Note 12 — DEMOCRITUS.

Heraclitus flourished about 500 years B. C. He was a native of Ephesus; and being of a melancholy disposition, he spent his time in mourning and weeping over the frailties of human nature, and the miseries of human life. He employed himself for a time, in writing different treatises, in which he maintained that all things are governed by a fatal necessity. His opinions, in some things, were adopted by the Stoics. He became at last a man-hater, and retired to the mountains, so as to be entirely separated from his fellow-men. Here he fed on grass, which brought on a dropsical complaint: to get cured of this, he returned to the town. He established his residence on a dunghill, hoping that the warmth might dissipate his disease; but this proved ineffectual, and he died in his sixtieth year.