pieces can never be joined together again to make something else.
Today we can establish that Democritus’ atom theory was more or less
correct. Nature really is built up of different “atoms” that join and separate
again. A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an
elephant’s trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a
dinosaur.
In our own time, however, scientists have discovered that atoms can be
broken into smaller “elemental particles.” We call these elemental particles
protons, neutrons, and electrons. These will possibly some day be broken into
even lesser particles. But physicists agree that somewhere along the line
there has to be a limit. There has to be a “minimal part” of which nature
consists.
Democritus did not have access to modern electronic apparatus. His
only proper equipment was his mind. But reason left him no real choice. Once
it is accepted that nothing can change, that nothing can come out of nothing,
and that nothing is ever lost, then nature must consist of infinitesimal blocks
that can join and separate again.
Democritus did not believe in any “force” or “soul” that could intervene in
natural processes. The only things that existed, he believed, were atoms and
the void. Since he believed in nothing but material things, we call him a
materialist.
According to Democritus, there is no conscious “design” in the
movement of atoms. In nature, everything happens quite mechanically. This
does not mean that everything happens randomly, for everything obeys the
inevitable laws of necessity. Everything that happens has a natural cause, a
cause that is inherent in the thing itself. Democritus once said that he would
rather discover a new cause of nature than be the King of Persia.
The atom theory also explains our sense perception, thought
Democritus. When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in
space. When I see the moon, it is because “moon atoms” penetrate my eye.
But what about the “soul,” then? Surely that could not consist of atoms,
of material things? Indeed it could. Democritus believed that the soul was
made up of special round, smooth “soul atoms.” When a human being died,
the soul atoms flew in all directions, and could then become part of a new soul
formation.
This meant that human beings had no immortal soul, another belief that
many people share today. They believe, like Democritus, that “soul” is
connected with brain, and that we cannot have any form of consciousness
once the brain disintegrates.
Democritus’s atom theory marked the end of Greek natural philosophy
for the time being. He agreed with ,Her-aclitus that everything in nature
“flowed,” since Torms come and go. But behind everything that flowed there
were some eternal and immutable things that did not flow. Democritus called
them atoms.
During her reading Sophie glanced out of the window several times to see
whether her mysterious correspondent had turned up at the mailbox. Now she just sat
staring down the road, thinking about what she had read. She felt that Democritus’s
ideas had been so simple and yet so ingenious. He had discovered the real solution to
the problem of “basic substance” and “transformation.” This problem had been so
complicated that philosophers had gone around puzzling over it for generations. And