certainty of his view as between these two alternative ways of
considering it being {57} typified in his use of the two expressions
_atoms_ and _seeds_. The analogies of this view with those of modern
materialism, which finds in the ultimate molecules of matter "the
promise and the potency of all life and all existence," need not be
here enlarged upon.

After nearly half a century's teaching at Athens Anaxagoras was
indicted on a charge of inculcating doctrines subversive of religion.
It is obvious enough that his theories left no room for the popular
mythology, but the Athenians were not usually very sensitive as to the
bearing of mere theories upon their public institutions. It seems
probable that the accusation was merely a cloak for political
hostility. Anaxagoras was the friend and intimate of Pericles, leader
of the democratic party in the state, and the attack upon Anaxagoras
was really a political move intended to damage Pericles. As such
Pericles himself accepted it, and the trial became a contest of
strength, which resulted in a partial success and a partial defeat for
both sides. Pericles succeeded in saving his friend's life, but the
opposite party obtained a sentence of fine and banishment against him.
Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont, and there,
after some five years, he died.

{58}

CHAPTER VII

THE ATOMISTS (_continued_)

_Empedocles at Etna--Brief life and scanty vision--The four
elements--The philosophy of contradiction--Philosophy a form of
poesy--The philosopher a prophet--Sensation through kinship--The whole
creation groaneth_

[129]

II. EMPEDOCLES.--Empedocles was a native of Agrigentum, a Greek colony
in Sicily. At the time when he flourished in his native city (circa
440 B.C.) it was one of the wealthiest and most powerful communities in
that wealthy and powerful island. It had, however, been infested, like
its neighbours, by the designs of tyrants and the dissensions of rival
factions. Empedocles was a man of high family, and he exercised the
influence which his position and his abilities secured him in promoting
and maintaining the liberty of his fellow-countrymen. Partly on this
account, partly from a reputation which with or without his own will he
acquired for an almost miraculous skill in healing and necromantic
arts, Empedocles attained to a position of singular personal power over
his contemporaries, and was indeed regarded as semi-divi