The Polemic of Plutarch 69
aggregated, as water, fire, a plant, or a man; and that everything is what
he calls atomic 'forms' and is nothing else. For there is no coming-into-
being from what-is-not, and from what-is nothing could come to be since
atoms can neither suffer nor change due to their solidity. Hence colour
does not exist, [for it would have to be] made up of colourless things,
nor do nature and soul exist, [for they would have to be] made up of
qualitiless and impassive things.
So Democritus is to be criticized not for conceding what follows from
his principles, but for assuming principles from which these conclusions
follow. (llllb) For he ought not to have posited that the primary entities
were unchangeable, but having made this postulate he ought to have seen
that he has eliminated the genesis of all qualities. The most brazen
position of all is to see the absurdity and to deny it. So Epicurus makes
the most brazen claim, saying that he posits the same principles but does
not say that "colour is by convention" and [so too] sweet and bitter and
the qualities. If "does not say" means "does not admit," then he is up
to his old tricks. For while destroying divine providence he says that he
leaves piety intact, and while choosing friendship for the sake of pleasure
he says that he would suffer the greatest pains for the sake of his friends,
and he says that he postulates that the totality is unlimited but that he
does not eliminate up and down. This sort of behaviour is not right even
when one is joking over a drink: (llllc) to take a cup and drink as much
as one wants and then to give back what is left. In argument one must
recall this wise maxim: the beginnings may not be necessitated, but the
consequences are. So it was not necessary to postulate-or rather to steal
[the doctrine] from Democritus-that the principles of the universe are
atoms; but when once he postulated the doctrine and prided himself on
its superficial plausibility, then he ought to have drained its difficulties
to the last drop too, or showed us how bodies which have no qualities
produced most varied qualities just by coming together in a compound.
For example, where did you get what is called hot and how did it come
to be an attribute of your atoms, (lllld) which neither came [into
the compound] already having heat, nor did they become hot by their
conjunction? For the former is characteristic of something which has a
quality, and the latter of something which is naturally prone to be affected;
but you say that neither of these is appropriate for your atoms because
they are indestructible.
... (1112e) ... When Epicurus says, "the nature of existing things is
bodies and place," should we interpret him as meaning that nature is
something distinct from and in addition to the existing things, (1112£)
or as referring just to the existent things and to nothing else? just as, for