THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREECE 61 



himself with the problem of squaring the circle, a problem at- 

 tacked even by the Egyptians with some degree of success, and 

 destined to exercise great influence on the development of Greek 

 geometry. The beginnings of perspective are also attributed to 

 him, in connection with studies of the stage. He was particu- 

 larly interested in a great meteorite the appearance of which 

 he was afterwards said to have predicted supposing it to have 

 fallen from the sun, and inferring that the latter was a " mass of 

 red-hot iron greater than the Peloponnesus," not very distant 

 from the earth. Like the Pythagoreans he assigned as the 

 order of distances : moon, sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, 

 Saturn. The earth's axis was inclined, in order that there 

 might be variations of climate and habitability. He explained 

 the moon's phases correctly, also solar and lunar eclipses, but 

 he misinterpreted the Milky Way as due to the shadow cast 

 by the earth. His theory of the nature and origin of the cosmos, 

 viz. that it was material and had come by the combination and 

 differentiation of primitive elementary substances or "seeds" of 

 matter, was repugnant to those holding the polytheistic dogmas 

 of his time and brought him into popular disfavor. Convicted 

 of impiety, he died in exile, 428 B.C. By his insistence upon the 

 importance of minute invisible "seeds" or particles of matter he 

 paved the way for the "atomism" of Leucippus and Democritus. 

 THE ATOMISTS. A very little observation of external nature 

 shows that disintegration is forever going on. Ice turns to water, 

 water to vapor, rocks to sand and sand to dust in other words, 

 masses to particles. Furthermore, dust vanishes and vapor dis- 

 appears, while clouds and fogs, rain and snow, make their appear- 

 ance without obvious cause, and dust accumulates from invisible 

 sources. What is more reasonable than to suppose that visible 

 things rocks and ice and water become gradually resolved into 

 invisible particles, and that these in their turn condense into new 

 visible substances at some later time? For these or similar 

 ideas the material "seeds" of Anaxagoras had, as stated above, 

 paved the way, when later emphasized by Leucippus and his 

 more famous pupil Democritus. Of the life of Leucippus 



