ficies. For if the
superficies of the greater bodies do not exceed those of the less, but
sooner fail, a part of that body which has an end will be without an
end and infinite. For if he says that he is compelled to this. For
those rabbeted incisions, which he suspects in a cone, are made by the
inequality of the body, and not of the superficies. It is ridiculous
therefore not to reckon the superficies, and to leave the inequality in
the bodies themselves. But to persist still in this matter, what is more
repugnant to sense than the imagining of such things? For if we admit
that one superficies is neither equal nor unequal to another, we may say
also of magnitude and of number, that one is neither equal nor unequal
to another; and this, not having anything that we can call or think to
be a neuter or medium between equal and unequal. Besides, if there are
superficies neither equal nor unequal, what hinders but there may be
also circles neither equal nor unequal? For indeed these superficies
of conic sections are circles. And if circles, why may not also their
diameters be neither equal nor unequal? And if so, why not also angles,
triangles, parallelograms, parallelopipeds, and bodies? For if the
longitudes are neither equal nor unequal to one another, so will the
weight, percussion, and bodies be neither equal nor unequal. How then
dare these men inveigh against those who introduce vacuums, and suppose
that there are indivisible atoms, and who say that motion and rest
are not incompatible with each other, when they themselves affirm such
axioms as these to be false: If any things are not equal to one another,
they are unequal to one another; and the same things are not equal and
unequal to one another? But when he says that there is something greater
and yet not exceeding, it were worth the while to ask, whether these
things quadrate with one another. For if they quadrate, how is either
the greater? And if they do not quadrate, how can it be but the one must
exceed and the other fall short? For if neither of these are true, the
other both will and will not quadrate with the greater. For those
who keep not the common conceptions must of necessity fall into such
perplexities.

It is moreover against sense to say that nothing touches another; nor is
this less absurd, that bodies touch one another, but touch by nothing.
For they are necessitated to admit these things, who allow not the
least parts of a body, but assume somet