This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...soul could be examined, the quarta natura, owing to the excessive smallness of its atoms, would be the last to be reached by analysis. Lucr. does not mean that it is more remote than the other substances from the surface of the body. For this sense of infra cf. iv 112, where it is said of atoms generally, sunt infra nostras sensus. 276--281. These lines explain the phrase anima est animae: they completely upset the theory, adopted by many, that the quarta natnra is confined to the animus. As, says Lucr., the soul permeates the whole body but, being made of small atoms, is elusive, so the quarta natura permeates the whole soul (and therefore the body), but is elusive for the same reason: thus it is to the soul what the soul is to the body. 281. domlnatur corpora toto, 'isof paramount importance throughout the whole body.' The same phrase was used (l. 138) of the animus; and for this reason the erroneous inference has been drawn that the quarta natura is confined to the animus. The dominium of the anima is an effective occupation of the whole body; the dominium of the animus is rule carried on from a central position. 282. consimili ratione: just in the same way the three other substances are inextricably mixed up with one another. 283. commixta: neut. plur.: see n. to l. 66: the emphasis falls on this word, not on vigeant. 284. 'And that one should be (continually) more concealed or more prominent than another': i.e. all are equally concealed and equally prominent. Lucr. is trying to express a very difficult notion. He seems to mean: as the quarta natura hides behind the other three, owing to its composition, so each of them is constantly hiding behind the others, with the result that no one is more prominent than any other. allis may be either dat. after su...