Chapter X.—Leucippus; His Atomic Theory.

But Leucippus,75    [b.c. 370.] an associate of Zeno, did not maintain the same opinion, but affirms things to be infinite, and always in motion, and that generation and change exist continuously. And he affirms plenitude and vacuum to be elements. And he asserts that worlds are produced when many bodies are congregated and flow together from the surrounding space to a common point, so that by mutual contact they made substances of the same figure and similar in form come into connection; and when thus intertwined,76    Or, “when again mutually connected, that different entities were generated.” (See Diogenes Laertius’ Lives, ix. 30–32.) there are transmutations into other bodies, and that created things wax and wane through necessity. But what the nature of necessity is, (Parmenides) did not define.

[12] Λεύκιππος δὲ Ζήνωνος ἑταῖρος οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν δόξαν διετήρησεν, ἀλλά φησιν ἄπειρα [τὰ ὄντα] εἶναι καὶ ἀεὶ κινούμενα, καὶ γένεσιν καὶ μεταβολὴν συνεχῶς οὖσαν. στοιχεῖα δὲ λέγει τὸ πλῆρες καὶ [τὸ] κενόν. κόσμους δὲ [ὧδε] γίνεσθαι λέγει: ὅταν εἰς μέγα κενὸν ἐκ τοῦ περιέχοντος ἀθροισθῇ πολλὰ σώματα καὶ συρρυῇ, προσκρούοντα ἀλλήλοις συμπλέκεσθαι τὰ ὁμοιοσχήμονα καὶ παραπλήσια τὰς μορφάς, καὶ περιπλεχθέντων [αὐτῶν κατ' αὔξησιν] ἄστρα γίνεσθαι: αὔξειν δὲ καὶ φθίνειν διὰ τὴν ἀνάγκην: τίς δ' ἂν εἴη ἡ ἀνάγκη, οὐ διώρισεν.