lo SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



and winds, and fair weather. And anyone who 

 cares to reflect will find that everything else is 

 disposed in the best possible manner." 



This also is surely acute, subtle, and suggestive, 

 and sets forth a very logical case forja prima materia. 

 Not only the question of the origin of matter en- 

 gaged the Greek mind, but also the question of its 

 nature, and especially the question of its continuity. 



The question of the continuity of matter may 

 seem, at first sight, a question purely philosophic 

 and dialectic ; yet it has most important practical 

 issues, and on its solution depended almost all 

 modern scientific achievement. 



The obvious answer to the question is, that 

 matter is homogeneous and continuous, and not 

 discrete and particulate in its ultimate constitution ; 

 for the eye sees no ultimate particles and granules, 

 and the mind conceives of matter as infinitely and 

 indefinitely divisible, and deems all its finer divisions 

 as equally artificial. Yet, strange to say, Greek 

 Philosophy leant, on the whole, towards the theory 

 that matter was built up of minute invisible in- 

 divisible particles with empty spaces between, and 

 in most of the doctrines of matter of the early 

 Greek philosophers there was implied some sort 

 of atomic theory. 



"When Anaximander," says Gomperz, "ex- 

 plained the changes in the form of his primary 



