Democritus was a thorough-going materialist; for him, as we have seen, the soul was composed
of atoms, and thought was a physical process. There was no purpose in the universe; there were
only atoms governed by mechanical laws. He disbelieved in popular religion, and he argued
against the nous of Anaxagoras. In ethics he considered cheerfulness the goal of life, and
regarded moderation and culture as the best means to it. He disliked everything violent and
passionate; he disapproved of sex, because, he said, it involved the overwhelming of
consciousness by pleasure. He valued friendship, but thought ill of women, and did not desire
children, because their education interferes with philosophy. In all this, he was very like Jeremy
Bentham; he was equally so in his love of what the Greeks called democracy