He came from
Abdera in
Thrace. His
philosophy was based on that of an earlier philosopher
Leucippus, and was itself the precursor of the
materialist philosophy of
Epicurus.
He said:
According to convention, there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold; according to convention there is a colour. In truth there are atoms and a void.
The theory is preserved in discussion by later writers, principally
Aristotle. None of his own writings survive, but those quotations that have been preserved largely relate to
ethics.
Robert Burton (1577-1640) used the by-name Democritus in his The Anatomy of Melancholy.