LEUCIPPUS
368: “The development of philosophy in
The develop-
history must correspond to the de-
velopment of logical philosophy; but
there will still be passages in the lat-
ter which are absent in historical de-
velopment.”
ment of phi-
losophy in
history “must
correspond”
(??) to the
development
of logical
philosophy
Here there is a very profound and cor-
rect, essentially materialist thought (ac-
tual history is the basis, the foundation,
the Being, which is
followed
by conscious-
ness).
Leucippus says that atoms are invisible
“because of the smallness of their body”
(369)—Hegel, however, replies that this
is “Ausrede”
[35]
(ibid.), that 
	  “Eins”
[36]
cannot
be seen, that “das Princip des Eins” “ganz
ideell”
[37]
(370), and that Leucippus is no
“empiricist”, but an idealist.
((
stretching of a point
by the idealist Hegel,
course, stretching a point.
))
([Straining to make Leucippus conform
to his Logic, Hegel expatiates on the impor-
tance, the “greatness” of the principle (368)
Fürsichsein,
[38]
descrying it in Leucippus.
It savours in part of stretching a point.]
[39]
But there is also a grain of truth in it;
the nuance (the “moment”) of separateness;
the interruption of gradualness; the mo-
ment of the smoothing out of contradic-
tions; the interruption of continuity—the
atom, the one. (Cf. 371 i.f.):—“The one
and continuity are opposites....”
Hegel’s logic cannot be
applied
in its
given form, it cannot be
taken
as given.
One
must
separate out
from it
the logical (epistemological) nuances, after
purifying them from
Ideenmystik
[40]
: that
is still a big job.)
“The Atomists are, therefore, generally
speaking, opposed to the idea of the crea-
tion and maintenance of the world by
means of a foreign principle. It is in the
theory of atoms that natural science first
feels released from the need for demonstrat-
ing a foundation for the world. For if nature
is represented as created and held together
by another, then it is conceived of as not
existent in itself, and thus as having its
Notion outside itself, i.e., its basis is
foreign to it, it has no basis as such, it is
only conceivable from the will of another—
as it is, it is contingent, devoid of ne-
cessity and Notion in itself. In the idea
of the atomists, however, we have the con-
ception of the inherency of nature, that is
to say, thought finds itself in it....” (372-373)
materialism
(Hegel is
afraid of the
word: keep
away from
me) versus
atomism
In the presentation—according to Dio-
genes Laertius, IX, § 31-33—of the atomism
of Leucippus, the “vortex” (Wirbel— 
	  δίνην)
[41]
of atoms, Hegel finds nothing of interest
(“no interest,” ...“empty representation,”
“dim, confused ideas”—p. 377 i.f.).
NB
Hegel’s blindness, the one-sidedness of
the Idealist!!