φύσις[1] is quite intelligible if we remember what was said of that word in the Introduction (§ VII.). The differences in shape, order, and position just referred to account for the "opposites," the "elements" being regarded rather as aggregates of these (πανσπερμίαι), as by Anaxagoras.[2]
175.The void. Leukippos affirmed the existence both of the Full and the Empty, terms which he may have borrowed from Melissos.[3] He had to assume empty space, which the Eleatics had denied, in order to make his explanation of the nature of body possible. Here again he is developing a Pythagorean view. The Pythagoreans had spoken of the void, which kept the units apart; but they had not distinguished it from atmospheric air (§ 53), which Empedokles had shown to be a corporeal substance (§ 107). Parmenides, indeed, had formed a clearer conception of space, but only to deny its reality. Leukippos started from this. He admitted, indeed, that space was not real, that is to say, corporeal; but he maintained that it existed all the same. He hardly, it is true, had words to express his discovery in; for the verb "to be" had hitherto been used by philosophers only of body. But he did his best to make his meaning clear by saying that "what is not" (in the old corporealist sense) "is" (in another sense) just as much as "what is." The void is as real as body.
176.Cosmology. It might seem a hopeless task to disentangle the cosmology of Leukippos from that of Demokritos, with which it is generally identified; but that very fact affords a valuable clue. No one later than Theophrastos was able to distinguish their doctrines, and it follows that all definite
- ↑ Arist. Phys. Θ, 9. 265 b 25; Simpl. Phys. p. 1318, 33, ταῦτα γὰρ (τὰ ἄτομα σώματα) ἐκεῖνοι φύσιν ἐκάλουν.
- ↑ Simpl. Phys. p. 36, 1 (Diels, Vors. 54 A 14), and R. P. 196 a.
- ↑ Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 b 4 (R. P. 192). Cf. Melissos, fr. 7 sub fin.
ἀτόμους, ἰδέας ὑπ' αὐτοῦ καλουμένας (so the MSS.: ἰδίως, Wyttenbach; <ἢ> ἰδέας Diels). Herodian has ἰδέα . . . τὸ ἐλάχιστον σῶμα (Diels, Vors.55 B 141). So Arist. Phys. Γ, 4. 203 a 21, (Δεμόκριτος ) ἐκ τῆς πανσπερμίας τῶν σχημάτων (ἄπειρα ποιεῖ τὰ στοιχεῖα). Cf. De gen. corr. A, 2. 315 b (R. P. 196).
