HISTORY OP THE ATOMIC THEOBY. 89 



and will never cease to be an interesting chapter in man's 

 history. 



The more distinct conceptions of matter introduced by 

 Leucippus, and promulgated by Democritus, were adopted by 

 Epicurus, and have often gone by his name. If not ultimately 

 the most exact, they have in many respects a practical truth, 

 and they have the merit of having the main features clearly 

 intelligible. The system was gaining ground at a time 

 when the Alexandrian school was saying that matter 

 which can be perceived emanates from the soul,* and that 

 bodies were convertible into each other because made of one 

 matter, which original matter had no qualities, and was capable 

 of taking all.f This was very much in the manner of their 

 predecessors, except that we recognise in it an increase of 

 mysticism in their expressions. This substratum of matter 

 has bewildered whole tribes of philosophers. 



Lucretius is in the hands of every one, but read by few. 

 The following portion on atoms is from the translation of the 

 Rev. J. S. Watson (Bohn), with little alteration: — 



" Nothing can do or suffer without bodily substance, nor, more- 

 over, afford place (t. e.y for acting and sufferinp) except empty and 

 vacant space. No third nature, therefore, (distinct) in itself, besides 

 vacant space and material substance, can possibly be left in the sum 

 of things ; no third kind of being, which can at any time afiect our 

 senses, or which any one can find out by the exercise of his reason.} 

 ♦ • ♦ * ♦ Bodies are partly original elements of things, and 

 partly those which are formed of a combination of those elements. 

 But those which are elements of things no force can break, for they 

 successfully resist all force by solidity of substance; although, 

 perhaps, it seems difficult to believe that anything of so solid a 

 substance can be found in nature: for the lightning of heaven 

 passes through Die walls of houses, as also noises and voices pass ; 



• Ritter, Vol. IV., p. 488. 

 t Tiedemann, Vol. III., p. 295. See also Histoire de Tecole d'Alezandrie, 

 par M. Jules Simon. No short sentence can give the exact truth. 

 X Book I., 1. 444-449. 



N 



