And it seems to me, indeed, that Empedocles did not aim in this place at the disturbing the common form of expression, but that he really, as it has been said, had a controversy about generation from things that have no being, which some call Nature. Which he manifestly shows by these verses: Fools, and of little thought, we well may deem Those, who so silly are as to esteem That what ne’er was may now engendered be, And that what is may perish utterly. For these are the words of one who cries loud enough to those which have ears, that he takes not away generation, but procreation from nothing; nor corruption, but total destruction, that is, reduction to nothing. For to him who would not so savagely and foolishly but more gently calumniate, the following verses might give a colorable occasion of charging Empedocles with the contrary, when he says: No prudent man can e’er into his mind Admit that, whilst men living here on earth (Which only life they call) both fortunes find, They being have, but that before the birth They nothing were, nor shall be when once dead. For these are not the expressions of a man who denies those that are born to be, but rather of him who holds those to be that are not yet born or that are already dead. And Colotes also does not altogether accuse him of this, but says that according to his opinion we shall never be sick, never wounded. But how is it possible, that he who affirms men to have being both before their life and after their death, and during their life to find both fortunes (or to be accompanied both by good and evil), should not leave them the power to suffer? Who then are they, O Colotes, that are endued with this privilege never to be wounded, never to be sick? Even you yourselves, who are composed of atoms and voidness, neither of which, you say, has any sense. Now there is no great hurt in this; but the worst is, you have nothing left that can cause you pleasure, seeing an atom is not capable to receive those things which are to effect it, and voidness cannot be affected by them.