The circle of the sun is the outermost, that of the moon is nearest to the earth, and those of the others are between these. And all the heavenly bodies are ignited because of the swiftness of their motion; while the sun is also ignited by the stars. But the moon only receives a small portion of fire. The sun and the moon are eclipsed . . . (And the obliquity of the zodiac is produced) by the earth being inclined towards the south; and the northern parts of it have constant snow and are cold and frozen. And the sun is eclipsed rarely, and the moon continually, because their circles are unequal. And just as there are comings into being of the world, so there are growths and decays and passings away in virtue of a certain necessity, of the nature of which he gives no clear account.
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.[1] These, however, give a specially Epicurean turn to some of the doctrines, and must therefore be used with caution.
177.Relation to Ionic cosmology. 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
- ↑ See Aet. i. 4 (Dox. p. 289; Vors. 54 A 24; Usener, Epicurea, fr. 308). Epicurus himself in the second epistle (Diog. x. 88; Usener, p. 37, 7) quotes the phrase ἀποτομὴν ἔχουσα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀπείρου.
