Chapter 20

CHAPTER VII

THE ATOMISTS

The founder of the Atomist philosophy was Leucippus.
Practically nothing is known of his life. The date of his
birth, the date of his death, and his place of residence, are
alike unknown, but it is believed that he was a contem-
porary of Empedocles and Anaxagoras. Democritus was a
citizen of Abdera in Thrace. He was a man of the widest
learning, as learning was understood in his day. A pas-
sion for knowledge and the possession of adequate means
for the purpose, determined him to undertake extensive
travels in order to acquire the wisdom and knowledge of
other nations. He travelled largely in Egypt, also proba-
bly in Babylonia. The date of his death is unknown, but
he certainly lived to a great age, estimated at from ninety
to one hundred years. Exactly what were the respective
contributions of Leucippus and Democritus to the Atomist
philosophy, is also a matter of doubt. But it is believed that

all the essentials of this philosophy were the work of Leu-

cippus, and that Democritus applied and extended them,

worked out details, and made the theory famous.

Now we saw that the philosophy of Empedocles was based

upon an attempt to reconcile the doctrine of Parmenides

with the doctrine of Heracleitus. The {87} fundamental

thought of Empedocles was that there is no absolute becom-

ing in the strict sense, no passage of Being into not-being

or not-being into Being. Yet the objects of the senses do,

in some way, arise and pass away, and the only method by

which this is capable of explanation is to suppose that ob-

jects, as whole objects, come to be and cease to be, but that

the material particles of which they are composed are eter-

nally existent. But the detailed development which Empe-

docles gave to this principle was by no means satisfactory.

In the first place, if we hold that all objects are composed

of parts, and that all becoming is due to the mixing and un-

mixing of pre-existent matter, we must have a theory of par-