Page images
PDF
EPUB

It is not uninteresting to compare how Galilei, as soon as, after many painful efforts, he had reached the true law of fall, directly ventured a priori to the conclusion that in empty space all bodies will fall equally fast, a considerable period before this, by means of the air-pump, could be proved to be the fact. It is a question to be considered how far reminiscences of Aristotle or Lucretius may not have assisted Galilei to this conclusion.23

V. The variety of all things is a consequence of the variety of their atoms in number, size, figure, and arrangement; there is no qualitative difference of atoms. They have no "internal conditions;" and act on each other only by pressure or collision.24

We have already seen, in connection with the third proposition, that Demokritos regarded the sense qualities, such as colour, sound, heat, and so on, as mere deceptive appearances, which is only to say that he entirely sacrificed the subjective side of phenomena, which is, nevertheless, all that is immediately given, in order to be able to carry out a more consequent objective explanation; and accordingly Demokritos engaged, in fact, in the most exhaustive investigations as to what must be, in the object, the substratum of the sensible qualities.

According, then, to the difference in the arranging of the atoms in a schema "-which may remind us of the "schemata" or atoms of our chemists-are determined our subjective impressions.25

Aristotle complains that Demokritos had reduced all

23 Comp. Whewell, Hist. of the Induct. Sci., ii. 34 (ed. 1837).

24 Here again the authentic proofs are lacking; we have chiefly to rely upon reports of Aristotle, which are here, however, very full, and raise no suspicion of misunderstanding. Fuller details in Zeller, i. 704 ff.

25 Here we have tolerably full extracts in Theophrastos; comp. Fragm. Phys., 24-39, Mullach, p. 362 sqq.

Noteworthy is the general principle in Fr. 24: "The schema is in itself [ka avтó], the sweetness, however, and the sensible quality is only in

relation to another and in another." Here we have, too, the source of the Aristotelian opposition of substance and accident, just as Aristotle found the original of his apposition of dúvajus and evépyeta in Demokritos. (Fragm. Phys., 7, Mullach, p. 358).

kinds of sensation into the one sensation of touch-a reproach which, in our eyes, will rather be counted to his praise. The gist of the problem will lie, then, just in this sense of touch.

We can, indeed, easily enough rise to the standpoint of regarding all sensations as modifications of touch, although there will still remain unsolved enigmas enough. But we cannot so naively dispose of the question how the simplest and most elementary of all sensations is related to the pressure or collision which occasions it. The sensation is not in the individual atom, and still less is it an aggregate of them; for how could it be brought into a focus through void space? It is produced and determined by means of a Form in which the atoms act in mutual co-operation. Materialism here borders closely on Formalism, as Aristotle has not forgotten to point out.26 Whilst he, however, made the forms transcendentally causes of motion, and thereby struck at the root of all natural science, Demokritos was careful not to follow up the formalistic side of his own theory, which would only lead him into the depths of metaphysic. Here we first find the need of the Kantian " Critick of Reason" to throw the first weak ray of light into the depths of a mystery which, after all the progress of our knowledge of nature, is yet to-day as great as it was in the time of Demokritos.

VI. The soul consists of fine, smooth, round atoms, like those of fire. These atoms are the most mobile, and by their motion, which permeates the whole body, the phenomena of life are produced.27

Here then, also, is the soul, as with Diogenes of Apollonia, a particular kind of matter; and Demokritos beμικρὸν γάρ τι μέρος Εμπεδοκλῆς καὶ Δημόκριτος τοῦ εἴδους καὶ του τί ἦν

26 Arist. Phys. Ausc., ii. 2, where it is explained that nature is twofold,

consisting of form and matter: the earlier philosopher had regarded matter only, with the limitation — ¿πl

εἶναι ἥψαντο.

27 Cf. Zeller, i. 728 ff.

lieves, also, that this matter is distributed throughout the universe, and everywhere produces the phenomena of heat and of life. Demokritos therefore recognises a distinction between soul and body, which our modern Materialists would scarcely relish; and he knows how to utilise this distinction, for his ethical system, just as the Dualists had done. The soul is the really essential part of man; the body is only the vessel of the soul, and this must be our principal care. The soul is the seat of happiness; bodily beauty without reason is in its nature merely animal. To Demokritos, indeed, has been ascribed the doctrine of a divine world-soul, only that he means by this merely the universal diffusion of that mobile matter which he could very well describe figuratively as the divine element in the world, without attributing to it other than material properties and mechanical movements.

Aristotle ridicules the view of Demokritos as to the manner in which the soul influences the body by making a comparison. Daedalos is said to have made a moving statue of Aphrodite: this the actor Philippos explained had been done probably by pouring quicksilver into the interior of the wooden figure. In the same way Aristotle thinks would Demokritos have man moved by the mobile atoms within him. The comparison is clearly inadequate,28 but it may nevertheless serve to explain two fundamentally different principles of regarding nature. Aristotle thinks that not thus, but through choice and reflection the soul moves man—as if this were not clear to the savage long before the very slenderest beginnings of science. Our whole "comprehension " is a referring of the particular in phenomena to the general laws of the phenomenal world. The last step of this endeavour is the including of the

28 See note 14 above. To do justice to Demokritos's idea we need only to compare how Descartes (De Pass., art. x., xi.) represents the action of the material" animal spirits" in the moving of the body. [Descartes'

own words are-"Nam quos hic nomino spiritus nil nisi corpora sunt, et aliam nullam proprietatem habent nisi quod sint corpora tenuissima et quae moventur celerime, instar par tium flammae ex face exeuntis."-TR.]

processes of reason in this chain. Demokritos took this step: Aristotle misconceived its importance.

The doctrine of mind, says Zeller (i. 735), has not in the case of Demokritos proceeded from the general necessity of a "deeper principle" for the explanation of nature. Demokritos regarded mind not as "the world-building force," but only as one form of matter amongst others. Even Empedokles had regarded rationality as an internal property of the elements; Demokritos, on the contrary, only as a "phenomenon taking its origin from the mathematical constitution of certain atoms in their relation to the others." And this is just Demokritos's superiority; for every philosophy which seriously attempts to understand the phenomenal world must come back to this point. The special case of those processes we call "intellectual must be explained from the universal laws of all motion, or we have no explanation at all. The weak point of all Materialism lies just in this, that with this explanation it stops short at the very point where the highest problems of philosophy begin. But he who devises some bungling explanation of nature, including the rational actions of mankind, starting from mere conjectural a priori notions which it is impossible for the mind to picture intelligibly to itself, destroys the whole basis of science, no matter whether he be called Aristotle or Hegel.

Good old Kant would here undoubtedly in principle declare himself on the side of Demokritos and against Aristotle and Zeller. He declares empiricism as thoroughly justified, so far as it does not become dogmatic, but only opposes " temerity, and the presumption of reason mistaking its true destiny," which "talks largely of insight and knowledge where insight and knowledge can really do nothing," which confounds the practical and theoretical interests, "in order, where its convenience is interfered with, to tear away the thread of physical investigations.” 29 29 Kritik der Vernunft, Elementarl., further the remarkable note on p. ii. 2, 2, 2, Haupst., 3 Abschnitt, 335. Hartenstein, iii. 334 ff. Comp.

This intellectual presumption in the face of experience, this unjustifiable tearing of the thread of physical inquiries, plays to-day also its part, as well as in Hellenic antiquity. We shall have much to say about it before we have done. It is ever the point at which a healthy philosophy cannot too sharply and energetically take Materialism into its protection.

With all its elevation of the mind above the body, the ethic of Demokritos is nevertheless at bottom a theory of Hedonism, standing quite in harmony with the materialistic cosmology. Amongst his moral utterances, which have been preserved in much greater number than the fragments of his physical philosophy, we find, it is true, many of those primitive doctrines of wisdom which might find their place in the most diverse systems, which Demokritos-together with counsels of prudence drawn from his own personal experiences-taught in a too practical and popular shape for them to be considered as having formed distinctive marks of his system; but we can, nevertheless, unite the whole into a consecutive series of thoughts resting upon a few simple principles.

Happiness consists in the cheerful calmness of spirit which man can attain only by securing the mastery over his desires. Temperance and purity of heart, united with culture of the emotions and development of the intelligence, supply every man with the means, in spite of all the vicissitudes of life, of reaching this goal. Sensual pleasure affords only a brief satisfaction; and he only who does good for the sake of its intrinsic merit, without being swayed by fear or hope, is sure of this inward reward.

Such an ethical system is indeed very far removed from the Hedonism of Epikuros, or from the system of a refined egotism which we find associated with the Materialism of the eighteenth century; but it is nevertheless lacking in the distinctive mark of all idealistic morality, a principle of conduct taken directly from the consciousness, and asserted independently of experience. The distinctions

« PreviousContinue »