<P> Pythagoras of Samos, a mathematician, mystic, and scientist, taught that number, rather than matter, constitutes the true nature of things . He seems to have influenced Socrates' ideal form . </P> <P> Heraclitus held that all is flux . In such a system there is no need for or possibility of matter . Leucippus held that there exist indivisible particles, atoms, underlying existence . </P> <P> Empedocles held that there are four elements, from which things are derived, Earth, Water, Fire and Air . Some added a fifth element, the Aether, from which the heavens were derived . Socrates accepted (or at least did not reject) that list, as seen from Plato's Timaeus, which identified the five elements with the Platonic solids . Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, fire with the tetrahedron, and the heavens with the dodecahedron . </P> <P> Aristotle, rejecting the atomic theory, instead analyzed the four terrestrial elements with the sense of touch: </P>

Held that all matter is made of four elements earth air fire and water