[Sidenote: Lucretius] With Leucippus and Democritus Bruno might have been expected to claim affinity, through their common atomism and naturalism: with two cardinal features of the traditional Epicureanism he was however in entire disagreement. The one was its admission of the void or vacuum: it explained the constitution of diverse bodies out of atoms which were all of the same spherical form, by the different positions and order in which the void and solid parts respectively were arranged, whereas Bruno could not imagine the corporeal atoms holding together without a material substance, extending continuously throughout the universe.[178] The other point of contrast was its denial that anything but corporeal matter exists, with the corollary that forms are merely accidental dispositions of matter: Bruno confesses to have been at one time of the same opinion, but he had been unable wholly to reduce forms to matter, and therefore was compelled to admit two kinds of substance, forms or ideas, and matter or body, although these again were modes of a still higher unity, the One.[179] "The deep thought of the learned Lucretius"[180] early fascinated Bruno, and Lucretius gave the trend not only to much of his philosophy but also to the style of his writing. The Latin poems were suggested by Lucretius' _De rerum natura_, to which they are far inferior, certainly, in literary charm; the philosophical system of the later writer however is not only bolder and grander in itself, but far more thoroughly worked out into the detail of exposition and of criticism. In the Italian dialogues also Lucretius is constantly quoted,--frequently from memory, as one may judge from the errors made. [Sidenote: Neoplatonism] [Sidenote: Egyptian theosophy.] [Sidenote: Hebrew Cabala.]