CHAPTER VIANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI
Date.
120. All that Apollodoros tells us with regard to the date of Anaxagoras seems to rest upon the authority of Demetrios Phalereus, who said of him, in theRegister of Archons, that he began to study philosophy, at the age of twenty, in the archonship of Kallias or Kalliades at Athens (480-79B.C.).[647]This date was probably derived from a calculation based upon the philosopher’s age at the time of his trial, which Demetrios had every opportunity of learning from sources no longer extant. Apollodoros inferred that Anaxagoras was born in Ol. LXX. (500-496B.C.), and he adds that he died at the age of seventy-two in Ol. LXXXVIII. 1 (428-27B.C.).[648]He doubtless thought it natural that he should not survive Perikles, and still more natural that he should die the year Plato was born.[649]We have a further statement, of doubtful origin, but probably due to Demetrios also, that Anaxagoras lived at Athens for thirty years. Thismay be a genuine tradition;[650]and if so, we get from about 462 to 432B.C.as the time he lived there.
There can be no doubt that these dates are very nearly right. Aristotle tells us[651]that Anaxagoras was older than Empedokles, who was born about 490B.C.(§ 98); and Theophrastos said[652]that Empedokles was born “not long after Anaxagoras.” Demokritos, too, said that he himself was a young man in the old age of Anaxagoras, and he must have been born about 460B.C.[653]
Early life.
121. Anaxagoras was born at Klazomenai, and Theophrastos tells us that his father’s name was Hegesiboulos.[654]The names of both father and son have an aristocratic sound, and we may assume they belonged to a family which had won distinction in the State. Nor need we reject the tradition that Anaxagoras neglected his possessions to follow science.[655]It is certain, at any rate, that in the fourth century he was already regarded as the type of the man who leads the “theoretic life.”[656]Of course the story of his contempt for worldly goods was seized on laterby the historical novelist and tricked out with the usual apophthegms. These do not concern us here.
One incident belonging to the early manhood of Anaxagoras is recorded, namely, his observation of the huge meteoric stone which fell into the Aigospotamos in 468-67B.C.[657]Our authorities tell us that he predicted this phenomenon, which is plainly absurd. But we shall see reason to believe that it may have occasioned one of his most striking departures from the earlier cosmology, and led to his adoption of the very view for which he was condemned at Athens. At all events, the fall of the stone made a profound impression at the time, and it was still shown to tourists in the days of Pliny and Plutarch.[658]
Relation to the Ionic school.
122. The doxographers speak of Anaxagoras as the pupil of Anaximenes.[659]This is, of course, out of the question; Anaximenes most probably died before Anaxagoras was born. But it is not enough to say that the statement arose from the fact that the name of Anaxagoras followed that of Anaximenes in theSuccessions. That is true, no doubt; but it is not the whole truth. We have its original source in a fragment of Theophrastos himself, which states that Anaxagoras had been “an associate of the philosophy of Anaximenes.”[660]Now this expression has a very distinct meaning if we accept the view as to “schools” of science set forth in the Introduction (§ XIV.). It means that the old Ionic school survived the destruction of Miletos in 494B.C., and continued to flourish in the other cities of Asia. It means, further, that it produced no man of distinction after its third great representative, and that “the philosophy of Anaximenes” was still taught by whoever was now at the head of the society.
At this point, it may be well to indicate briefly the conclusions to which we shall come in the next few chapters with regard to the development of philosophy during the first half of the fifth centuryB.C.We shall find that, while the old Ionic school was still capable of training great men, it was now powerless to keep them. Anaxagoras went his own way; Melissos and Leukippos, though they still retained enough of the old views to bear witness to the source of their inspiration, were too strongly influenced by the Eleatic dialectic to remain content with the theories of Anaximenes. It was left to second-rate minds like Diogenes to champion the orthodox system, while third-rate minds like Hippon of Samos even went back to the cruder theory of Thales. The details of this anticipatory sketch will become clearer as we go on; for the present, it is only necessary to call the reader’s attention to the fact that the old Ionic Philosophy now forms a sort of background to our story,just as Orphic and Pythagorean religious ideas have done in the preceding chapters.
Anaxagoras at Athens.
123. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to take up his abode at Athens. We are not to suppose, however, that he was attracted thither by anything in the character of the Athenians. No doubt Athens had now become the political centre of the Hellenic world; but it had not yet produced a single scientific man. On the contrary, the temper of the citizen body was and remained hostile to free inquiry of any kind. Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle fell victims in different degrees to the bigotry of the democracy, though, of course, their offence was political rather than religious. They were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in thestatereligion. Still, as a recent historian observes, “Athens in its flourishing period was far from being a place for free inquiry to thrive unchecked.”[661]It is this, no doubt, that has been in the minds of those writers who have represented philosophy as something un-Greek. It was in reality thoroughly Greek, though it was thoroughly un-Athenian.
It seems most reasonable to suppose that Perikles himself brought Anaxagoras to Athens, just as he brought everything else he could. Holm has shown with much skill how the aim of that great statesman was, so to say, to Ionise his fellow-citizens, to impart to them something of the flexibility and openness of mind which characterised their kinsmen across the sea. It is possible that it was Aspasia of Miletos who introduced the Ionian philosopher to the Perikleancircle, of which he was henceforth a chief ornament. The Athenians in derision gave him the nickname of Nous.[662]
The close relation in which Anaxagoras stood to Perikles is placed beyond the reach of doubt by the testimony of Plato. In thePhaedrus[663]he makes Sokrates say: “For all arts that are great, there is need of talk and discussion on the parts of natural science that deal with things on high; for that seems to be the source which inspires high-mindedness and effectiveness in every direction. Perikles added this very acquirement to his original gifts. He fell in, it seems, with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man; and, satiating himself with the theory of things on high, and having attained to a knowledge of the true nature of intellect and folly, which were just what the discourses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew from that source whatever was of a nature to further him in the art of speech.”
A more difficult question is the alleged relation of Euripides to Anaxagoras. The oldest authority for it is Alexander of Aitolia, poet and librarian, who lived at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphos (c.280B.C.). He referred to Euripides as the “nursling of brave Anaxagoras.”[664]A great deal of ingenuity has been expended in trying to find the system of Anaxagoras in the choruses of Euripides; but, it must now be admitted, without result.[665]The famous fragment onthe blessedness of the scientific life might just as well refer to any other cosmologist as to Anaxagoras, and indeed suggests more naturally a thinker of a more primitive type.[666]On the other hand, there is one fragment which distinctly expounds the central thought of Anaxagoras, and could hardly be referred to any one else.[667]We may conclude, then, that Euripides knew the philosopher and his views, but it is not safe to go further.
The trial.
124. Shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the enemies of Perikles began a series of attacks upon him through his friends.[668]Pheidias was the first to suffer, and Anaxagoras was the next. That he was an object of special hatred to the religious party need not surprise us, even though the charge made against him does not suggest that he went out of his way to hurt their susceptibilities. The details of the trial are somewhat obscure, but we can make out a few points. The first step taken was the introduction of a psephism by Diopeithes—the same whom Aristophanes laughs at inThe Birds[669]—enacting that an impeachment should be brought against those who did not practise religion, and taught theories about “the things on high.”[670]What happened at the actual trial is very differently related. Our authorities givehopelessly conflicting accounts.[671]It is no use attempting to reconcile these; it is enough to insist upon what is certain. Now we know from Plato what the accusation was.[672]It was that Anaxagoras taught the sun was a red-hot stone, and the moon earth; and we shall see that he certainly did hold these views (§ 133). For the rest, the most plausible account is that he was got out of prison and sent away by Perikles.[673]We know that such things were possible at Athens.
Driven from his adopted home, Anaxagoras naturally went back to Ionia, where at least he would be free to teach what he pleased. He settled at Lampsakos, and we shall see reason to believe that he founded a school there.[674]Probably he did not live long after his exile. The Lampsakenes erected an altar to his memory in their market-place, dedicated to Mind and Truth; and the anniversary of his death was long kept as a holiday for school-children, it was said at his own request.[675]
Writings.
125. Diogenes includes Anaxagoras in his list of philosophers who left only a single book, and he has also preserved the accepted criticism of it, namely, that it was written “in a lofty and agreeable style.”[676]There is no evidence of any weight to set against this testimony, which comes ultimately from the librarians of Alexandria.[677]The story that Anaxagoras wrote a treatise on perspective as applied to scene-painting is most improbable;[678]and the statement that he composed a mathematical work dealing with the quadrature of the circle is due to misunderstanding of an expression in Plutarch.[679]We learn from the passage in theApology, referred to above, that the works of Anaxagoras could be bought at Athens for a single drachma; and that the book was of some length may be gathered from the way in which Plato goes on to speak of it.[680]In the sixth centuryA.D.Simplicius had access to a copy, doubtless in the library of the Academy;[681]and it is to him we owe the preservation of all our fragments, with one or two very doubtfulexceptions. Unfortunately his quotations seem to be confined to the First Book, that dealing with general principles, so that we are left somewhat in the dark with regard to the treatment of details. This is the more unfortunate, as it was Anaxagoras who first gave the true theory of the moon’s light and, therefore, the true theory of eclipses.
The Fragments.
126. I give the fragments according to the text and arrangement of Diels, who has made some of them completely intelligible for the first time.
(1) All things were together infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. And, when all things were together, none of them could be distinguished for their smallness. For air and aether prevailed over all things, being both of them infinite; for amongst all things these are the greatest both in quantity and size.[682]R. P. 151.(2) For air and aether are separated off from the mass that surrounds the world, and the surrounding mass is infinite in quantity. R. P.ib.(3) Nor is there a least of what is small, but there is always a smaller; for it cannot be that what is should cease to be by being cut.[683]But there is also always something greater than what is great, and it is equal to the small in amount, and, compared with itself, each thing is both great and small. R. P. 159 a.(4) And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours (R. P.ib.), and that men have been formed in them, and the other animals that have life, and that these men have inhabited cities and cultivated fields aswith us; and that they have a sun and a moon and the rest as with us; and that their earth brings forth for them many things of all kinds of which they gather the best together into their dwellings, and use them (R. P. 160 b). Thus much have I said with regard to separating off, to show that it will not be only with us that things are separated off, but elsewhere too.But before they were separated off, when all things were together, not even was any colour distinguishable; for the mixture of all things prevented it—of the moist and the dry, and the warm and the cold, and the light and the dark, and of much earth that was in it, and of a multitude of innumerable seeds in no way like each other. For none of the other things either is like any other. And these things being so, we must hold that all things are in the whole. R. P. 151.[684](5) And those things having been thus decided, we must know that all of them are neither more nor less; for it is not possible for them to be more than all, and all are always equal. R. P. 151.(6) And since the portions of the great and of the small are equal in amount, for this reason, too, all things will be in everything; nor is it possible for them to be apart, but all things have a portion of everything. Since it is impossible for there to be a least thing, they cannot be separated, nor come to be by themselves; but they must be now, just as they were in the beginning, all together. And in all things many things are contained, and an equal number both in the greater and in the smaller of the things that are separated off.(7) ... So that we cannot know the number of the things that are separated off, either in word or deed.(8) The things that are in one world are not divided nor cut off from one another with a hatchet, neither the warm from the cold nor the cold from the warm. R. P. 155 e.(9) ... as these things revolve and are separated out by the force and swiftness. And the swiftness makes the force. Their swiftness is not like the swiftness of any of the thingsthat are now among men, but in every way many times as swift.(10) How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh? R. P. 155 f, n. 1.(11) In everything there is a portion of everything except Nous, and there are some things in which there is Nous also. R. P. 160 b.(12) All other things partake in a portion of everything, while Nous is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any; for in everything there is a portion of everything, as has been said by me in what goes before, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it would have power over nothing in the same way that it has now being alone by itself. For it is the thinnest of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge about everything and the greatest strength; and Nous has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have life. And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be, and all things that were and are not now and that are, and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air and the aether that are separated off. And this revolution caused the separating off, and the rare is separated off from the dense, the warm from the cold, the light from the dark, and the dry from the moist. And there are many portions in many things. But no thing is altogether separated off nor distinguished from anything else except Nous. And all Nous is alike, both the greater and the smaller; while nothing else is like anything else, but each single thing is and was most manifestly those things of which it has most in it R. P. 155.(13) And when Nous began to move things, separating off took place from all that was moved, and so far as Nous set in motion all was separated. And as things were set in motionand separated, the revolution caused them to be separated much more.(14) And Nous, which ever is, is certainly there, where everything else is, in the surrounding mass, and in what has been united with it and separated off from it.[685](15) The dense and the moist and the cold and the dark came together where the earth is now, while the rare and the warm and the dry (and the bright) went out towards the further part of the aether.[686]R. P. 156.(16) From these as they are separated off earth is solidified; for from mists water is separated off, and from water earth. From the earth stones are solidified by the cold, and these rush outwards more than water. R. P. 156.(17) The Hellenes follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation. R. P. 150.(18) It is the sun that puts brightness into the moon.(19) We call rainbow the reflexion of the sun in the clouds. Now it is a sign of storm; for the water that flows round the cloud causes wind or pours down in rain.(20) With the rise of the Dogstar men begin the harvest; with its setting they begin to till the fields. It is hidden for forty days and nights.(21) From the weakness of our senses we are not able to judge the truth.(21a) What appears is a vision of the unseen.(21b) (We can make use of the lower animals) because we use our own experience and memory and wisdom and art.(22) What is called “birds’ milk” is the white of the egg.
(1) All things were together infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. And, when all things were together, none of them could be distinguished for their smallness. For air and aether prevailed over all things, being both of them infinite; for amongst all things these are the greatest both in quantity and size.[682]R. P. 151.
(2) For air and aether are separated off from the mass that surrounds the world, and the surrounding mass is infinite in quantity. R. P.ib.
(3) Nor is there a least of what is small, but there is always a smaller; for it cannot be that what is should cease to be by being cut.[683]But there is also always something greater than what is great, and it is equal to the small in amount, and, compared with itself, each thing is both great and small. R. P. 159 a.
(4) And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours (R. P.ib.), and that men have been formed in them, and the other animals that have life, and that these men have inhabited cities and cultivated fields aswith us; and that they have a sun and a moon and the rest as with us; and that their earth brings forth for them many things of all kinds of which they gather the best together into their dwellings, and use them (R. P. 160 b). Thus much have I said with regard to separating off, to show that it will not be only with us that things are separated off, but elsewhere too.
But before they were separated off, when all things were together, not even was any colour distinguishable; for the mixture of all things prevented it—of the moist and the dry, and the warm and the cold, and the light and the dark, and of much earth that was in it, and of a multitude of innumerable seeds in no way like each other. For none of the other things either is like any other. And these things being so, we must hold that all things are in the whole. R. P. 151.[684]
(5) And those things having been thus decided, we must know that all of them are neither more nor less; for it is not possible for them to be more than all, and all are always equal. R. P. 151.
(6) And since the portions of the great and of the small are equal in amount, for this reason, too, all things will be in everything; nor is it possible for them to be apart, but all things have a portion of everything. Since it is impossible for there to be a least thing, they cannot be separated, nor come to be by themselves; but they must be now, just as they were in the beginning, all together. And in all things many things are contained, and an equal number both in the greater and in the smaller of the things that are separated off.
(7) ... So that we cannot know the number of the things that are separated off, either in word or deed.
(8) The things that are in one world are not divided nor cut off from one another with a hatchet, neither the warm from the cold nor the cold from the warm. R. P. 155 e.
(9) ... as these things revolve and are separated out by the force and swiftness. And the swiftness makes the force. Their swiftness is not like the swiftness of any of the thingsthat are now among men, but in every way many times as swift.
(10) How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh? R. P. 155 f, n. 1.
(11) In everything there is a portion of everything except Nous, and there are some things in which there is Nous also. R. P. 160 b.
(12) All other things partake in a portion of everything, while Nous is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any; for in everything there is a portion of everything, as has been said by me in what goes before, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it would have power over nothing in the same way that it has now being alone by itself. For it is the thinnest of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge about everything and the greatest strength; and Nous has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have life. And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be, and all things that were and are not now and that are, and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air and the aether that are separated off. And this revolution caused the separating off, and the rare is separated off from the dense, the warm from the cold, the light from the dark, and the dry from the moist. And there are many portions in many things. But no thing is altogether separated off nor distinguished from anything else except Nous. And all Nous is alike, both the greater and the smaller; while nothing else is like anything else, but each single thing is and was most manifestly those things of which it has most in it R. P. 155.
(13) And when Nous began to move things, separating off took place from all that was moved, and so far as Nous set in motion all was separated. And as things were set in motionand separated, the revolution caused them to be separated much more.
(14) And Nous, which ever is, is certainly there, where everything else is, in the surrounding mass, and in what has been united with it and separated off from it.[685]
(15) The dense and the moist and the cold and the dark came together where the earth is now, while the rare and the warm and the dry (and the bright) went out towards the further part of the aether.[686]R. P. 156.
(16) From these as they are separated off earth is solidified; for from mists water is separated off, and from water earth. From the earth stones are solidified by the cold, and these rush outwards more than water. R. P. 156.
(17) The Hellenes follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation. R. P. 150.
(18) It is the sun that puts brightness into the moon.
(19) We call rainbow the reflexion of the sun in the clouds. Now it is a sign of storm; for the water that flows round the cloud causes wind or pours down in rain.
(20) With the rise of the Dogstar men begin the harvest; with its setting they begin to till the fields. It is hidden for forty days and nights.
(21) From the weakness of our senses we are not able to judge the truth.
(21a) What appears is a vision of the unseen.
(21b) (We can make use of the lower animals) because we use our own experience and memory and wisdom and art.
(22) What is called “birds’ milk” is the white of the egg.
Anaxagoras and his predecessors.
127. The system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with theexistence of a world which everywhere presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away. The conclusions of Parmenides are frankly accepted and restated. Nothing can be added to all things; for there cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr.5). Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly call coming into being and passing away is really mixture and separation (fr.17).
This last fragment reads almost like a prose paraphrase of Empedokles (fr.9); and it is in every way probable that Anaxagoras derived his theory of mixture from his younger contemporary, whose poem was most likely published before his own treatise.[687]We have seen how Empedokles sought to save the world of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot and cold, moist and dry—werethings, each one of which was real in the Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras regarded this as inadequate. Everything changes into everything else,[688]the things of which the world is made are not “cut off with a hatchet” (fr.8) in this way. On the contrary, the true formula must be:There is a portion of everything in everything(fr.11).
“Everything in everything.”
128. A part of the argument by which Anaxagoras sought to prove this point has been preserved in a corrupt form by Aetios, and Diels has recovered some of the original words from the scholiast on St. Gregory Nazianzene. “We use a simple nourishment,” he said, “when we eat the fruit of Demeter or drink water. But how can hair be made of what is not hair, or flesh ofwhat is not flesh?” (fr.10).[689]That is just the sort of question the early Milesians must have asked, only the physiological interest has now definitely replaced the meteorological. We shall find a similar train of reasoning in Diogenes of Apollonia (fr. 2).
The statement that there is a portion of everything in everything, is not to be understood as referring simply to the original mixture of things before the formation of the worlds (fr.1). On the contrary, even now “all things are together,” and everything, however small and however great, has an equal number of “portions” (fr.6). A smaller particle of matter could only contain a smaller number of portions, if one of those portions ceased to be; but if anythingis, in the full Parmenidean sense, it is impossible that mere division should make it cease to be (fr.3). Matter is infinitely divisible; for there is no least thing, any more than there is a greatest. But however great or small a body may be, it contains just the same number of “portions,” that is, a portion of everything.
The portions.
129. What are these “things” of which everything contains a portion? It once was usual to represent the theory of Anaxagoras as if he had said that wheat, for instance, contained small particles of flesh, blood, bones, and the like; but we have just seen that matter is infinitely divisible (fr.3), and that there are as many “portions” in the smallest particle as in the greatest (fr.6). This is fatal to the old view. If everything were made up of minute particles of everything else, we could certainly arrive at a point where everything was “unmixed,” if only we carried division far enough.
This difficulty can only be solved in one way.[690]In fr.8the examples given of things which are not “cut off from one another with a hatchet” are the hot and the cold; and elsewhere (frs.4,15), mention is made of the other traditional “opposites.” Aristotle says that, if we suppose the first principles to be infinite, they may either be one in kind, as with Demokritos, or opposite.[691]Simplicius, following Porphyry and Themistios, refers the latter view to Anaxagoras;[692]and Aristotle himself implies that the opposites of Anaxagoras had as much right to be called first principles as the “homoeomeries.”[693]
It is of those opposites, then, and not of the different forms of matter, that everything contains a portion. Every particle, however large or however small, contains every one of those opposite qualities. That which is hot is also to a certain extent cold. Even snow, Anaxagoras affirmed, was black;[694]that is, even the white contains a certain portion of the opposite quality. It is enough to indicate the connexion of this with the views of Herakleitos (§ 80).[695]
Seeds.
130. The difference, then, between the theory of Anaxagoras and that of Empedokles is this. Empedokles had taught that, if you divide the various things which make up this world, and in particular the parts of the body, such as flesh, bones, and the like, far enough, you come to the four “roots” or elements, which are, accordingly, the ultimate reality. Anaxagoras held that, however far you may divide any of these things—and they are infinitely divisible—you never come to a part so small that it does not contain portions of all the opposites. The smallest portion of bone is still bone. On the other hand, everything can pass into everything else just because the “seeds,” as he called them, of each form of matter contain a portion of everything, that is, of all the opposites, though in different proportions. If we are to use the word “element” at all, it is these seeds that are the elements in the system of Anaxagoras.
Aristotle expresses this by saying that Anaxagoras regards the ὁμοιομερῆ as στοιχεῖα.[696]We have seen that the term στοιχεῖον is of later date than Anaxagoras, and it is natural to suppose that the word ὁμοιομερῆ is also only Aristotle’s name for the “seeds.” In his own system, the ὁμοιομερῆ are intermediate between the elements (στοιχεῖα), of which they are composed, andthe organs (ὄργανα), which are composed of them. The heart cannot be divided into hearts, but the parts of flesh are flesh. That being so, Aristotle’s statement is quite intelligible from his own point of view, but there is no reason for supposing that Anaxagoras expressed himself in that particular way. All we are entitled to infer is that he said the “seeds,” which he had substituted for the “roots” of Empedokles, were not the opposites in a state of separation, but each contained a portion of them all. If Anaxagoras had used the term “homoeomeries”[697]himself, it would be strange that Simplicius should quote no fragment containing it.
The difference between the two systems may also be regarded from another point of view. Anaxagoras was not obliged by his theory to regard the elements of Empedokles as primary, a view to which there were obvious objections, especially in the case of earth. He explained them in quite another way. Though everything has a portion of everything in it, things appear to be that of which there is most in them (fr.12sub fin.). We may say, then, that Air is that in which there is most cold, Fire that in which there is most heat, and so on, without giving up the view that there is a portion of cold in the fire and a portion of heat in the air.[698]The great masses which Empedokles had taken for elements are really vast collections of all manner of “seeds.” Each of them is, in fact, a πανσπερμία.[699]
“All things together.”
131. From all this it follows that, when “all things were together,” and when the different seeds of things were mixed together in infinitely small particles (fr.1), the appearance presented would be that of one of what had hitherto been regarded as the primary substances. As a matter of fact, they did present the appearance of “air and aether”; for the qualities (things) which belong to these prevail in quantity over all other things in the universe, and everything is most obviously that of which it has most in it (fr.12sub fin.). Here, then, Anaxagoras attaches himself to Anaximenes. The primary condition of things, before the formation of the worlds, is much the same in both; only, with Anaxagoras, the original mass is no longer the primary substance, but a mixture of innumerable seeds divided into infinitely small parts.
This mass is infinite, like the air of Anaximenes, and it supports itself, since there is nothing surrounding it.[700]Further, the “seeds” of all things which it contains are infinite in number (fr.1). But, as the innumerable seeds may be divided into those in which the portions of cold, moist, dense, and dark prevail, and those which have most of the warm, dry, rare, and light in them, we may say that the original mass was a mixture of infinite Air and of infinite Fire. The seeds of Air, of course, contain “portions” of the“things” that predominate in Fire, andvice versa; but we regard everything as being that of which it has most in it. Lastly, there is no void in this mixture, an addition to the theory made necessary by the arguments of Parmenides. It is, however, worthy of note that Anaxagoras added an experimental proof of this to the purely dialectical one of the Eleatics. He used theklepsydraexperiment as Empedokles had done (fr.100), and also showed the corporeal nature of air by means of inflated skins.[701]
Nous.
132. Like Empedokles, Anaxagoras required some external cause to produce motion in the mixture. Body, Parmenides had shown, would never move itself, as the Milesians had supposed. Anaxagoras called the cause of motion by the name of Nous. It was this which made Aristotle say that he “stood out like a sober man from the random talkers that had preceded him,”[702]and he has often been credited with the introduction of the spiritual into philosophy. The disappointment expressed both by Plato and Aristotle as to the way in which Anaxagoras worked out the theory should, however, make us pause to reflect before accepting too exalted a view of it. Plato[703]makes Sokrates say: “I once heard a man reading a book, as he said, of Anaxagoras, and saying it was Mind that ordered the world and was the cause of all things. I was delighted to hear of this cause, and I thought he really was right.... But my extravagant expectationswere all dashed to the ground when I went on and found that the man made no use of Mind at all. He ascribed no causal power whatever to it in the ordering of things, but to airs, and aethers, and waters, and a host of other strange things.” Aristotle, probably with this passage in mind, says:[704]“Anaxagoras uses Mind as adeus ex machinato account for the formation of the world; and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything necessarily is, he drags it in. But in other cases he makes anything rather than Mind the cause.” These utterances may well suggest that the Nous of Anaxagoras did not really stand on a higher level than the Love and Strife of Empedokles, and this will only be confirmed when we look at what he himself has to say about it.
In the first place, Nous is unmixed (fr.12), and does not, like other things, contain a portion of everything. This would hardly be worth saying of an immaterial mind; no one would suppose that to be hot or cold. The result of its being unmixed is that it “has power over” everything, that is to say, in the language of Anaxagoras, it causes things to move.[705]Herakleitos had said as much of Fire, and Empedokles of Strife. Further, it is the “thinnest” of all things, so that it can penetrate everywhere, and it would be meaningless to say that the immaterial is “thinner” than the material. It is true that Nous also “knowsall things”; but so, perhaps, did the Fire of Herakleitos,[706]and certainly the Air of Diogenes.[707]Zeller holds, indeed, that Anaxagoras meant to speak of something incorporeal; but he admits that he did not succeed in doing so,[708]and that is historically the important point. Nous is certainly imagined as occupying space; for we hear of greater and smaller parts of it (fr.12).
The truth probably is that Anaxagoras substituted Nous for the Love and Strife of Empedokles, because he wished to retain the old Ionic doctrine of a substance that “knows” all things, and to identify this with the new theory of a substance that “moves” all things. Perhaps, too, it was his increased interest in physiological as distinguished from purely cosmological matters that led him to speak of Mind rather than Soul. The former word certainly suggests design more clearly than the latter. But, in any case, the originality of Anaxagoras lies far more in the theory of matter than in that of Nous.
Formation of the worlds.
133. The formation of a world starts with a rotatory motion which Nous imparts to a portion of the mixed mass in which “all things are together” (fr.13), and this rotatory motion gradually extends over a wider and wider space. Its rapidity (fr.9) produced a separation of the rare and the dense, the cold and the hot, the dark and the light, the moist and the dry (fr.15). This separation produces two great masses, the one consisting of the rare, hot, light, and dry, called the “Aether”; the other, in which the opposite qualities predominate, called “Air” (fr.1).Of these the Aether or Fire[709]took the outside while the Air occupied the centre (fr.15).
The next stage is the separation of the air into clouds, water, earth, and stones (fr.16). In this Anaxagoras follows Anaximenes closely. In his account of the origin of the heavenly bodies, however, he showed himself more original. We read at the end of fr.16that stones “rush outwards more than water,” and we learn from the doxographers that the heavenly bodies were explained as stones torn from the earth by the rapidity of its revolution and made red-hot by the speed of their own motion.[710]Perhaps the fall of the meteoric stone at Aigospotamoi had something to do with the origin of this theory. It may also be observed that, while in the earlier stages of the world-formation we are guided chiefly by the analogy of water rotating with light and heavy bodies floating in it, we are here reminded rather of a sling.
Innumerable worlds.
134. That Anaxagoras adopted the ordinary Ionian theory of innumerable worlds is perfectly clear from fr.4, which we have no right to regard as other than continuous.[711]The words “that it was not only with us that things were separated off, but elsewhere too” can only mean that Nous has caused a rotatory movement in more parts of the boundless mixture than one. Aetios certainly includes Anaxagoras among those who held there was only one world; but this testimony cannot be considered of the same weight asthat of the fragments.[712]Zeller’s reference of the words “elsewhere, as with us” to the moon is very improbable. Is it likely that any one would say that the inhabitants of the moon “have a sun and moon as with us”?[713]
135. The cosmology of Anaxagoras is clearly based upon that of Anaximenes, as will be obvious from a comparison of the following passage of Hippolytos[714]with the quotations given in Chap. I. (§ 29):—