Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/349

Rh

In this passage Zeno and Melissos are not named, but the reference to them is unmistakable. The argument of Zeno against the Pythagoreans is clearly given; and Melissos was the only Eleatic who made reality infinite, a point which is distinctly mentioned. We are therefore justified by Aristotle's words in explaining the genesis of Atomism and its relation to Eleaticism as follows. Zeno had shown that all pluralist systems yet known, and especially Pythagoreanism, were unable to stand before the arguments from infinite divisibility which he adduced. Melissos had used the same argument against Anaxagoras, and had added, as a reductio ad absurdum, that, if there were many things, each one of them must be such as the Eleatics held the One to be. To this Leukippos answers, "Why not?" He admitted the force of Zeno's arguments by setting a limit to divisibility, and to each of the "atoms" which he thus arrived at he ascribed all the predicates of the Eleatic One; for Parmenides had shown that if it is, it must have these predicates somehow. The same view is implied in a passage of Aristotle's Physics. "Some," we are there told, "surrendered to both arguments, to the first, the argument that all things are