 The most ambitious and systematic attempt at refuting atomism in the fourteenth century was mounted by Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290 – 1349). The purpose of his Tractatus de Continuo (c. 1330) was to “prove that the opinion which maintains continua to be composed of indivisibles is false” (Murdoch 1957: 54). This was to be achieved by setting forth a number of “first principles” concerning the continuum—akin to the axioms and postulates of Euclid’s Elements—and then demonstrating that the further assumption that a continuum is composed of indivisibles leads to absurdities (Murdoch 1957).