ment of Leucippus, which has survived, states that "Nothing 

 happens for nothing, but everything from a ground and of neces- 

 sity". Aristotle complains that these men, indolently, left the 

 source of motion unexplained. Unlike Empedocles and Anaxa- 

 goras, they simply assumed that motion is eternal. Theophrastos 

 tells us that Leucippus believed that there were "innumerable and 

 ever-moving elements namely, the atoms, and he made their 

 form infinite in number since there was no reason why they should 

 be of one kind rather than another. ... He held further that what 

 is, is no more real than what is not, and that both are alike causes 

 of the things that come into being". 1 Atoms and the void, includ- 

 ing motion, are then equally real and explain all things. Different 

 qualities are explained by the variations in the number, size and 

 shape of the atoms, for, unlike the homoiomeries of Anaxagoras, 

 all the atoms are qualitatively the same. Though the atomic 

 theory, which has played such an important part in the develop- 

 ment of modern chemistry, differs from these early attempts 

 in several important points, yet, peculiarly enough, modern science 

 is coming once again to believe in the fewness of the chemical 

 elements, and it is quite possible that the Democritean ideal of 

 only one kind of element may yet be realized. That such a dis- 

 covery will enable men to explain all the facts of life by one ele- 

 mental substance, in no sense, follows. No more can they be 

 explained by seventy elements. That, however, is a question 

 with which we shall be concerned in a later part of this thesis. 



In these early atomists, then, there is the culmination of this 

 scientific tendency among the Greeks. It is true that the Epi- 

 cureans made some slight additions to the atomism of Democritus, 

 but the chief work was done by the earlier thinkers. Now, in 

 this aspect of Greek philosophy, is there to be found any trace 

 of that religious background which has been already sketched? 

 That religious interests not only influenced but, in the main, 

 dominated that other trend of thought, the mystical tendency, it 

 was easy enough to show, but, here, circumstances are much 

 different, and yet even this scientific tendency owes much to the 

 earlier religious ideas of the Greek people. 



It will be remembered that the gods of Homer were subordinate 

 to Destiny or Moira, that, according to the Olympian theology, 

 Moira had allocated to the three brothers, Zeus, Poseidon and 



1 Phys. Op. fr. 8. 



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