[918]. See above, [§ 159], p. 363, [n. 880].
[919]. Bäumker, op. cit. 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.”
[920]. Περὶ φύσιος ἀνθρώπου, c. 1, ἀλλ’ ἔμοιγε δοκέουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἄνθρωποι αὐτοὶ ἑωυτοὺς καταβάλλειν ἐν τοῖσιν ὀνόμασι τῶν λόγων αὐτῶν ὑπὸ ἀσυνεσίης, 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 e 2, he refers to the Eleatics as Μέλισσοί τε καὶ Παρμενίδαι, and in 183 e 4 he almost apologises for giving the pre-eminence to Parmenides.
CHAPTER IX
LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS
Leukippos and Demokritos.
171. We have seen (§§ 31, 122) that the school of 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.[[921]] 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.[[922]] 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 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 floruit.[[923]] Now Theophrastos stated that Diogenes of Apollonia borrowed some of his views from Anaxagoras and some from Leukippos,[[924]] 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.C., 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.[[925]] This means further that what were known later as the works of Demokritos were really the writings of the school of Abdera, and included, as was natural, the 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.[[926]] It is possible that his emigration to the west was connected with the revolution at Miletos in 450-49 B.C.[[927]] 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.[[928]] He may very well have been so, if we accept Plato’s chronology.[[929]] 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.[[930]]
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.[[931]] 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.[[932]] We have seen too that Zeno probably wrote against Empedokles, and we know that he influenced Leukippos.[[933]] 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 with the klepsydra and the inflated skins would only have had any point if they were directed against the Pythagorean theory.[[934]] If he had really wished to refute Leukippos, he would have had to use arguments of a very different kind.