according to some 490. His father was from a noble family and of great
wealth, and contributed largely towards the entertainment of the army
of Xerxes on his return to Asia. As a reward for this service the
Persian monarch gave and other Abderites presents and left among them
several Magi. Democritus, according to Diogenes Laertius, was
instructed by these Magi in astronomy and theology. After the death of
his father he traveled in search of wisdom, and devoted his
inheritance to this purpose, amounting to one hundred talents. He is
said to have visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia, and India. Whether, in
the course of his travels, he visited Athens or studied under
Anaxagoras is uncertain. During some part of his life he was
instructed in Pythagoreanism, and was a disciple of Leucippus. After
several years of traveling, Democritus returned to Abdera, with no
means of subsistence. His brother Damosis, however, took him in.
According to the law of Abdera, whoever wasted his patrimony would be
deprived of the rites of burial. Democritus, hoping to avoid this
disgrace, gave public lectures. Petronius relates that he was
acquainted with the virtues of herbs, plants, and stones, and that he
spent his life in making experiments upon natural bodies. He acquired
fame with his knowledge of natural phenomena, and predicted changes in
the weather. He used this ability to make people believe that he could
predict future events. They not only viewed him as something more than
mortal, but even proposed to put him in control of their public
affairs. He preferred a contemplative to an active life, and therefore
declined these public honors and passed the remainder of his days in
solitude.
Credit cannot be given to the tale that Democritus spent his leisure
hours in chemical researches after the philosopher's stone — the dream
of a later age; or to the story of his conversation with Hippocrates
concerning Democritus's supposed madness, as based on spurious
letters. Democritus has been commonly known as "The Laughing
Philosopher," and it is gravely related by Seneca that he never
appeared in public with out expressing his contempt of human follies
while laughing. Accordingly, we find that among his fellow-citizens he
had the name of "the mocker". He died at more than a hundred years of
age. It is said that from then on he spent his days and nights in
caverns and sepulchers, and that, in order to master his intellectual
faculties, he blinded himself with burning glass. This story, however,
is discredited by the writers who mention it insofar as they say he
wrote books and dissected animals, neither of which could be done well
without eyes.
Democritus expanded the atomic theory of Leucippus. He maintained the
impossibility of dividing things ad infinitum. From the difficulty of
assigning a beginning of time, he argued the eternity of existing
nature, of void space, and of motion. He supposed the atoms, which are
originally similar, to be impenetrable and have a density
proportionate to their volume. All motions are the result of active
and passive affection. He drew a distinction between primary motion
and its secondary effects, that is, impulse and reaction. This is the
basis of the law of necessity, by which all things in nature are
ruled. The worlds which we see — with all their properties of
immensity, resemblance, and dissimilitude — result from the endless
multiplicity of falling atoms. The human soul consists of globular
atoms of fire, which impart movement to the body. Maintaining his
atomic theory throughout, Democritus introduced the hypothesis of
images or idols (eidola), a kind of emanation from external objects,
which make an impression on our senses, and from the influence of
which he deduced sensation (aesthesis) and thought (noesis). He
distinguished between a rude, imperfect, and therefore false
perception and a true one. In the same manner, consistent with this
theory, he accounted for the popular notions of Deity; partly through
our incapacity to understand fully the phenomena of which we are
witnesses, and partly from the impressions communicated by certain
beings (eidola) of enormous stature and resembling the human figure
which inhabit the air. We know these from dreams and the causes of
divination. He carried his theory into practical philosophy also,
laying down that happiness consisted in an even temperament. From this
he deduced his moral principles and prudential maxims. It was from
Democritus that Epicurus borrowed the principal features of his
philosophy.
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