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On Generation and corruption 
arbitrary fiction. For up to what limit is it divisible? And for
what reason is part of the Whole indivisible, i.e. a plenum, and
part divided? Further, they maintain, it is equally necessary to
deny the existence of motion.
Reasoning in this way, therefore, they were led to transcend
sense-perception, and to disregard it on the ground that 'one ought to
follow the argument': and so they assert that the universe is 'one'
and immovable. Some of them add that it is 'infinite', since the limit
(if it had one) would be a limit against the void.
There were, then, certain thinkers who, for the reasons we have
stated, enunciated views of this kind as their theory of 'The
Truth'.... Moreover, although these opinions appear to follow
logically in a dialectical discussion, yet to believe them seems
next door to madness when one considers the facts. For indeed no
lunatic seems to be so far out of his senses as to suppose that fire
and ice are 'one': it is only between what is right and what seems
right from habit, that some people are mad enough to see no
difference.
Leucippus, however, thought he had a theory which harmonized with
sense-perception and would not abolish either coming-to-be and
passing-away or motion and the multiplicity of things. He made these
concessions to the facts of perception: on the other hand, he conceded
to the Monists that there could be no motion without a void. The
result is a theory which he states as follows: 'The void is a "not
being", and no part of "what is" is a "not-being"; for what "is" in
the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum,
however, is not "one": on the contrary, it is a many" infinite in
number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. The "many"
move in the void (for there is a void): and by coming together they
produce "coming to-be", while by separating they produce
"passing-away". Moreover, they act and suffer action wherever they
chance to be in contact (for there they are not "one"), and they
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