Motion in general[1] and rarefaction and condensation in particular are impossible; for both imply the existence of empty space. Divisibility is excluded for the same reason. These are the same arguments as Parmenides employed.
169.Opposition to Pythagoreans. In nearly all accounts of the system of Melissos, we find it stated that he denied the corporeality of what is real,—an opinion which is supported by a reference to fr. 9, which is certainly quoted by Simplicius to prove this very point.[2] If, however, our general view as to the character of early Greek philosophy is correct, the statement must seem incredible. And it will seem even more surprising when we find that in the Metaphysics Aristotle says that, while the unity of Parmenides seemed to be ideal, that of Melissos was material.[3] Now the fragment, as it stands in the MSS. of Simplicius,[4] puts a purely hypothetical case, and would most naturally be understood as a disproof of the existence of something on the ground that, if it existed, it would have to be both corporeal and one. This cannot refer to the Eleatic One, in which Melissos himself believed; and, as the argument is almost verbally the same as one of Zeno's,[5] it is natural to suppose that it also was directed against the Pythagorean assumption of ultimate units. The only possible objection is that Simplicius, who twice quotes the
- ↑ The view of Bäumker that Melissos admitted ἀντιπερίστασις or motion in pleno (Jahrb. f. Kl. Phil., 1886, p. 541; Das Problem der Materie, p. 59) depends upon some words of Simplicius (Phys. p. 104, i3), οὐχ ὅτι μὴ δυνατὸν διὰ πλήρους κινεῖσθαι, ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν σωμάτων λέγομεν κτλ. These words were formerly turned into Ionic and passed off as a fragment of Melissos. They are, however, part of Simplicius's own argument against Alexander, and have nothing to do with Melissos at all.
- ↑ See, however, Bäumker, Das Problem der Materie, pp. 57 sqq., who remarks that ἐόν (or ὄν) in fr. 9 must be the predicate, as it has no article. In his fifth edition (p. 611, n. 2) Zeller adopted the view here taken. He rightly observes that the hypothetical form εἰ μὲν ὂν εἴη speaks for it, and that the subject to εἴη must be ἕκαστον τῶν πολλῶν, as with Zeno.
- ↑ Met. A, 5. 986 b 18 (R. P. 101).
- ↑ Brandis changed the εἴη to ἔστι, but there is no warrant for this.
- ↑ Cf. Zeno, fr. 1, especially the words εἰ δὲ ἔστιν, ἀνάγκη ἕκαστον μέγεθός τι ἔχειν καὶ πάχος.
