A Critical History of Greek Philosophy by W. T. Stace (short story to read txt) 📖

sphere there must be an equal quantity of earth, air, fire and water. The elements are thus in union, and the sole force operative within the sphere is Love or Harmony. Hence the sphere is called a "blessed god." Hate, however, exists all round the outside of the sphere. Hate gradually penetrates from the circumference towards the centre and introduces the process of separation and disunion of the elements. This process continues till, like coming together with like, the elements are wholly separated. All the water is together; all the fire is together, and so on. When this process of disintegration is complete, Hate is supreme and Love is entirely driven out. But Love again begins to penetrate matter, to cause union and mixture of the elements, and finally brings the world back to the state of the original sphere. Then the same process begins again. At what position in this circular movement is our present world to be placed? The answer is that it is neither in the complete union of the sphere, nor is it completely disintegrated. It is half-way between the sphere and the stage of total {85} disintegration. It is proceeding from the former towards the later, and Hate is gradually gaining the upper hand. In the formation of the present world from the sphere the first element to be separated off was air, next fire, then the earth. Water is squeezed out of the earth by the rapidity of its rotation. The sky is composed of two halves. One is of fire, and this is the day. The other is dark matter with masses of fire scattered about in it, and this is the night.

Empedocles believed in the transmigration of souls. He also put forward a theory of sense-perception, the essential of which is that like perceives like. The 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.

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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 Empedocles traces of the doctrine that the qualities of things depend on the position and arrangement of their particles, this idea is not consistently developed. For Empedocles there are only four ultimate kinds of matter, qualitatively distinguished. The differential qualities of all other kinds of matter must, therefore, be due to the mixing of these four elements. Thus the qualities of the four elements are ultimate and underived, but all other qualities must be founded upon the position and arrangement of particles of the four elements. This is the beginning of the mechanical explanation of quality. But to develop this theory fully and consistently, it should be shown, not merely that some qualities are ultimate and some {88} derived from position and arrangement of particles, but that all quality whatever is founded upon position and arrangement. All becoming is explained by Empedocles as the result of motion of material particles. To bring this mechanical philosophy to its logical conclusion, all qualitativeness of things must be explained in the same way. Hence it was impossible that the philosophy of mechanism and materialism should stand still in the position in which Empedocles left it. It had to advance to the position of Atomism. The Atomists, therefore, maintain the essential position of Empedocles, after eliminating the inconsistencies which we have just noted. The philosophy of Empedocles is therefore to be considered as merely transitional in character.

First, the Atomists developed the theory of particles. According to Leucippus and Democritus, if matter were divided far enough, we should ultimately come to indivisible units. These indivisible units are called atoms, and atoms are therefore the ultimate constituents of matter. They are infinite in number, and are too small to be perceptible to the senses. Empedocles had assumed four different kinds of matter. But, for the Atomists, there is only one kind. All the atoms are composed of exactly the same kind of matter. With certain exceptions, which I will mention in a moment, they possess no quality. They are entirely non-qualitative, the only differences between them being differences of quantity. They differ in size, some being larger, some smaller. And they likewise differ in shape. Since the ultimate particles of things thus possess no quality, all the actual qualities of objects must be due to the {89} arrangement and position of the atoms. This is the logical development of the tentative mechanism of Empedocles.

I said that the atoms possess no qualities. They must, however, be admitted to possess the quality of solidity, or impenetrability, since they are defined as being indivisible. Moreover it is a question whether the atoms of Democritus and Leucippus were thought to possess weight, or whether the weight of objects is to be explained, like other qualities, by the position and movement of the atoms. There is no doubt that the Epicureans of a later date considered the atoms to have weight. The Epicureans took over the atomism of Democritus and Leucippus, with few modifications, and made it the basis of their own teaching. They ascribed weight to the atoms, and the only question is whether this was a modification introduced by them, or whether it was part of the original doctrine of Democritus and Leucippus.

The atoms are bounded, and separated off from each other. Therefore, they must be separated by something, and this something can only be empty space. Moreover, since all becoming and all qualitativeness of things are to be explained by the mixing and unmixing of atoms, and since this involves movement of the atoms, for this reason also empty space must be assumed to exist, for nothing can move unless it has empty space to move in. Hence there are two ultimate realities, atoms and empty space. These correspond respectively to the Being and not-being of the Eleatics. But whereas the latter denied any reality to not-being, the Atomists affirm that not-being, that is, empty space, is just as real as being. Not-being also exists. "Being," said {90} Democritus, "is by nothing more real than nothing." The atoms being non-qualitative, they differ in no respect from empty space, except that they are "full." Hence atoms and the void are also called the plenum and the vacuum.

How, now, is the movement of the atoms brought about? Since all becoming is due to the separation and aggregation of atoms, a moving force is required. What is this moving force? This depends upon the question whether atoms have weight. If we assume that they have weight, then the origin of the world, and the motion of atoms, becomes clear. In the system of the Epicureans the original movement of the atoms is due to their weight, which causes them to fall perpetually downwards through infinite space. Of course the Atomists had no true ideas of gravitation, nor did they understand that there is no absolute up and down. The large atoms are heavier than the smaller. The matter of which they are composed is always the same. Therefore, volume for volume, they weigh the same. Their weight is thus proportional to their size, and if one atom is twice as large as another, it will also be twice as heavy. Here the Atomists made another mistake, in supposing that heavier things fall in a vacuum more quickly than light things. They fall, as a matter of fact, with the same speed. But according to the Atomists, the heavier atoms, falling faster, strike against the lighter, and push them to one side and upwards. Through this general concussion of atoms a vortex is formed, in which like atoms come together with like. From the aggregation of atoms worlds are created. As space is infinite and the atoms go on falling eternally, there must have been innumerable worlds of which our world is only one. {91} When the aggregated atoms fall apart again, this particular world will cease to exist. But all this depends upon the theory that the atoms have weight. According to Professor Burnet, however, the weight of atoms is a later addition of the Epicureans. If that is so, it is very difficult to say how the early Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, explained the original motion. What was their moving force, if it was not weight? If the atoms have no weight, their original movement cannot have been a fall. "It is safest to say," says Professor Burnet, "that it is simply a confused motion this way and that." [Footnote 7] Probably this is a very safe thing to say, because it means nothing in particular. Motion itself cannot be confused. It is only our ideas of motion which can be confused. If this theory is correct, then, we can only say that the Atomists had no definite solution of the problem of the origin of motion and the character of the moving force. They apparently saw no necessity for explanation, which seems unlikely in view of the fact that Empedocles had already seen the necessity of solving the problem, and given a definite, if unsatisfactory, solution, in his theory of Love and Hate. This remark would apply to Democritus, if not to Leucippus.

[Footnote 7: Early Greek Philosophy, chap. ix. § 179.]

The Atomists also spoke of all movement being under the force of "necessity." Anaxagoras was at this time teaching that all motion of things is produced by a world-intelligence, or reason. Democritus expressly opposes to this the doctrine of necessity. There is no reason or intelligence in the world. On the contrary, all phenomena and all becoming are completely determined by blind mechanical causes. In this connection there arises {92} among the Atomists a polemic against the popular