The Conception of Atomism in Greek  and Latin Philosophy

Epicurus was born in the year 342 BCE. on the island of Samos. In physics Epicurus trod pretty closely in the footsteps of Democritus; so much so, indeed, that he was accused of taking his atomic cosmology from that philosopher without acknowledgment. He made very few unimportant alterations.

According to Epicurus, as also to Democritus and Leucippus before him, the universe consists of two parts, matter (soma) and space, or vacuum (to kenon), in which matter exists and moves; and all matter, of every kind and form, is reducible to certain indivisible particles or atoms (atomoi), which are eternal. These atoms, moving, according to a natural tendency, straight downward, and also obliquely, have thereby come to form the different bodies which are found in the world, and which differ in kind and shape, according as the atoms are differently placed in respect to one another. It is clear that, in this system, a creator is dispensed with; and indeed Epicurus, here again following Democritus, set about to prove, in an a priori way, that this creator could not exist, inasmuch as nothing could arise out of nothing, any more than it could utterly perish and becoming nothing.

The atoms have existed always, and always will exist; and all the various physical phenomena are brought about, from time to time, by their various motions. The soul itself is made of a finer and more subtle kind of atoms, which, when the body dies and decays, separate and are dissipated.

The various processes of sense are explained on the principles of materialism. From the surfaces of all objects continually flow thin, filmy images of things (eidola), which, by impact on the organism, cause the phenomena of vision, hearing, etc.