Ten Books on Architecture (De Architectura)

regarding character. Furthermore, it is openly known from his writings that he had tasted that science which deals with nature. For he often raises physical questions, and attempts to solve them, although not with equal success. Nor did he draw his principles and knowledge from the best sources: this, as one who knows those who were seriously studying such matters at the time must admit, was more a fault of that age than of his own. For they favored the dogmas of Epicurus Greek philosopher who taught that pleasure is the highest good and that the world is composed of atoms and the delights of Plato, rather than the doctrine of Aristotle, the prince of the Peripatetics and a champion of a truer and more solid philosophy. He discusses air, winds, and waters, as well as plants, and the natures of earth and fossils; regarding all of which, having taken the opportunity to speak and teach, he often weaves very long arguments. Since he is quite frequent in these matters, and not without sharpness and skill, it is easy to argue that it was not genius that he lacked, but rather the cultivation of that genius. But so that we may not seem to have said without cause that he was an imitator of the dogmas of Epicurus, and to have undeservedly branded him with this mark, we shall bring forward what he professed in the second chapter of the second book; for there, having related the opinions of Thales and Heraclitus regarding the principles of things, he writes thus:

original: "Democritus, quique eum secutus est Epicurus, atomos; quas nostri insecabilia corpora, nonnulli individua vocitaverunt. Pythagoreorum vero disciplina adiecit ad aquam & ignem, & aërem & terrenum. Ergo Democritus, etsi non proprie res nominavit, sed tantum divisa corpora proposuit; ideo ea ipsa dixisse videtur, quod ea cum sunt disiuncta, nec laeduntur, nec internecionem recipiunt, sed sempiterno aevo perpetuo infinitam retinent soliditatem. Ex his ergo congruentibus cum res omnes coire nascique videantur, & eae in infinitis generibus rerum natura essent disparatae, putavi oportere de varietatibus & discriminibus usus earum, quasque haberent in aedificiis qualitates, exponere."
Translation: "Democritus, and Epicurus who followed him, [posited] atoms; which our people have called 'indivisible bodies,' and some have called 'individuals.' The discipline of the Pythagoreans, however, added to these water, fire, air, and earth. Therefore, Democritus, although he did not name the things properly, but only proposed divided bodies, seems to have spoken of those same things because, when they are separated, they are neither harmed nor suffer destruction, but throughout eternal time they retain their infinite solidity. Since it appears that all things come together and are born from these congruent elements, and since they are disparate in the infinite kinds of things in nature, I thought it necessary to explain the varieties and differences of their uses, and what qualities they possess in buildings."

So much for him, who in the same book, chapter 1, writing of the life of the men of old, and of the beginnings and growth of humanity and their deeds, borrowed almost everything from those things which Lucretius Roman poet and philosopher expressed eloquently in his fifth book.