Quarks, Bootstraps and Monads

In Physics, there are two main threads in our search for the ultimate constituents of the world. They are in some senses in competition. One thread views the world as being made of atoms, while the other views the world as being made of relationships. One or the other of these worldviews is found in other contexts, including the ancient Greeks, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, and Chinese classifications of the world. I review these two approaches and their historical and cross-cultural reflections. The view of the world being made of relationships is found to be echoed in Leibnizian thought. This echo may not be a coincidence or even an archetype, but may have an historical cause