Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/1028

954 not formulate, this conception. But certain of his contemporaries did reach it. Lucippus and Democritus promulgated an idea as to the nature of matter that was essentially monistic. They taught that the ultimate particles of matter are all of one substance, differing from one another only in size. They conceived these ultimate particles as falling through space and as generating a vortex motion through general collision; such vortex motions led to the mixing together of the primordial particles of different sizes and varied combinations, the tangible result being the different substances that appeal to our senses.

Democritus lived in the fifth century It is curious to reflect how clearly his conception of monistic atoms and vortex motions anticipate the prevalent speculations of our own times regarding the ultimate nature of matter. But this all-essential difference must be noted: the speculation of Democritus was a pure speculation; it called for nothing but the exercise of the imagination, and it could hope for no proof, nor need it fear refutation from the experimental science of the time. But the modern theory is held as a merely tentative one, pending demonstration or refutation at the hands of the experimenter. No man nowadays need hope to achieve fame as a scientific thinker through any speculation whatever that has not at least a suggestive support in observed phenomena. In our day, theory must everywhere find the support of fact; whereas Greek speculation vaulted to the limits of imagination with no apparent thought of insecurity. None the less must we marvel at the perspicuity of an insight that could make guesses which, tested by modern experiments, still seem so luminous.



