The immediate is not, however, a good subject for discourse, and the
expounders of Heraclitus were not unnaturally blamed for monotony. All
they could do was to iterate their master's maxim, and declare
everything to be in flux. In suggesting laws of recurrence and a reason
in which what is common to many might be expressed, Heraclitus had
opened the door into another region: had he passed through, his
philosophy would have been greatly modified, for permanent forms would
have forced themselves on his attention no less than shifting materials.
Such a Heraclitus would have anticipated Plato; but the time for such a
synthesis had not yet arrived.

[Sidenote: Democritus and the naturally intelligible.]

At the opposite pole from immediacy lies intelligibility. To reduce
phenomena to constant elements, as similar and simple as possible, and
to conceive their union and separation to obey constant laws, is what a
natural philosopher will inevitably do so soon as his interest is not
merely to utter experience but to understand it. Democritus brought this
scientific ideal to its ultimate expression. By including psychic
existence in his atomic system, he indicated a problem which natural
science has since practically abandoned but which it may some day be
compelled to take up. The atoms of Democritus seem to us gross, even for
chemistry, and their quality would have to undergo great transformation
if they were to support intelligibly psychic being as well; but that
very grossness and false simplicity had its merits, and science must be
for ever grateful to the man who at its inception could so clearly
formulate its mechanical ideal. That the world is not so intelligible
as we could wish is not to be wondered at. In other respects also it
fails to respond to our ideals; yet our hope must be to find it more
propitious to the intellect as well as to all the arts in proportion as
we learn better how to live in it.

The atoms of what we call hydrogen or oxygen may well turn out to be
worlds, as the stars are which make atoms for astronomy. Their inner
organisation might be negligible on our rude plane of being; did it
disclose itself, however, it would be intelligible in its turn only if
constant parts and constant laws were discernible within each system. So
that while atomism at a given level may not be a final or metaphysical
truth, it will describe, on every level, the practical and efficacious
structure of the world. We o