ere."[421] The reader, whose
curiosity may lead him to consult the authorities collected by Cudworth
(pp. 185-188), will find in the doctrine of Anaximander a rude
anticipation of the modern theories of "spontaneous generation" and "the
transmutation of species." In the fragments of Anaximander that remain
we find no recognition of an ordering Mind, and his philosophy is the
dawn of a Materialistic school.

[Footnote 420: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. ii.]

[Footnote 421: Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. pp. 186, 187.]

_Leucippus of Miletus_ (B.C. 500-400) appears, in the order of
speculation, as the successor of Anaximander. _Atoms_ and _space_ are,
in his philosophy, the archai, or first principles of all things.
"Leucippus (and his companion, Democritus) assert that the plenum and
the vacuum [_i.e._, body and space] are the first principles, whereof
one is the Ens, the other Non-ens; the differences of the body, which
are only figure, order, and position, are the causes of all
others."[422]

[Footnote 422: Aristotle's "Metaphysics," p. 21 (Bohn's edition).]

He also taught that the elements, and the worlds derived from them, are
_infinite_. He describes the manner in which the worlds are produced as
follows: "Many bodies of various kinds and shapes are borne by
amputation from the infinite [_i.e._, the chaotic migma of Anaximander]
into a vast vacuum, and then they, being collected together, produce a
vortex; according to which, they, dashing against each other, and
whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like
attaches itself to like; bodies are thus, without ceasing, united
according to the impulse given by the vortex, and in this way the earth
was produced."[423] Thus, through a boundless void, atoms infinite in
number and endlessly diversified in form are eternally wandering; and,
by their aggregation, infinite worlds are successively produced. These
atoms are governed in their movements by a dark negation of
intelligence, designated "Fate," and all traces of a Supreme Mind
disappear in his philosophy. It is a system of pure materialism, which,
in fact, is Atheism.

[Footnote 423: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 389.]

_Democritus of Abdera_ (B.C. 460-357), the companion of Leucippus, also
taught "that _atoms_ and the _vacuum_ were the beginning of the
universe."[424] These atoms, he taught, were infinite in number,
homogeneous, extended, and possessed of those