78 THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



It has been observed by a distinguished modern scholar, 29 that the 

 place which Pythagoras ascribed to his numbers is intelligible onlv bv 

 supposing that he confounded, first a numerical unit with a geometri- 

 cal point, and then this with a material atom. But this criticism 

 appears to place systems of physical philosophy under requisitions too 

 severe. If all the essential properties and attributes of things were 

 fully represented by the relations of number, the philosophy which 

 supplied such an explanation of the universe, might well be excused 

 from explaining also that existence of objects which is distinct from 

 the existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean 

 love of numerical speculations might have been combined with the 

 doctrine of atoms, and the combination might have led to results well 

 worth notice. But so far as we are aware, no such combination was 

 attempted in the ancient schools of philosophy; and perhaps we of the 

 present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the disclo- 

 sures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such a line 

 of inquiry. 



4. Technical Forms of the Atomists and Others. — The atomic doc- 

 trine, of which we have just spoken, was one of the most definite of 

 the physical doctrines of the ancients, and was applied with most per- 

 severance and knowledge to the explanation of phenomena. Though, 

 therefore, it led to no success of any consequence in ancient times, it 

 served to transmit, through a long series of ages, a habit of really phys- 

 ical inquiry; and, on this account, has been thought worthy of an 

 historical disquisition by Bacon. 30 



The technical term, Atom, marks sufficiently the nature of the opin- 

 ion. According to this theory, the world consists of a collection of 

 simple particles, of one kind of matter, and of indivisible smallness (as 

 the name indicates), and by the various configurations and motions of 

 these particles, all kinds of matter and all material phenomena are 

 produced. 



To this, the Atomic Doctrine of Leucippus and Democritus, was 

 opposed the Homoiomeria of Anaxagoras; that is, the opinion that 

 material things consist of particles which are homogeneous iu each 

 kind of body, but various in different kinds : thus for example, since 

 by food the flesh and blood and bones of man increase, the author of 

 this doctrine held that there are in food particles of flesh, and blood. 



-» Thirlwall's Hist. Gr. ii. 142. 



30 Parmenidis et Telesii et prsecipue Democriti Philosopkia, &c, "Works, vol. 



317 



ix. 317 



