One last thought, perhaps. From the very beginning, at the onset of that infamous St Jerome story of the love potion, this has been our claim: Lucretian atomism produced, in a formative sense, major portions of Deleuze's thinking and writing. Over the last few chapters, we have filled in the details of the Deleuze-Lucretius encounter. As we conclude, let us recapitulate the itinerary of that story.

We first saw how we could use the Deleuzean theory of ideas to understand Lucretian atomism as more than just a stubborn insistence on an austere materialist philosophy. Understood as a theory of the atomic idea, we saw that it is, instead, a sophisticated account of the immanent production of the diversity of the nature without recourse to transcendent forms or principles. Out of the elements, relations and singular points that structured the atomic realm, the unlimited diversity of forms, qualities and extensities emerged. In this way, the atomic idea accounted for the individuations or actualisations of the world. One particular individuation that we focused on was the sensing, thinking and acting Epicurean subject. Since atomism aimed to develop a completely immanent materialist philosophical theory, it had to account for the production of creatures that populate the atomic worlds. The same holds for Deleuze. In different places, we saw how many of the features of the account of the atomic idea and the production of the world resonate in Deleuze's positions. While there are clear parallels and similarities among their various accounts, we have done more than identify a mere analogical relationship between Lucretius and Deleuze. Our claim is that Lucretian atomic theory provoked the construction of many of the defining features of Deleuze's early thought, and each chapter has shown how Lucretian atomism resonates in Deleuze's metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Beneath these shared theoretical similarities, we have argued, there is a productive encounter.

With minds refreshed, we can now address some lingering questions. Such as this: What do we mean when we claim that Lucretian atomism produced portions of Deleuzeanism? To answer this question, we should hone in on the term we have used to characterise this relationship: an ‘encounter’.