“Take the bright, pure color of the sky and all
that it holds within it, the planets wandering here and there,
the moon and the gleam of the sun with its luminous light.
If all of these were now for the first time presented to mortals,
if unexpectedly they were suddenly presented to them, what would be more
wondrous to tell of than these things, or which the nations
would before have dared less to believe would come to be?
Nothing, I suppose: so wondrous would this sight have been.
Yet consider how nobody now, jaded by seeing it so much,
thinks it worth gazing up into the brilliant regions of the sky!
Therefore stop being scared off by newness alone.
Don’t spit reason from your mind, but rather with sharp
judgement weigh things carefully, and if they seem true to you,
put up your hands, if it is false, take up arms against it.
For the mind, since the totality of space is infinite outside beyond
these walls of the world, seeks an explanation about what lies
beyond there, out where the mind desires to see,
and where the projection of the mind flies alone and free.”
—Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
