XX XVIII PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
called voluntary motion in animals and free-will in men, while at 
the same time explaining how it is that this free-will is eternally 
encased in the rigid parallel lines of the other atoms. In this way 
Epicurus supposed himself to have added a useful supplementary 
hypothesis to the original hypothesis of Democritus, who binding 
nature fast in fate had not left free the human will, because he had 
omitted to provide for that third mode of motion in atoms which 
is required to explain the possibility and genesis of voluntary mo- 
tion and self determination. 
Such is a brief and imperfect exposition of the Atomic Philoso- 
phy of the Greeks—a form of physical speculation the most elabo- 
rate, the most ingenious, and, to use a Latinism of Dr. Johnson, 
the most concinnous which has come down to us from all antiquity. 
The Epicurean physics are as much superior to the Aristotelian 
and the Stoical physics as the ethics of the Lyceum and of the Porch 
are superior to the ethics of the Sty; and yet it now remains to be 
said that in all this operose system of metaphysico-physical atoms 
there is not an atom of scientific truth, in the modern sense of that 
word. The whole speculation is a mirage, caused by unequal 
refractions in the Greek intellect—by the volatility of the Greek 
fancy passing through a dense, practical ignorance with regard to 
everything but surface views in nature. Or, to borrow one of Plato’s 
favorite figures, it was a “ wind-egg,” begotten of metaphysic con- 
ceit, and differing from the other “wind-eggs” of that time in the 
greater symmetry of its shell rather than in the greater fecundation 
of its contents. It had the form, but not the power of scientific 
truth. If there be such a thing as atoms they must needs be chem- 
ical conceptions, and the very word “ chemistry” had not yet come 
into the Greek language, because the rationale of such a science 
had not even dawned on the horizon of the Greek intellect by the 
faintest reflection from below. 
Much explanation, which does not explain, has been wasted 
to account for the incapacity of the Greek mind in physical 
philosophy. The learned historian of the Inductive Sciences, 
Dr. William Whewell, ascribes this incapacity to the alleged 
fact that though this sprightly race had in their possession an 
abundance of facts, and were acute observers and critics, their 
ideas “ were not distinct and appropriate to the facts.”* It would 
* William Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. I, p. 87. 
