1 See above, § 159, p. 363, n. 4.
The Younger Eleatics 379
way in which the theory that things are a many could
be consistently worked out.’ It is. significant that
Polybos, the nephew of Hippokrates, reproaches those
“sophists” who taught there was only one primary
substance with “putting the doctrine of Melissos on its feet.” *
1 Baumker, of. cét. p. 58, n. 3: ‘‘ That Melissos was a weakling is a fable convenue that people repeat after Aristotle, who was unable to appreciate the Eleatics in general, and in particular misunderstood Melissos not inconsiderably.”
2 Περὶ φύσιος ἀνθρώπου, c. 1, ἀλλ᾽ ἔμοιγε δοκέουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἄνθρωποι αὐτοὶ ἑωυτοὺς καταβάλλειν ἐν τοῖσιν ὀνόμασι τῶν λόγων αὐτῶν ὑπὸ ἀσυν- εσίης, τὸν δὲ Μελίσσου λόγον ὀρθοῦν. The metaphors are taken from wrestling, and were current at this date (cf. the καταβάλλοντες of Protagoras). Plato implies a more generous appreciation of Melissos than Aristotle’s. In Theaet. 180 6 2, he refers to the Eleatics as Μέλισσοί re kal Ἰαρμενίδαι, and in 183 e 4 he almost apologises for giving the pre- eminence to Parmenides.
Chapter Ix
Leukippos of Miletos
eukippos and 171. WE have seen (§§ 31, 122) that the school of
iemokritos,
Miletos did not come to an end with Anaximenes, and
it is a striking fact that the man who gave the most
complete answer to the question first asked by Thales
was a Milesian.’ It is true that the very existence of ᾿
Leukippos has been called in question. Epicurus said
there never was such a philosopher, and the same thing
has been maintained in quite recent times.? On the
other hand, Aristotle and Theophrastos certainly made
him the originator of the atomic theory, and it still
seems possible to show they were right. ‘ Incidentally
1 Theophrastos said he was an Eleate or a Milesian (R. P. 185), while Diogenes (ix. 30) says he was an Eleate or, according to some, an Abderite. These statements are exactly parallel to the discrepancies about the native cities of the Pythagoreans already noted (Chap. VII. p. 327, n. 5). Diogenes adds that, according to others, Leukippos was a Melian, which is acommon confusion. Aetios (i. 7. 1) calls Diagoras of Melos a Milesian (cf. Dox. p. 14). Demokritos was called by some a Milesian (R. P. 186) for the same reason that Leukippos is called an Eleate. We may also compare the doubt as to whether Herodotos called himself a Halikarnassian or a Thourian,
2 Diog. x. 13 (R. P. 185 b). The theory was revived by E. Rohde. For the literature of the controversy, see R. P. 185 Ὁ. Diels’s refutation of Rohde has convinced most competent judges. Brieger’s attempt to unsettle. the question again (Hermes, xxxvi. pp. 166 sqq.) is only half-hearted, and quite unconvincing. As will be seen, however, I agree with his main contention that atomism comes after the systems of Empedokles and Anaxagoras.
Leukippos of Miletos 381
we shall see how later writers came to ignore him, and thus made possible the sally of Epicurus.
The question is intimately bound up with that of
the date of Demokritos, who said that he was a young
man in the old age of Anaxagoras, a statement which
makes it unlikely that he founded his school at Abdera
before 420 B.C., the date given by Apollodoros for his
fioruit. Now Theophrastos stated that Diogenes of
Apollonia borrowed some of his views from Anaxagoras
and some from Leukippos,’ which can only mean that
there were traces of the atomic theory in his work.
Further, Apollonios is parodied in the Clouds of
Aristophanes, which was produced in 423 B.., from
which it follows that the work of Leukippos must have
become known considerably before that date. What
that work was, Theophrastos also tells us. It was the
Great Diakosmos usually attributed to Demokritos.*
This means further that what were known later as the
yworks of Demokritos were really the writings of the
school of Abdera, and included, as was natural, the
1 Diog. ix. 41 (R. P. 187). As Diels points out, the statement suggests that Anaxagoras was dead when! Demokritos wrote. It is probable, too, that it was this which made Apollodoros fix the floruzt of Demokritos just forty years after that of Anaxagoras (Jacoby, p. 290). We cannot make much of the other statement of Demokritos that he wrote the Μικρὸς διάκοσμος 750 years after the fall of Troy; for we cannot be sure what era he used (Jacoby, p. 292).
2 Theophr. af. Simpl. Phys. p. 25, 1 (R. P. 206 a).
8 This was stated by Thrasylos in his list of the tetralogies in which he arranged the works of Demokritos, as he did those of Plato. He gives Tetr. iii. thus: (1) Μέγας διάκοσμος (dv of περὶ Θεόφραστον Λευκίππου φασὶν elvai); (2) Μικρὸς διάκοσμος ; (3) Κοσμογραφίη; (4) Περὲ τῶν πλανήτων. The two διάκοσμοι would only be distinguished as μέγας and μικρός when they came to be included in the same corpus. A quotation purporting to be from the Περὲ νοῦ of Leukippos is preserved in Stob. i. 160. The phrase ἐν τοῖς Λευκίππου καλουμένοις λόγοις in M.X.G. 980 a 8 seems to refer to Arist. de Gen. Corr. 325 ἃ 24, Λεύκιππος δ᾽ ἔχειν φήθη λόγους x.7.X., and would prove nothing in any case. Cf. Chap. II. Ρ. 138, n. 4.
π ee
382 Early Greek Philosophy
works of its founder. They formed, in fact, a corpus
comparable to that which has come down to us under
the name of Hippokrates, and it was no more possible
to distinguish the authors of the different treatises in
the one case than it is in the other. We need not
hesitate, for all that, to believe that Aristotle and
Theophrastos were better informed on this point than
later writers, who naturally regarded the whole mass as
equally the work of Demokritos.
Theophrastos found Leukippos described as an
Eleate in some of his authorities, and, if we may trust
analogy, that means he had settled at Elea,.’ It is
possible that his emigration to the west was connected
with the revolution at Miletos in 450-49 B.c.? In
any case, Theophrastos says distinctly that he had
been a member of the school of Parmenides, and the
way in which he speaks suggests that the founder of
that school was still at its head.® He may very
well have been so, if we accept Plato’s chronology.*
Theophrastos also appears to have said that Leukippos
“heard” Zeno, which is very credible. We shall see,
at any rate, that the influence of Zeno on his thinking
is unmistakable.”
1 See above, p. 380, ἢ. 1.
2 The aristocrats had massacred the democrats, and were overthrown in their turn by the Athenians. Cf. [Xen.]’A@. πολ. 3, 11. The date is fixed by C./.4. i. 22 a.
3 Theophr. af. Simpl. Pzys. p. 28, 4 (R. P. 185). Note the difference of case in κοινωνήσας Ἰϊαρμενίδῃ τῆς φιλοσοφίας and κοινωνήσας τῆς ᾿Αναξιμένους φιλοσοφίας, which is the phrase used by Theophrastos of Anaxagoras (p. 293, ἢ. I). The dative seems to imply a personal relation- ship. It is quite inadmissible to render ‘‘ was familiar with the doctrine of Parmenides,” as is done in Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 345.
4 See § 84. 5 Cf. Diog. ix. 30, οὗτος ἤκουσε Ζήνωνος (R. P. 185 b); and Hipp. Ref. i. 12, 1, Λεύκιππος. . . Ζήνωνος ἑταῖρος. Diels conjectured that the
name of Zeno had been dropped in the extract from Theophrastos preserved by Simplicius (Dox. 483 a 11).
Leukippos of Miletos 383
The relations of Leukippos to Empedokles and
Anaxagoras are more difficult to determine. It has
become part of the case for the historical reality of
Leukippos that there are traces of atomism in the
systems of these men; but the case is strong enough
without that assumption. Besides, it lands us in
serious difficulties, not the least of which is that it
would require us to regard Empedokles and Anaxagoras
as mere eclectics like Diogenes of Apollonia.’ The
strongest argument for the view that Leukippos
influenced Empedokles is that drawn from the doctrine
of “pores”; but we have seen that this originated
with Alkmaion, and it is therefore more probable that
Leukippos derived it from Empedokles.2 We have
seen too that Zeno probably wrote against Empedokles,
and we know that he influenced Leukippos.? Nor, is
it at all probable that Anaxagoras knew anything of
the theory of Leukippos. It is true that he denied
the existence of the void; but it does not follow that
any one had already maintained that doctrine in the
atomist sense. The early Pythagoreans had spoken
of a void too, though they had confused it with
atmospheric air; and the experiments of Anaxagoras
1 This point is important, though the argument is weakened by Brieger’s overstatement of it in Hermes, xxxvi. p. 183. He says that to assume such a reaction as Anaxagoreanism after the atomic system had once been discovered would be something unexampled in the history of Greek philosophy. Diogenes of Apollonia proves the contrary. The real point is that Empedokles and Anaxagoras were men of a different stamp. So far as Empedokles is concerned, Gomperz states the case rightly (Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 560).
2 See above, Chap. V. p. 224, n. 1; and Brieger in Hermes, xxxvi. p- 171.
3 Diels (formerly at least) maintained both these things. See above, p- 359, ἢ. 4; and p. 382, n. 5. If, as seems probable (8 158), Zeno wrote his book some time between 470 and 460 B.c., Leukippos can hardly have written his before 450 B.c., and even that is too late for him to have influenced Empedokles. It may well have been later still.
Theophrastos
on the atomic
theory.
Leukippos and the Eleatics.
384 Early Greek Philosophy
with the A/epsydra and the inflated skins would only
have had any point if they were directed against the
Pythagorean theory. If he had really wished to
refute Leukippos, he would have had to use arguments
of a very different kind.
172. Theophrastos wrote of Leukippos as follows in the First Book of his Opznzonus :—
Leukippos of Elea or Miletos (for both accounts are given of him) had associated with Parmenides in philosophy. He did not, however, follow the same path in his explanation of things as Parmenides and Xenophanes did, but, as is believed, the very opposite (R. P. 185). They made the All one, immovable, uncreated, and finite, and did not even permit us to search for what ts not; he assumed innumerable and ever- moving elements, namely, the atoms. .And he made their forms infinite in number, since there was no reason why they should be of one kind rather than another, and because he saw that there was unceasing becoming and change in things. He held, further, that what zs is no more real than what is not, and that both are alike causes of the things that come into being ; for he laid down that the substance of the atoms was compact and full, and he called them what zs, while they moved in the void which he called what zs not, but affirmed to be just as real as whatis. R. P. 194.
173. It will be observed that Theophrastos, while
noting the affiliation of Leukippos to the Eleatic school,
points out that his theory is, prima facie,? just the
opposite of that maintained by Parmenides. Some
1 See above, Chap. VI. § 131; and Chap. VII. § 145.
2 The words ws δοκεῖ do not imply assent to the view introduced by them ; indeed they are used, far more often than not, in reference to beliefs which the writer does not accept. The translation ‘‘methinks” in Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. p. 345, is therefore most misleading, and there is no justification for Brieger’s statement (Hermes, xxxvi. p. 165) that Theophrastos dissents from Aristotle’s view as given in the passage about to be quoted. We should be saved from many errors if we accustomed ourselves to translate δοκεῖ by ‘‘is thought” or ‘‘is believed ”’ instead of by ‘‘ seems.”
i et ee ee ee i ea
a ee ee ἊΝ οἱ τ eee eee lhl ee ᾿ ᾿
ΟΝ ΠΑ͂Ν a Nl ΣΨ ἊΝ ΎΣ δ φᾷππΠυ ἂὔψ'΄σσθν.
7 Fy €&
Leukippos of Miletos 385
have been led by this to deny the Eleaticism of
Leukippos altogether; but this denial is really based
on the view that the system of Parmenides was
“metaphysical,” coupled with a great reluctance to
admit that so scientific a hypothesis as the atomic
theory can have had a “ metaphysical” origin. It is
really due to prejudice, and we must not suppose
Theophrastos himself believed the two theories to be
so far apart as they seem.’ As this is really the most
important point in the history of early Greek philosophy,
and as, rightly understood, it furnishes the key to the
whole development, it is worth while to transcribe a
passage of Aristotle? which explains the historical
connexion in a way that leaves nothing to be desired.