Soul, the product of sleeping and of waking dreams, that they supposed to inhabit the body.8

The proposition admitted by Voltaire, bitter opponent as he otherwise was of Materialism, "I am a body, and I think," would have met with the assent also of the earlier Greek philosophers. When men began to admire the design in the universe and its component parts, especially in the organic sphere, it was a late representative of the Ionic natural philosophy, Diogenes of Apollonia, who identified the reason that regulated the world with the original substance, Air,

If this substance had been conceived as sentient, and its sensations supposed to become thoughts by means of the growing complexity and motion of the substance, a vigorous Materialism might have been developed in this direction; perhaps a more durable one than that of the Atomists. But the reason-matter of Diogenes is omniscient; and so the last puzzle of the world of appearances is again at the outset hopelessly confused.9

The Atomists broke through the circle of this petitio principii in fixing the essence of matter. Amongst all the properties of things, they assigned to matter only the simplest, and those indispensable for the presentation of something in time and space, and endeavoured from these alone to develop the whole aggregate of phenomena. In

tellectual life of man from a series of sentient conditions in his corporeal atoms, we strike upon the same rock as the Atomism of Demokritos, when he builds up, e.g., a sound or a colour from the mere grouping of atoms in themselves neither luminous nor sounding; while, if we transfer again the whole contents of human consciousness, as an internal condition, to a single atom-a theory which recurs in modern philosophy in the most various modifications, though it was so far from the mind of the an cients-then Materialism is transformed into a mechanical Idealism.

this respect the Eleatics, it may be, had prepared the way for them, that they distinguished the persistent matter that is known in thought alone as the only real existence from the deceitful change of sense-appearances; and the referring of all sense qualities to the manner of combination of the atoms may have been prepared for by the Pythagoreans, who recognised the essence of things in number, that is, originally in the numerically fixed relations of form in bodies. At all events, the Atomists supplied the first perfectly clear conception of what is to be understood by matter as the substratum of all phenomena. With the introduction of this notion, Materialism stood complete as the first perfectly clear and consequent theory of all phenomena.

This step was as bold and courageous as it was methodically correct; for so long as men started at all from the external objects of the phenomenal world, this was the only way of explaining the enigmatical from the plain, the complex from the simple, and the unknown from the known; and even the insufficiency of every mechanical theory of the world could appear only in this way, because this was the only way in which a thorough explanation could be reached at all,

With few great men of antiquity can history have dealt so despitefully as with Demokritos. In the distorted picture of unscientific tradition, almost nothing appears of him except the name of the "laughing philosopher," while figures of incomparably less importance extend themselves at full length. So much the more must we admire the tact with which Bacon, ordinarily no great hero in historical learning, chose exactly Demokritos out of all the philosophers of antiquity, and awarded him the premium for true investigation, whilst he considers Aristotle, the philosophical idol of the Middle Ages, only as the originator of an injurious appearance of knowledge, falsely so called, and of an empty philosophy of words. Bacon may have been unfair to Aristotle, because he was lacking in that

historical sense which, even amidst gross errors, recognises the inevitable transition to a deeper comprehension of the truth. In Demokritos he found a kindred spirit, and judged him, across the chasm of two thousand years, much as a man of his own age. In fact, shortly after Bacon, and in the very shape which Epikuros had given it, Atomism became the foundation of modern natural science.

Demokritos was a citizen of the Ionian colony of Abdera on the Thracian coast. The "Abderites" had not as yet earned the reputation of "Gothamites," which they enjoyed in the later classical times. The prosperous commercial city was wealthy and cultivated: Demokritos' father was a man of unusual wealth; there is scarcely room to doubt that the highly-gifted son enjoyed an excellent education, even if there is no historical foundation for the story that he was brought up by Persian Magi,10

10 It must not be supposed from this that I concur entirely in a kind of criticism employed with regard to this tradition by Mullach, Zeller, and others. It is not right to reject immediately the whole story of the stay of Xerxes in Abdera, merely because of the ridiculous exaggeration of Valerius Maximus. and the inaccuracy of a passage in Diogenes. We know from Herodotus that Xerxes made a halt in Abdera, and was very much pleased with his stay there (viii. 120; probably the passage which Diogenes had in his mind). That upon this occasion the king and his court would quarter themselves upon the richest citizens of the place is a matter of course; and that Xerxes had his most learned Magi in his train is again historical. But we are so far from being justified, therefore, in supposing even an early stimulating influence to have been exercised by these Persians upon the mind of an inquisitive boy, that we might rather argue the contrary, since the great internal probability might only the more easily enable the germ of

these stories to develop itself, from mere conjectures and combinations, into a factitious tradition, while the late appearance of the story, in untrustworthy authors, makes its external evidence very slight. As to the associated question of the age of Demokritos, in spite of all the acuteness spent in its treatment (comp. Frei, Quæstiones Protagoreæ, Bonnæ, 1845, Zeller, i. S. 684 sqq., Anm. 2, and 783 sqq., Anm. 2), a successful answer in defence of the view of K. F. Hermann, which we followed in the 1st edition, is by no means rendered impossible. Internal evidence (comp. Lewes, Hist. Phil., i. 97) declares, however, rather for placing Demokritos later. The view, indeed, of Aristotle, who makes Demokritos the originator of the Definitions, continued by Sokrates and his contemporaries (comp. Zeller, i. S. 686 Anm.), must not be too hastily adopted, since Demokritos, at all events, only began to develop his doctrines when he had reached mature age. If, then, we place this work of Sokrates at the height of his intercourse

Demokritos appears to have spent his whole patrimony in the "grand tour" which his zeal for knowledge induced him to make. Returning in poverty, he was supported by his brother, but soon, by his successful predictions in the sphere of natural philosophy, he gained the reputation of being a wise and heaven-inspired man. Finally, he wrote his great work, the "Diakosmos," the public reading of which was rewarded by his native city with a gift of one hundred, according to others, five hundred talents, and with the erection of commemorative statues.

The year of Demokritos' death is uncertain, but there is a general admission that he reached a very advanced age, and died cheerfully and painlessly.

A great number of sayings and anecdotes are connected with his name, though the greater portion of them have no particular import for the character of the man to whom they relate. Especially is this so of those which sharply contrast him as the "laughing" with Herakleitos as the "weeping" philosopher, since they see nothing in him but the merry jester over the follies of the world, and the holder of a philosophy which, without losing itself in profundities, regards everything from the good side. As little pertinent are the stories that represent him merely as a Polyhistor, or even as the possessor of mystic and secret doctrines. What in the crowd of contradictory reports as to his person is most certain is, that his whole life was devoted to scientific investigations, which were as serious and logical as they were extensive. The collector of the scattered fragments which are all that remain to us of his numerous works, regards him as occupying the first place for genius and knowledge amongst all the philosophers before Aristotle, and goes so far as to conjecture that the Stagirite has largely to thank a study of the works of Demokritos for the fulness of knowledge which we admire in him.11

with the Sophists, about 425, Demokritos could, at all events, be as old as Sokrates, but, of course, not have been born as late as 460.

11 Mullach, Fragm. Phil. Graec., Par. 1869, p. 338: "Fuit ille quamquam in cæteris dissimilis, in hoc æquabili omnium artium studio simillimus

It is significant that a man of such extensive attainments has said that "we should strive not after fulness of knowledge, but fulness of understanding;" 12 and where he speaks, with pardonable complacence, of his achievements, he dwells not upon the number and variety of his writings, but he boasts of his personal observation, of his intercourse with other learned men, and of his mathematical method. "Among all my contemporaries," he says, "I have travelled over the largest portion of the earth in search of things the most remote, and have seen the most climates and countries, heard the largest number of thinkers, and no one has excelled me in geometric construction and demonstration-not even the geometers of the Egyptians, with whom I spent in all five years as a guest." 13

Amongst the circumstances which have caused Demokritos to fall into oblivion, ought not to be left unmentioned his want of ambition and distaste for dialectic discussion. He is said to have been in Athens without making himself known to one of its philosophers. Amongst his moral aphorisms we find the following: "He who is fond of contradiction and makes many words is incapable of learning anything that is right."

Such a disposition suited little with the city of the Sophists, and certainly not with the acquaintance of a Sokrates or a Plato, whose whole philosophy was developed in dialectic word-play. Demokritos founded no school.

His words were, it appears, more eagerly copied from than copied out; and his whole philosophy was finally absorbed by Epikuros. Aristotle mentions him frequently

mark that it shows "that Demokritos in this respect had little to learn from foreigners," goes much too far. It is not even certain from Demokritos's observation that he was

Aristotelis. Atque haud scio an Stagirites illam qua reliquos philosophos superat eruditionem aliqua ex parte Democriti librorum lectioni debuerit." 12 Zeller, i. S. 746, Mullach, Fr. superior to the Harpedonaptae Phil., p. 349, Fr. 140-142. on his arrival in Egypt; but even if he were, he might, it is obvious, still learn much from them.

13 Fragm. Varii Arg. 6, in Mullach, Fragm. Phil., pp. 370 sqq.; comp. Zeller, i. 688, Anm., where the reVOL. I.

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