134 THE WORLD MACHINE 



Democritus had found in the brain " the monarch of the 

 body." 



These were his works ; and you gather that his was one of 

 those omnivorous minds which range everywhere, consume all 

 things. You surmise that it may have been also one of those 

 ragbag minds which in the end produces a crazy quilt like the 

 Anatomy of Melancholy. No, he is a thinker, an intense and 

 originating genius, ein bahnbrecher, as the Germans have it. 



When we consider the fragments of his philosophy as they 

 have been preserved to us by his critics, his detractors and his 

 friends, it seems as if there were few things betwixt heaven and 

 earth that he had not thought upon. He preceded Descartes 

 by two thousand years in the consecration of doubt. He was 

 a sceptic twenty centuries before Hume. He explained, " we 

 know nothing really, for the truth lies in the depths." 



Democritus endeavoured to reduce all sensation to the 

 primal sense of touch, as we learn from Aristotle, who blames 

 him. In this he precedes many a modern thinker. So far as 

 we know he was the founder of the sensational school ; at least 

 he wholly anticipated Locke. He clearly discriminated between 

 " primary " and " secondary " qualities. " What is cold is cold 

 in opinion, and what is hot is hot in opinion." He saw that 

 there is a class of sensations that is wholly subjective and that 

 exists only in the mind. 



His seems to have been a fertilising mind, a kind of a fount 

 from which others draw their store copiously and without stint 

 after the fashion of the ancients, too, largely without 

 acknowledgment. 



Eucken says that Aristotle copies from him page after page, 

 and gives little credit ; Mullach conjectures that the Stagyrite 

 was in great part indebted to the Abderan for the reputation 

 of vast learning he gained. Cicero tells us that Epicurus 

 borrowed bodily all of his physical theories, his philosophy as 

 well ; spoils what he borrows and gives no credit at all. It is 

 evident that Democritus acquired a great renown, else why 

 should Aristoxenus say that Plato wished to burn all of his works 

 he could lay hands on, " but was prevented from so doing." 

 Cicero, again, of a wholly opposing school of ideas, yet says : 

 " Who is there whom we can compare with him for the great- 

 ness, not merely of his genius, but of his spirit ? " What were 

 his ideas of this world ? 



