If the seventy books of Democritus had survived . . .

From Charles Van Doren's A History of Knowledge. Page 41.

He asks that long standing question - Why do some books survive and circulate and others, seemingly of equal merit or even better, do not.

If the seventy books of Democritus had survived, would their author be as famous as Aristotle? Would Democritus's dialogues now be preferred to those of Plato, who got his wish? It is interesting to speculate about this. Why did the books of Democritus perish? Was it because they were wrong or uninteresting? Why did those of Plato and Aristotle survive? Was it because they were better and more true? Or was there something about what Democritus believed that was so offensive and perhaps even dangerous that his reputation had to be destroyed, with a consequent destruction of his books?

I am inclined to believe that there is a Darwinian process at work. Time and chance happen to all, but those books most beloved and most useful to the broadest number of people are most likely to survive. Other wonderful books will disappear into the well of history only because of some quirk of fate - they never caught the attention of those that might have saved them.