66 THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



crystallography, the importance of such a line of 

 inquiry. 



4. Technical Forms of the Atomists and Others. 

 The atomic doctrine, of which we have just 

 spoken, was one of the most definite of the physical 

 doctrines of the ancients, and was applied with 

 most perseverance and knowledge to the expla- 

 nation 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 physical inquiry; and on this 

 account, has been thought worthy of an historical 

 disquisition by Bacon 29 . 



The technical term, Atom, marks sufficiently the 

 nature of the opinion. 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 confi- 

 gurations 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 Anax- 

 agoras; that is, the opinion that material things 

 consist of particles which are homogeneous in 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 doc- 

 trine held that there are in food particles of flesh, 



89 Parmenidis et Telesii et praecipue Democriti Philosophia, 

 &c., Works, vol. ix. 317. 



