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CHAPTER 6
MATTER MATTER IN EARLY GREECE Ir may definitely be said that inspite of the leanings to some sort of idealism, the admission of some Real other than and opposed to spirit has continued to assert itself throughout the whole period of philosophical history. With Thales water, with Anaximenes, air, with Heraclitus, fire was the primordial Real and with Empedocles, earth, air, water and fire were "the roots of things”. The Unlimited of the Pythagoreans was also the matter-stuff. In Plato, we have the faint foreshadowing of the dualism of form and matter which is confirmed in Aristotle. The Neo-Pythagoreans and the Neo-Platonists admitted the reality of the non-psychical element and the atomists of the school of Democritus and Leucippus openly asserted the reality of material atoms. Although Parmenides is generally conceived to have been an idealist, opinions have nevertheless differed regarding the nature of his Being, Parmenides describe ed Being as "a finite, spherical and motionless plenum"'; this account is almost identical with that of the atoms, given by the school of Leucippus. Hence, there seems to be some force in Burnet's contention that “Parmenides is not, as some have said, the father of idealism; on the contrary, all materialism depends on his view of reality."
DESCARTES, SPINOZA, LEIBNITZ, LOTZE, GIORDANO BRUNO
Descartes frankly admitted the reality of both spirit and matter and if Spinoza repudiates the substantial character of extension he does the same thing with respect to the finite consciousness also. Although the monads of Leibnitz and Lotze are looked upon as spiritual individuals, they may as well be thought of as "metaphysical points", ever developing from within in accordance with their inward life or force. As a matter of fact, Giordano Bruno to whom
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