Epicurus assumes a threefold motion of the atoms in the void.” 
- One motion is the fall in a straight line, the second originates in the 
deviation of the atom from the straight line, and the third is 
established through the repulsion of the many atoms. Both Democri- 
tus and Epicurus accept the first and the third motion. The 
declination of the atom from the straight line differentiates the one 
from the other.” 

This motion of declination* has often been made the subject of 
a joke. Cicero more than any other is inexhaustible when he 
touches on this theme. Thus we read in him, among other things: 

“Epicurus maintains that the atoms are thrust downwards in a straight line by 
their weight; this motion is said to be the natural motion of bodies. But then it 
occurred to him that if all atoms were thrust downwards, no atom could ever meet 
another one. Epicurus therefore resorted to a lie. He said that the atom makes a 
very tiny swerve, which is, of course, entirely impossible. From this arose 
complexities, combinations and adhesions of the atoms with one another, and out 
of this came the world, all parts of it and its contents. Besides all this being a 
puerile invention, he does not even achieve what he desires.” 

We find another version in the first book of Cicero’s treatise On 
the Nature of the Gods: 

“Since Epicurus saw that, if the atoms travelled downwards by their own weight, 
nothing would be within our control, for their motion would be determined and 
necessary, he invented a means for escaping this necessity, a means which had 
escaped the notice of Democritus. He says that the atom, although thrust 
downwards by its weight and gravity, makes a very slight swerve. To assert this is 
more disgraceful than to be incapable of defending what he wants.” 

Pierre Bayle expresses a similar opinion: 

“Avant lui” (c.-a-d. Epicure) “on n’avait admis dans les atomes que le mouve- 
ment de pesanteur, et celui de réflexion. [...] Epicure supposa que méme au milieu 
du vide, les atomes déclinaient un peu de la ligne droite, et de la venait la liberté, 
disait-il... Remarquons en passant que ce ne fut [pas] le seul motif qui le porta a 
inventer ce mouvement de déclinaison, il le fit servir aussi 4 expliquer la rencontre 
des atomes; car il vit bien qu’en supposant qu’ils se mouvaient [tous] avec une égale 
vitesse par des lignes droites qui tendaient toutes de haut en bas, il ne ferait jamais 
comprendre qu’ils eussent pu se rencontrer, et qu’ainsi la production du monde 
aurait été impossible. I] fallut donc [...] qu’ils s’écartaient de la ligne droite.” * 

For the present I leave the validity of these reflections an open 
question. This much everyone will notice in passing, that the most 
recent critic of Epicurus, Schaubach, has misunderstood Cicero 
when he says: 

“The atoms are all thrust downwards by gravity, hence parallel, owing to physical 
causes, but through mutual repulsion they acquire another motion, according to 
Cicero (De natura deorum, I, xxv [, 69]) an oblique motion due to accidental causes, 
and indeed from all eternity.” 

In the first place, Cicero in the quoted passage does not make 
the repulsion the reason for the oblique direction, but rather the 
oblique direction the reason for the repulsion. In the second place, 
he does not speak of accidental causes, but rather criticises the fact 
that no causes at all are mentioned, as it would be in and for itself 
contradictory to assume repulsion and at the same time accidental 
causes as the reason for the oblique direction. At best one could 
then still speak of accidental causes of the repulsion, but not of 
accidental causes of the oblique direction. ; 

For the rest, one peculiarity in Cicero’s and Bayle’s reflections is 
too obvious not to be stressed immediately. They foist upon 
Epicurus motives of which the one nullifies the other. Epicurus is 
supposed to have assumed a declination of the atoms in order to 
explain the repulsion on one occasion, and on another freedom. 
But if the atoms do not meet without declination, then declination 
as an explanation of freedom is superfluous; for the opposite of 

freedom begins, as we see in Lucretius,” only with the deterministic 
and forced meeting of atoms. But if the atoms meet without 
declination, then this is superfluous for explaining repulsion. 
I maintain that this contradiction arises when the causes for the 
declination of the atom from the straight line are understood so 
superficially and disconnectedly as they are by Cicero and Bayle. 
We shall find in Lucretius, the only one in general of all the 
ancients who has understood Epicurean physics, a more profound 
exposition. 

We now shall consider the declination itself. 

Just as the point is negated [aufgehoben] in the line, so is every 
falling body negated in the straight line it describes. Its specific 
quality does not matter here at all. A falling apple describes a 
perpendicular line just as a piece of iron does. Every body, insofar 
as we are concerned with the motion of falling, is therefore 
nothing but a moving point, and indeed a point without indepen- 
dence, which in a certain mode of being—the straight line which 
it describes—surrenders its individuality [Finzelheit]. Aristotle 
therefore is correct when he objects against the Pythagoreans: 
“You say that the motion of the line is the surface, that of the 
point the line; then the motions of the monads will also be 
lines.” » The consequence of this for the monads as well as for the 
atoms would therefore be—since they are in constant mo- 
tion” —that neither monads nor atoms exist, but rather disappear 
in the straight line; for the solidity of the atom does not even 
enter into the picture, insofar as it is only considered as something 
falling in a straight line. To begin with, if the void is imagined as 
spatial void, then the atom is the immediate negation of abstract space, 
hence a spatial point. The solidity, the intensity, which maintains 
itself in itself against the incohesion of space, can only be added by 
virtue of a principle which negates space in its entire domain, a 
principle such as time is in real nature. Moreover, if this itself is 
not admitted, the atom, insofar as its motion is a straight line, is 
determined only by space and is prescribed a relative being and a 
purely material existence. But we have seen that one moment in 
the concept of the atom is that of being pure form, negation of all 
relativity, of all relation to another mode of being. We have noted 
at the same time that’ Epicurus objectifies for himself both 
moments which, although they contradict one another, are 
nevertheless inherent in the concept of the atom. 

How then can Epicurus give reality to the pure form-determi- 
nation of the atom, the concept of pure individuality, negating 
any mode of being determined by another being? 

Since he is moving in the domain of immediate being, all 
determinations are immediate. Opposite determinations are there- 
fore opposed to one another as immediate realities. 

But the relative existence which confronts the atom, the mode of 
being which it has to negate, is thé straight line. The immediate 
negation of this motion is another motion, which, therefore, spatially 
conceived, is the declination from the straight line. 

The atoms are purely self-sufficient bodies or rather bodies 
conceived in absolute self-sufficiency, like the heavenly bodies. 
Hence, again like the heavenly bodies, they move not in straight, 
but in oblique lines. The motion of falling is the motion of non- 
self-sufficiency. 

If Epicurus therefore represents the materiality of the atom in 
terms of its motion along a straight line, he has given reality to its 
form-determination in the declination from the straight line, and 
these opposed determinations are represented as directly opposed 
motions. 

Lucretius therefore is correct when he maintains that the 
declination breaks the fati foedera, and, since he applies this 
immediately to consciousness,'! it can be said of the atom that the 
declination is that something in its breast that can fight back and 
resist. 

But when Cicero reproaches Epicurus that 

“he does not even attain the goal for which he made all this up — for if all atoms 
declined, none of them would ever combine, or some would deviate, others would 
be driven straight ahead by their motion. So it would be necessary as it were to give 
the atoms definite weslgaments beforehand: which had to move straight ahead and 
which obliquely”, 

this objection has the justification that the two moments inherent 
in the concept of the atom are represented as directly different 
motions, and therefore must be allotted to different individuals: 
an inconsistency, but a consistent one, since the domain of the 
atom is immediacy. 

Epicurus feels this inherent contradiction quite well. He there- 
fore endeavours to represent the declination as being as impercepti- 
ble as possible to the senses; it takes place 

Nec regione loci certa, nec tempore certo,°!9) 

it occurs in the smallest possible space. 

Moreover Cicero,’ and, according to Plutarch, several ancient 

authors, ' reproach Epicurus for saying that the declination of the 
atom occurs without cause. Nothing more disgraceful, says Cicero, 
can happen to a physicist.'” But, in the first place, a physical 
cause such as Cicero wants would throw the declination of the 

atom back into the domain of determinism, out of which it was 
precisely to be lifted. And then, the atom is by no means complete be- 

fore it has been submitted to the determination of declination. To in- 
quire after the cause of this determination means therefore to 
inquire after the cause that makes the atom a principle —a clear- 
ly meaningless inquiry to anyone for whom the atom is the 
cause of everything, hence without cause itself. 

Finally, Bayle,’ supported by the authority of Augustine,'? who 
states that Democritus ascribed to the atom a spiritual princi- 
ple—an authority, by the way, who in contrast to Aristotle and 
the other ancients is without any importance —reproaches Epicu- 
rus for having thought out the concept of declination instead of 
this spiritual principle. But, on the contrary, merely a word would 
have been gained with this “soul of the atom”, whereas the de- 
clination represents the real soul of the atom, the concept of 
abstract individuality. 

Before we consider the consequence of the declination of the 
atom from the straight line, we must draw attention to another, 
most important element, which up to now has been entirely 
overlooked. 

The declination of the atom from the straight line is, namely, not a 
particular determination which eae accidentally in Epicurean physics. 
On the contrary, the law which tt expresses goes through the whole 
Epicurean philosophy, in such a way, however, that, as goes without 
saying, the determination of its appearance depends on the domain in 
which it is applied. 

As a matter of fact, abstract individuality can make its concept, 
its form-determination, the pure being-for-itself, the independence 
from immediate being, the negation of all relativity, effective only 
by abstracting from the being that confronts it; for in order truly to 
overcome it, abstract individuality had to idealise it, a thing only 
generality can accomplish. 

Thus, while the atom frees itself from its relative existence, the 
straight line, by abstracting from it, by swerving away from it; so 
the entire Epicurean philosophy swerves away from the restrictive 
mode of being wherever the concept of abstract individuality, 
self-sufficiency and negation of all relation to other things must be 
represented in its existence. 

The purpose of action is to be found therefore in abstracting, 
swerving away from pain and confusion, in ataraxy.”” Hence the 
good is the flight from evil,*” pleasure the swerving away from 
suffering.» Finally, where abstract individuality appears in its 
highest freedom and independence, in its totality, there it follows 
that the being which is swerved away from, is all being; for this 
reason, the gods swerve away from the world, do not bother with it and 
live outside it.” 

These gods of Epicurus have often been ridiculed, these gods 
who, like human beings, dwell in the intermundia* of the real 
world, have no body but a quasi-body, no blood but quasi-blood,”” 
and, content to abide in blissful peace, lend no ear to any 
supplication, are unconcerned with us and the world, are hon- 
oured because of their beauty, their majesty and their superior 
nature, and not for any gain. 

And yet these gods are no fiction of Epicurus. They did exist. 
They are the plastic gods of Greek art.”* Cicero, the Roman, rightly 
scoffs at them,*” but Plutarch, the Greek, has forgotten the whole 
Greek outlook when he claims that although this doctrine of the 
gods does away with fear and superstition, it produces no joy or 
favour in the gods, but instead bestows on us that relation to them 
that we have to the Hyrcanian™ fish, from which we expect 
neither harm nor advantage.*” Theoretical calm is one of the 
chief characteristics of the Greek gods. As Aristotle says: 

“What is best has no need of action, for it is its own end.” 2”) 

We now consider the consequence that follows directly from the 
declination of the atom. In it is expressed the atom’s negation of 
all motion and relation by which it is determined as a particular 
mode of being by another being. This is represented in such a way 
that the atom abstracts from the opposing being and withdraws 
itself from it. But what is contained herein, namely, its negation of 
all relation to something else, must be realised, positively established. 
This can only be done if the being to which it relates itself is none other 
than itself, hence equally an atom, and, since it itself is directly 
determined, many atoms. The repulsion of the many atoms is therefore 
the necessary realisation of the lex atomi,” as Lucretius calls the 
declination. But since here every determination is established as a 
particular being, repulsion is added as a third motion to the 
former ones. Lucretius is therefore correct when he says that, if 

the atoms were not to decline, neither their repulsion nor their 
meeting would have taken place, and the world would never have 
been created.” For atoms are their own sole object and can only be 
related to themselves, hence speaking in spatial terms, they can only 
meet, because every relative existence of these atoms by which they 
would be related to other beings is negated. And this relative 
existence is, as we have seen, their original motion, that of falling 
in a straight line. Hence they meet only by virtue of their 
declination from the straight line. It has nothing to do with merely 
material fragmentation.” 

And in truth: the immediately existing individuality is only 
realised conceptually, inasmuch as it relates to something else 
which actually is itself —even when the other thing confronts it in 
the form of immediate existence. Thus man ceases to be a product 
of nature only when the other being to which he relates himself is 
not a different existence but is itself an individual human being, 
even if it is not yet the mind [Geist]. But for man as man to 
become his own real object, he must have crushed within himself 
his relative being, the power of desire and of mere nature. 
Repulsion is the first form of self-consciousness, it corresponds there- 
fore to that self-consciousness which conceives itself as im- 
mediate-being, as abstractly individual. 

The concept of the atom is therefore realised in repulsion, 
inasmuch as it is abstract form, but no less also the opposite, 
inasmuch as it is abstract matter; for that to which it relates it- 
self consists, to be true, of atoms, but other atoms. But when I re- 
late myself to myself as to something which is directly another, then my 
relationship is a material one. This is the most extreme degree 
of externality that can be conceived. In the repulsion of the atoms, 
therefore, their materiality, which was posited in the fall in 
a straight line, and the form-determination, which was established 
in the declination, are united synthetically. 

Democritus, in contrast to Epicurus, transforms into an enforced 
motion, into an act of blind necessity, that which to Epicurus is the 
realisation of the concept of the atom. We have already seen above 
that he considers the vortex (éfvy) resulting from the repulsion 
and collision of the atoms to be the substance of necessity. He 
therefore sees in the repulsion only the material side, the frag- 
mentation, the change, and not the ideal side, according to 
which all relation to something else is negated and motion is estab- 
lished as self-determination. This can be clearly seen from the 
fact that he conceives one and the same body divided through 
empty space into many parts quite sensuously, like gold broken 

up into pieces.*°) Thus he scarcely conceived of the One as the 

concept of the atom. 
Aristotle correctly argues against him: 

“Hence Leucippus and Democritus, who assert that the primary bodies always 
moved in the void and in the infinite, should say what kind of motion this is, and 
what is the motion natural to them. For if each of the elements is forcibly moved 
by the other, then it is still necessary that each should have also a natural motion, 
outside which is the enforced one. And this first motion must not be enforced but 
natural. Otherwise the procedure goes on to infinity.” oh) 

The Epicurean declination of the atom thus changed the whole 
inner structure of the domain of the atoms, since through it the 
form-determination is validated and the contradiction inherent in 
the concept of the atom is realised. Epicurus was therefore the 
first to grasp the essence of the repulsion—even if only in 
sensuous form, whereas Democritus only knew of its material 
existence. 

Hence we find also more concrete forms of the repulsion 
applied by Epicurus. In the political domain there is the cove- 
nant, * in the social domain friendship,* which is praised as the 
highest good. 

Chapter Two