Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion; that is, the school of
Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus.
This is definitely known to be true of the "Shield of Heracles", the first 53 lines of which belong to the fourth book of the "Catalogues", and almost certainly applies to other episodes, such as the "Suitors of Helen" (9), the "Daughters of
Leucippus", and the "Marriage of Ceyx", which last Plutarch mentions as `interpolated in the works of Hesiod.'
There appears to exist only four practicable possible answers to this question, which are: (1) There is no reason; reality is a matter of sheer random contingency (Lucretius and David Hume); (2) There are no alternatives; reality is somehow necessitated (Spinoza); (3) Reality is a matter of optimization; things are as is because that is for the best (Leibniz); and (4) All alternative possibilities actually exist (
Leucippus and Democritus).
Materialists Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Xenophanes were followed by atomists like
Leucippus (5 (th) century BCE) and his disciple Democritus (5 (th)-4 (th) century BCE), and by secular humanist Epicurus (4 (th)-3 (rd) century BCE), then by Euclid (born circa 300 BCE) and Archimedes (287-211 BCE).
For, the ancient pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Democritus (with
Leucippus, ca.
About 70 readings, almost all excerpts of longer works, begin with early Greek philosophy by such thinkers as Anaximander, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Empedocles, the atomists
Leucippus and Democritus, and the sophists.
Alexander presents three views: that providence is nonexistent (the opinion of
Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus); that providence encompasses all things (that of Zeno of Cittium and the Stoics and, according to some people, of Plato); and a third view belonging to Aristotle.
It is not haphazardly that Democritus who interpreted
Leucippus' ideas or Prasastapada and his commentator Sridhara have been looking for the first elements (arouoc, paramanu); Albert the Great, Nicolas Flamel, Roger Bacon have pursued lapis philosophorum struggling against death even with the help of alchemy.
Any approach to this tradition would need to take full stock of the references to Epicurus (and Empedocles,
Leucippus and Democritus) not only in Diogenes Laertius, but also in Aristotle, Plato and Cicero, and to Epicurus and Lucretius in Seneca, Pliny the Elder and Plutarch's Moralia; it would need to be familiar with the Neoplatonists and the medieval transmission of Epicurean ideas; it would need to explore the many different ways in which ideas were exchanged between Italy and England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.