SOURCE: “Democritus and the Atomic Theory: Materialism,” in The Philosophers of Greece, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1964, pp. 78-92.

In the following excerpt, Brumbaugh summarizes Democritus's atomist philosophy, considers some criticisms of it, and relates it to the development of Greek mechanical devices.

There is no chance, but all is from necessity.

leucipus

Nothing exists but atoms and the void.

democritus

Applying the logic developed in the Eleatic school by Parmenides and Zeno to the ideas of matter that had been formulated by the Milesians, Leucippus and Democritus produced a new philosophy—materialism. Their thesis was that all reality consists of hard indivisible particles, moving and colliding in empty space. This was the first philosophical or scientific statement of the atomic theory. But in this Greek form, the theory is somewhat different from later versions. And it is important not to confuse it with later philosophical ideas or with...