oblivion.'

The son of a wealthy father, Democritus devoted the whole of his
inherited fortune to the culture of his mind. He travelled
everywhere; visited Athens when Socrates and Plato were there, but
quitted the city without making himself known. Indeed, the dialectic
strife in which Socrates so much delighted, had no charm for
Democritus, who held that 'the man who readily contradicts, and uses
many words, is unfit to learn anything truly right.' He is said to
have discovered and educated Protagoras the Sophist, being struck as
much by the manner in which he, being a hewer of wood, tied up his
faggots, as by the sagacity of his conversation. Democritus returned
poor from his travels, was supported by his brother, and at length
wrote his great work entitled 'Diakosmos,' which he read publicly
before the people of his native town. He was honoured by his
countrymen in various ways, and died serenely at a great age.

The principles enunciated by Democritus reveal his uncompromising
antagonism to those who deduced the phenomena of nature from the
caprices of the gods. They are briefly these:

1. From nothing comes nothing. Nothing that exists can be destroyed.
All changes are due to the combination and separation of molecules.

2. Nothing happens by chance; every occurrence has its cause, from
which it follows by necessity.

3. The only existing things are the atoms and empty space; all else is
mere opinion.

4. The atoms are infinite in number and infinitely various in form;
they strike together, and the lateral motions and whirlings which thus
arise are the beginnings of worlds.

5. The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties of their
atoms, in number, size, and aggregation.

6. The soul consists of fine, smooth, round atoms, like those of fire.
These are the most mobile of all: they interpenetrate the whole body,
and in their motions the phenomena of life arise.

The first five propositions are a fair general statement of the atomic
philosophy, as now held. As regards the sixth, Democritus made his
finer atoms do duty for the nervous system, whose functions were then
unknown. The atoms of Democritus are individually without sensation;
they combine in obedience to mechanical laws; and not only organic
forms, but the phenomena of sensation and thought, are the result of
their combination.

That great enigma, 'the exquisite adaptation of one part of an
organism to another part, and to the