicureans with those who held that
language arose by ((yuaig, not by 0SCJig, that is to say, that it was a
natural development, not something established by convention or
handed down by some benefactor, human or divine. But Epicurus'
position was more complicated and interesting than that. The most
important evidence is to be found in the Letter to Herodotus (75-76).
The text is difficult and in parts controversial, but the sense must
run something as follows:

So names were not at first deliberately assigned to things, but men, with
their different natures, had their own individual experiences and received
their own individual impressions which varied according to the different
tribes to which they belonged, and these experiences and impressions
caused them to exhale breath in their own way depending on the racial
differences which existed from place to place. Later, particular expressions
were upon by common consent in each tribe so as to make
agreed
their meanings less
ambiguous and more concise. And men who shared

knowledge, in introducing certain things which were unfamiliar, assigned

names to them, (?) sometimes being constrained by necessity and some
times selecting sounds by reason ....

Here Epicurus is describing three stages in the development of

language, only the first of which is exclusively 'natural.'8 At this
stage men utter sounds instinctively under the influence of their
environment and in response to feelings and sense impressions.
During the second stage they refine and correct these first attempts
at speech; the process of revision is deliberate, and new definitions
are arrived at 'by common agreement.' The third stage sees the
introduction of new words for new concepts. This is a complex
explanation of the origin of language in which both 'nature' and
'convention' have a part. It seems, however, that the emphasis
which Epicurus placed on the natural origin of language (stage 1)
made such a strong impact that subsequent discussions of the

Epicurean view concentrated on this stage of the process and

sometimes omitted any mention of the others.
Lucretius begins his account of the origin of language as follows

(v. 1028-29):

at varios linguae sonitus natura subegit

mittere et utilitas nomina rerum ....
expressit

25

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 A. Dalzell

This seems to distinguish two stages in the development of language,

a 'natural' stage in which sounds were uttered spontaneously and
a further stage in which 'utility produced the names for things.'
Various attempts have been made to relate Lucretius' account to
that of Epicurus. Some equate the two stages in this passage with
the first two stages of Epicurus; others, including Bailey, confine
Lucretius' account to the first stage only. But although the two
accounts are entirely consistent with one another, they do not fit
neatly together. Lucretius is approaching the problem from a
slightly different point of view. All he says is that men discovered
that they could produce sounds and then the obvious usefulness of
this fact resulted in the development of language. In this respect
language was like the other discoveries mentioned by Lucretius in
Book 5: nature first showed the way and nature's lessons were then
refined and improved upon through experience and reflection.
There was nothing teleological, or theological, about the process.
Of the three stages which Epicurus describes, the first is the most
important for our purpose. But what do we mean when we speak
of the natural origin of language? It would be helpful if we knew
more clearly how Epicurus conceived of man's first attempts at
speech. Were they simply groans and grunts, more or less inar
ticulate cries of pain and pleasure? Probus implies something of
the kind by comparing them with 'sneezing, coughing, bellowing,
barking, and moaning,'9 and Lucretius' analogy with the sounds of
animals may seem to point in the same direction (v. 1056-90). If
this was what Epicurus meant, then his view would not differ much
from that which we find in Diodorus Siculus (i.8.2), where the
first attempts at human speech are explicitly stated to have been
'unintelligible and indistinct.' But this can hardly be right; for the
sounds which Epicurus described were not simply the expression
of emotion, but were also related in some way to (jjavTao^ata, a
fact which led Vlastos to conclude that even at this first stage we
are dealing with a 'system of "natural" sounds which, though rough
and ready, is language in all essentials.10 Vlastos must surely be
right. However imperfect these first attempts at speech may have
been, they represent the beginnings of language, or rather of lan
guages, for the sounds which Epicurus describes differed from one
tribe to another. At the same time we must not exaggerate the
nature of this achievement, for we know that these first utterances
had to be clarified and made more concise. This process of refine
ment and correction did not take place until the second stage. There
can be no question of relating the earliest form of speech to the

26

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Language and atomic theory in Lucretius

instruction which Epicurus gives the philosopher in the Letter to

Herodotus 37-38 to 'grasp the underlying meanings of words' and
'to pay attention to the JtQcbxov evvor|[xa associated with each
utterance.'11 Clarity and precision were cardinal virtues in the
Epicurean canon: it is impossible to believe that Epicurus would
have wanted philosophical inquiry to be conducted in the bumbling
language of our primitive ancestors.
As Giussani pointed out long ago,12 neither Epicurus in the Letter
to Herodotus nor Lucretius in his discussion of language in Book 5
was interested in the relationship between words and things. What
they were attempting to do was to explain the origin of human
speech without having recourse to a teleological argument. Lan
guage, they believed, was 'natural' in the sense that it was a
spontaneous reaction to feelings and impressions. To utter sounds
was as natural to man as it was to animals, the only difference being
that man was capable of a wider and more expressive range and
could therefore construct the rudiments of a language. We cannot
say how or to what extent these sounds represented the feelings and
impressions which called them forth. We do know that they were
imprecise and that they differed according to the geographic position
of the various tribes. There is no reason to believe that Epicurus
accepted the Stoic view that names are naturally suited to things
or that he would have been much interested in the discussion in
Plato's Cratylus of the Tightness of names. Certainly there is no hint
of any such belief in the later tradition. Philodemus states bluntly,
'It is impossible to imitate things in words' and he warns us against
believing that 'words are in harmony with things.'13 Origen clearly
distinguished between Stoics and Epicureans in the role they assig
ned to nature. In a discussion of the different theories of the origin
of language, he deals first with those who believed that names
originated by thesis; then he continues:

... or it is possible, as the Stoics think, that language arose by nature,

the first sounds imitative of things — hence the origin of names and
being
hence also certain principles of etymology which the Stoics introduce; or,
as teaches in to the men of the Stoa, names come
Epicurus opposition
about by nature, when the first men burst forth with certain sounds

depending on the objects which they observed.14

Cleary Origen believed that it was the Stoics, not the Epicureans,
whose theory of language justified an interest in etymology.
It seems, then, that there is nothing, either in the Epicurean
theory of language or in the way in which Lucretius employs the

27

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 A. Dalzell

analogy between atoms and letters of the alphabet, to justify belief

in an 'atomistic doctrine of language,' if the phrase is anything more
than a pretentious way of stating the obvious. There are more
convincing explanations for the poet's interest in puns and ety
mologies. It is a persistent fault of academic criticism to take too
intellectual a view of poetry, to see it as a complex network of
conscious systems and structures. But for Lucretius poetry was the
medium of clarity and brightness, of charm and delight, of simplicity
and persuasion. There is nothing surprising in the fact that he
fastened on the alphabet analogy: it is only one of many instances
(and by no means the most striking and successful) where he took
over a traditional illustration from Greek philosophy and invested
it with a poetic life of its own. Many of the most impressive images
in the De rerum natura are developed out of the humdrum and
serviceable exempla of the philosophers. This was surely part of what
he meant by 'the honey on the lip of the cup.'

Notes

1. Paul Friedlander, 'Pattern of sound and atomistic theory in Lucretius,' AJP 62 (1941),
16-34. Soon after its publication, it received the approval of Cyril Bailey in his three-volume
edition of Lucretius, Titi Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex (Oxford, 1947), Prolegomena
pp. 158-159. Bailey thought the article threw 'a new light of considerable importance on the
whole subject.' Friedlander's thesis provides the intellectual framework for Jane Snyder's
interesting book, Puns and poetry in Lucretius' De rerumnatura (Amsterdam, 1980); and recently
C. J. Classen has reprinted Friedlander's paper in a collection of some of the most important
articles on Lucretius published during the past 80 years, Probleme der
Luktezfotschung (Hil
desheim, 1986).
2. Studi lucreziani (Milan, 1896), pp. 92-95.
3. Varro, De lingua latina vi. 66.
4. Etymologiae xvii. 6.25; 7.65; xix. 19.2.
5. Op. tit. (see n.l, above), Vol. 2, p. 958, introductory note to ii. 991-1022.
6. Metaphysica 985b 13-19. For the Atomists' use of the analogy see H. Diels, Elementum
(Leipzig, 1889), 9-14.
7. See in particular, C. W. Chilton, 'The Epicurean theory of the origin of
language,' AJP
83 (1962), 159-67; A. A. Long, 'Aisthesis, prolepsis and linguistic
theory in Epicurus,' BICS
18 (1971), 114-33; David Konstan, Some aspects of Epicurean psychology (Leiden,
1973), 44-50;
P. H. Schrijvers, 'La pensee de Lucrece sur l'origine du V 1019-1090),'
langage (DRN.
Mnemosyne 27 (1974), 337-64; David Sedley, 'Epicurus "On Nature Book xxviii,"' Cronache
Ercolanesi 3 (1973), 5-83; and Snyder, Op. cit (see n. 1 above), 11-30.
8. Some scholars prefer to think of two stages, the second of which embraces
stage 2 and
stage 3 of Epicurus' account. So, e.g., Sedley and, apparently, Gregory Vlastos, 'On the pre
history in Diodorus,' AJP 67 (1946), 51.
9. In Platonis Cratylum p. 9 (Boissonade).
10. Op. tit (see n. 8, above), 51-54.
11. Cf. D. J. Furley, Two studies in the Greek Atomists (Princeton, 1967), 204-5.
12. 'L'origine del linguaggio,' op. cit (see n. 2, above), 267-84.
13. Rhetorica 1. col. 5, p. 150 (Sudhaus); col. 16, p. 159 (Sudhaus), reading <ri>(uf>tova.
14. Contra Celsum 1.24, ed. M. Borret (Paris, 1967), 1.136 = H. Usener,
Epicurea (Reprinted
Stuttgart, 1966), p. 226.

28

This content downloaded from 131.170.6.51 on Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:48:03 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions