Mosaic Origin of the Atomic Theory

Abstract

THE recent correspondence on the subject of the identity of the inventor of the atomic theory has led me to think that the following quotation from one of the foremost English scholars of the seventeenth century is worthy of some passing notice in this connection. Ralph Cudworth, D.D. (1617–1688), was the author of a colossal monument to Greek philosophy, the “Intellectual System of the Universe”. A smaller work of that author, which was published posthumously (1731), contains the following paragraphs, which throw a glimmering light (new, probably, to most eyes) on the historic continuity of ancient philosophy and “modern” science:—