GREEK SCIENCE IN EARLY ATTIC PERIOD 



subtle analysis of which to-day's science gives us any 

 pre-vision. All in all, then, the work of Anaxagoras 

 must stand as that of perhaps the most far-seeing 

 scientific imagination of pre-Socratic antiquity. 



LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS 



But we must not leave this alluring field of specula- 

 tion as to the nature of matter without referring to 

 another scientific guess, which soon followed that of 

 Anaxagoras and was destined to gain even wider fame, 

 and which in modern times has been somewhat un- 

 justly held to eclipse the glory of the other achieve- 

 ment. We mean, of course, the atomic theory of 

 Leucippus and Democritus. This theory reduced all 

 matter to primordial elements, called atoms oro/ia 

 because they are by hypothesis incapable of further 

 division. These atoms, making up the entire ma- 

 terial universe, are in this theory conceived as qual- 

 itatively identical, differing from one another only 

 in size and perhaps in shape. The union of differ- 

 ent-sized atoms in endless combinations produces the 

 diverse substances with which our senses make us 

 familiar. 



Before we pass to a consideration of this alluring 

 theory, and particularly to a comparison of it with 

 the theory of Anaxagoras, we must catch a glimpse 

 of the personality of the men to whom the theory 

 owes its origin. One of these, Leucippus, presents 

 so uncertain a figure as to be almost mythical. In- 

 deed, it was long questioned whether such a man 

 had actually lived, or whether he were not really an 

 invention of his alleged disciple, Democritus. Latter- 



VOL. I. It l6l 



