Gordon Clark: Democritus (The American People's Encyclopedia)

1948. In American People's Encyclopedia. Chicago: The Spencer Press. Democritus

460-c. 360 B.C., Greek philosopher, the last and most consistent pre-Socratic materialist. His aim, like that of his predecessors, was to explain the universe solely by mechanical principles. Therefore he posits an infinite number of underived, imperishable atoms. The atoms are indivisible, not because they are small but because they are solid. Differing only in size and shape, they lack every nonmechanical quality, as color, flavor, odor, temperature, and degree of hardness. Particular arrangements of atoms in combination produce these qualities. 

Every event, also, is a mechanics of atoms and their compounds. Necessity rules; no mind, providence, or purpose governs nature. Whether it be the inanimate objects of astronomy, the living motions of plants and animals, of human loves and hates, nothing happens without a completely mechanical explanation. In some modern philosophies mechanism may have become more detailed, but nowhere has it been more pure. In addition to the larger questions of cosmology, Democritus also attempted to explain particulars, such as magnetism, thunder and lightning, earthquakes, why some objects float, and why the sea is salt. The inability of atomism to meet Eleatic criticism and Sophistic skepticism brought it into disfavor and contributed to the acceptance of Platonic idealism. See THE AGE OF PERICLES (End Papers, Back, Vol. 2.)

Gordon H. Clark