Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

nor yet to be non-existent, nor to be some other and incorporeal entities cleaving to body,[*](Cf. Lucr. i. 478-482.) nor again to be parts of body. We must consider the whole body in a general way to derive its permanent nature from all of them, though it is not, as it were, formed by grouping them together in the same way as when from the particles themselves a larger aggregate is made up, whether these particles be primary or any magnitudes whatsoever less than the particular whole. All these qualities, I repeat, merely give the body its own permanent nature. They all have their own characteristic modes of being perceived and distinguished, but always along with the whole body in which they inhere and never in separation from it; and it is in virtue of this complete conception of the body as a whole that it is so designated.

Again, qualities often attach to bodies without

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being permanent concomitants. They are not to be classed among invisible entities nor are they incorporeal. Hence, using the term accidents[*](Cf. Lucr. i. 455 f., where slavery, poverty, riches, war and peace are the examples chosen, as elsewhere are rest and motion.) in the commonest sense, we say plainly that accidents have not the nature of the whole thing to which they belong, and to which, conceiving it as a whole, we give the name of body, nor that of the permanent properties without which body cannot be thought of. And in virtue of certain peculiar modes of apprehension into which the complete body always enters, each of them can be called an accident.

But only as often as they are seen actually to belong to it, since such accidents are not perpetual concomitants. There is no need to banish from reality this clear evidence that the accident has not the nature of that whole—by us called body—to which it belongs, nor of the permanent properties which accompany the whole. Nor, on the other hand, must we suppose the accident to have independent existence (for this is just as inconceivable in the case of accidents as in that of the permanent properties); but, as is manifest, they should all be regarded as accidents, not as permanent concomitants, of bodies, nor yet as having the rank of independent existence. Rather they are seen to be exactly as and what sensation itself makes them individually claim to be.

There is another thing which we must consider carefully. We must not investigate time as we do the other accidents which we investigate in a subject, namely, by referring them to the preconceptions envisaged in our minds; but we must take into account the plain fact itself, in virtue of which we speak of time as long or short, linking to it in intimate connexion this attribute of duration.[*](Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math.x. §§ 219 f., 224 f., 240-244.)We need not

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adopt any fresh terms as preferable, but should employ the usual expressions about it. Nor need we predicate anything else of time, as if this something else contained the same essence as is contained in the proper meaning of the word time (for this also is done by some). We must chiefly reflect upon that to which we attach this peculiar character of time, and by which we measure it.

No further proof is required: we have only to reflect that we attach the attribute of time to days and nights and their parts, and likewise to feelings of pleasure and pain and to neutral states, to states of movement and states of rest, conceiving a peculiar accident of these to be this very characteristic which we express by the word time. [He says this both in the second book On Nature and in the Larger Epitome.]

After the foregoing we have next to consider that the worlds and every finite aggregate which bears a strong resemblance to things we commonly see have arisen out of the infinite.[*](Cf. Lucr. ii. 1048-1089.) For all these, whether small or great, have been separated off from special conglomerations of atoms; and all things are again dissolved,[*](Cf. Lucr. ii. 1144, 1145; Stob. Ecl. i. 20, 172 W.) some faster, some slower, some through the action of one set of causes, others through the action of another. [It is clear, then, that he also makes the worlds perishable, as their parts are subject to change. Elsewhere he says the earth is supported on the air.]

And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. [On the contrary, in the twelfth book On Nature he himself says that the shapes of the worlds differ, some being spherical, some oval, others again of shapes different

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from these. They do not, however, admit of every shape. Nor are they living beings which have been separated from the infinite.] For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and all the rest of the things we see. [And the same holds good for their nurture in a world after they have arisen. And so too we must think it happens upon the earth also.]