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each other, similitude, for example, and dissimilitudo; unity and plurality; movement and repose. 2ndly. We cannot form an idea of the divisibility of an extended object without a contradiction being involved; for the parts must be either simple or compounded; in the first of which cases the body has no magnitude, and ceases to exist; in the second it has no unity, being at the same time finite and infinite. 3rdly. Innumerable difficulties result (according to Zeno) from the supposition of motion in space: if such motion be allowed to be possible, the consequence is, that infinite space must, in a given time, be traversed. He has acquired great celebrity by his four logical arguments against motion, and parti cularly by the well-known one named Achilles. 4thly. We cannot form a notion of space as an object, without conceiving it to be situated in another space, and so on ad infinitum. And in general he denies that the absolute unity which the Reason requires as a character of real existence, is in any sort to be recognized in the objects of the senses. By thus opposing reason to experience, Zeno opened the way to scepticism; at the same time laying the foundations of a. system of logic, of which he was the first teacher; and employing dialogue.

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102. The speculations of the Eleate (to which Xeniades of Corinth also attached himself) 10 were subsequently pursued in the school of Megara. They did not fail to meet with opponents, but their real fallacy was not so readily discovered. Plato, by making a due distinction between ideas and their objects, approached the nearest to the truth.

1 PLATO, Phædr. vol. III, p. 261. SIMPLIC. in Phys. Arist. p. 30. 2 SIMPLIC. 1. c.

ARIST. Physic. VI, 9, 14. Cf. PLATO, Parmenid. 1. c.

4 CAR. HENR. ERDM. LOHSE, Diss. (præside Hoffbauer) de Argumentis quibus Zeno Eleates nullum esse Motum demonstravit, ete. Hal. 1794, 8vo.

5 ARIST. Phys. IV, 3, 5. ARIST. Metaph. III, 4. 7 PLUTARCH. Pericles.

LAERT. IX, 25, 47.

SIMPLIC. in Phys. p. 30.
SEXT. EMP. Adv. Math.

8 ARIST. De Sophist. Elench. c. 10.

SEXT. EMP. Adv. Math. VII, 48, 53; VIII, 5.

10 In the fifth century B.C.

SENEC. Ep. 30.
VII, 7. DIOG.

IV. Heraclitus.

JOH. BONITII Diss. de Heraclito Ephesio, P. I-IV, Schneeberg, 1605, 4to.

GOTTFR. OLEARII Diatribe de Principio Rerum Naturalium ex mente Heracliti, I ips. 1697, 4to. Ejusdem: Diatribe de rerum naturalium genesi ex mente Heracliti, ibid. 1672, 4to.

Jo. UPMARK, Diss. de Heraclito Ephesiorum Philosopho, Upsal, 1710, 8vo.

JOH. MATH. GESNERI Disp. de Animabus Heracliti et Hippocratis, Comm. Soc. Gött. tom. I.

CHR. GOTTLOB HEYNE, Progr. de Animabus siccis ex Heracliteo placito optime ad sapientiam et virtutem instructis, Götting. 1781, fol.; and in his Opusc. Acad. vol. III.

+ F. SCHLEIERMACHER, Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed the Obscure; compiled from the fragments of his work, and the testimonies of ancient writers, in the third fasciculus of vol. I, of the Museum der Alterthumswissenschaften, Berl. 1808, 8vo. Cf. the work of RITTER, p. 60, referred to under the head of § 85; and, in answer to the views of Schleiermacher, THEOD. L. EICHOFF, Dissertationes Heracliteæ, partic. I, Mogunt. 1824, 4to.

103. By his birth Heraclitus of Ephesus belonged to the Ionian school. He was a profound thinker, of an inquisitive spirit, and the founder of a sect called after him, which had considerable reputation and influence. His humour was melancholy and sarcastic, which he indulged at the expense of the democracy established in his native town, and with which he was disgusted. The knowledge he had acquired of the systems of preceding philosophers (vying with one another in boldness), of Thales, Pythagoras, and Xenophanes, created in him a habit of scepticism of which he afterwarks cured himself. The result of his meditations was committed to a volume, the obscurity of which procured for him the appellation of σKOTELOS. He also made it his object to discover an elemental principle; but either because his views were different, or from a desire to oppose himself to the Eleatæ, he assumed it to be fire, because the most subtle and active of the elements. Fire he asserted to be

He flourished about 500 B.C.

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2 According to some, he was the disciple of this philosopher.

3 This work is cited under different titles; e. g. Movoai, Fragments in HENR. STEPH. Poes. Philos. Cf. SCHLEIERMACHER.

4 DIOG. LAERT. IX, 5; et II, 22. ARIST. Rhet. III; De Mundo 5. CIC De Nat. Deor. I, 26; III, 14; De Fin. II, 5.

the foundation of all things, and the universal agent. The universe he maintained to be neither the work of gods nor men; but a fire, continually kept alive, but with alternations. of decay and resuscitation, according to fixed laws.1 Hence he appears to have deduced among others the following opinions: 1. The variability, or perpetual flux of things (poń) wherein also consists the life of animals. 2. Their formation and dissolution by fire; the motion from above and from below (ödòs vw káтw); the first by evaporation, or ȧvalvuíaois; and the future conflagration of the universe. 3. The explanation of all changes by means of discord (πόλεμος, έρις) and universal opposition (εναντιότης) according to fixed and immutable laws (eiμapμévn). 4. The principle of force and energy he asserted to be the principle also of thought. The universe he maintained to be full of souls and dæmones, endowed with a portion of this all-pervading fire. He maintained the excellence of the soul to consist in its aridity, or freedom from aqueous particles--an yuxỳ ȧpioτη or oopwτárn. The soul, he continued, by its relation with the divine reason (Kowòs Kai Oetos Xoyos), is capable, when awake, of recognizing the universal and the true; whereas by the exercise of the organs of the senses, it perceives only what is variable and individual. We may remark, that this system, with which we are very imperfectly acquainted, and which furnished a great many hints to Plato, the Stoics, and Enesidemus, contained many original and acute observa

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1 ARISTOT. Metaph. I, c. 3, 7; De Mundo, c. 5. SIMPLIC. in Phys. Arist. p. 6. CLEM. ALEXAND. Strom. lib. V.

2 PLAT. Cratyl. vol. III, ed. Bipont. p. 267. Cf. Theætet. ibid. p. 69. 3 PLUTARCH. De Plac. Phil. I, 23, 27, 28. De ɛi apud Delph. p. 227, 239.

4 ARIST. De Cœlo, I, 10; III, 1. PLUTARCH. de εi apud Delph. DIOG. LAERT, IX, 8.

5 DIOG. LAERT IX, 7, 8, 9.

c. 12.

*

SIMPLIC. in Phys. p. 6. PLAT. Sympos.

6 According to STOв., Serm. 17, and AST, On the Phædrus of Plato, c. III. ed. Lips. 1810, Avyǹ Ensǹ ☀vxǹ oopwrárn. On this expression compare, besides the works mentioned above, PET. WESSELING, Obs. de Heracl. aun uyǹ ooowrárŋ kaì ápíorŋ, in ej. Observatt. Miscell. Amstelod. vol. V, c. III, p. 42.

7 ARISTOT. De Animâ, I, 2, 3. PLUTARCH. De Plac. Phil. IV, 3 SEXTUS, Adv. Math. VII, 126, sqq. Cf. 249, VIII, 286; Hyp. PYRRH, III, 230. STOB. Ecl. I, p. 194, sqq. 906.

tions, which were applied also to moral and political questions.

V. Speculations of the Atomic School.

DIOG. LAERT. lib. IX, § 30, sqq.; and BAYLE'S Dict. art. Leucippe.

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104. Leucippus, a contemporary, possibly also a disciple of Parmenides, opposed the system of the Eleata; which he unjustly accused of contradicting itself, by advancing the exclusive and narrow doctrine of atoms (the corpuscular system); a doctrine which, agreeably to experience, maintained the existence of motion and plurality. He asserted also the existence of a matter filling space (Tò #Xîpes), and constituting the element of reality; by the division of which we arrive at something indivisible, Tò άToμov; while at the same time he taught the existence of a vacuum (TÒ KEVÓV); opposed to material reality, yet possessing a certain reality of its own; and endeavoured to account for the actual state of the world by the union (πείρπλεξις or συμπλοκή) and the separation (diákpiais) of material reality, within the limits of this void. Accordingly, the elementary principles of this system of materialism are the atoms, vacuum, and motion; and we recognize in it none but corporeal essences. The atoms, the ultimate elements of what is real, are invariable, indivisible, and imperceptible, owing to their tenuity they occupy space, and possess forms infinitely diversified those which are round possessing also the property of motion, It is by their combination or separation (he continues) that all things have their origin, and are brought to their dissolution ;) their modifications (allowσes) and properties being determined by the order (διαθιγὴ τάξις) and position (τοιπή-θέσις) of the atoms; and take place in consequence of a law of absolute necessity. (The soul itself he defined to be nothing but a mass of round atoms; whence result heat, motion, and thought.)

1 Flourished about 500 B.C. His birth-place is unknown; probably Miletus.

2 Cf. above, § 74, at the end.

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3 ARIST. DE Generat. et Corrupt. I, 8. 5 ARIST. De Gen. I, 1, 2, 8; De Cœlo I, 7; De Animâ I, c. 2. SIMPLIC. in Phys. Arist. p. 7. 306, 442, 796.

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Democritus.

The fragments of Democritus have been collected by STEPHENS, and are to be found still more complete in ORELLI Opusc. Græc. Sententiosa, I, 91, sqq.

DIOG. LAERT. IX, 34, sqq.; and BAYLE, art. Démocrite.

JOH. CHRYSOST. MAGNENI Democritus reviviscens, sive Vita et Philosophia Democriti, Ludg. Bat. 1648, Hag. 1658, 12mo.

JOH. GEUDERI Democritus Abderita Philosophus accuratissimus, ab injuriis vindicatus et pristinæ famâ restitutus. Altd. 1665, 4to.

G. FR. JENICHEN, Progr. de Democrito Philosopho, Lips. 1720, 4to. GODOFR. PLOUCQUET, De placitis Democriti Abderitæ, Tübing. 1767, 4to. And in his Commentatt. Philos. sel.

Jo. COUR. SCHWARZ, Diss. de Democriti theologia, Cobl. 1718, 4to. See also the work of HILL, mentioned § 151.

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105. Democritus of Abdera.1 This ardent inquirer into Nature, ill-understood by his countrymen of Abdera, and to whom has been attributed by subsequent tradition a laughing vein, in opposition to the melancholy of Heraclitus, his contemporary, had been a great traveller for the purpose of amassing instruction, and composed several works; none of which have come down to us entire. He expanded the atomic theory of his master, Leucippus; to support the truth of which he maintained the impossibility of division ad infinitum; and from the difficulty of assigning a commencement of time, he argued the eternity of existing nature, of void space, and of motion. He supposed the atoms, originally similar, to be endowed with certain properties, such as impenetrability and a density proportionate to their volume He referred every active and passive affection to motion, caused by impact; limited by the principle he assumed, that only like can act on like. He drew a distinction between primary motion and secondary; impulse and reaction (παλμός and ἀντιτνπία); from a combination of which he deduced rotatory motion (divn). Herein consists the law of necessity (ȧváyrn), by which all things in nature are ruled. From the endless multiplicity 1 Born about 490 or 494; according to others, 460 or 470. 2 ARIST. De Gen. Anim. 5, 8.

3 ARIST. De Generat. et Corrupt. I, 2; Physic. VIII, 1; De Generat. Anim. II, 6. DIOG. LAERT. IX, 44. 4 De Gener. I, 7. ARIST. De Generat. et Corrupt. I, 7; Physicor. IV, 3. DIOG. IX, 45, 49. SEXTUs, Adv. Math. IX, 113. PLUT. De Decret. Philos. I, 25. Cf. STOB. Ecl. I, 394.

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