fire in us perceives external fire, and so
with the other elements. Sight is caused by effluences of the fire and
water of the eyes meeting similar effluences from external objects.

{86}

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 contemporary 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 passion 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 probably 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 Leucippus, 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 becoming 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 objects, as whole objects,
come to be and cease to be, but that the material particles of which
they are composed are eternally existent. But the detailed development
which Empedocles 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 unmixing of
pre-existent matter, we must have a theory of particles. And we do
hear vaguely of physical particles in the doctrine of Empedocles, but
no definition is given of their nature, and no clear conception is
formed of their character. Secondly, the moving forces of Empedocles,
Love and Hate, are fanciful and mythological. Lastly, though there are
in Em