Other physical properties, such as taste and smell, have their basis again in another arrangement of the molecules. But there is no bridge from this to that, or what results is simply empty tautology, according to which the parts are arranged and combined as is requisite in order that their appearance may be what it is. The transition to bodies of concrete appearance Epicurus has either not made at all, or what has been cited from him as far as this matter is concerned, taken by itself, is extremely meagre. The opinion that one hears expressed respecting the Epicurean philosophy is in other respects not unfavourable; and for this reason some further details must be given regarding it. For since absolute Being is constituted by atoms scattered and disintegrated, and by vacuum, it directly follows that Epicurus denies to these atoms any relationship to one another which implies purpose. All that we call forms and organisms, or generally speaking, the unity of Nature’s end, in his way of thinking, belongs to qualities, to an external connection of the configurations of the atoms, which in this way is merely an accident, brought about by their chance-directed motion; the atoms accordingly form a merely superficial unity, and one which is not essential to them. Or else Epicurus altogether denies that Notion and the Universal are the essential, and because all originations are to him chance combinations, for him their resolution is just as much a matter of chance. The divided is the first and the truly existent, but at the same time chance or external necessity is the law which dominates all cohesion. That Epicurus should in this fashion declare himself against a universal end in the world, against every relation of purpose—as, for instance, the inherent conformity to purpose of the organism—and, further, against the teleological representations of the wisdom of a Creator in the world, his government, &c., is a matter of course; for he abrogates unity, whatever be the manner in which we represent it, whether as Nature’s end in itself, or as end which is in another, but is carried out in Nature. In contrast to this, the teleological view enters largely into the philosophy of the Stoics, and is there very fully developed. To show that conformity to an end is lacking, Epicurus brings forward the most trivial examples; for instance, that worms and so on are produced by chance from mud through the warmth of the sun. Taken in their entirety, they may very well be the work of chance in relation to others; but what is implicit in them, their Notion and essence is something organic: and the comprehension of this is what we have now to consider. But Epicurus banishes thought as implicit, without its occurring to him that his atoms themselves have this very nature of thought; that is, their existence in time is not immediate but essentially mediate, and thus negative or universal;—the first and only inconsistency that we find in Epicurus, and one which