Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/353

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As it comes substantially from Theophrastos, this passage is good evidence for the cosmology of Leukippos, and it is confirmed by certain Epicurean extracts from the Great Diakosmos. These, however, give a specially Epicurean turn to some of the doctrines, and must therefore be used with caution.

177. The general impression 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 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 thrown back upon the older systems of Ionia. The result was unfortunate. The astronomy of Demokritos was still of this childish character. He believed the earth was flat and rested on the air.

This is what gives plausibility to Gomperz's statement that Atomism was "the ripe fruit on the tree of the old Ionic