Chapter I (3)

From the four elements--acted upon by these two forces, abstractions or mythical personifications--Empedokles showed how the Kosmos was constructed. He supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but not always with equal efficacy: sometimes the one was predominant, sometimes the other, sometimes there was equilibrium between them. Things accordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed cycle. The complete preponderance of Love brings alternately all the elements into close and compact unity, Enmity being for the time eliminated. Presently the action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in which Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative; until at length Enmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the time dissolved. But this condition of things does not last. Love again becomes active, so that partial and increasing combination of the elements is produced, and another period commences--the simultaneous action of the two forces, which ends in renewed empire of Love, compact union of the elements, and temporary exclusion of Enmity.[111]

[Footnote 111: Zeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i. p. 525-528, ed. 2nd.]

[Side-note: Empedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire of Love--Sphærus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the elements--astronomy and meteorology.]

This is the Empedoklean cycle of things,[112] divine or predestined, without beginning or end: perpetual substitution of new for old compounds--constancy only in the general principle of combination and dissolution. The Kosmos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes its commencement from the period of complete empire of Love, or compact and undisturbed union of all the elements. This he conceives and divinises under the name of Sphærus--as One sphere, harmonious, uniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting no parts or separate existences within it, exhibiting no one of the four elements distinctly, "instabilis tellus, innabilis unda"--a sort of chaos.[113] At the time prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity recommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of Sphærus, "agitating the members of the God one after another,"[114] disjoining the parts from each other, and distending the compact ball into a vast porous mass. This mass, under the simultaneous and conflicting influences of Love and Enmity, became distributed partly into homogeneous portions, where each of the four elements was accumulated by itself--partly into compounds or individual substances, where two or more elements were found in conjunction. Like had an appetite for Like--Air for Air, Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther extension of this appetite brought about the mixture of different elements in harmonious compounds. First, the Air disengaged itself, and occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and Water: next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself externally to the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost crystalline sphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which formed the wall encompassing the Kosmos. A remnant of Fire and Air still remained embodied in the Earth, but the great mass of both so distributed themselves, that the former occupied most part of one hemisphere, the latter most part of the other.[115] The rapid and uniform rotation of the Kosmos, caused by the exterior Fire, compressed the interior elements, squeezed the water out of the earth like perspiration from the living body, and thus formed the sea. The same rotation caused the earth to remain unmoved, by counterbalancing and resisting its downward pressure or gravity.[116] In the course of the rotation, the light hemisphere of Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of Air, alternately came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day and night. Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be not self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which collected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire. He regarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline sphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving free and detached from any sphere.[117] He supposed the alternations of winter and summer to arise from a change in the proportions of Air and Fire in the atmospheric regions: winter was caused by an increase of the Air, both in volume and density, so as to drive back the exterior Fire to a greater distance from the Earth, and thus to produce a diminution of heat and light: summer was restored when the Fire, in its turn increasing, extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer to the Earth, and imparted to the latter more heat and light.[118] Empedokles farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and Diogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and flat at top and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its surface had been originally horizontal, in reference to the rotation of the Kosmos around it, but that it had afterwards tilted down to the south and upward towards the north, so as to lie aslant instead of horizontal. Hence he explained the fact that the north pole of the heavens now appeared obliquely elevated above the horizon.[119]

[Footnote 112: Emp. Frag. v. 96, Karst., p. 98:

[Greek: Ou(/tôs ê)=| me\n e(\n e)k pleo/nôn mema/thêke phu/esthai, ê)de\ pa/lin diaphunto\s e(no\s ple/on e)ktele/thousi, tê=| me\n gi/gnontai/ te kai\ ou)/ sphisin e)/mpedos ai)ô/n; ê(=| de\ ta/d' a)lla/ssonta diampere\s ou)dama\ lê/gei, tau/tê| d' ai)e\n e)/asin a)ki/nêta kata\ ku/klon.]

Also:--

[Greek: kai\ ga\r kai\ paro\s ê(=n te kai\ e)/ssetai ou)de/ pot', oi)/ô, tou/tôn a)mphote/rôn] (Love and Discord) [Greek: keinô/setai a)/spetos ai)ô/n].

These are new Empedoklean verses, derived from the recently published fragments of Hippolytus (Hær. Refut.) printed by Stein, v. 110, in his collection of the Fragments of Empedokles, p. 43. Compare another passage in the same treatise of Hippolytus, p. 251.]

[Footnote 113: Emped. Fr. v. 59, Karsten:

[Greek: Ou(/tôs a(rmoni/ês pukinô=| kruphô=| e)stê/riktai sphai/ros kuklote/rês, moniê=| periêge/i+ gai/ôn].

Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunæ, c. 12.

About the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sphærus, see Aristot. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. [Greek: a(/panta ga\r e)k tou/tou (nei/kous) ta)/lla/ e)sti plê\n o( theo/s] (i.e. Sphærus).--[Greek: Ei) ga\r mê\ ê)=n to\ nei=kos e)n toi=s pra/gmasi, e(\n a)\n ê)=n a(/panta, ô(s phêsi/n] (Empedokles). See Preller, Hist. Philos. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3.

The condition of things which Empedokles calls Sphærus may be illustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern phraseology of _attraction_ and _repulsion_) from an eminent modern work on Physics:--"Were there only atoms and attraction, as now explained, the whole material of creation would rush into close contact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness and death. There is heat or caloric, however, which directly counteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results. It has been described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as water does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among the atoms. The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can study and classify the phenomena of both most accurately." (Dr. Arnott, Elements of Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)]

[Footnote 114: Emp. Fr. v. 66-70, Karsten:

[Greek: pa/nta ga\r e)xei/ês pelemi/zeto gui=a theoi=o.]]

[Footnote 115: Plutarch ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8, 10; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 6, p. 887; Aristot. Ethic. Nic. viii. 2.]

[Footnote 116: Emped. Fr. 185, Karsten. [Greek: ai)thê\r sphi/ggôn peri\ ku/klon a(/panta]. Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 13, 14; iii. 2, 2. [Greek: tê\n gê=n u(po\ tê=s di/nês ê)remei=n], &c. Empedokles called the sea [Greek: i(/drôta tê=s gê=s]. Emp. Fr. 451, Karsten; Aristot. Meteor. ii. 3.]

[Footnote 117: Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 20, p. 890.]

[Footnote 118: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 532-535, 2nd ed.: Karsten--De Emped. Philos. p. 424-431.

The very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and meteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by these two authors.]

[Footnote 119: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; Schaubach, Anaxag. Fragm. p. 175. Compare the remarks of Gruppe (Ueber die Kosmischen** Systeme der Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-Gebäude of Empedokles.]

[Side-note: Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and plants.]

From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles[120] proceeded to describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first produced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals.[121] After a certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propagated.[122] Among these productions were not only plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the "long-lived Gods".[123] All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in different proportions, more or less harmonious.[124] These elements remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,[125] could not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.

[Footnote 120: Hippokrates--[Greek: Peri\ a)rchai/ês i)êtrikê=s]--c. 20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littré. [Greek: katha/per E)mpedoklê=s ê)\ a)/lloi oi(\ peri\ phu/sios gegra/phasin e)x a)rchê=s o(/ ti/ e)stin a)/nthrôpos, kai\ o(/pôs e)geneto prô/ton, kai\ o(/pôs xunepa/gê].

This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.]

[Footnote 121: Emp. Fr. v. 253, Kar. [Greek: tou\s me\n pu=r a)nepemp' e)/thelon pro\s o(/moion i(ke/sthai], &c.

Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. [Greek: ei)=pe pa/lin o( E)mpedoklê=s, o(/ti ta\ phuta\ e)/chousi ge/nesin e)n ko/smô| ê)lattôme/nô|, kai\ ou) telei/ô| kata\ tê\n sumplê/rôsin au)tou=; tau/tês de\ sumplêroume/nês] (while it is in course of being completed), [Greek: ou) genna=tai zô=on.]]

[Footnote 122: Emp. Frag. v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed. Karst. Ver. 238:--

[Greek: polla\ me\n a)mphipro/sôpa kai\ a)mphi/stern' e)phu/onto, bougenê= a)ndro/prôra], &c. Ver. 251:-- [Greek: Ou)lophuei=s me\n prô=ta tu/poi chthono\s e(xane/tellon], &c.

Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20; Physic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Coelo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29; with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.]

[Footnote 123: Emp. Frag. v. 135, Kar.]

[Footnote 124: Plato, Menon. p. 76 A.; Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 324, b. 30 seq.]

[Footnote 125: [Greek: E)mpedoklê=s e)x a)metablê/tôn tô=n tetta/rôn stoichei/ôn ê(gei=to gi/gnesthai tê\n tô=n sunthe/tôn sôma/tôn phu/sin, ou(/tôs a)namemigme/nôn a)llê/lois tô=n prô/tôn, ô(s ei)/ tis leiô/sas a)kribô=s kai\ chnoô/dê poiê/sas i)o\n kai\ chalki=tin kai\ kadmei/an kai\ mi/su mi/xeien, ô(s mêde\n e)x au)tou= metacheiri/sasthai chôri\s e(te/rou].

Galen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De Homin. Nat. t. iii. p. 101. See Karsten, De Emped. Phil. p. 407, and Emp. Fr. v. 155.

Galen says, however (after Aristot. Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 334, a. 30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture properly speaking, but merely close proximity. Hippokrates (he says) was the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture. But Empedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the structure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles. Oil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no such symmetry between them--[Greek: o(/lôs ga\r poiei=] (Empedokles) [Greek: tê\n mi/xin tê=| summetri/a| tô=n po/rôn; dio/per e)/laion me\n kai\ u(/dôr ou) mi/gnusthai, ta\ de\ a)/lla u(gra\ kai\ peri\ o(/sôn dê\ katarithmei=tai ta\s i)di/as kra/seis] (Theophrastus, De Sensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol. i. p. 651, ed. Schneider).]

[Side-note: Physiology of Empedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the blood.]

Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology. He dwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details respecting gestation and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it was that determined the birth of male or female offspring. About respiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories: his explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments. He supposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs, but partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with those pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the blood vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre. Such was the movement which Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood: alternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession backwards towards the centre. When the blood thus receded, the extremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without entered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had thus entered was expelled.[126] Empedokles conceived this outward tide of blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape and join its analogous element without.[127]

[Footnote 126: Emp. Fr. v. 275, seqq. Karst.

The comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly pertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not what Empedokles had in view (Aristot. De Respirat. c. 3).]

[Footnote 127: Karsten, De Emp. Philosoph. p. 480.

Emp. Fr. v. 307--[Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r--pu=r d' e)/xô diathrô=skon], &c.

Empedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by the klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a broad bottom pierced with many small holes. When the neck was kept closed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into water, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the bottom, because of the resistance of the air within. As soon as the neck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape, the water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.

This illustration is interesting. It shows that Empedokles was distinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the ascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as allowing such movement. Vers. 286:--

[Greek: ou)de/ t' e)s a)/ggos d' o)/mbros e)se/rchetai, a)lla/ min ei)/rgei a)e/ros o)/gkos e)/sôthe pesô\n e)pi\ trê/mata pukna/], &c.

This dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite amusement with children.]

[Side-note: Doctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of perceptions--Intercommunication of the elements with the sentient subject--like acting upon like.]

The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain sensation. He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had advanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that sensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike acting upon unlike. Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried) to apply his doctrine to the various senses separately.[128] Man was composed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and since like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements within himself, he perceived and knew the like element without. Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a suitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by water, and so forth.[129] Empedokles, assuming perception and knowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four elements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other substances besides, perceived and knew in the same way. Everything possessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than man, who was a more compound structure.[130] Perception and knowledge was more developed in different animals in proportion as their elementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood, as the most compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of intelligence.[131]

[Footnote 128: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 2, p. 647, Schneid.]

[Footnote 129: Emp. Frag. Karst. v. 267, seq.

[Greek: gnô=th', o(/ti pa/ntôn ei)si\n a)por)r(oai\ o(/ss' e)ge/nonto], &c.

ib. v. 321:

[Greek: gai/ê| me\n ga\r gai=an o)pô/pamen, u(/dati d' u(/dôr, ai)the/ri d' ai)the/ra di=on, a)ta\r puri\ pu=r a)i+\dêlon, storgê=| de\ storgê/n, nei=kos de/ te nei/kei+ lugrô=|].

Theophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.

Aristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a [Greek: psuchê\] (_soul_, _vital principle_) by itself. Sextus Empiricus treats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a [Greek: kritê/rion a)lêthei/as] (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 116).]

[Footnote 130: Emp. Fr. v. 313, Karst. ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem. viii. 286; also apud Diogen. L. viii. 77.

[Greek: pa/nta ga\r i)/sth' phro/nêsin e)/chein kai\ nô/matos ai)=san].

Stein gives (Emp. Fr. v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding this from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.

Parmenides had held the same opinion before--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs pa=n to\ o)\n e)/chein tina\ gnô=sin]--ap. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 4.

Theophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as one of his grounds of objection--That Empedokles, in maintaining sensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into pores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances (Theophr. De Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts this as if it were an inconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so considered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have accepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference, except one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.]

[Footnote 131: Emp. Frag. 316, Karst. [Greek: ai(=ma ga\r a)nthrô/pois perika/rdio/n e)sti no/êma.] Comp. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 11.]

[Side-note: Sense of vision.]

In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly by the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light without. The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior coat was a thin layer of earth and air. Colours were brought to the eye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by passing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white colour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black colour with those of water.[132] Some animals had the proportions of fire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently located, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on the outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others, water was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the animals which saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light being required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former class of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little light without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed--or left more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to them.[133]

[Footnote 132: Emp. Frag. v. 301-310, Karst. [Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r], &c. Theophr. De Sensu, s. 7, 8; Aristot. De Sensu, c. 3; Aristot. De Gen. et Corrupt. i. 8.]

[Footnote 133: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.]

[Side-note: Senses of hearing, smell, taste.]

In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or trumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the solid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and caused the sensation of sound within.[134] Smell was, in his view, an adjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin. Respecting taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate and actual contact. Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid it down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not merely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or ducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious with them in respect to elementary mixture.[135]

[Footnote 134: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9-21.

Empedokles described the ear under the metaphor of [Greek: sa/rkinon o)/zon], "the fleshy branch."]

[Footnote 135: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9, 10. The criticisms of Theophrastus upon this theory of Empedokles are extremely interesting, as illustrating the change in the Grecian physiological point of view during a century and a half, but I reserve them until I come to the Aristotelian age. I may remark, however, that Theophrastus, disputing the doctrine of sensory effluvia generally, disputes the existence of the olfactory effluvia not less than the rest (s. 20).]

[Side-note: Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the killing of anything that had life. His belief in the metempsychosis. Sufferings of life are an expiation for wrong done during an antecedent life. Pretensions to magic power.]

Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries--especially that of the metempsychosis. He represented himself as having passed through prior states of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He proclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not to kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the sacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the soul of a deceased friend or brother.[136] His religious faith, however, and his opinions about Gods, Dæmons, and the human soul, stood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on kosmology and physiology. In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid great stress on the existence of Dæmons (of intermediate order and power between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the Gods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long period of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals. He laments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others, condemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they could regain the society of the Gods.[137] In one of his remaining fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured pupil the most wonderful gifts--powers to excite or abate the winds, to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead.[138] He was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer. Gorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical ceremonies.[139]

[Footnote 136: Emp. Frag. v. 380-410, Karsten; Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, p. 997-8.

Aristot. Rhetoric. i. 13, 2: [Greek: e)sti\ ga\r, o(\ manteu/ontai/ ti pa/ntes, phu/sei koino\n di/kaion kai\ a)/dikon, ka)\n mêdemi/a koinôni/a pro\s a)llê/lous ê)=|, mêde\ sunthê/kê--ô(s E)mpedoklê=s le/gei peri\ tou= mê\ ktei/nein to\ e)/mpsuchon; tou=to ga\r ou) tisi\ me\n di/kaion, tisi\ d' ou) di/kaion,

A)lla\ to\ me\n pa/ntôn no/mimon dia/ t' eu)rume/dontos Ai)the/ros ê)neke/ôs te/tatai dia/ t' a)ple/tou au)gê=s].

Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix. 127.]

[Footnote 137: Emp. Frag. v. 5-18, Karst.; compare Herod. ii. 123; Plato, Phædrus, 55, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 26. Plutarch observes in another place on the large proportion of religious mysticism blended with the philosophy of Empedokles--[Greek: Sôkra/tês, phasma/tôn kai\ deisidaimoni/as a)naple/ô philosophi/an a)po\ Puthago/rou kai\ E)mpedokle/ous dexa/menos, eu)= ma/la bebakcheume/nên], &c. (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 580, C.)

See Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 151.]

[Footnote 138: Emp. Fr. v. 390-425, Karst.]

[Footnote 139: Diog. Laert. viii. 59.]

[Side-note: Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding out truth.]

None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than a few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great or comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings of our short life. Every man took a different road, confiding only in his own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man could obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.[140]

[Footnote 140: Emp. Fr. v. 34, ed. Karst., p. 88.

[Greek: pau=ron de\ zô/ês a)bi/ou me/ros a)thlê/santes ô)ku/moroi, ka/pnoio di/kên a)rthe/ntes, a)pe/ptan, au)to\ mo/non peisthe/ntes o(/tô| prose/kursen e(/kastos, pa/ntos' e)launo/menoi; to\ de\ ou)=lon e)peu/chetai eu(rei=n au)/tôs. ou)/t' e)piderkta\ ta/d' a)ndra/sin ou)/t' e)pakousta\ ou)/te no/ô| perilêpta/.]]

[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras--denied generation and destruction--recognises only mixture and severance of pre-existing kinds of matter.]

Anaxagoras of Klazomenæ, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less ambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry, without any of those mystical pretentions common among the Pythagoreans. His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic dialect.[141] His theory, like all those of his age, was all-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning, and shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come into those appearances which were exhibited to sense. He agreed with Empedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other Ionic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which, by various transformations, other sensible things were generated--and into which, when destroyed, they were again resolved. Like Empedokles, and like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation, understood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no existing thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or could undergo real transformation into any other thing different from what it was.[142] Existing things were what they were, possessing their several inherent properties: there could be no generation except the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any transformation except the substitution of one compound for another.

[Footnote 141: Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. i. 4, 5; Diogen. Laert. ii. 10.]

[Footnote 142: Anaxagor. Fr. 22, p. 135, ed. Schaubach. [Greek: to\ de\ gi/nesthai kai\ a)po/llusthai ou)k o)rthô=s nomi/zousin oi( E(/llênes. Ou)de\n ga\r chrê=ma gi/netai, ou)de\ a)po/llutai, a)ll' a)p' e)o/ntôn chrêma/tôn summi/sgetai/ te kai\ diakri/netai; kai\ ou(/tôs a)\n o)rthô=s kaloi=en to/ te gi/nesthai summi/sgesthai kai\ to\ a)po/llusthai diakri/nesthai.]]

[Side-note: Homoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter, all mixed together.]

But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum total of first substances. He reckoned all the different sorts of matter as original and primæval existences: he supposed them all to lie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no greatest and no least.[143] Particles of the same sort he called Homoeomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts; wherein the parts were like each other and like the whole. Flesh, bone, blood, fire,[144] earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of particles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh, bone, and blood, than the whole mass.

[Footnote 143: Anaxag. Fr. 5, ed. Schaub, p. 94.

[Greek: Ta\ o(moiomerê=] are the primordial particles themselves: [Greek: o(moiome/reia] is the abstract word formed from this concrete--existence in the form or condition of [Greek: o(moiomerê=]. Each distinct substance has its own [Greek: o(moiomerê=], little particles like each other, and each possessing the characteristics of the substance. But the state called [Greek: o(moiome/reia] pervades all substances (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53, note 3.)]

[Footnote 144: Lucretius, i. 830:

Nunc et Anaxagoræ scrutemur Homoeomerian, Quam Grai memorant, nec nostrâ dicere linguâ Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.

Lucretius calls this theory Homoeomeria, and it appears to me that this name must have been bestowed upon it by its author. Zeller and several others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first from Aristotle and his physiological classification. But what other name was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?]

But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homoeomeries[145] was a special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one of them could have an existence apart from the rest. Everything was mixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one of them could be obtained pure and unmixed. This was true of any portion however small. The visible and tangible bodies around us affected our senses, and received their denominations according to that one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided preponderance and prominence. But each of them included in itself all the other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.[146]

[Footnote 145: Anaxag. Fr. 8; Schaub. p. 101; compare p. 113. [Greek: e(/teron de\ ou)de/n e)stin o(/moion ou)deni\ a)/llô|. A)ll' o(/teô| plei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n.]]

[Footnote 146: Lucretius, i. 876:

Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud Apparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,** Et magis in promptu primâque in fronte** locata.

Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, 3. [Greek: Dio/ phasi pa=n e)n panti\ memi=chthai, dio/ti pa=n e)k panto\s e(ô/rôn gigno/menon; phai/nesthai de\ diaphe/ronta kai/ prosagoreu/esthai e(/tera a)llê/lôn, e)k tou= ma/lista u(pere/chontos, dia\ to\ plê=thos e)n tê=| mi/xei tô=n a)pei/rôn; ei)likrinô=s me\n ga\r o(/lon leuko\n ê)\ me/lan ê)\ sa/rka ê)\ o)stou=n, ou)k ei)=nai; o(/tou de\ plei=ston e(/kaston e)/chei, tou=to dokei=n ei)=nai tê\n phu/sin tou= pra/gmatos.] Also Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 3; Gen. et Corr. i. 1.]

[Side-note: First condition of things--all the primordial varieties of matter were huddled together in confusion. Nous, or Reason, distinct from all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass, setting the constituent particles in movement.]

In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter) were together, in one mass or mixture. Infinitely numerous and infinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded together that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite figure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself. Nothing was distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and Æther (Fire), which surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together.[147] Thus all things continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity. The fundamental contraries--wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense, rare,--in their intimate contact neutralised each other.[148] Upon this inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind. The characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus marked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with each other. Having no communion of nature with other things, it was noway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and was of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and purest of all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things. It was like to itself throughout--the greater manifestations of mind similar to the less.[149]

[Footnote 147: Anaxag. Frag. 1; Schaub. p. 65; [Greek: O(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata ê)=n, a)/peira kai\ plê=thos kai\ smikro/têta. Kai\ ga\r to\ smikro\n a)/peiron ê)=n. Kai\ pa/ntôn o(mou= e)o/ntôn ou)de\n eu)/dêlon ê)=n u(po\ smikro/têtos. Pa/nta ga\r a)ê/r te kai\ ai)thê\r katei=chen, a)mpho/tera a)/peira e)o/nta. Tau=ta ga\r me/gista e)/nestin e)n toi=s sumpa=si kai\ plê/thei kai\ mege/thei].

The first three words--[Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata]--were the commencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected and cited than any other words in it. See Fragm. 16, 17, Schaubach, and p. 66-68. Aristotle calls this primeval chaos [Greek: to\ mi/gma].]

[Footnote 148: Anax. Frag. 6, Schaub. p. 97; Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, p. 187, a, with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Scholia, p. 335; Brandis also, iii. 203, a. 25; and De Coelo, iii. 301, a. 12, [Greek: e)x a)kinê/tôn ga\r a)/rchetai] (Anaxagoras) [Greek: kosmopoiei=n.]]

[Footnote 149: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Schaub. [Greek: Ta\ me\n a)/lla panto\s moi=ran e)/chei, nou=s de/ e)stin a)/peiron kai\ au)tokrate\s kai\ me/miktai ou)deni\ chrê/mati, a)lla\ mo/nos au)to\s e)ph' e(ôu+tou= e)stin. Ei) mê\ ga\r e)ph' e(ôu+tou= ê)=n, a)lla/ teô| e)me/mikto a)/llô|, metei=chen a)\n a(pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn ei)/ e)me/mikto teô| . . . . Kai\ a)nekô/luen au)to\n ta\ summemigme/na, ô(/ste mêdeno\s chrê/matos kratei=n o(moi/ôs, ô(s kai\ mo/non e)o/nta e)ph' e(ôu+tou=. E)sti\ ga\r lepto/tato/n te pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn kai\ katharô/taton, kai\ gnô/mên ge peri\ panto\s pa=san i)/schei, kai\ i)schu/ei me/giston.]

Compare Plato, Kratylus, c. 65, p. 413, c. [Greek: nou=n au)tokra/tora kai\ ou)deni\ memigme/non (o(\ le/gei A)naxago/ras).]]

[Side-note: Movement of rotation in the mass initiated by Nous on a small scale, but gradually extending itself. Like particles congregate together--distinguishable aggregates are formed.]

But though other things could not act upon mind, mind could act upon them. It first originated movement in the quiescent mass. The movement impressed was that of rotation, which first began on a small scale, then gradually extended itself around, becoming more efficacious as it extended, and still continuing to extend itself around more and more. Through the prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was effected of those things which had been hitherto undistinguishably huddled together.[150] Dense was detached from rare, cold from hot, dark from light, dry from wet.[151] The Homoeomeric particles congregated together, each to its like; so that bodies were formed--definite and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a preponderance of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear manifestation.[152] But while the decomposition of the multifarious mass was thus carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of them specialised, knowable, and regular--still the separation can never be complete, nor can any one thing be "cut away as with a hatchet" from the rest. Each thing, great or small, must always contain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not manifest, of everything else.[153] Nothing except mind can be thoroughly pure and unmixed.

[Footnote 150: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Sch. [Greek: kai\ tê=s perichôrê/sios tê=s sumpa/sês nou=s e)kra/têsen, ô(/ste perichôrê=sai tê\n a)rchê/n. Kai\ prô=ton a)po\ tou= smikrou= ê)/rxato perichôrê=sai, e)/peiten plei=on perichôre/ei, kai\ perichôrê/sei e)pi\ ple/on. Kai\ ta\ summisgo/mena/ te kai\ a)pokrino/mena kai\ diakrino/mena, pa/nta e)/gnô nou=s]. Also Fr. 18, p. 129; Fr. 21, p. 134, Schau.]

[Footnote 151: Anaxag. Fr. 8-19, Schaubach.]

[Footnote 152: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 101, Schaub. [Greek: o(/teô| plei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(/n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n]. Pseudo-Origen. Philosophumen. 8. [Greek: kinê/seôs de mete/chein ta\ pa/nta u(po\ tou= nou= kinou/mena, sunelthei=n te ta\ o(/moia], &c. Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 188, a. 13 (p. 337, Schol. Brandis).]

[Footnote 153: Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, 5, p. 203, a. 23, [Greek: o(tiou=n tô=n mori/ôn ei)=nai mi=gma o(moi/ôs tô=| pa/nti], &c. Anaxag. Fr. 16, p. 126, Schaub.

Anaxag. Fr. 11, p. 119, Schaub. [Greek: ou) kechô/ristai ta\ e(n e(ni\ ko/smô|, ou)de\ _a)poke/koptai pele/kei_], &c. Frag. 12, p. 122. [Greek: e)n panti\ pa/nta, ou)de\ chôri\s e)/stin ei)=nai].--Frag. 15, p. 125.]

[Side-note: Nothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or unmixed, but other things may be comparatively pure. Flesh, Bone, &c. are purer than Air or Earth.]

Nevertheless other things approximate in different degrees to purity, according as they possess a more or less decided preponderance of some few ingredients over the remaining multitude. Thus flesh, bone, and other similar portions of the animal organism, were (according to Anaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one constituent more thoroughly preponderant and all other coexistent natures more thoroughly subordinate and latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air, Fire, Earth, &c.; which were compounds wherein many of the numerous ingredients present were equally effective, so that the manifestations were more confused and complicated. In this way the four Empedoklean elements formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct developments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within it. Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while flesh and bone did not.[154] Amidst all these changes, however, the infinite total mass remained the same, neither increased nor diminished.[155]

[Footnote 154: Aristotle, in two places (De Coelo, iii. 3, p. 302, a. 28, and Gen. et Corr. i. 1, p. 314, a. 18) appears to state that Anaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as simple and elementary: air, fire, and earth, as compounds from these and other Homoeomeries. So Zeller (Philos. d. Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed. 2), with Ritter, and others, understand him. Schaubach (Anax. Fr. p. 81, 82) dissents from this opinion, but does not give a clear explanation. Another passage of Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 3, p. 984, a. 11) appears to contradict the above two passages, and to put fire and water, in the Anaxagorean theory, in the same general category as flesh and bone: the explanatory note of Bonitz, who tries to show that the passage in the Metaphysica is in harmony with the other two above named passages, seems to me not satisfactory.

Lucretius (i. 835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh, bone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homoeomeries; and I cannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with Empedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have been used by the latter. [Greek: E)nanti/ôs de\ phai/nontai le/gontes oi( peri\ A)naxago/ran toi=s peri\ E)mpedokle/a. O( me\n ga/r] (Emp.) [Greek: phêsi pu=r kai\ u(/dôr kai\ a)e/ra kai\ gê=n stoichei=a te/ssara kai\ a(pla= ei)=nai, ma=llon ê)\ sa/rka kai\ o)stou=n kai\ ta\ toiau=ta tô=n o(moiomerô=n. Oi( de\] (Anaxag.) [Greek: tau=ta me\n a(pla= kai\ stoichei=a, gê=n de\ kai\ pu=r kai\ a)e/ra su/ntheta; panspermi/an ga\r ei)=nai tou/tôn.] (Gen. et Corr. i. 1.) The last words ([Greek: panspermi/an]) are fully illustrated by a portion of the other passage, De Coelo, iii. 3, [Greek: a)e/ra de\ kai\ pu=r mi=gma tou/tôn] (the Homoeomeries, such as flesh and blood) [Greek: kai\ tô=n a)/llôn sperma/tôn pa/ntôn; ei)=nai ga\r e(ka/teron au)tô=n e)x a)ora/tôn o(moiomerô=n pa/ntôn ê)throisme/nôn; dio\ kai\ gi/gnesthai pa/nta e)k tou/tôn].

Now it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies as simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set of bodies as such. Anaxagoras expressly denied _all simple bodies_. In his theory, all bodies were compound: _Nous_ alone formed an exception. Everything existed in everything. But they were compounds in which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had come together into such positive and marked action, as practically to nullify the remainder. The generation of the Homoeomeric aggregate was by disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which their agency had before lain buried ([Greek: ge/nesis, e)/kphansis mo/non kai\ e)/kkrisis tou= pri\n kruptome/nou]. Simplikius ap. Schaub. Anax. Fr. p. 115). The Homoeomeric aggregates or bodies were infinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined in countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive and definite manifestations. Considered in reference to the Homoeomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense be called elements.]

[Footnote 155: Anaxag. Fr. 14, p. 125, Schaub.]

[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras compared with that of Empedokles.]

In comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empedokles, we perceive that both of them denied not only the generation of new matter out of nothing (in which denial all the ancient physical philosophers concurred), but also the transformation of one form of matter into others, which had been affirmed by Thales and others. Both of them laid down as a basis the existence of matter in a variety of primordial forms. They maintained that what others called generation or transformation, was only a combination or separation of these pre-existing materials, in great diversity of ratios. Of such primordial forms of matter Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called Elements; each simple and radically distinct from the others, and capable of existing apart from them, though capable also of being combined with them. Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter in indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of particles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous) capable of being entirely severed from the remainder. In the constitution of every individual body in nature, particles of all the different forms were combined; but some one or a few forms were preponderant and manifest, all the others overlaid and latent. Herein consisted the difference between one body and another. The Homoeomeric body was one in which a confluence of like particles had taken place so numerous and powerful, as to submerge all the coexistent particles of other sorts. The majority thus passed for the whole, the various minorities not being allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason ceasing to exist: a type of human society as usually constituted, wherein some one vein of sentiment, ethical, æsthetical, religious, political, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on dissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot proclaim themselves without ruin.

[Side-note: Suggested partly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.]

The hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still real and recoverable, appears to have been suggested to Anaxagoras mainly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.[156] The bread and meat on which we feed nourishes all the different parts of our body--blood, flesh, bones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment must contain in itself different matters homogeneous with all these tissues and organs; though we cannot see such matters, our reason tells us that they must be there. This physiological divination is interesting from its general approximation towards the results of modern analysis.

[Footnote 156: See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. i. 3.]

[Side-note: Chaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving agency, different in one from the other theory.]

Both Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive process from a state of stagnation and confusion both tantamount to Chaos; which is not so much active discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity arising from the equilibrium of opposite forces. The chaos is in fact almost a reproduction of the Infinite of Anaximander.[157] But Anaxagoras as well as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by introducing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary to Anaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting positive movement and development out of the negative and stationary Chaos. The Nous or Mind is the Agency selected for this purpose by Anaxagoras: Love and Enmity by Empedokles. Both the one and the other initiate the rotatory cosmical motion; upon which follows as well the partial disgregation of the chaotic mass, as the congregation of like particles of it towards each other.

[Footnote 157: This is a just comparison of Theophrastus. See the passage from his [Greek: phusikê\ i(stori/a], referred to by Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 187, a. 21 (p. 335, Schol. Brand.).]

[Side-note: Nous, or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by later writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself.]

The Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as a God;[158] but there is nothing in the fragments now remaining to justify the belief that the author himself conceived it in that manner--or that he proposed it (according to Aristotle's expression[159]) as the cause of all that was good in the world, assigning other agencies as the causes of all evil. It is not characterised by him as a person--not so much as the Love and Enmity of Empedokles. It is not one but multitudinous, and all its separate manifestations are alike, differing only as greater or less. It is in fact identical with the soul, the vital principle, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and to all plants also.[160] It is one substance, or form of matter among the rest, but thinner than all of them (thinner than even fire or air), and distinguished by the peculiar characteristic of being absolutely unmixed. It has moving power and knowledge, like the air of Diogenes the Apolloniate: it initiates movement; and it knows about all the things which either pass into or pass out of combination. It disposes or puts in order all things that were, are, or will be; but it effects this only by acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled mass, and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale, then gradually increasing. Rotation having once begun, and the mass having been as it were unpacked and liberated the component Homoeomeries are represented as coming together by their own inherent attraction.[161] The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order and symmetry into Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory motion in the inert mass, so as to release the Homoeomeries from prison. It originates and maintains the great cosmical fact of rotatory motion; which variety of motion, from its perfect regularity and sameness, is declared by Plato also to be the one most consonant to Reason and Intelligence.[162] Such rotation being once set on foot, the other phenomena of the universe are supposed to be determined by its influence, and by their own tendencies and properties besides: but there is no farther agency of Nous, which only _knows_ these phenomena as and when they occur. Anaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could; not by reference to final causes, nor by assuming good purposes of Nous which each combination was intended to answer--but by physical analogies, well or ill chosen, and especially by the working of the grand cosmical rotation.[163]

[Footnote 158: Cicero, Academ. iv. 37; Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, ix. 6, [Greek: to\n me\n nou=n, o(/s e)sti kat' au)to\n theo\s], &c.

Compare Schaubach, Anax. Frag. p. 153.]

[Footnote 159: Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 984, b. 17. He praises Anaxagoras for this, [Greek: oi(=on nê/phôn par' ei)kê= le/gontas tou\s pro/teron], &c.]

[Footnote 160: Aristoteles (or Pseudo-Aristot.) De Plantis, i. 1.

Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 65-6-13.

Aristotle says that the language of Anaxagoras about [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê\] was not perfectly clear or consistent. But it seems also from Plato De Legg. xii. p. 967, B, that Anaxagoras made no distinction between [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê/]. Compare Plato, Kratylus, p. 400 A.]

[Footnote 161: Anaxag. Fr. 8, and Schaubach's Comm. p. 112-116.

"Mens erat id, quod movebat molem homoeomeriarum: hâc ratione, per hunc motum à mente excitatum, secretio facta est . . . . Materiæ autem propriæ insunt vires: proprio suo pondere hæc, quæ mentis vi mota et secreta sunt, feruntur in eum locum, quo nunc sunt."

Compare Alexand. Aphrod. ap. Scholia ad Aristot. Physic. ii. p. 194, a. (Schol. p. 348 a. Brandis); Marbach, Lehrbuch der Gesch. Philos. s. 54, note 2, p. 82; Preller, Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, s. 53, with his comment.]

[Footnote 162: Plato, Phædo, c. 107, 108, p. 98; Plato, De Legg. xii. p. 967 B; Aristot. Metaphys. A. 4, p. 985, b. 18; Plato, Timæus, 34 A. 88 E.]

[Footnote 163: Aristoph. Nub. 380, 828. [Greek: ai)the/rios Di=nos--Di=nos basileu/ei, to\n Di/' e)xelêlakô/s]--the sting of which applies to Anaxagoras and his doctrines.

Anaxagoras [Greek: di/nous tina\s a)noê/tous a)nazôgraphô=n, su\n tê=| tou= nou= a)praxi/a| kai\ a)noi/a|] (Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. ii. p. 365).

To _move_ (in the active sense, _i.e._ to cause movement in) and to _know_, are the two attributes of the Anaxagorean [Greek: Nou=s] (Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2, p. 405, a. 18).]

[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle blame Anaxagoras for deserting his own theory.]

This we learn from Plato and Aristotle, who blame Anaxagoras for inconsistency in deserting his own hypothesis, and in invoking explanations from physical agencies, to the neglect of Nous and its supposed optimising purposes. But Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge by his remaining fragments, seems not to have committed any such inconsistency. He did not proclaim his Nous to be a powerful extra-cosmical Architect, like the Demiurgus of Plato--nor an intra-cosmical, immanent, undeliberating instinct (such as Aristotle calls Nature), tending towards the production and renewal of regular forms and conjunctions, yet operating along with other agencies which produced concomitants irregular, unpredictable, often even obstructive and monstrous. Anaxagoras appears to conceive his Nous as one among numerous other real agents in Nature, material like the rest, yet differing from the rest as being powerful, simple, and pure from all mixture,[164] as being endued with universal cognizance, as being the earliest to act in point of time, and as furnishing the primary condition to the activity of the rest by setting on foot the cosmical rotation. The Homoeomeries are coeternal with, if not anterior to, Nous. They have laws and properties of their own, which they follow, when once liberated, without waiting for the dictation of Nous. What they do is known by, but not ordered by, Nous.[165] It is therefore no inconsistency in Anaxagoras that he assigns to mind one distinct and peculiar agency, but nothing more; and that when trying to explain the variety of phenomena he makes reference to other physical agencies, as the case seems to require.[166]

[Footnote 164: Anaxagoras, Fr. 8,** p. 100, Schaub.

[Greek: e)sti\ ga\r lepto/tato/n te pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn], &c.

This means, not that [Greek: nou=s] was unextended or immaterial, but that it was thinner or more subtle than either fire or air. Herakleitus regarded [Greek: to\ perie/chon] as [Greek: logiko\n kai\ phrenê=res]. Diogenes of Apollonia considered air as endued with cognition, and as imparting cognition by being inhaled. Compare Plutarch, De Placit. Philos. iv. 3.

I cannot think, with Brücker (Hist. Philosop. part ii. b. ii. De Sectâ Ionicâ, p. 504, ed. 2nd), and with Tennemann, Ges. Ph. i. 8, p. 312, that Anaxagoras was "primus qui Dei ideam inter Græcos à materialitate quasi purificavit," &c. I agree rather with Zeller (Philos. der Griech. i. p. 680-683, ed. 2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is not conceived as having either immateriality or personality.]

[Footnote 165: Simplikius, in Physic. Aristot. p. 73. [Greek: kai\ A)naxago/ras de\ to\n nou=n e)a/sas, ô(/s phêsin Eu)/dêmos, kai\ au)tomati/zôn ta\ polla\ suni/stêsin.]]

[Footnote 166: Diogen. Laert. ii. 8. [Greek: Nou=n . . . a)rchê\n kinê/seôs].

Brücker, Hist. Philos. ut supra. "Scilicet, semel inducto in materiam à mente motu, sufficere putavit Anaxagoras, juxta leges naturæ motûsque, rerum ortum describere."]

[Side-note: Astronomy and physics of Anaxagoras.]

In describing the formation of the Kosmos, Anaxagoras supposed that, as a consequence of the rotation initiated by mind, the primitive chaos broke up. "The Dense, Wet, Cold, Dark, Heavy, came together into the place where now Earth is: Hot, Dry, Bare, Light, Bright, departed to the exterior region of the revolving Æther."[167] In such separation each followed its spontaneous and inherent tendency. Water was disengaged from air and clouds, earth from water: earth was still farther consolidated into stones by cold.[168] Earth remained stationary in the centre, while fire and air were borne round it by the force and violence of the rotatory movement. The celestial bodies--Sun, Moon, and Stars--were solid bodies analogous to the earth, either caught originally in the whirl of the rotatory movement, or torn from the substance of the earth and carried away into the outer region of rotation.[169] They were rendered hot and luminous by the fiery fluid in the rapid whirl of which they were hurried along. The Sun was a stone thus made red-hot, larger than Peloponnesus: the Moon was of earthy matter, nearer to the Earth, deriving its light from the Sun, and including not merely plains and mountains, but also cities and inhabitants.[170] Of the planetary movements, apart from the diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere, Anaxagoras took no notice.[171] He explained the periodical changes in the apparent course of the sun and moon by resistances which they encountered, the former from accumulated and condensed air, the latter from the cold.[172] Like Anaximenes and Demokritus, Anaxagoras conceived the Earth as flat, round in the surface, and not deep, resting on and supported by the air beneath it. Originally (he thought) the earth was horizontal, with the axis of celestial rotation perpendicular, and the north pole at the zenith, so that this rotation was then lateral, like that of a dome or roof; it was moreover equable and unchanging with reference to every part of the plane of the earth's upper surface, and distributed light and heat equally to every part. But after a certain time the Earth tilted over of its own accord to the south, thus lowering its southern half, raising the northern half, and causing the celestial rotation to appear oblique.[173]

[Footnote 167: Anaxag. Fr. 19, p. 131, Schaub.; compare Fr. 6, p. 97; Diogen. Laert. ii. 8.]

[Footnote 168: Anaxag. Fr. 20, p. 133, Schau.]

[Footnote 169: See the curious passage in Plutarch, Lysander 12, and Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 B; Diogen. Laert. ii. 12; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 13.]

[Footnote 170: Plato, Kratylus, p. 409 A; Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 14; Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 7.]

[Footnote 171: Schaubach, ad Anax. Fr. p. 165.]

[Footnote 172: Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. ii. 23.]

[Footnote 173: Diogenes Laert. ii. 9. [Greek: ta\ d' a)/stra kat' a)rcha\s tholoeidô=s e)nechthê=nai, ô(/ste kata\ koruphê\n tê=s gê=s to\n a)ei\ phaino/menon ei)=nai po/lon, u(/steron de\ tê\n (gê=n) e)/gklisin labei=n.] Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 8.]

[Side-note: His geology, meteorology, physiology.]