Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/71

Rh displeased with his insolence, and banished him ; but the Cynic derided the punishment, and bitterly inveighed against the emperor. He lived to an advanced age ; and Seneca observes that nature had brought him forth to show mankind how an exalted genius may live uncorrupted by the vbes of the world.

 DEMETRIUS, or. See.

 DEMIDOFF, a Russian family honourably distinguished in various ways in the history of their country.

I. DEMIDOFF, NIKITA, the founder of the family, originally a blacksmith serf, was born about 1665. His skill in the manufacture of arms won him notoriety and fortune ; and an iron foundry which he established for the Government became another source of wealth to him. Peter the Great, with whom he was a favourite, ennobled him in 1720.

II., son of the former, greatly increased the wealth he had inherited by the discovery (along with his son) of, , and , which they worked with permission of the for their own profit. He died about 1740.

III. DEMIDOFF, PAUL GRIGORJEVICH, nephew of the preceding (born in 1738, died in 1821), was a great traveller, and devoted himself to scientific studies, the prosecution of which among his countrymen he encouraged by the estab lishment of professorships, lyceums, and museums. He founded the annual prize of 5000 roubles, adjudged by the Academy of Sciences to the author of the most valu able contribution to Russian literature.

IV. , nephew of the preceding, was born in 1774, and died at Florence in 1828. During the invasion of Napoleon he commanded a regiment equipped at his own expense. He also greatly increased his resources as a capitalist by successful mining operations, and like his uncle used his wealth to multiply facilities for the scientific culture of the inhabitants of Moscow. The erection of four bridges at St Petersburg was mainly due to his liberality. In 1830 a collection of his pam phlets, Opuscules d Economic Politique et Privee, was pub lished at Paris.

V. DEMIDOFF, ANATOLI, son of Paul, was born at Florence in 1812, and died at Paris in 1870. Educated in France, his life was chiefly spent in that country and in Italy. After his marriage with the daughter of Jerome Bonaparte, he lost for a time the favour of the Emperor Nicholas on account of provision having been made in the contract for the education of his children as Roman Catholics. During the Crimean war he was a member of the Russian diplomatic staff at Vienna. Like other mem bers of his house, he expended large sums to promote education and to ameliorate the physical condition of his fellows. His munificence as a patron of art gave him European celebrity. The superb work, Voyage dans la Russie meridionals et la Crimee, par la Hongrie, la Valachie, et la Moldavie&amp;gt; was conjointly written and illustrated by him and the French scholars and artists who accompanied him. It has been translated into several European lan guages ; the English version was published in 1853.

 DEMISE. See.

 DEMMIN, a town of Prussia, at the head of a circle in the government of Stettin, is situated on the Peene, which in the immediate neighbourhood receives the Trebel and the Tollense, 72 miles W.N.W. of Stettin. It has manu factures of woollen cloths, linens, hats, and hosiery, besides breweries, distilleries, and tanneries, and an active trade in corn and timber. Demmin is a town of Slavonian origin and of considerable antiquity, and was a place of importance in the time of Charlemagne. It was besieged by a German army in 1148, and captured by Henry the Lion in 1164. In the Thirty Years War it was the object of frequent conflicts, and even after the Peace of Westphalia was taken and retaken in the contest between the electoral prince and the Swedes. It passed to Prussia in 1720, and its fortifications were destroyed in 1759. In 1807 several engagements took place in the vicinity between the French and Russians. Population in 1875, 9856.

 DEMOCRITUS, one of the founders of the Atomic philosophy, was born at Abdera, a Thracian colony, the inhabitants of which were notorious for their stupidity. Nearly all the information that we possess concerning his life consists of traditions of very doubtful authenticity. He was a contemporary of Socrates ; but the date of his birth has been fixed variously from 494 to 460 B.C. His father (who is called by no less than three names) was a man of such wealth as to be able to entertain Xerxes and his army on their return home after the battle of Salamis. On coming into his inheritance, Democritus, there is good reason to believe, devoted several years to travel. He visited the East, and is supposed with great probability to have spent a considerable time in Egypt. The intensity of his thinking was figured by the ancients in the story that he put out his eyes in order that he might not be diverted from his meditations. But of the way in which he obtained the vast learning for which he was famed, and of his inter course with other philosophers, even with Leucippus, we have no certain information. According to one very doubtful tradition, he was so honoured in his native city that, his patrimony being all spent, the incredible sum of 500 talents was voted him by his fellow-citizens, together with the honour of a public funeral ; but, according to another tradition, his countrymen regarded him as a lunatic and sent for Hippocrates to cure him. All are agreed that he lived to a great age ; Diodorus Siculus states that he was ninety at his death, and others assert that he was nearly twenty years older. He left, according to Diogenes Laertius, no less that 72 works, treating of almost every subject studied in his time, and written in Ionic Greek, in a style which for poetic beauty Cicero deemed worthy of comparison with that of Plato. But of all these works nothing has come down to us beyond small fragments. The cosmical theory propounded by Democritus which in part at least was adopted from the doctrines of Leucippus is of all the materialistic explanations of the universe put forth by the Greeks the one which has held the most permanent place in philosophical thought. All that exists is vacuum and atoms. The atoms are the ultimate material of all things, including spirit. They are uncaused, and have existed from eternity. They are invisible, but extended, heavy, and impenetrable. They vary in shape ; though whether Democritus held that they vary also in density is debated. And, lastly, these atoms are in motion. This motion, like the atoms themselves, Democritus held to be eternal. According to some, he explained it as caused by the downward fall of the heavier atoms through the lighter, by which means a lateral whirling motion was pro duced ; but whether this explanation was given by Democritus is extremely doubtful. Another principle also is said by some to have been used by Democritus to explain the concurrence of the atoms in certain ways, viz., that there is an innate necessity by which similar atoms come together. However this may be, he did declare that by the motion of the atoms the world was produced with all that it contains. Soul and fire are of one nature ; the atoms of which they consist are small, smooth, and round ; and it is by inhaling and exhaling such atoms that life is &quot; maintained. It follows that the soul perishes with, and in the same sense as, the body. There is, in fact, no distinction made be tween the principle of life and the higher mental faculties. The Atomic theory of perception was as follows. From 