Early Greek philosophy

by John Burnet

The void.

175. Leukippos affirmed the existence both of the Full and the Empty, terms which he may have borrowed from Melissos.[^[946]] As we have seen, he had to assume the existence of 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.

It is a curious fact that the Atomists, who are commonly regarded as the great materialists of antiquity, were actually the first to say distinctly that a thing might be real without being a body.

Cosmology.

176. 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 an invaluable clue. So far as we know, no one after Theophrastos was able to distinguish the doctrines of the two men, and it follows from this that all definite statements about Leukippos in later writers must, in the long run, go back to him. If we follow this up, we shall be able to give a fairly clear account of the system, and we shall even come across some views which are peculiar to Leukippos and were not adopted by Demokritos.[^[947]]

We shall start from the fuller of the two doxographies in Diogenes, which comes from an epitome of Theophrastos.[^[948]] It is as follows:—

He says that the All is infinite, and that it is part full, and part empty. These (the full and the empty), he says, are the elements. From them arise innumerable worlds and are resolved into them. The worlds come into being thus. There were borne along by “abscision from the infinite” many bodies of all sorts of figures “into a mighty void,” and they being gathered together produce a single vortex. In it, as they came into collision with one another and were whirled round in all manner of ways, those which were alike were separated apart and came to their likes. But, as they were no longer able to revolve in equilibrium owing to their multitude, those of them that were fine went out to the external void, as if passed through a sieve; the rest stayed together, and becoming entangled with one another, ran down together, and made a first spherical structure. This was in substance like a membrane or skin containing in itself all kinds of bodies. And, as these bodies were borne round in a vortex, in virtue of the resistance of the middle, the surrounding membrane became thin, as the contiguous bodies kept flowing together from contact with the vortex. And in this way the earth came into being, those things which had been borne towards the middle abiding there. Moreover, the containing membrane was increased by the further separating out of bodies from outside; and, being itself carried round in a vortex, it further got possession of all with which it had come in contact. Some of these becoming entangled, produce a structure, which was at first moist and muddy; but, when they had been dried and were revolving along with the vortex of the whole, they were then ignited and produced the substance of the heavenly bodies. The circle of the sun is the outermost, that of the moon is nearest to the earth, and those of the others are between these. And all the heavenly bodies are ignited because of the swiftness of their motion; while the sun is also ignited by the stars. But the moon only receives a small portion of fire. The sun and the moon are eclipsed.... (And the obliquity of the zodiac is produced) by the earth being inclined towards the south; and the northern parts of it have constant snow and are cold and frozen. And the sun is eclipsed rarely, and the moon continually, because their circles are unequal. And just as there are comings into being of the world, so there are growths and decays and passings away in virtue of a certain necessity, of the nature of which he gives no clear account.

As it comes substantially from Theophrastos, this passage is to be regarded as good evidence for the cosmology of Leukippos, and it is confirmed in an interesting way by certain Epicurean extracts from the Great Diakosmos.[^[949]] These, however, as is natural, give a specially Epicurean turn to some of the doctrines, and must therefore be used with caution.

Relation to Ionic cosmology.

177. The general impression which we get from the cosmology of Leukippos is that he either ignored or had never heard of the great advance in the general view of the world which was due to the later Pythagoreans. He is as reactionary in his detailed cosmology as he was daring in his general physical theory. We seem to be reading once more of the speculations of Anaximenes or even of Anaximander, though there are traces of Empedokles and Anaxagoras too. The explanation is not hard to see. Leukippos would not learn a cosmology from his Eleatic teachers; and, even when he found it possible to construct one without giving up the Parmenidean view of reality, he was necessarily thrown back upon the older systems of Ionia. The result was unfortunate. The astronomy of Demokritos, so far as we know it, was still of this childish character. There is no reason to doubt the statement of Seneca that he did not venture to say how many planets there were.[^[950]]