• First of all, that nothing is created out of that which does not exist¹: for if it were, everything would be created out of everything with no need of seeds.
• And again, if that which disappears were destroyed into that which did not exist, all things would have perished, since that into which they were dissolved would not exist.
• Furthermore, the universe always was such as it is now, and always will be the same. For there is nothing into which it changes: for outside the universe there is nothing which could come into it and bring about the change.
• That bodies exist, sense itself witnesses in the experience of all men, and in accordance with the evidence of sense we must of necessity judge of the imperceptible by reasoning, as I have already said.
• And if there were not that which we term void and place and intangible existence, bodies would have nowhere to exist and nothing through which to move, as they are seen to move.
• And besides these two, nothing can even be thought of either by conception or on the analogy of things conceivable such as could be grasped as whole existences and not spoken of as the accidents or properties of such existences.
• Furthermore, among bodies some are compounds, and others those of which compounds are formed.
• And these latter are indivisible and unalterable (if, that is, all things are not to be destroyed into the non-existent, but something permanent is to remain behind at the dissolution of compounds): they are completely solid in nature, and can by no means be dissolved in any part.
• So it must needs be that the first beginnings are indivisible corporeal existences.

Amazing! Remember that Epicurus derived these positions using only his mind and no modern scientific data. This example of the Epic Approach represents the truly magnificent capacity of the human mind. And while Epicurus and other atomists were ridiculed for their ideas at the time, of course we know now that they were essentially correct.

¹ Similar in formulation to Einstein’s “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”