Exploring the origin of all things in the universe is an eternal expression of human curiosity. When human thinking develops to a certain level, people will inevitably have a thought: around us, every substance has its components. So, what is the most fundamental component that constitutes all things in the universe? In other words, what exactly does everything in the universe consist of? What are their origins?
's answer to the above questions was of course full of mythology at the beginning. Later, rationality entered the stage of history, and myth gradually retreated to the next. This turning point probably occurred around the 6th century BC, when the Greeks at that time took a new path different from the mythological tradition through their own thinking, and the answers they gave did not require the effect of supernatural factors. It is this kind of exploration that has led Greek philosophy to its journey and laid the foundation for the development of scientific thought in Greece . The first to take his own solid steps along this new road were the natural philosophers of Ionia Milidu. Ionian is located in today's Türkiye , and is located across the Greek mainland Aegean . At that time, Greek colonists had already established a number of prosperous cities in Ionia, and Mili was one of them. Militu Telles first proposed the original theory of all things without mythology.
We know very little about Thales's life experience, and we can only know a little from some of the remaining articles left by the Greeks. According to Aristotle , Thales was not well-off because he was devoted to philosophy and had no time to take care of his livelihood. This was ridiculed by some people. They spread rumors, saying that since Thales was very smart, why couldn't he make money? In order to fight back against these people's ridicule, Thales predicted that the olive would have a bumper harvest in a certain year, so he bought all the olive oil presses in Millido and specified the monopoly price of using the oil press. That year, the local olive harvest was indeed a bumper harvest, and people had to squeeze oil from the oil press that he monopolized, and he became rich in one quarter. But Thales's purpose was only to prove the value of a philosopher, so after making money, he did not continue along the path of business, but turned around and continued his philosophical research.
This legend about Thales is enough to make today's philosophers proud, but things cannot be that simple. Regardless of whether Thales has really been like this, even if this matter is true, it is just a case and does not have universal significance. Because engaging in philosophical research and doing business are two fields after all. In real life, letting philosophers do business will most likely lose money. Moreover, if we are happy to use such examples to prove the function of philosophy today, it seems that philosophy has also become vulgar.
The Greeks' praise of Thales is more reflected in their recognition of his scientific achievements. It is said that Thales once predicted that a solar eclipse would occur in the local area in a certain year. Later, the solar eclipse came as scheduled, causing the Mitia people who were fighting to shake hands and make peace because of surprise. Although Thales' forecast was not a miracle compared to Babylonian , it left a deep impression on the Greeks at that time, so that 150 years later, Herodotus still solemnly recorded it. In addition, Thales also made important developments in the Egyptians' geometry . He turned geometry into an abstract research object and discovered some specific geometry theorem . It is said that he also used the concept of trigonometry to measure the height of Egypt's pyramids. In astronomy, he was the first Greek to think that the moon shines by reflecting the sun's light. He also proposed that the earth is a disk floating on the vast ocean, thus answering the ancient question of how the earth supports it. But all of these are the follow-up notes that people will remember at least one or two hundred years later, and these follow-up notes themselves are incomplete. Because of this, we have no way to know the specific details of Thales' scientific achievements, and it is not known whether these remarks are exaggerated.
Despite this, from today's point of view, Thales is still worthy of being the originator of science. This is not only because of his contributions to specific science mentioned above, but more importantly, he raised the question of the origin of the universe and gave his own answer: all things come from water. Whether his statement is true or not is irrelevant, but his practice of accumulating the origin of the world to a specific substance can arouse philosophical skepticism, because if wood, iron and even fire are essentially like water, it can only prove that sensory evidence is unreliable, which will inevitably promote people to think about objective things rationally, and the importance of reason for scientific development is self-evident. Furthermore, Thales's answer ruled out the intervention of supernatural factors, and he invited the gods out of this field. It is precisely because of this that the thoughts of Thales and his contemporaries have been passed down continuously and finally formed modern science. Therefore, we have reason to think that modern science began with Thales.
Telles's claim that everything originates from water is a philosophical guess. The reason why he proposed such a proposition was that he realized the importance of water to life. It is understandable to do so. To find the origin of all things, of course, we should focus on factors that are universal and very important to them. The most magical thing among all things is life, and water is indispensable in the elements of life. Therefore, it is natural to regard water as the origin of all things. However, Thales can make a argument based on water, and others can also make other claims for other considerations. Also in Milidu, Thales's re-transmitted disciple Anaximini proposed a new theory, he believed that air is the origin of all things, the thinness of air will turn into fire, and its condensation will turn into water, and further compression will turn into soil. Another philosopher in the Ionian region, which is the same as Anaximini, looks at the earth under his feet and believes that the earth is the origin of all things in the universe. He also concluded that the appearance of the earth changes over time based on the fact that shells are sometimes found on the top of a mountain. Decades later, the philosopher Heraclitus , another city near Mileud, linked the origin of things to fire, saying: "Neither God nor man created this world order. It is always an eternal fire in the past, present and future."
In the range that people's senses can perceive, earth, water, air, and fire do have extreme importance. As the origin of all things, it seems that they are all qualified. It is precisely because of this that Sicilian philosopher Empedocler simply learned from others' strengths and proposed the four elements theory, believing that they together constitute all things. These four elements, earth is solid, water is liquid, air is gas, and fire is thinner than gas. They are affected by two divine powers in the universe and are differentiated and combined. These two divine powers act on people, showing love and hatred; acting on all things, attract and rejection. The four elements are combined in various ways and proportions under their action, thus forming various substances in the world. The emergence of the four elements of
is related to people's understanding of the role of fire. At that time, people believed that combustible materials were complex, and after they burned, they must be reduced to several elements of them. For example, if you take a piece of fresh firewood and let it burn, you can clearly see this: the fire during burning is visible from light, the smoke coming out belongs to the air, and the sizzling water runs out from both ends of the firewood, and the remaining ash has the properties of soil. Attention to the role of fire is an important factor in the emergence of modern chemistry. The predecessor of modern chemistry was alchemy, and alchemy was inseparable from fire. Modern chemistry itself also explained through the study of fire that the essence of combustion was established after oxidation reactions.
The above theories have a common feature: the origin of all things they advocate are concrete substances that people can feel in their daily lives. Compared with these theories, Militus's Liugiber took a different approach, proposing that all things are composed of tiny particles - atoms that people cannot sense.This is the atomic theory that has a great influence on modern science. We know almost nothing about Liu Keeber, but we only heard that he proposed the principle of cause and effect, believing that nothing will happen for no reason, and that everything happens with its natural causes. He also put forward the basic concept of atomic theory , and he was the teacher of Democritus . The atomic theory he invented was carried forward by Democritus.
Atomic theory believes that atoms are the ultimate particles that make up all things in the world. The atom is extremely small, it is eternal, indestructible, and inseparable. The word atom itself means "indivisible". The universe is composed of space between atoms and atoms, and even human thoughts and God (if there is God) are composed of atoms.
Since all things are made up of atoms, why do they exhibit different properties? Democritus explained that this is because the shapes of atoms are different from each other. For example, water atoms are smooth and round, so water is amorphous and easy to flow; fire atoms are spiny, so people will naturally have a burning feeling when they come into contact with it; soil atoms are rough and uneven, so they are easy to combine with each other to form a solid and unchanging substance. As for the development and changes of things, they are the result of atomic re-differentiation and combination. Democritus also believed that the emergence of the universe was also related to atoms. Countless atoms were moving randomly in infinite space, impacting each other, causing linear motion and rotational motion. The rotational motion caused atoms to form clumps, small ones formed all things, and large ones formed heaven and earth.
On the surface, atomic theory is an unconsistent theory: although atoms are very small, they have a certain size after all. Since they have size, they should have internal composition. If they have internal composition, they should be divided. Why is it said to be inseparable? In fact, the emergence of atomism is inseparable from the Greeks' meticulous logical thinking, especially with the famous Zeno paradox . Greek philosophers paid great attention to the issues of movement and change. Zeno once used a speculative approach to make specious conclusions about it. This is the famous Zeno paradox. One of Zeno's paradoxes is that exercise is impossible. His argument is that if exercise is possible, it means that you have to run a distance in a limited time, and to run this distance, you must first run half of it; to run this half, you must first run half of it, that is, one quarter; to run this quarter, you must first run one eighth... and so on, even infinite, and it is impossible to travel through infinite intervals in a limited time. Therefore, movement is impossible.
Zeno Another more famous paradox is that Achilles cannot catch up with the turtle. Achilles is a hero and racing expert in Greek mythology. Zeno assumes that he is racing against the turtle, and the turtle runs first, and Achilles chases after the turtle runs for a while. Zeno's conclusion was that under this situation, Achilles would never catch up with the turtle. The reason was that it would take a certain amount of time for Achilles to catch up with this distance, and during this period the turtle moved forward for a short distance. Achilles needed to run this new period, and then the turtle moved forward again. And so on, this is an infinite series, and infinity cannot be achieved, so it is impossible for Achilles to catch up with the turtle.
Zeno's paradox is plausible: experience tells people that movement exists objectively; intuition also tells people that Achilles catches up with the turtle without any effort. But Zeno's argument is impeccable, so where is the problem? It was found that all Zeno's paradox is based on the hypothesis that space and time can be infinitely divided. If this divisibility is abandoned, the Zeno's paradox will no longer hold. Therefore, from the logic of ideological development, atomists deny the Zeno paradox by giving indivisibility to the atoms that constitute matter. Perhaps in their opinion, admitting that atoms are inseparable is better than admitting the Zeno paradox.
Exploring the origin of all things in the universe is an eternal expression of human curiosity. When human thinking develops to a certain level, people will inevitably have a thought: around us, every substance has its components. So, what is the most fundamental component that constitutes all things in the universe? In other words, what exactly does everything in the universe consist of? What are their origins?
's answer to the above questions was of course full of mythology at the beginning. Later, rationality entered the stage of history, and myth gradually retreated to the next. This turning point probably occurred around the 6th century BC, when the Greeks at that time took a new path different from the mythological tradition through their own thinking, and the answers they gave did not require the effect of supernatural factors. It is this kind of exploration that has led Greek philosophy to its journey and laid the foundation for the development of scientific thought in Greece . The first to take his own solid steps along this new road were the natural philosophers of Ionia Milidu. Ionian is located in today's Türkiye , and is located across the Greek mainland Aegean . At that time, Greek colonists had already established a number of prosperous cities in Ionia, and Mili was one of them. Militu Telles first proposed the original theory of all things without mythology.
We know very little about Thales's life experience, and we can only know a little from some of the remaining articles left by the Greeks. According to Aristotle , Thales was not well-off because he was devoted to philosophy and had no time to take care of his livelihood. This was ridiculed by some people. They spread rumors, saying that since Thales was very smart, why couldn't he make money? In order to fight back against these people's ridicule, Thales predicted that the olive would have a bumper harvest in a certain year, so he bought all the olive oil presses in Millido and specified the monopoly price of using the oil press. That year, the local olive harvest was indeed a bumper harvest, and people had to squeeze oil from the oil press that he monopolized, and he became rich in one quarter. But Thales's purpose was only to prove the value of a philosopher, so after making money, he did not continue along the path of business, but turned around and continued his philosophical research.
This legend about Thales is enough to make today's philosophers proud, but things cannot be that simple. Regardless of whether Thales has really been like this, even if this matter is true, it is just a case and does not have universal significance. Because engaging in philosophical research and doing business are two fields after all. In real life, letting philosophers do business will most likely lose money. Moreover, if we are happy to use such examples to prove the function of philosophy today, it seems that philosophy has also become vulgar.
The Greeks' praise of Thales is more reflected in their recognition of his scientific achievements. It is said that Thales once predicted that a solar eclipse would occur in the local area in a certain year. Later, the solar eclipse came as scheduled, causing the Mitia people who were fighting to shake hands and make peace because of surprise. Although Thales' forecast was not a miracle compared to Babylonian , it left a deep impression on the Greeks at that time, so that 150 years later, Herodotus still solemnly recorded it. In addition, Thales also made important developments in the Egyptians' geometry . He turned geometry into an abstract research object and discovered some specific geometry theorem . It is said that he also used the concept of trigonometry to measure the height of Egypt's pyramids. In astronomy, he was the first Greek to think that the moon shines by reflecting the sun's light. He also proposed that the earth is a disk floating on the vast ocean, thus answering the ancient question of how the earth supports it. But all of these are the follow-up notes that people will remember at least one or two hundred years later, and these follow-up notes themselves are incomplete. Because of this, we have no way to know the specific details of Thales' scientific achievements, and it is not known whether these remarks are exaggerated.
Despite this, from today's point of view, Thales is still worthy of being the originator of science. This is not only because of his contributions to specific science mentioned above, but more importantly, he raised the question of the origin of the universe and gave his own answer: all things come from water. Whether his statement is true or not is irrelevant, but his practice of accumulating the origin of the world to a specific substance can arouse philosophical skepticism, because if wood, iron and even fire are essentially like water, it can only prove that sensory evidence is unreliable, which will inevitably promote people to think about objective things rationally, and the importance of reason for scientific development is self-evident. Furthermore, Thales's answer ruled out the intervention of supernatural factors, and he invited the gods out of this field. It is precisely because of this that the thoughts of Thales and his contemporaries have been passed down continuously and finally formed modern science. Therefore, we have reason to think that modern science began with Thales.
Telles's claim that everything originates from water is a philosophical guess. The reason why he proposed such a proposition was that he realized the importance of water to life. It is understandable to do so. To find the origin of all things, of course, we should focus on factors that are universal and very important to them. The most magical thing among all things is life, and water is indispensable in the elements of life. Therefore, it is natural to regard water as the origin of all things. However, Thales can make a argument based on water, and others can also make other claims for other considerations. Also in Milidu, Thales's re-transmitted disciple Anaximini proposed a new theory, he believed that air is the origin of all things, the thinness of air will turn into fire, and its condensation will turn into water, and further compression will turn into soil. Another philosopher in the Ionian region, which is the same as Anaximini, looks at the earth under his feet and believes that the earth is the origin of all things in the universe. He also concluded that the appearance of the earth changes over time based on the fact that shells are sometimes found on the top of a mountain. Decades later, the philosopher Heraclitus , another city near Mileud, linked the origin of things to fire, saying: "Neither God nor man created this world order. It is always an eternal fire in the past, present and future."
In the range that people's senses can perceive, earth, water, air, and fire do have extreme importance. As the origin of all things, it seems that they are all qualified. It is precisely because of this that Sicilian philosopher Empedocler simply learned from others' strengths and proposed the four elements theory, believing that they together constitute all things. These four elements, earth is solid, water is liquid, air is gas, and fire is thinner than gas. They are affected by two divine powers in the universe and are differentiated and combined. These two divine powers act on people, showing love and hatred; acting on all things, attract and rejection. The four elements are combined in various ways and proportions under their action, thus forming various substances in the world. The emergence of the four elements of
is related to people's understanding of the role of fire. At that time, people believed that combustible materials were complex, and after they burned, they must be reduced to several elements of them. For example, if you take a piece of fresh firewood and let it burn, you can clearly see this: the fire during burning is visible from light, the smoke coming out belongs to the air, and the sizzling water runs out from both ends of the firewood, and the remaining ash has the properties of soil. Attention to the role of fire is an important factor in the emergence of modern chemistry. The predecessor of modern chemistry was alchemy, and alchemy was inseparable from fire. Modern chemistry itself also explained through the study of fire that the essence of combustion was established after oxidation reactions.
The above theories have a common feature: the origin of all things they advocate are concrete substances that people can feel in their daily lives. Compared with these theories, Militus's Liugiber took a different approach, proposing that all things are composed of tiny particles - atoms that people cannot sense.This is the atomic theory that has a great influence on modern science. We know almost nothing about Liu Keeber, but we only heard that he proposed the principle of cause and effect, believing that nothing will happen for no reason, and that everything happens with its natural causes. He also put forward the basic concept of atomic theory , and he was the teacher of Democritus . The atomic theory he invented was carried forward by Democritus.
Atomic theory believes that atoms are the ultimate particles that make up all things in the world. The atom is extremely small, it is eternal, indestructible, and inseparable. The word atom itself means "indivisible". The universe is composed of space between atoms and atoms, and even human thoughts and God (if there is God) are composed of atoms.
Since all things are made up of atoms, why do they exhibit different properties? Democritus explained that this is because the shapes of atoms are different from each other. For example, water atoms are smooth and round, so water is amorphous and easy to flow; fire atoms are spiny, so people will naturally have a burning feeling when they come into contact with it; soil atoms are rough and uneven, so they are easy to combine with each other to form a solid and unchanging substance. As for the development and changes of things, they are the result of atomic re-differentiation and combination. Democritus also believed that the emergence of the universe was also related to atoms. Countless atoms were moving randomly in infinite space, impacting each other, causing linear motion and rotational motion. The rotational motion caused atoms to form clumps, small ones formed all things, and large ones formed heaven and earth.
On the surface, atomic theory is an unconsistent theory: although atoms are very small, they have a certain size after all. Since they have size, they should have internal composition. If they have internal composition, they should be divided. Why is it said to be inseparable? In fact, the emergence of atomism is inseparable from the Greeks' meticulous logical thinking, especially with the famous Zeno paradox . Greek philosophers paid great attention to the issues of movement and change. Zeno once used a speculative approach to make specious conclusions about it. This is the famous Zeno paradox. One of Zeno's paradoxes is that exercise is impossible. His argument is that if exercise is possible, it means that you have to run a distance in a limited time, and to run this distance, you must first run half of it; to run this half, you must first run half of it, that is, one quarter; to run this quarter, you must first run one eighth... and so on, even infinite, and it is impossible to travel through infinite intervals in a limited time. Therefore, movement is impossible.
Zeno Another more famous paradox is that Achilles cannot catch up with the turtle. Achilles is a hero and racing expert in Greek mythology. Zeno assumes that he is racing against the turtle, and the turtle runs first, and Achilles chases after the turtle runs for a while. Zeno's conclusion was that under this situation, Achilles would never catch up with the turtle. The reason was that it would take a certain amount of time for Achilles to catch up with this distance, and during this period the turtle moved forward for a short distance. Achilles needed to run this new period, and then the turtle moved forward again. And so on, this is an infinite series, and infinity cannot be achieved, so it is impossible for Achilles to catch up with the turtle.
Zeno's paradox is plausible: experience tells people that movement exists objectively; intuition also tells people that Achilles catches up with the turtle without any effort. But Zeno's argument is impeccable, so where is the problem? It was found that all Zeno's paradox is based on the hypothesis that space and time can be infinitely divided. If this divisibility is abandoned, the Zeno's paradox will no longer hold. Therefore, from the logic of ideological development, atomists deny the Zeno paradox by giving indivisibility to the atoms that constitute matter. Perhaps in their opinion, admitting that atoms are inseparable is better than admitting the Zeno paradox.In addition, Thales's discussion of the origin of all things only makes it possible to inspire people to think of the unreliability of the senses, while Zeno's argument clearly points out the unreliability of the senses, which helps atomists find the origin of matter in things that the senses cannot detect. This is how atoms are found. Therefore, the emergence of atomism has its philosophical basis.
Atomic theory embodies a mechanical theory philosophy. According to the atomist's view, individual atoms are eternal and unchanging, and a colorful world is formed through various movements and arrangements of atoms. The whole world is like a big machine. The operation of this machine is the inevitable result of the movement of atoms according to their nature. There is no God's role, no spiritual power, and no accident. Everything is carried out according to iron necessity. This mechanistic philosophy found a soulmate in the scientific community after the 17th century. Physicists analyze matter as particle , use mathematics to describe their interactions and movements, and predict their future state of motion, which makes people think that this is essentially the whole world. Since the 20th century, mechanistic philosophy has become history, but in the process of scientific development, the stage of mechanistic philosophy is insurmountable. It is also because of this that among many schools of philosophy in Ancient Greek , atomic philosophy is particularly favored by scientific historians.
Democritus's Atomic Theory More than 100 years later, he found a soulmate in Epicurus . Epicurus taught atomic theory in Athens, taking atomic theory as part of his entire ethics, psychology and physics philosophy. More than 200 years later, the Roman poet Lucretiu re-mentioned atomism in his immortal poem " Theory of Physical Nature " and pushed atomism to the extreme. Lucrecius believed that even non-material things like thoughts and souls are composed of atoms, but these atoms are more subtle than the atoms that make up material things. He recorded in detail the views of Epicurus school . It is through his account that we can still understand the description of atomism by the Greek philosophers today.
In the school of ancient Greek philosophy, although atomism is closest to the understanding of modern science, not many Greek philosophers agree with atomism. The famous philosopher Plato and his student Aristotle did not agree with atomic theory. They agreed with Empedocler's four-element theory, but they made their own developments on the four-element theory.
Plato was influenced by Pythagorean school and transformed the four elements. He restored them to triangles. A triangle is of course flat, but when several triangles are properly combined, they become three-dimensional particles. Each of these three-dimensional particles corresponds to an element, and these elements form all things. "In Plato's time, people already knew that there were and only five geometric polyhedrons (the symmetric geometry composed of exactly the same planes), which are: tetrahedrons (four equilateral triangles), cubes (six squares), octahedrons (eight equilateral triangles), dodecahedrons (twelve equilateral pentagons), and icosahedrons (twenty equilateral triangles). Plato linked each element to one of these figures—fire and tetrahedrons (the smallest, sharpest and most volatile regular polyhedrons), gas and octahedrons, water and icosahedrons, soil and the most stable regular polyhedrons, i.e. cubes. Finally, Plato equated the dodecahedrons (the positive polyhedrons closest to the sphere) with the entire universe."
Plato's influence on the development of Greek science is not mainly in this. His interests are mainly in moral philosophy, that is, ethics . He despised natural philosophy and regarded natural philosophy as a low-level and research-free science. He also founded the Plato Academy in Athens to teach his claims. Plato Academy existed for more than nine centuries until 529 AD when the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian ordered it to be closed. Even after the school closed, Plato philosophy still had a strong influence on Christian thought throughout the early medieval period. Given that Platonian philosophy is not conducive to the development of science, the decline of Greek science is not unrelated to the long-term influence of Platonian philosophy at the ideological level.
Plato transformed the four elements of Empedocles in shape, while his disciple Aristotle took a different approach and innovated it in terms of nature. Like Plato, Aristotle believed that the four elements in the Four Elements theory could be reduced to something more fundamental than them. Plato reduced them to triangles, while Aristotle reduced them to those properties that people can feel about the objective world. He believes that two pairs of these properties play a decisive role—heat and cold, dry and wet, and they have four ways of combining, each producing an element. Aristotle believes that among these four properties, no force can prevent them from being replaced by their opposites. For example, if water is heated, the cold in the water is replaced by heat, and the combination of heat and humidity turns water into gas. Aristotle also believed that the four elements in his four elements cannot be simply understood as the empirical substances represented by these names. For example, soil not only refers to the earth under our feet, but also to various solids. After these definitions, Aristotle could easily explain the changes in the same material state and the transformation of different matters into each other. He also believes that the four elements theory only applies to the earth itself, while the celestial bodies are composed of the fifth element "Ether". This concept of the world having other ideas has ruled people in the ideological world for more than a thousand years.
Figure 1.1 Aristotle's four elements diagram
Aristotle was the master of ancient knowledge. Before Renaissance , no one had the same systematic investigation and mastery of knowledge as he did. Since the 13th century, in the European Christian world, Aristotle replaced Plato in philosophy, and his theory of the four elements of the origin of all things naturally became an authoritative doctrine in this regard. It was not until the 17th century that Boyer's elemental theory came out and the four elements theory left the stage of history. By the beginning of the 19th century, British chemist Dalton proposed the scientific atomic theory, and the ancient atomic theory was reborn. At this point, people's discussion of the origin of all things was truly integrated into the torrent of modern science.

Plato transformed the four elements of Empedocles in shape, while his disciple Aristotle took a different approach and innovated it in terms of nature. Like Plato, Aristotle believed that the four elements in the Four Elements theory could be reduced to something more fundamental than them. Plato reduced them to triangles, while Aristotle reduced them to those properties that people can feel about the objective world. He believes that two pairs of these properties play a decisive role—heat and cold, dry and wet, and they have four ways of combining, each producing an element. Aristotle believes that among these four properties, no force can prevent them from being replaced by their opposites. For example, if water is heated, the cold in the water is replaced by heat, and the combination of heat and humidity turns water into gas. Aristotle also believed that the four elements in his four elements cannot be simply understood as the empirical substances represented by these names. For example, soil not only refers to the earth under our feet, but also to various solids. After these definitions, Aristotle could easily explain the changes in the same material state and the transformation of different matters into each other. He also believes that the four elements theory only applies to the earth itself, while the celestial bodies are composed of the fifth element "Ether". This concept of the world having other ideas has ruled people in the ideological world for more than a thousand years.
Figure 1.1 Aristotle's four elements diagram
Aristotle was the master of ancient knowledge. Before Renaissance , no one had the same systematic investigation and mastery of knowledge as he did. Since the 13th century, in the European Christian world, Aristotle replaced Plato in philosophy, and his theory of the four elements of the origin of all things naturally became an authoritative doctrine in this regard. It was not until the 17th century that Boyer's elemental theory came out and the four elements theory left the stage of history. By the beginning of the 19th century, British chemist Dalton proposed the scientific atomic theory, and the ancient atomic theory was reborn. At this point, people's discussion of the origin of all things was truly integrated into the torrent of modern science.

