How it was that Leucippus, from these poor principles of atoms and of the vacuum, which he never got beyond, because he took them to be the absolute, hazarded a construction of the whole world (which may appear to us as strange as it is empty), Diogenes Laertius tells us (IX. 31-33) in an account which seems meaningless enough. But the nature of the subject allows of little better, and we can do no more than observe from it the barrenness of this conception. It runs thus: “Atoms, divergent in form, propel themselves through their separation from the infinite, into the great vacuum.” (Democritus adds to this, “by means of their mutual resistance (_ἀντιτυπία_) and a tremulous, swinging motion (_παλμός_).”)[71] “Here gathered, they form one vortex (_δίνην_) where, by dashing together and revolving round in all sorts of ways, the like are separated off with the like. But since they are of equal weight, when they cannot, on account of their number, move in any way, the finer go into outer vacuum, being so to speak forced out; and the others remain together and, being entangled, run one against another, and form the first round system. But this stands apart like a husk that holds within it all sorts of bodies; since these, in pressing towards the middle, make a vortex movement, this encircling skin becomes thin, because from the action of the vortex, they are continually running together. The earth arises in this way, because these bodies, collected in the middle, remain together. That which encircles and which is like a husk, again becomes increased by means of the adherence of external bodies, and since it also moves within the vortex, it draws everything with which it comes in contact to itself. The union of some of these bodies again forms a system, first the moist and slimy, and then the dry, and that which circles in the vortex of the whole; after that, being ignited, they constitute the substance of the stars. The outer circle is the sun, the inner the moon,” &c. This is an empty representation; there is no interest in these dry, confused ideas of circle-motion, and of what is later on called attraction and repulsion, beyond the fact that the different kinds of motion are looked at as the principle of matter. _c. The Soul_