LECTURES AND ESSA YS 



this mob of gods and demons, and to 

 place natural phenomena on a basis more 

 congruent with themselves. 



The problem, which had been pre- 

 viously approached from above, was now 

 attacked from below; theoretic effort 

 passed from the super- to the sub- 

 sensible. It was felt that, to construct 

 the universe in idea, it was necessary to 

 have some notion of its constituent parts 

 of what Lucretius subsequently called 

 the " First Beginnings." Abstracting 

 again from experience, the leaders of 

 scientific speculation reached at length 

 the pregnant doctrine of atoms and 

 molecules, the latest developments of 

 which were set forth with such power 

 and clearness at the last meeting of the 

 British Association. Thought, no doubt, 

 had long hovered about this doctrine 

 before it attained the precision and com- 

 pleteness which it assumed in the mind 

 of Democritus, 1 a philosopher who may 

 well for a moment arrest our attention. 

 " Few great men," says Lange, a non- 

 materialist, in his excellent History of 

 Materialism, to the spirit and to the 

 letter of which I am equally indebted, 

 " have been so despitefully used by 

 history as Democritus. In the distorted 

 images sent down to us through unscien- 

 tific traditions there remains of him 

 almost nothing but the name of ' the 

 laughing philosopher,' while figures of im- 

 measurably smaller significance spread 

 themselves out at full length before us." 

 Lange speaks of Bacon's high apprecia- 

 tion of Democritus for ample illustra- 

 tions of which I am indebted to my 

 excellent friend Mr. Spedding, the learned 

 editor and biographer of Bacon. It is 

 evident, indeed, that Bacon considered 

 Democritus to be a man of weightier 

 metal than either Plato or Aristotle, 

 though their philosophy "was noised 

 and celebrated in the schools, amid the 

 din and pomp of professors." It was not 

 they, but Genseric and Attila and the 

 barbarians, who destroyed the atomic 

 philosophy. " For, at a time when all 



1 Born 460 B.C. 



human learning had suffered shipwreck, 

 these planks of Aristotelian and Platonic 

 philosophy, as being of a lighter and 

 more inflated substance, were preserved 

 and came down to us, while things 

 more solid sank and almost passed into 

 oblivion." 



The son of a wealthy father, Demo- 

 critus devoted the whole of his inherited 

 fortune to the culture of his mind. He 

 travelled everywhere ; visited Athens 

 when Socrates and Plato were there, but 

 quitted the city without making himself 

 known. Indeed, the dialectic strife in 

 which Socrates so much delighted had 

 no charm for Democritus, who held that 

 "the man who readily contradicts, and 

 uses many words, is unfit to learn any- 

 thing truly right." He is said to have 

 discovered and educated Protagoras the 

 Sophist, being struck as much by the 

 manner in which he, being a hewer of 

 wood, tied up his faggots as by the 

 sagacity of his conversation. Democritus 

 returned poor from his travels, was sup- 

 ported by his brother, and at length 

 wrote his great work entitled "Diakosmos," 

 which he read publicly before the people 

 of his native town. He was honoured 

 by his countrymen in various ways, and 

 died serenely at a great age. 



The principles enunciated by Demo- 

 critus reveal his uncompromising antago- 

 nism tothosewhodeduced the phenomena 

 of nature from the caprices of the gods. 

 They are briefly these: i. From nothing 

 comes nothing. Nothing that exists can 

 be destroyed. All changes are due to 

 the combination and separation of mole- 

 cules. 2. Nothing happens by chance ; 

 every occurrence has its cause, from 

 which it follows by necessity. 3. The 

 only existing things are the atoms and 

 empty space; all else is mere opinion. 

 4. The atoms are infinite in number and 

 infinitely various in form ; they strike 

 together, and the lateral motions and 

 whirlings which thus arise are the begin- 

 nings of worlds. 5. The varieties of all 

 things depend upon the varieties of their 

 atoms, in number, size, and aggregation. 

 6. The soul consists of fine, smooth, 



