CCII. That the philosophy of Democritus is not less different from
ours than from the common. [Footnote: "that of Aristotle or the
others."--French.]
But it may be said that Democritus also supposed certain corpuscles
that were of various figures, sizes, and motions, from the heaping
together and mutual concourse of which all sensible bodies arose;
and, nevertheless, his mode of philosophizing is commonly rejected
by all. To this I reply that the philosophy of Democritus was never
rejected by any one, because he allowed the existence of bodies
smaller than those we perceive, and attributed to them diverse
sizes, figures, and motions, for no one can doubt that there are in
reality such, as we have already shown; but it was rejected, in the
first place, because he supposed that these corpuscles were
indivisible, on which ground I also reject it; in the second place,
because he imagined there was a vacuum about them, which I show to
be impossible; thirdly, because he attributed gravity to these
bodies, of which I deny the existence in any body, in so far as a
body is considered by itself, because it is a quality that depends
on the relations of situation and motion which several bodies bear
to each other; and, finally, because he has not explained in
particular how all things arose from the concourse of corpuscles
alone, or, if he gave this explanation with regard to a few of them,
his whole reasoning was far from being coherent, [or such as would
warrant us in extending the same explanation to the whole of
nature].
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