4. THE ATOMISTIC NECESSITY.—Democritus, like Empedocles, though far more extensively than he, attempted to answer the question—whence arise these changes and movements which we behold? Wherein lies the ground that the atoms should enter into these manifold combinations, and bring forth such a wealth of inorganic and organic forms? Democritus attempted to solve the problem by affirming that the ground of movement lay in the gravity or original condition of the material particles, and, therefore, in the matter itself, but in this way he only talked about the question without answering it. The idea of an infinite series of causalities was thus attained, but not a final ground of all the manifestations of the becoming, and of change. Such a final ground was still to be sought, and as Democritus expressly declared that it could not lie in an ultimate reason νοῦς, where Anaxagoras placed it, there only remained for him to find it in an absolute necessity, or a necessary pre-determinateness ἀνάγκη. This he adopted as his “final ground,” and is said to have named it chance τύχη, in opposition to the inquiry after final causes, or the Anaxagorean teleology. Consequent upon this, we find as the prominent characteristic of the later Atomistic school (Diagoras the Melier), polemics against the gods of the people, and a constantly more publicly affirmed Atheism and Materialism. 5. RELATIVE POSITION OF THE ATOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.—Hegel characterizes the relative position of the Atomistic Philosophy as follows, viz.:—“In the Eleatic Philosophy being and not-being stand as antitheses,—being alone is, and not-being is not; in the Heraclitic idea, being and not-being are the same,—both together, _i. e._ the becoming, are the predicate of concrete being; but being and not-being, as objectively determined, or in other words, as appearing to the sensuous intuition, are precisely the same as the antithesis of the fulness and the void. Parmenides, Heraclitus and the Atomists all sought for the abstract universal; Parmenides found it in _being_, Heraclitus in the _process_ of being _per se_, and the Atomists in the _determination_ of being _per se_.” So much of this as ascribes to the Atomists the characteristic predicate of being _per se_ is doubtless correct,—but the real thought of the Atomistic system is rather analogous with the Empedoclean, to explain the possibility of the becoming, by presupposing these substances as possessing being _per se_, but without quality. To this end the not-being or the void, _i. e._ the side which is opposed to the Eleatic principle, is elaborated with no less care than the side which harmonizes with it, _i. e._ that the atoms are without quality and never change in their original elements. The Atomistic Philosophy is therefore a mediation between the Eleatic and the Heraclitic principles. It is Eleatic in affirming the undivided being _per se_ of the atoms;—Heraclitic, in declaring their multeity and manifoldness. It is