Bodin, Jean

One of the first atomists in the sixteenth century was Jean Bodin (1530-1596 CE) who considered atoms to be indivisible bodies with motion and that an infinite force was necessary for the division of atoms (36). 

Soon after Cerro Rico, the silver mountain discovered by the Spaniards in 1545 at what is now Potosi, Bolivia (20), began to produce massive amounts of the white metal and as the Spanish ships arrived to deposit the treasure in the Casa de la Contratacion in Seville, Azpilceuta and other Dominicans of the School of Salamanca warned of the potential inflationary effect of this silver on the Spanish economy (21). Jean Bodin, who might well be called the first important exponent of the quantity theory of money, held, further, that all Europe was affected adversely by the treasure of the Indies, which, he maintained, was the cause of la vie chere (22). More recently, Earl J. Hamilton, in a monumental study correlating the arrival of the silver and the rise of prices in Andalusia and other Spanish provinces, concluded by assigning to the Spanish-American silver a massive role in the price revolution of the sixteenth century (53). 

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