SOURCE: “The Political Theory of Democritus,” in The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics, 1957. Yale University Press, 1964, pp. 125-54.

In the following excerpt, Havelock examines Democritus's political statements and concludes that he was satisfied to leave some problems unsolved.

The political theory of Democritus has been preserved by antiquity in the form of some twenty-three aphorisms, or programmatic statements, attributed to his name. These are contained in a large ‘chrestomathy’ or anthology of useful statements compiled perhaps in the early fifth century of our era by John of Stobi [4.1 On Polity; 4.2 On Laws; 4.5 On Government]. The reader whose conception of Greek philosophy follows traditional lines will, when he looks at this allegedly Democritean material, be tempted to say to himself: ‘Democritus was famous in antiquity for a materialist metaphysic. He taught the doctrine of a mechanical universe in which infinite atoms moving through infinite space perpetually collided to form...