wards the gods; and when, choosing friendship for the sake
of pleasure, that he suffers most grievous pains for his friends; and
supposing the universe to be infinite, that he nevertheless takes not
away high and low.... Indeed having taken the cup, one may drink what
he pleases, and return the rest. But in reasoning one ought chiefly
to remember this wise apothegm, that where the principles are not
necessary, the ends and consequences are necessary. It was not
then necessary for him to suppose or (to say better) to steal from
Democritus, that atoms are the principles of the universe; but having
supposed this doctrine, and having pleased and glorified himself in the
first probable and specious appearances of it, he must afterwards also
swallow that which is troublesome in it, or must show how bodies which
have not any quality can bring all sorts of qualities to others only by
their meetings and joining together. As--to take that which comes next
neither had heat when they came, nor are become hot after their being
joined together? For the one presupposes that they had some quality, and
the other that they were fit to receive it. And you affirm, that neither
the one nor the other must be said to be congruous to atoms, because
they are incorruptible.

How then? Do not Plato, Aristotle, and Xenocrates produce gold from
that which is not gold, and stone from that which is not stone, and many
other things from the four simple first bodies? Yes indeed; but with
those bodies immediately concur also the principles for the generation
of everything, bringing with them great contributions, that is, the
first qualities which are in them; then, when they come to assemble and
join in one the dry with the moist, the cold with the hot, and the solid
with the soft,--that is, active bodies with such as are fit to suffer
and receive every alteration and change,--then is generation wrought by
passing from one temperature to another. Whereas the atom, being alone,
is alone, is deprived and destitute of all quality and generative
faculty, and when it comes to meet with the others, it can make only a
noise and sound because of its hardness and firmness, but nothing more.
For they always strike and are stricken, not being able by this means
to compose or make an animal, a soul, or a nature, nay, not so much as
a mass or heap of themselves; for that as they beat upon one another, so
they fly back again asunder.

But Colotes, as if he were spea