Democratist

A democrat. (B.) Democratize, v. a. To make democratic. (R.) Democʻrit us, the sage of Abdera, B. 460 от 470 в. с., and is said to have survived a full century. Nothing of the writings of D. remains save a few fragments; but, with two exceptions, there is no great man of antiquity whose renown fills a larger space, or who seems, alike with his genius and his acquirements, to have better deserved a hold on the world's memories. Urged by thirst for knowledge, he travelled, during his youth and manhood, through India, Ethiopia, Chaldæa, and Persia; he spent several years in Egypt, and seems to have visited the schools of Pythagoras and Zeno. It is said, also, that he heard So crates, and communed with Anaxagoras concerning the phenomena of astronomy, and the physical structure of nature. Cicero tells us that in style D. might be the rival of Plato. The titles of his works relate to Logic, Ethics, Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine, Poetry, Music, Grammar, and even Strategy. The Abderites are recorded to have paid loftiest honors to their sage. It is said that D. had spent all his substance in travelling. But the law of Abdera refused the rights of burial to any one who wasted his patrimony. To escape the penalty, the philosopher read in public his chief treatise, entitled μηγας διακοσμος ; and, charmed by his eloquence, the people voted him the sum of 500 talents, or $500,000. It is not often that a philosophical treatise reaps such a reward! The fame of D. , in modern times, rests on his extraordinary prevision of the Atomic , or modern physical theory of the Universe. Rising above the confined idea of the Ionian school, that all things are modifications of one element or principle, he broached the conception that bodies are made up of ultimate atoms, and that in the character of these atoms must be sought the explanation of the qualities of what we call body . He went off at once from all barren logomachies about the plenum ; and, indeed, more than any other thinker of antiquity, achieved the privilege of laying down the ground of just speculation in physics. His doctrines prevailed widely, and were afterwards enshrined in noble verse by Lucretius. D. was certainly a materialist; the mind, he thought, like fire, consisted of the finer atoms. He had no notion of life apart from body; and the gods he deemed delusion. He had grand views of the universe; in the Milky Way, first of all, he saw the light of innumerable worlds; but he had a correspondingly mean opinion of the nature and destiny of Man.