Adversus Coloten

But it is moreover wholly evident, that we may apply this argument to all those things which are called and esteemed bitter, sweet, purging, dormitive, and luminous, not any one of them having an entire and perfect quality to produce such effects, nor to do rather than to suffer when they are in the bodies, but being there susceptible of various temperatures and differences. For Epicurus himself, in his Second Book against Theophrastus, affirming that colors are not connatural to bodies, but are engendered there according to certain situations and positions with respect to the sight of man, says: For this reason a body is no more colored than destitute of color. And a little above he writes thus, word for word: But apart from this, I know not how a man may say that those bodies which are in the dark have color; although very often, an air equally dark being spread about them, some distinguish diversities of colors, others perceive them not through the weakness of their sight. And moreover, going into a

dark house or room, we at our first entrance see no color, but after we have stayed there awhile, we do. Wherefore we are to say that every body is not more colored than not colored. Now, if color is relative and has its being in regard to something else, so also then is white, and so likewise blue; and if colors are so, so also are sweet and bitter. So that it may truly be affirmed of every quality, that it cannot more properly be said to be than not to be. For to those who are in a certain manner disposed, they will be; but to those who are not so disposed, they will not be. Colotes therefore has bedashed and bespattered himself and his master with that dirt, in which he says those lie who maintain that things are not more of one quality than another.

But is it in this alone, that this excellent man shows himself

To others a physician, whilst himself

Is full of ulcers?

[*](Euripides, Frag. 1071.)

No indeed; but yet much farther in his second reprehension, without any way minding it, he drives Epicurus and Democritus out of this life. For he affirms that the saying of Democritus — that the atoms are to the senses color by a certain law or ordinance, that they are by the same law sweetness, and by the same law concretion[*](The text is corrupt here. (G.)) — is at war with our senses, and that he who uses this reason and persists in this opinion cannot himself imagine whether he is living or dead. I know not how to contradict this discourse; but this I can boldly affirm, that this is as inseparable from the sentences and doctrines of Epicurus as they say figure and weight are from atoms. For what is it that Democritus says? There are substances, in number infinite, called atoms (because they cannot be divided), without difference, without quality, and impassible, which move, being dispersed here and there, in the infinite voidness; and that when they approach one another, or meet and are conjoined, of such masses thus heaped together, one appears water, another fire, another a plant, another a man; and that all things are thus really atoms (as he called them), and that there is nothing else; for there can be no generation from what is not; and of those things which are nothing can be generated, because these atoms are so firm, that they can neither change, alter, nor suffer; wherefore there cannot be made color of those things which are without color, nor nature or soul of those things which are without quality and impassible. Democritus then is to be blamed, not for confessing those things that happen upon his principles, but for supposing principles upon which such things happen. For he should not have supposed immutable principles; or having supposed them, he ought to have seen that the generation of all quality is taken away; but having seen the absurdity, to deny it is most impudent. But Epicurus says, that he supposes the same principles with Democritus, but that he says not that color, sweet, white, and other qualities, are by law and ordinance. If therefore not to say is merely not to confess, he does merely what he is wont to do. For it is as when, taking away divine Providence, he nevertheless says that he leaves piety and devotion towards 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 apophthegm, 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 to hand — whence does that which we call heat proceed, and how is it engendered in the atoms, if they 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 belong to atoms, because they are incorruptible.

But Colotes, as if he were speaking to some ignorant

and unlettered king, again attacks Empedocles for breathing forth the same thought:

I’ve one thing more to say. ’Mongst mortals there

No Nature is; nor that grim thing men fear

So much, called death. There only happens first

A mixture, and mixt things asunder burst

Again, when them disunion does befall.

And this is that which men do Nature call.

For my part, I do not see how this is repugnant and contrary to life or living, especially amongst those who hold that there is no generation of that which is not, nor corruption of that which is, but that the assembling and union of the things which are is called generation, and their dissolution and disunion named corruption and death. For that he took Nature for generation, and that this is his meaning, he has himself declared, when he opposed Nature to death. And if they neither live nor can live who place generation in union and death in disunion, what else do these Epicureans? Yet Empedocles, gluing, (as it were) and conjoining the elements together by heats, softnesses, and humidities, gives them in some sort a mixtion and unitive composition; but these men who hunt and drive together the atoms, which they affirm to be immutable and impassible, compose nothing proceeding from them, but indeed make many and continual percussions of them.

For the interlacement, hindering the dissolution, more and more augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a confusion and combat, which according to them is called generation. And if the atoms do now recoil for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing can be made of them, not even so much as a body without a soul. But as

for sense, soul, understanding, and prudence, there is not any man who can in the least conceive or imagine how it is possible they should be made in a voidness, and of atoms which neither when separate and apart have any quality, nor any passion or alteration when they are assembled and joined together, especially seeing this their meeting together is not an incorporation or congress, making a mixture or coalition, but rather percussions and repercussions. So that, according to the doctrine of these people, life is taken away, and the being of an animal denied, since they suppose principles void, impassible, godless, and soulless, and such as cannot admit or receive any mixture or incorporation whatever.