Note 15 — Chapter XVII · THE EPICUREAN VIEWS ON NATURE.

Epic. in Diog. 40: τῶν σωμάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συγκρίσεις τὰ δ’ ἐξ ὧν αἱ συγκρίσεις πεποίηνται· ταῦτα δέ ἐστιν ἄτομα καὶ ἀμετάβλητα εἴπερ μὴ μέλλει πάντα εἰς τὸ μὴ ὂν φθαρήσεσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἰσχύοντα ὑπομένειν ἐν ταῖς διαλύσεσι τῶν συγκρίσεων … ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς ἀτόμους ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι σωμάτων φύσεις. Ibid. 56; Lucr. i. 147; ii. 551; 751; 790. Further arguments for the belief in atoms in Lucret. i. 498: Since a body and the space in which it is are entirely different, both must originally have existed without any intermingling. If things exist composed of the full and the empty, the full by itself must exist, and likewise the empty. Bodies in which there is no empty space cannot be divided. They may be eternal, and must be so, unless things have been produced out of nothing. Without empty space, soft bodies could not exist, nor hard bodies without something full. If there were no indivisible parts, everything must have been long since destroyed. The regularity of phenomena presupposes unchangeable primary elements. All that is composite must ultimately consist of simple indivisible parts. If there were no indivisible parts, every body would consist of innumerable parts, as many in the smaller as in the greater body (conf. Epic. in Diog. 56). If nature did not reduce things to their smallest parts, it could not make new things. These arguments, very unequal in value, were borrowed by Lucretius from Epicurus. Plut. in Eus. Pr. Ev. 1, 8, 9, quotes, as an Epicurean principle, that unchangeable Being must be at the bottom of everything. ↑