Matter and the Void According to Leucippus

Abstract

… But there was yet another objection to which this theory of the existence of matter in the form of infinite discrete particles was liable. If they are discrete, there must be something to separate them (διάστŋμα): if they are to move — and without motion they cannot combine to form things or shift their position so as to change things — there must be something external to them for them to move in. What is this something? The Pythagoreans, who with their doctrine of the infinitely divisible had been confronted with this problem, had thought of air as lying between the particles of matter, but since the theory of Empedocles had shown that air was an element, as corporeal in substance as earth or fire or water, this answer was no longer possible. Parmenides had seen that the only answer could be ‘empty space’, but, profoundly convinced as he was that the only existence was that of body, he had denied the existence of empty space altogether: it was ‘nothing’ (oὑδέν). The world was a corporeal plenum, there was no division between parts of matter but all was a continuous whole, neither was there any possibility of motion.