TO 



THE ALL BUT FORGOTTEN MEMORY 

 OF 



DEMOCRITUS OF ABDERA 



(ca. 460-360 B.C.). 



Justly esteemed by Bacon as the weightiest of the ancients ; 



Forerunner by a century of Aristotle and Euclid ; 

 Geometer and traveller, physiologist and polyhistor, path-hewer and sage. 



He wrote illuminatively upon almost every branch of natural knowledge, 

 in an Attic praised by Cicero as rivalling Plato's ; 



Founder of the Atomic Theory, and first of whom we know, historically 

 to conceive this world and all it contains as a mechanism. 



To his ideas, 2000 years of invention, discovery, and research have added 

 much but changed little. 



179769 



