As he was a Lucanian, Ocellus would write in the Doric dialect, and as the work attributed to him is in the Ionic, this has been made a ground for impugning its genuineness; but so far from being an argument against the genuineness of the work, this is in its favour, and only shows that some copyist had altered the dialect. Besides this, the fragments from this work, which Stobaeus cites, are in the Doric dialect. It is, however, always a doubtful matter as to early works, which are first mentioned by writers of a much later period, whether they are really genuine. If the existing work is not genuine we must suppose that when it was fabricated the original was lost. It is also possible that it is a kind of new modelled edition of the original; and it is also possible that the extant work is the original itself, which the brevity and simple close reasoning render a probable conclusion.

This small treatise is divided into four chapters. The first chapter shows that the whole (τὸ πᾶν, or ὁ κόσμος) had no beginning, and will have no end. He maintains that it is consistent with his views of the Cosmos that men have always existed, but he admits that the earth is subject to great revolutions, that Greece (Hellas) has often been and will be barbarous, and that it has sustained great physical changes. The object of the sexual intercourse, he says, is not pleasure, but the procreation of children and the permanence of the human race. Accordingly, the commerce of the sexes should be regulated by decency, moderation, and congruity in the male and female, in order that healthy beings may be produced, and that families may be happy; for families compose states, and if the parts are unsound, so will the whole be. The book appears to be a fragment. The physical philosophy is crude and worthless, but the fundamental ideas are clearly conceived and happily expressed.