Greek Texts & Translations

"For in the case of changes of configuration within our experience the figure is supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from the body. Thus, then, what is left behind is sufficient to account for the differences in composite bodies, since something at least must necessarily be left remaining and be immune from annihilation.

"Again, you should not suppose that the atoms have any and every size, ^notelest you be contradicted by facts ; but differences of size must be admitted ; for this addition renders the facts of feeling and sensation easier of explanation. 10.1.56 But to attribute any and every magnitude to the atoms does not help to explain the differences of quality in things ; moreover, in that case atoms large enough to be seen ought to have reached us, which is never observed to occur ; nor can we conceive how its occurrence should be possible, i.e. that an atom should become visible. ^note

"Besides, you must not suppose that there are parts unlimited in number, be they ever so small, in any finite body. Hence not only must we reject as impossible subdivision ad infinitum into smaller and smaller parts, lest we make all things too weak and, in our conceptions of the aggregates, be driven to pulverize the things that exist, i.e. the atoms, and annihilate ^note them ; but in dealing with finite things we must also reject as impossible the progression ad infinitum by less and less increments.

"For when once we have said that an infinite number of particles, however small, are contained in anything, it is not possible to conceive how it could any longer be limited or finite in size. For clearly our infinite number of particles must have some size ; and then, of whatever size they were, the aggregate they made would be infinite. And, in the next place, since what is finite has an extremity which is distinguishable, even if it is not by itself observable, it is not possible to avoid thinking of another such extremity next to this. Nor can we help thinking that in this way, by proceeding forward from one to the next in order, it is possible by such a progression to arrive in thought at infinity. ^note

"We must consider the minimum perceptible by sense as not corresponding to that which is capable of being traversed, i.e. is extended, ^note nor again as utterly unlike it, but as having something in common with the things capable of being traversed, though it is without distinction of parts. But when from the illusion created by this common property we think we shall distinguish something in the minimum, one part on one side and another part on the other side, it must be another minimum equal to the first which catches our eye. In fact, we see these minima one after another, beginning with the first, and not as occupying the same space ; nor do we see them touch one another's parts with their parts, but we see that by virtue of their own peculiar character (i.e. as being unit indivisibles) they afford a means of measuring magnitudes : there are more of them, if the magnitude measured is greater ; fewer of them, if the magnitude measured is less.

"We must recognize that this analogy also holds of the minimum in the atom ; it is only in minuteness that it differs from that which is observed by sense, but it follows the same analogy. On the analogy of things within our experience we have declared that the atom has magnitude ; and this, small as it is, we have merely reproduced on a larger scale. And further, the least and simplest ^note things must be regarded as extremities of lengths, furnishing from themselves as units the means of measuring lengths, whether greater or less, the mental vision being employed, since direct observation is impossible. For the community which exists between them and the unchangeable parts (i.e. the minimal parts of area or surface) is sufficient to justify the conclusion so far as this goes. But it is not possible that these minima of the atom should group themselves together through the possession of motion. ^note

"Further, we must not assert `up' or `down' of that which is unlimited, as if there were a zenith or nadir. ^note As to the space overhead, however, if it be possible to draw ^note a line to infinity from the point where we stand, we know that never will this space - or, for that matter, the space below the supposed standpoint if produced to infinity - appear to us to be at the same time `up' and `down' with reference to the same point ; for this is inconceivable. Hence it is possible to assume one direction of motion, which we conceive as extending upwards ad infinitum, and another downwards, even if it should happen ten thousand times that what moves from us to the spaces above our heads reaches the feet of those above us, or that which moves downwards from us the heads of those below us. None the less is it true that the whole of the motion in the respective cases is conceived as extending in opposite directions ad infinitum.