Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from . IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/earlygreekphilosOOburnrich EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY 5 AGENTS America . The Macmillan Company 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York Australasia The Oxford University Press 205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Canada . . The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. St. Martin's House, 70 Bond Street, Toronto India . . . Macmillan & Company, Ltd. Macmillan Building, Bombay 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta i CONTENTS PAGES Introduction ........ 1-30 t |MOTE ON THE SOURCES 31-38 I CHAPTER I The Milesian School 39-79 ^ jl CHAPTER n I Science and Religion 80-129 CHAPTER HI Herakleitos of Ephesos* 130-168 ^ CHAPTER IV Parmenides of Elea 169-196 ^ CHAPTER V Empedokles of Akragas 197-250 ^ CHAPTER VI Anaxagoras of Klazomenai . . . . . 251-275 V CHAPTER VII The Pythagoreans 276-309 vii viii EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER VIII PAGES v/ The Younger Eleatics 310-329 CHAPTER IX ^ Leukippos of Miletos 330-34^ CHAPTER X Eclecticism and Reaction 350-361 1 APPENDIX 363-364 INDEX 365-375 ABBREVIATIONS Arch. Archiv fur Geschichte det Philosothie. Berlin, 1888- 1920. Be ARE. Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition^ by John I. Beare. Oxford, 1906. DiELS Dox. Doxographi graeci. Hermannus Diels. Berlin, 1879. DiELS Vors. Die Fragntente der Vorsokratiker, von Hermann Diels, Dritte Auflage. Berlin, 1912. GOMPERZ. Greek Thinkers^ by Theodor Gomperz, Authorised (English) Edition, vol. i. London, 1901. Jacoby. Apollodors Chronik, von Felix Jacoby {Philol. Unters. Heft xvi.). Berlin, 1902. R. P. Historia Philosophiae Graecae, H. Ritter et L. Preller. Editio octava, quam curavit Eduardus Wellmann. Gotha, 1898. Zeller. Die Philosophie der Griechen^ dargestellt von Dr. Eduard Zeller. Erster Theil, Fiinfte Auflage. Leipzig, 1892. ri EARLY G^EK PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION I. It was not till the traditional view of the world and the The cos- customary rules of life had broken down, that the Greeks ^°i^a^cter ""' began to feel the needs which philosophies of nature and q^.^^'^ of conduct seek to satisfy. Nor were those needs felt ptuo- all at once. The ancestral maxims of conduct were not seriously questioned till the old view of nature had passed away ; and, for this reason, the earHest philosophers busied themselves mainly with speculations about the world around them. In due season. Logic was called into being to meet a fresh want. The pursuit of cosmological inquiry had brought to Hght a wide divergence between science and common sense, which was itself a problem that demanded solution, and moreover constrained philosophers to study the means of defending their paradoxes against the pre- judices of the unscientific. Later still, the prevaiUng interest in logical matters raised the question of the origin and vahdity of knowledge ; while, about the same time, the break-down of traditional moraUty gave rise to Ethics. The period which precedes the rise of Logic and Ethics has thus a distinctive character of its own, and may fitly be treated apart .^ ^ It will be observed that Demokritos falls outside the period thus defined. The common practice of treating this younger contemporary of Sokrates along with the " Pre-Socratics " obscures the historical develop- ment altogether. Demokritos comes after Protagoras, and he has to face the problems of knowledge and conduct far more seriously than his pre- decessors had done (see Brochard, " Protagoras et Democrite," Arch. ii. p. 368). 2 ^^^.^ EARLY. GREEK PHILOSOPHY The IL J^ .Hi\js,t,. .however; \be remembered that the world vtewoP^ was aheady Very'' old ^'\\^eri science and philosophy began, the world. In particular, the Aegean Sea had been the seat of a high civiUsation from the NeoUthic age onwards, a civiUsation as ancient as that of Egypt or of Babylon, and superior to either in most things that matter. It is becoming clearer every day that the Greek civilisation of later days was mainly the revival and continuation of this, though it no doubt received certain new and important elements from the less civiUsed northern peoples who for a time arrested its development. The original Mediterranean population must have far outnumbered the intruders, and must have assimilated and absorbed them in a few generations, except in a state like Sparta, which dehberately set itself to resist the process. At any rate, it is to th^ older race we owe Greek Art and Greek Science. ^ \lVis a remarkable fact 1 See Sir Arthur Evans, " The Minoan and Mycenean Element in Hellenic Life " (J.H.S. xxxii. 277 sqq.), where it is contended (p. 278) that " The people whom we discern in the new dawn are not the pale- skinned northerners — the ' yellow-haired Achaeans ' and the rest — but essentially the dark-haired, brown -complexioned race ... of whom we find the earlier portraiture in the Minoan and Mycenean wall-paintings." But, if the Greeks of historical times were the same people as the *' Minoans," why should Sir Arthur Evans hesitate to call the " Minoans " Greeks ? The Achaians and Dorians have no special claim to the name ; ; for the Graes of Boiotia, who brought it to Cumae, were of the older race. I can attach no intelligible meaning either to the term " pre-Hellenic." If it means that the Aegean race was there before the somewhat un- important Achaian tribe which accidentally gave its name later to the whole nation, that is true, but irrelevant. If, on the other hand, it implies that there was a real change in the population of the Aegean at any time since the end of the Neolithic age, that is untrue, as Sir Arthur Evans himself maintains. If it means (as it probably does) that the Greek language was introduced into the Aegean by the northerners, there is no evidence of that, and it is contrary to analogy. The Greek language, as we know it, is in its vocabulary a mixed speech, like our own, but its essential structure is far liker that of the Indo-Iranian languages than that /. of any northern branch of Indo-European speech. For instance, the ' ' augment is common and peculiar to Sanskrit, Old Persian, and Greek. The Greek language cannot have differed very much from the Persian in the second millennium b.c. The popular distinction between centum ^ and satem languages is wholly misleading and based on a secondary ^y'"'"^^ phenomenon, as is shown by the fact that the Romance languages have become satem languages in historical times. It would be more to the point to note that Greek, like Old Indian and Old Persian, represents the .dll INTRODUCTION 3 that every one of the men whose work we are about to study was an Ionian, except Empedokles of Akragas, and, this exception is perhaps more apparent than real. Akragas was founded from the Rhodian colony of Gela, its olKL(TTrj%. was himself a Rhodian, and Rhodes, thougH otticially Dorian, had been a centre of the early Aegean civilisation. We may fairly assume that the emigrants belonged mainly to the older population rather than to the new Dorian aristocracy. Pythagoras founded his society in the Achaian city of Kroton, but he himself was an Ionian from Samos. This being so, we must be prepared to find that the Greeks of historical times who first tried to understand the world were not at all in the position of men setting out on a hitherto untrodden path. The remains of Aegean art prove that there must have been a tolerably consistent view of the world in existence already, though we cannot hope to recover it in detail till the records are deciphered. I^The ceremony represented on the sarcophagus of Hagia 7 Triada implies some quite definite view as to the state of iHhe dead, and we may be sure that the Aegean people were as capable of developing theological speculation as were the Egyptians and Babylonians. We shall expect to find traces of this in later days, and it may be said at once that things Hke the fragments of Pherekydes of Syros are in- expHcable except as survivals of some such speculation. There is no ground for supposing that this was borrowed from Egypt, though no doubt these early civiUsations all influenced one another. The Egyptians may have borrowed from Crete as readily as the Cretans from Egypt, and there was a seed of Ufe in the sea civiUsation which was somehow lacking in that of the great rivers. On the other hand, it is clear that the northern invaders must have assisted the free development of the Greek sonant n in the word for "hundred" {eKaT6v=satam, satem) by a, and to classify it with them as a satem language on that ground. 4 • EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY genius by breaking up the powerful monarchies of earlier days and, above all, by checking the growth of a super- stition Uke that which ultimately stifled Egypt and Babylon. That there was once a real danger of this is suggested by certain features in the Aegean remains. On the other hand, the worship of Apollo seems to have been brought from the North by the Achaians,^ and indeed what has been called the Olympian reUgion was, so far as we can see, derived mainly from that source. Still, the artistic form it assumed bears the stamp of the Mediterranean peoples, and it was chiefly in that form it appealed to them. It could not become oppressive to them as the old Aegean rehgion might very possibly have done. It was probably due to the Achaians that the Greeks never had a priestly class, and that may well have had something to do with the rise of free science among them. HI. We see the working of these influences clearly in Homer. Though he doubtless belonged to the older race himself and used its language, ^ it is for the courts of Achaian princes he sings, and the gods and heroes he celebrates are mostly Achaian. 3 That is why we find so few traces of the traditional view of the world in the epic. The gods have become frankly human, and everything primitive is kept out of sight. There are, of course, vestiges of the early ^ See Farnell, CuUs of the Greek States, vol. iv. pp. 98 sqq. ^ This is surely a simpler hypothesis than that of Sir Arthur Evans, who postulates (loc. cit. p. 288) " an earlier Minoan epic taken over into Greek." The epic dialect has most points of contact with Arcadian and Cypriote, and it is wholly improbable that the Arcadians came from the North. There are sufficient parallels for the prowess of the conqueror being celebrated by a bard of the conquered race (Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, vol. i. p. 664). Does this explain the name "0/j.r]pos, " hostage " ? 3 Professor Ridgeway {Early Age of Greece, i. p. 674) points out that the specifically Achaian names, such as Achilles, Odysseus, Aiakos, Aias, Laertes and Peleus, cannot be explained from the Greek language, while the names of the older race, such as Herakles, Erichthonios, Erysichthon, etc., can. No doubt Agamemnon and Menelaos have Greek names, but that is because Atreus owed his kingship to the marriage of Pelops with a princess of the older race. It is an instance of the process of assimilation which was going on everywhere. INTRODUCTION 5 ^ beliefs and practices, but they are exceptional.^ It has i often been noted that Homer never speaks of the primitive ] custom of purification for homicide. The dead heroes are ^ 1 '/burned, not buried, as the kings of the older race were. \ I Ghosts play hardly any part. In the Iliad we have, to be \ i|sure, the ghost of Patroklos, in close connexion with the j 'solitary instance of human sacrifice in Homer. There is I Jalso the Nekyia in the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey.^ ; ISuch things, however, are rare, and we may fairly infer that, ; at least in a certain society, that of the Achaian princes for i whom Homer sang, the traditional view of the world was ; already discredited at a comparatively early date,^ though j it naturally emerges here and there. \ IV. When we come to Hesiod, we seem to be in another 2. Hesiod. - world. We hear stories of the gods which are not only \ irrational but repulsive, and these are told quite seriously. : Hesiod makes the Muses say : " We know how to tell many false things that are Uke the truth ; but we know too, when we will, to utter what is true." * This means that he was conscious of the difference between the Homeric spirit and j his own. The old light-heartedness isgone, and it is \ important to tell the truth about tEe^ds.^ Hesiod knows, ] too, that he belongs to a later and a sadder time than 1 Homer. In describing the Ages of the World, he inserts a \ fifth age between those of Bronze and Iron. That is the ^ Age of the Heroes, the age Homer sang of. It was better than the Bronze Age which came before it, and far better ; than that which followed it, the Age of Iron, in which Hesiod j * There are traces of cosmogonical ideas in the Ai6s airdTtj (II. xiv.). 1 2 Od. xi. has been referred to a late date because it is supposed to i contain Orphic ideas. In the light of our present knowledge, such a ! hypothesis is quite unnecessary. The ideas in question are primitive, i and were probably generally accepted in the Aegean. Orphicism was i essentially a revival of primitive beliefs. 3 On all this, see especially Rohde, Psyche^, i. pp. 37 sqq. (=Ps.^ I T?P-3i sqq.). ; * Hes. Theog. 27 (the words are borrowed from Od. xix. 203). The !■< Muses are the same as those who inspired Homer, which means that Hesiod 1 wrote in hexameters and used the Epic dialect. X i 6 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY lives. ^ He also feels that he is singing for another class. It is to shepherds and husbandmen of the older race he addresses himself, and the Achaian princes for whom Home: sang have become remote persons who give " crooke dooms.'* The romance and splendour of the Achaia Middle Ages meant nothing to the common people. The' primitive view of the world had never really died out among; them ; so it was natural for their first spokesman to assume ' it in his poems. That is why we find in Hesiod these olc savage tales, which Homer disdained. Yet it would be wrong to see in the Theogony a mere' \ revival of the old superstition. Hesiod could not help being affected by the new spirit, and he became a pioneer in spite}, of himself. The rudiments of what grew into Ionic science and histor v are to be found in his poems, and he really did more than any one to hasten that decay of the old ideas which he was seeking to arrest.. The Theogony is an attempt to reduce all the stories about the gods into a single system* and system is fatal to so wayward a thing as mythology. Moreover, though the spirit in which Hesiod treats his theme is that of the older race, the gods of whom he sings are for the most part those of the Achaians. This introduces an element of contradiction into the system from first to last- Herodotos tells us that it was Homer and Hesiod who made a theogony for the Hellenes, who gave the gods their names, and distributed among them their ofiices and arts,^ and it is perfectly true. The Olympian pantheon took the place of the older gods in men's minds, and this was quite as much the doing of Hesiod as of Homer. The ordinary man would hardly recognise his gods in the humanised figures, detached from all local associations, which poetry had substituted for the older objects of worship. Such gods were incapable of satisfying the needs of the people, and 1 There is great historical insight here. It was Hesiod, not our i modern historians, who first pointed out that the " Greek Middle Ages " / were a break in the normal development. / 2 Herod, ii. 53. gony. INTRODUCTION 7 that is the secret of the rehgious revival we shall have to consider later. K V. Nor is it only in this way that Hesiod shows himself Cosmo- ^ child of his time. His Theogony is at the same time a tosmogony, though it would seem that here he was following the older tradition rather than working out a thought of his own. At any rate, he only mentions the two great cosmo- gonical figures, Chaos and Eros, and does not really bring them into connexion with his system. They seem to belong, in fact, to an older stratum of speculation. The conception of Chaos represents a distinct effort to picture the beginning of things. It is not a formless mixture, but rather, as its etymology indicates, the yawning gulf or gap where nothing is as yet.^ We may be sure that this is not primitive. Primitive man does not feel called on to form an idea of the very beginning of all things ; he takes for granted that there was something to begin with. The other figure, that of Eros, was doubtless intended to explain the impulse to production which gave rise to the whole process. These are clearly speculative ideas, but in Hesiod they are blurred and confused. We have records of great activity in the production of cosmogonies during the whole of the sixth century B.C., and we know something of the systems of Epimenides, jPhergli^ides^l^d Akousilaos. If there were speculations ol this kind eveno^^e" Hesiod, we need have no hesitation in beheving that the earHest Orphic cosmogony goes back to that century too.^ The feature common to all these systems is the attempt to get behind the Gap, and to put Kronos or Zeus in the first place. That is what Aristotle has in view when he distinguishes the " theologians " from ^ The word x«ios certainly means the " gape " or " yawn," the x^<^f^ ireXdbpLov of the Rhapsodic Theogony (fr. 52). Grimm compared it with the Scandinavian Ginnunga-Gap. 2 For the remains of Pherekydes, see Diels, Vorsokratiker, 71 b, and the interesting account in Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. pp. 85 sqq. 3 This was the view of Lobeck with regard to the so-called " Rhapsodic Theogony " described by Damaskios. EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY those who were half theologians and half philosophers, and who put what was best in the beginning.^ It is obvious, owever, that this process is the very reverse of scientific, and might be carried on indefinitely ; so we have nothing to do with the cosmogonists in our present inquiry, except so far as they can be shown to have influenced the course of more sober investigations. General VI. The louiaus, as we can see from their literature, rstks^of^^' ^^^^ deeply impressed by the transitoriness of things.* Greek cos-. There is, in fact, a fundamental pessimism in their outlook mology. on Hfe, such as is natural to an over-civilised age with no very definite religious convictions. We find Mimnermos of Kolophon preoccupied with the sadness of the owning of old age, while at a later date the lament of Simonides, .that the generations of men fall like the leaves of the forest, touches a chord that Homer had already struck. ^ Now this sentiment always finds its best illustrations in the changes of the seasons, and the cycle of growth and decay is a far more striking phenomenon in Aegean lands than in* the North, and takes still more clearly the form of a war' of opposites, hot and cold, wet and dry. It is, accordingly, from that point of view the early cosmologists regard the world. The opposition of day and night, summer and ./winter, with their suggestive parallelism in sleep and waking, birth and death, are the outstanding features of the world as they saw it.^ The changes of the seasons are plainly brought about: by the encroachments of one pair of opposites, the cold and the wet, on the other pair, the hot and the dry, which in 1 Arist. Met. N, 4. 1091 b 8. 2 See Butcher, " The Melancholy of the Greeks/' in Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, pp. 130 sqq. 3 This is well brought out by Prof. J. L. Myres in a paper entitled " The Background of Greek Science " (University of Chicago Chronicle, vol. xvi. No. 4). There is no need to derive the doctrine of the " opposites " from a " reUgious representation " as Mr. Cornford does in the first chapter of From Religion to Philosophy. In Greece these force themselves upon our attention quite apart from anything of the sort. Of course they are also important in agrarian magic for practical reasons. I INTRODUCTION 9 their turn encroach on the other pair. This process was naturally described in terms borrowed from human society ; for in early days the regularity and constancy of human life was far more clearly reaHsed than the uniformity of nature. Man lived in a charmed circle of social law and custom, but the world around him at first seemed lawless. That is why the encroachment of one opposite on another was spoken of as injustice {aSLKLo} and the due observ- ance of a balance between them as justice (BUtj). The later word Koo-fMo^ is based on this notion too. It meant originally the discipline of an army, and next the ordered constitution of a state. That, however, was not enough. The earhest cosmo- logists could find no satisfaction in the view of the world - as a perpetual contest between opposites. They felt that these must somehow have a common ground, from which they had issued and to which they must return once more. They were in search of something more primary than the opposites, something which persisted through all change^:.^ and ceased to exist in one form only to reappear in another. ' That this was really the spirit in which they entered on their quest is shown by the fact that they spoke of this something ' as " ageless '* and " deathless." ^ If, as is sometimes held, their real interest had been in the process of growth and becoming, they would hardly have applied epithets so charged with poetical emotion and association to what is alone permanent in a world of change and decay. That is the true meaning of Ionian " Monism." ^ ♦^ Ar. Phys. T, 4. 203 b 14 addvarov yap Kal dvuikedpov (sc. t6 &Trei.pov), ws tl{,6.aK03v aipa eluai tovto rb iy Kal rb Trap, 6 8k ttO/?, 6 dk f/5a)/), 6 5^ yrjv, Kal iiri\4yei ^Kacrros t^ eojvrov Xdycf) fiapr^^pid re Kal re/c/xij/aia, & ye iariv oi54v. 1 See below, § 123. ^ Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 96 a 7 rairrj^ ttjs crocpias ^v drj KaXovcri irepl 0iJ(rcwj laroplav. This is the oldest and most trustworthy statement as to the name originally given to science. I lay no stress on the fact that the books of the early cosmologists are generally quoted under the title Uepl (puaeoos, as such titles are probably of later date. 3 Eur. fr. inc. 910. The word k6vaiv elvai X^yovres rd irdv, oloy v8o)p 1} irvp ij t6 fiera^ij to&twv, B, I. 193 a 21 ol fi^u irvp, ol dk yfjv, ol 5' aipa (paalv, ol 8^ vSwp, ol 8' ^utaTodruv (Parmenides), ol 8^ TrcLvra raOra (Empedokles) TTjv (pvaiv chat ttjv twu 6vto}v. 2 For the history of the term 0i;dpuv TXeioaiv dfia Kal iXdrrocrtv apixoTT6vTwv dpidfiQp tCjv avrdv, koX itvktCov Kal iraKaKjTQiv iipeSpelai re Kal avWrj^ecoi iv fjApei Kal i,.w,..,.v, ,..vjfc,..«.j, ..■,.. .^.„ been observed for any scientific purpose, and never suggested a revision of the primitive view of the world. The Greeks, however, saw in theni someCMrig tfia!' bMlc!^ turned to account, and they were never as a people slow to act on the maxim, Chacun prend son hien partout ou il le trouve. I The visit of Solon to Croesus which Herodotos describes, however unhistonc^^^^ be, gives us a good idea of tins J ^ The earliest reference to astrology among the Greeks appears to be Plato, Tim. 40 c 9 (of conjunctions, oppositions, occultations, etc.), (f)6^ovs Kai arjfieia tG)v ixera ravra yevris /Stoi's €KdLXo(To<^i7] , and l^.j^;Miiegar4v4he sun, moon, and stars as having a different nature from the earth, ahd*%c1ence* in- evitably and rightly began with the most obvious hypothesis, and it was only the thorough working out of this that could show its inadequacy. It is just because the Greeks were /the first people to take the geocentric hypothesis seriously I that they were able to go beyond it. Of course the pioneers of Greek thought had no clear idea of the nature of scientific .hypothesis, and supposed themselves to be deahng with ultimate reaUty, but a sure instinct guided them to the right method, and we can see how it was the effort to " save _ appearances " ^ that really operated from the first. It is to those men we owe the conception of an exact science which .^should ultimately take in the whole world as its object. They fancied they could work out this science at once. We sometimes make the same mistake nowadays, and forget fthat all scientific progress consists in the advance from a ^ 1 less to a more adequate hypothesis. The Greeks were the first to follow this method, and that is their title to be Lxegarded as the originators of science. / XIV. Theophrastps^,the,first writer to treat the history bi Greek philosophy in a systematLc wav^^ reprg^Sfewecrthe •early cosmologists as standing to one another m the relation lof master and schpla^and a Jmembej;§^of regular societiegu,^ This has been regarded as an anachronism, and some have even denied the existence of " schools " of philosophy altogether. But the statements of Theophrastos on such a subject are not to be lightly set aside. As this point is of 1 It is well, however, to remember that Galileo himself regarded comets • as meteorological pheaomena. 2 This phrase originated in the school of Plato. The method o£i research in use there was for the leader to " propound " {TrpoTeiveivA TTpoBdWead.^.it as a " problem " (ir^SB^^imeX. to find the simplest' ^"BypU- j thes'is**' (TLvojyJnroTedtvTuv) on whicnit is possible to account for and doj justice to anthe o^if^Pt^ facts i^^^l^^^gjA^^^^^"-) • ^^- Milton, Paradise\ Lost, viii. 8i, " how build, unbuild7con^^7'g'*pPtf^ve appearances." 3 See Note^^on Sources, § 7. INTRODUCTION 29 great importance, it will be necessary to elucidate it before we^enter on our story. C"*^'"^ In almost every department of life, the corporation at first is everything and the individual nothing. The peoples of the East hardly got beyond this stage ; their science, sucS^s^fnsTlfs'an^^^u^^^l!^^^^ property of a caste or guild, and we still see clearly in some cases that it was once the same among the Greeks. % Medicine, for instance, / W^s^s^th^^p^^^^ distinguished ,tJie,^G^^e^^^^ - \ earty'Sate these crafts came^under, ^e,,inflvien^^ V^'StS^fiffing'^inffvi&ais, who gave them a fresH direction and \^ new impulse. But this does not destroy the corporate character of the craft ; it rather intensifies it. The guild becomes what we call a " school,'* and the discipl^^^Jsss^^v^^ - ^ the place of., the c^pprentiQe.. ^Tnat is a vital change. A close gmld with none but olficial heads is essentially conser- vative, while a band of disciples attached to a master they revere is the greatest progressive force the world know^ It is certain that the later Athenian schools were legally recognised corporations,|the^^9^^^^^ maintained its existence as such for somefc nine hundred ^jg^rs,|and the only question we have to deciSe*ts^w^tfief this was an innovation made in the fourth century B.C., or rather the continuance of .an old tradition. Now we have the authority of Plato for speaking of the chief early systems as handed down in schools. He makes Sokrates speak of " the men of Ephesos," the Herakleiteans, as forming a strong body in his own day,^ and the stranger of the Sophist and the Statesman speaks of his school as sl^U in existence at Elea.2 We also hear of I* Anaxagoreans/f.^ and no one, of ^ Theaet. 179 e 4, aurots . . . rots xepl tt)v "E^cctoi'. The humorous denial that the Herakleiteans had any disciples (180 b 8, Iloiots fiadrrrais, u)' 8aifM6vL€ ;) implies that this was the normal and recognised relation. 2 Soph. 242 d 4, t6 . . . Tap ijfjuy 'EXearLKby idvos. Cf. ib. 216 a 3, eraipov 5e tQv dfKpl Ilapfi€vi8r}v Kal Z-qvojva [iralpojp] (where iraipoip is probably- interpolated, but gives the right sense) ; 217 a i, oZ irepl t6v CKeT rdiroy. ' Crat. 409 b 6, etirep aX-ndrj ol 'Ava^aySpeioL X^yovaiv. Cf. also the Ai In the first place, they are mostly taken from the earliest sections of the work, and therefore most of them deal with the primary substance, the heavenly bodies and the earth. In the second place, the language is a much less faithful transcript of the original. 15. The scrap-book which goes by the name of Diogenes "Diogenes Laertios, or Laertios Diogenes (cf. Usener, Epicurea, pp. i sqq.), contains large fragments of two distinct doxographies. One is of the merely biographical, anecdotic, and apophtheg- matic kind used by Hippolytos in his first four chapters ; the other is of a better class, more Hke the source of Hippo- lytos' remaining chapters. An attempt is made to disguise this " contamination " by referring to the first doxography as a " summary " {Ke^a\aLa)hr)^) account, while the second is called " particular " (eVl fiepov^). 16. Short doxographical summaries are to be found in Patristic Eusebios (P. E. x., xiv., xv.), Theodoret (Gr, aff. cur. ii. 9-11), ^^phies. Irenaeus (C. haer. ii. 14), Arnobius (Adv. nat. ii. 9), Augustine {Civ. Dei, viii. 2). These depend mainly upon the writers of ** Successions," whom we shall have to consider in the next section. C— BIOGRAPHERS 17. The first to write a work entitled Successions of the succes- Philosophers was Sotion (Diog. ii. 12 ; R. P. 4 a), about ^^°''''- 200 B.C. The arrangement of his work is explained in Dox. p. 147. It was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos. Other writers of AcaSoxau were Antisthenes, Sosikrates, and Alexander. All these compositions were accompanied by a very meagre doxography, and made interesting by the addition of unauthentic apophthegms and apocryphal anecdotes. 18. The peripatetic Hermippos of Smyrna, known as Her- KaXKLfidxeio^; (c 200 B.C.), wrote several biographical works °"pp*^^- 38 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY which are frequently quoted. The biographical details are very untrustworthy ; but sometimes bibliographical infor- mation is added, which doubtless rests upon the Il/i/a/ce? of Kallimachos. Satyros. 19. Another peripatetic, Satyros, the pupil of Aristarchos, wrote {c. 160 B.C.) Lives of Famous Men. The same remarks apply to him as to Hermippos. His work was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos. "Diogenes 20. The work which goes by the name of Laertios Diogenes is, in its biographical parts, a mere patchwork of all earlier learning. It has not been digested or composed by any single mind at all, but is little more than a collection of extracts made at haphazard. But, of course, it contains . much that is of the greatest value. Z).— CHRONOLOGISTS Eratos- 21. The founder of ancient chronology was Eratosthenes anT^^ of Kyrene (275-194 B.C.) ; but his work was soon supplanted doros°" ^y ^^^ metrical version of Apollodoros (c. 140 B.C.), from which most of our information as to the dates of early philosophers is derived. See Diels' paper on the XpoviKci of Apollodoros in Rhein. Mus. xxxi. ; and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (1902). The method adopted is as follows : — If the date of some striking event in a philosopher's life is known, that is taken as his floruit [olkixt)), and he is assumed to have been forty years old at tjjat date. In default of this, some historical era is taken as the floruit. Of these the chief are the eclipse of Thales 586/5 B.C., the taking of Sardeis in 546/5 B.C., the accession of Polykrates in 532/1 B.C., and the foundation of Thourioi in 444/3 B.C. It is usual to attach far too much weight to these combinations, and we can often show that Apollodoros is wrong from our other evidence. His dates can only be accepted as a makeshift, when nothing better is available. d CHAPTER I THE MILESIAN SCHOOL I. It was at Miletqs^tli^t the earliest school of scientific MUetos cosmology had its home, and it is not, perhaps, without significance that Miletos is iust the place where the con- ^ . lesiana.. once with the Lydians, whose rulers were bent on extending their, dominion to the coast ; but, towards the end of the seventh century B.c^.^.the tyrant Thrasyboulos succeeded *^^1[naEng terms with King Alyat&^anS^^^lSiance was concluded which secured Miletos against molestation for the future. Even half a century later^\yhen , Cipe^j^ ^£?.^SHi&i.i.^.^.Si ^^^^^^3^^^^^^^^^P^^^^ made war upon and conquereoEphesos, Miletos was able to maintain the old treaty-relation, and never, strictly speaking, became subject . to the Lydians at all. The ^ l^ ^ j j ^iiaj^ N?,SS;ife-^'»^^-^**^ What wVs called at a later date Hellenismu .§gems to have been traditional in the dynasty of tfe Mermnadai. and Herodotos says that all the " sophists " of the time nocked to the court of Sardeis.2 The tradition which represents Croesus as I v^ 1 Se# Introd. § II. Ephoros said that Old Miletos was colonised from I l^ilatps In Crete at an eSiS1S^''9ate than the fortification of the new city ty Nel'eus (Strabo, xiv. p. 634), and recent excavation has shown that the Aegean civilisation passed here by gradual transition into the early Ionic. I The dwellings of the old lonians stand on and among, the debris, ^''W*fil6"'*TVI;ycenean " periodi |There is no " gepmg|^j^J!J^te^^ '- "i^*^- ^•i: ^^ilefod. :nean " periodi iThere is no " geomgtxur^.lJ!J.nterlude. > Mermnades (Paris, 1893). 39 40 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY the *' patron *' of Greek wisdom was fully developed in the I fifth centurj^; and, however unhistorical its details may ^erit**MS¥^clearly have some foundation in fact. Particu- larly noteworthy is " the common tale among the Greeks/* that Thales accompanied Croesus on, his luckless campaign against Pteri|^p.^apparently m the capacity of miutary engineei^^^Herodotos disbelieves the story that h^'Wr^fted the course of the Halys, but only because he knew there were bridges there already. It is clear that the lonians were erreat engineers, and that they were employed as such by the eastern kings. ^ |It should be added that the., ^Lydian alhance would facifffate iiuef?8SSe'witli^^ and Egypt. Lydia was an advanced post of Babyloman 'trnture, and Croesus was on friendly terms with the kings of Egypt and Babylon. ,^^^|i9^9|,,,£|-^^.^^ HeUenic^sym- P^.^!^5^^#^-^^?'^^^vnd the Milesians possessed j^/temple of their own at Naukratis,««^ ..««M«««**a^^'A=^'^^ ' I. Thales Origin. 2. The foundci of the Milesian school, and therefore the mn^^^ first man of science, was Tliales ; ^ but all we can really DC said to know of him comes from Herodotos, and the Tale 1 Herod, i. 75. It is important for a right estimate of Ionian science to remember the high development of engineering in these days, Man- drokles of Samos built the bridge over the Bosporos for King Dareios (Herod, iv. 88), and Harpalos of Tenedos bridged the Hellespont for Xerxes when the Egyptians and Phoenicians had failed in the attempt (Diels, Ahh. der Berl. Akad., 1904, p. 8). The tunnel through the hill above Samos described by Herodotos (iii. 60) has been discovered by German excavators. It is about a kilometre long, but the levels are almost accurate. On the whole subject see Diels, " Wissenschaft unc Technik bei den Hellenen " {Neue Jahrb. xxxiii. pp. 3, 4). Here, as ii other things, the lonians carried on " Minoan " traditions. 2 Simplicius quotes Theophrastos as saying that Thales had raan^ predecessors {Dox. p. 475, 11). This need not trouble us ; for the scholias on ApoUonios Rhodios (ii. 1248) tells us that he made Prometheus tl first philosopher, which is merely an application of Peripatetic literalisi to a phrase of Plato's {Phileb. 16 c 6). Cf. Note on Sources, § 2. THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 41 of the Seven Wise Men was already in existence when he wrote. He says that Thales was of Phoenician, descmjl^y. a statement which other writers explained by saying he belonged to a noble house descended from Kadmos axidr^^iat Agenor.-^ Herodotos probably mentions the supposed ofesceniof Thales simply because he was beheved to have introduced certain improvements in navigation from Phoenicia. 2 At any rate, his father's name, Examyes, leriofe no si^^onr to the view that he was a Semite. Tt is Karia^^ and the Karians had been almost completely assimilated by the lonians. On the monuments we find Greek and Karian names alternating in the same famihes, while the name Thales is otherwise known as Cretan. There IS therefore no reason to doubt that Thales was of pure Milesian descent, though he probably had Karian blood in his veins. 3 3. The most remarkable statement Herodotos makes The about Thales is that he foretold the ecHpse oTS^^smTwhich fo^So^d put an end to the war between the Lydians and the Medes.^ by Thaies. Now, he was quite ignorant of the caus^-^f echpses. Anaxi- mander and his successors certainly were so,^ and it is incredible that the explanation should have been given and forgotten so soon. Even supposing Thales had known the cause of echpses, such scraps of elementary geometry 1 Herod, i. 170 (R. P. 9 d) ; Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9). This is no doubt connected with the fact mentioned by Herodotos (i. 146) that there were Kadmeians from Boiotia among the original Ionian colonists. Cf. also Strabo, xiv. pp. 633, 636 ; Pausan. vii. 2, 7. These, however, were not Semites. 2 Diog. i. 23, KaXXi/xaxos 5' avrbv olSev evperriv rrjs dpKTOV rrji fxiKpds Xiyup iP rots 'Idfi^ois ourws — Kai T7]s a/Jid^rjs iXiyero arad/j.-riaaa'dac Tovs dareplaKovs, 77 irXiovcn ^olpikcs. ' See Diels, " Thales ein Semite ? " {Arch. ii. 165 sqq.), and Immisch, " Zu Thales Abkunft " {ib. p. 515). The name Examyes occurs also in Kolophon (Hermesianax, Leontion, fr. 2, 38 Bgk.), and may be compared with other Karian names such as Cheramyes and Panamyes. * Herod, i. 74. 5 For the theories held by Anaximander and Herakleitos, see infra, §§ 19. 71. LJ (: 42 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY as he picked up in Egypt would never have enabled him to calculate one. Yet the evidence for the prediction is too strong to be rejected off-hand. The testimony of Herodotos is said to have been confirmed by Xenophan es^ and according to Theophrastos Xenophanes' was'^aoiscipie of ^g^mand^ In any case, he*^Mtt^P*hl*% known scores of people who were able to remember what happened. The prediction of the eclipse is therefore better attested than any other fact about Thales whatsoever. Now it is possible to predict echpses of the moon approximately without knowing their true cause, and there is no doubt that the Babylonians actually did so. It is generally stated, furth^^ffiaftHeylMlM^^^^P^ cycle of 223 lunar months, Ivithin which eclipses of the sun and moon recurred at equal mtervals of time.^f This, however, would not have enabled them to predict echpses of the sun ^^^ &&^^^%^J^%P^ ^^^ earth's surface ; for these pheno- mena are not visible at all places where the sun is above the horizon at the time. We do not occupy a position at the centre of the earth, and the geocentric parallax has to be taken into account. It would only, therefore, be possible to tell by means of the cycle that an ecUpse of the sun would be visible somewhere, and that it might be worth while to look out for it, though an observer at a given place ^ Diog. i. 23, 5o/cet 5^ Kara rivas irpCoTos daTpoXoyrjaat Kal ijXtaKas e/cXe/^ets Kal TpoTTCLs Trpoenreiv, ibs (pyjcnv 'Etiibriixos iv rrj irepl rOiv dcTpoXoyovfMivojv laTopig., 6dev adrbv Kal fi!,€uo(f>(iv7]s Kal 'HpoSoros davfid^ei. The statement that Thales " predicted " solstices as well as eclipses is not so absurd as has been thought. Eudemos may very well have meant that he fixed the dates of ,the solstices and equinoxes more accurately than had been done before. That he would do by observing the length of the shadow cast by an upright {yvibij.(x}p), and we shall see (p. 47) that popular tradition ascribed observations of the kind to him. This interpretation is favoured by another remark of Eudemos, preserved by Derky Hides (ap. Theon. p. 198, 17 Hiller), that Thales discovered ttjp /card rds Tpoirds avrov (roO^Xioi') wepioSov, ws ovK ta-r] del av/m^aiuei. In other words, he discovered the inequality of the four seasons which is due to the solar anomaly. , 2 It is wrong to call this the Saros with Souidas ; for sar on the monuments always means 602=3600, the number of the Great Year. The period of 223 lunations is, of course, that of the retrograde movement of the nodes. THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 43 might be disappointed five times out of six. Now, if we may judge from reports by Chaldaean astronomers which have been preserved, this was iust the position of the I Babylonians in thet(SSKtn|century b.g. They watched for echpses at the proper dates ; and, if they did not occur, they announced the fact as a good omen.^ To explain what we are told about Thales no more is required. He said there would be an echpse by a certain date ; and luckily it was visible in Asia Minor, and on a striking V)ccasion.l ''****^**¥fi^ prediction of the echpse does not, then, throw Date of ' any light on the scientific attainments of Thales ; but, if we can fix its date, it will give us an indication of the time at which he lived. Astronomers have calculated that there was an echpse of the sun, probably visible in Asia Minor, on May 28 (O.S.), 585 B.C., while Pliny gives the date of the eSB^o?afgmTl^S!g?m\)l. XLYlll.^^^S^^^^j^^^,.^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This does not exactly tally ; for May 585 belongs to the year 586/5 B.C. It ia^^near enough, however, to justify us in ^ See George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875), p. 409. The inscrip- tion which follows was found at Kouyunjik : — " To the king my lord, thy servant Abil-Istar. " Concerning the echpse of the moon of, which the king my lord sent to me ; in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, arid Nipur, observations they made, and then in the city of Akkad, we saw part. . . . The observation was made, and the eclipse took place. " And when for the eclipse of the sun we made an observation, the observation was made and it did not take place. That which I saw with my eyes to the king my lord I send." See further R. C. Thomson, Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon {1900), 2 Cf. Schiaparelli, " I primordi dell' Astronomia presso i Babilonesi " {Scieniia, 1908, p. 247). His conclusion is that "the law which regulates the circumstances of the visibihty of solar eclipses is too complex to be discovered by simple observation," and that the Babylonians were not in a position to formulate it. " Such a triumph was reserved to the geometrical genius of the Greeks." 3 Pliny, N.H. ii. 53, It should be noted that this date is inconsistent with the chronology of Herodotos, but that is vitiated by the assumptioi^ that the fall of the Median kingdom synchronised with the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Persia, If we make the necessary correction, Cyaxares was still reigning in 585 B.C. 44 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY identifying the eclipse as that of Thales,^ and this is confirmed by Apollodoros, who fixed his floruit in the same year. 2 The further statement in Diogenes that, according to Demetrios Phalereus,ij,-Thales ' received the name of wisT^'^'irtfie^^M^W^ Athens,|eally refers to the Tale of theSev^ Wise Men, as is JSo^^ Dy the words which follow, and is doubtless based on the story of the Delphic tripod ; for the archonship of Damasias is the era of the restoration of thelPythian Gam^^^ 5. The introduction oFEgyptian geometry into Hellas is ascribed to Thales,* and it is probable that he did visit Egypt i for he had a theory of the inundations of the Nile^L Herodotos ^ gives three explanations of the fact that this alone of all riverl^ rises ig^umm^ falls in winterAbut, as his custom is, he does not name tS^S^'^^ESSfs. The first, hAvever, which attributes the rise of the Nile to the EtesianWinds, is ascribed to Thales in the Placita,^ and by * The words of Herodotos (i. 74), oSpop irpod^fievos iviavrbv tovtov ev t(^ drj Kal iyhero, mean at first sight that he only said the ecHpse would occur before the end of a certain year, but Diels suggests {Neue Jahrb. xxxiii, p. 2) that ivtavrSs has here its original sense of " summer solstice " (cf. Brugmann, Idg. Forsch. xv. p. 87). In that case Thales would have fixed the date within a month. He may have observed the eclipse of May 18, 603 B.C. in Egypt, and predicted another in eighteen years and some days, not later than the solstice. 2 For Apollodoros, see Note on Sources, § 21. The dates in our text of Diogenes (i. 37 ; R. P. 8) cannot be reconciled with one another. That given for the death of Thales is probably right ; for it is the year before the fall of Sardeis in 546/5 B.C., which is one of the regular eras of Apollo- doros. It no doubt seemed natural to make Thales die the year before the " ruin of Ionia " which he foresaw. Seventy-eight years before this brings us to 624/3 B.C. for the birth of Thales, and this gives us 585/4 B.C. for his fortieth year. That is Pliny's date for the eclipse, and Pliny's dates come from Apollodoros through Nepos. 3 Diog. i. 22 (R. P. 9), especially the words Kad' 8v kuI ol eTrra ao^r^ opposites, something more ^mitive, out of which they arise, and into \^it*lf*fK?y'o'nce more pass' away.| Thaf Xnaxifn^fiO^f^SlSled this something by the name of 6v(tc^ is the natural interpretation of what Theophrastos says ; the current statement that the term ap'x^v was introduced by him appears to be due to a mis- understanding. ^ We have seen that, when Aristotle used 1 The important word dXXTjXois is in all the MSS. of Simplicius, though omitted in the Aldine. This omission made the sentence appear to mean that the existence of individual things {6vTa) was somehow a wrong (dSifc/a) for which they must be punished. With dXXTjXois restored, this fanciful interpretation disappears. It is to one another that whatever the subject of the verb may be make reparation and give satisfaction, and therefore the injustice must be a wrong which they commit against one another. Now, as SLkti is regularly used of the observance of an equal balajiLtJ^wfeetween tW5*!3ppi3Sites hot and cold, dry and wet, the d^^^.here referred to must be the undue encroachment of one opposite on another, such as we see, for example, in the alternation of day and nigTit/winter and summer, which have to be made good by an equal encroachment of the other. I stated this view in my first edition (1892), pp. 60-62, and am glad to find it confirmed by Professor Heidel {Class. Phil, vii., 1912, P- 233 5^.)- * The words of Theophrastos, as given by Simplicius {Phys. p. 24, 15 : R. P. 16), are dpxw t^ k'^i- croixe'cov etprjKe tQv 6vtwv r6 B-ireipov, irpuros tovto Towofia Ko/jLiaas rrjs dpxvs, the natural meaning of which is " he being the first to introduce this name {to direipov) of the material cause." Hippo- lytos, however, says {Ref. i. 6, 2) irpQiros Toxjvoixa KaXeaas ttjs dpxvs, and this has led most writers to take the words in the sense^fBSf^^]SL§ximander intro- l>i»'§^'S4-'^,'0^.^,,'iP^ Hippolytos, however, is not an independent authority (see Note on Sources, § 13), and the only question is what Theophrastos wrote. Now Simplicius quotes Theophrastos from Alexander, who used the original, while Hippolytos represents a much more indirect tradition. Obviously, /^gA^o-os^ ,,,is a corruption of the characteristically Peripatetic KOfxicq,s^ and the omission of Todro is much more likely than its inter- THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 55 the term in discussing Thales, he meant what is called the " material cause," ^ and it is hard to believe that it means anything else here. 15. It was natural for Aristotle to regard this theory Aristotle's as an anticipation or pres#itiment of his own doctrine of of the ^**indeterminate matter/ #^ and that he should sometimes *^^o^y- / ^^?«^^f^^^^^k^*^>m^ in terms of the later theory of " elements."/ He knew that the Bounj^l^ap^ was a body,^ though in his/ own system there was no room for anything: corporeal prior to the elementsj so he had to Speak of it as a boimdless body " alongside of " or " distinct from " the elements (^^a^a^Tjf,^.o^^ So far as I know no one has doubted that, when he uses this phrase, he is referring to Anaximander. In a number of other places Aristotle speaks of some one who held the primary substance to be something *' inter- mediate between /j'^tjj^je elements or between two of them.* polation by Alexander or Simplicius. But, if tovto is genuine, the 6vona referred to must be rb Etreipov, and this interpretation is confirmed by Simpl. De caelo 615, 15, direipov 5k TrpQros viridero. In another place (p. 150, 23) Simplicius says -jrpQTos aiirbs dpxw dvo/xdaas rb v-rroKelfievov, which must mean, as the context shows, " being the first to name the substratum of the opposites as the material cause," which is another point altogether. Theophrastos is always interested in noting who it was that " first " introduced a concept, and both direLpou and viroKel/xevov were important enough to be noted. Of course he does not mean that Anaximander used the word vTroKeLixevov. He only infers that he had the idea from the doctrine that the opposites which are " in " the Aireipov are " separated out." Lastly, the whole book from which these extracts were taken was Uepl tCjv dpx^v, and the thing to note was who first applied various predicates to the dpxn or dpxaL ^ See p. 47 n. 6 and Introd. p. 11 «. 3. 2 Arist. Met. A, 2. 1069 b 18 (R. P. 16 c). 3 This is taken for granted in Phys. r, 4. 203 a 16 ; 204 b 22 (R. P. 16 b), and stated in r, 8. 208 a 8 {R. P. 16 a). Cf. Simpl. Phys. p. 150, 20 (R. P. 18). * Aristotle speaks four times of something intermediate between Fire and Air {Gen. Corr. B, i. 328 b 35 ; ib. 5, 332 a 21 ; Phys. A, 4. 187 a 14 ; Met. A, 7. 988 a 30). In five places we have something intermediate"^ between Water and Air (Met. A, 7. 988 a 13 ; Gen. Corr. B, 5. 332 a 21 ; Phys. r, 4. 203 a i8 ; ib. 5. 205 a 27 ; De caelo, T, 5. 303 b 12). Once (Phys. A, 6. 189 b i) we hear of something between Water and Fire. This variation shows at once that he is not speaking historically. If any one / ( 56 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Nearly all the Greek commentators referred this to Anaxi- mander also, but most modern writers refuse to follow them. It is, no doubt, easy to show that Anaximander himself cannot have said anything of the sort, but that is no real objection. Aristotle puts things in his own way regardless of historical considerations, and it is difficult to see that it is_ more of an anachronism to call the Boundless " intermedSate Eelween tKe^eiements """"flian to say that it is^**'15iftinet fi^rft^"1ii:^''^^gSiBnt^.'' Indeed, if once we introduce the elements at all, the former description is the more adequate of the two. At any rate, if we refuse to understand these passages as referring to Anaximander, we shall have to say that Aristotle paid a great deal of attention to some one whose very name has been lost, and who not only agreed with some of Anaximander's views, but also used some of his most characteristic expressions.^ We may add that in one or two places Aristotle certainly seems to identify the " intermediate " with the something " distinct from " the elements. 2 There is even one passage in which he speaks of Anaxi- mander's Boundless as a " mixture," though his words may perhaps admit of another interpretation.^ But this is '^of no consequence for our interpretation of Anaximander. It is certain that he cannot have said anything about elements, which no one thought of before Empeuokles, ever held the doctrine of rh fxera^ij, he must have known which " ele- ments " he meant. »»«•«#=»'• ^ Arist. De caelo, V, 5. 303 b 12, vbaros fih XeirTitrepov, aipo$ 5^ irvKybrepov, 6 irepL^x^'-^ (pacrl irdpras roi)s oi/pavods Aireipov 6v. 2 Cf. Phys. r, 5. 204 b 22 (R. P. 16 b), where Zeller rightly refers rb trapdi. TO, (xroLxeta to Anaximander. Now, at the end (205 a 25) the whole passage is summarised thus : Kal dtb. tovt oiidsls to iv kol direipov irvp iirolirjaev ov5k yrjv TU)v (pvcioXdyoiv, dXX' •^ vdtop 7) d^pa ij to fjAaov avrCiv. In Cren. Cory. B, I. 328 b 35 we have first tl jxeTa^i/ to6tuv cCoixd re bv Kal x'^/5to'7'6v, and a little further on (329 a 9) /xiav vXrjv irapd to. elprj/uLiva. In B, 5. 332 a 20 we have ou ixrqv ov5' &X\o tL ye irapd TavTa, olov jxiaov rt d^pos Kal vdaTOS r} depos Kal irvp6s. 3 Met. A, 2. 1069 b 18 (R. P. 16 c). Zeller (p. 205, n. 1) assumes an " easy zeugma." •I THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 57 and no one could think of before Parmenides. 1 The question has only been mentioned because it has ^vgsmse to a lengthy controversy, and because it throws light on the historical value of Aristotle's statements. From the point of view of his own system, these may be justified ; but we shall have to remember in other cases that, when he seems to attribute an idea to some earher thinker, we are not bound to take what he says in an historical sense. ^ i6. Anaximander's reason for conceiving the primarytxhe substance as boundless was, no doubt, as indicated byigy^jg^^Jj^g Aristotle, " that becoming might not fail." ^ It is not clear, |s infinite. however, t^^Tl^rwoix^^^Sf^^^^S^n^Th^ the doxo- 1- graphers speak as if they were. It is enough for us that iTheophrastos, who had seen his book, attributed the thought to him. JAnd certainly his view of the world would bring f home to him the need of a boundless stock of matter. The " opposites " are, we have seen, at war with one another, and their strife is marked by " unjust " encroachments on "either side. The warm commits " injustice " in summer, * For the literature of this controversy, see R. P. 15. Professor Heidel has shown in his " Quahtative Change in Pre-Socratic Philosophy " {Arch. xix. p. 333) that Aristotle misunderstood the Milesians because he could only think of their doctrine in terms of his own theory of dXXoiwtns. That is quite true, but it is equally true that they had no definite theory of their own with regard to the transformations of substance. The theory of an original " mixture " is quite as unhistorical as that of aWoiwcns. Qualities were not yet distinguished from "things," and Thales doubtless said that water turned into vapour or ice without dreaming of any further questions. They all believed that in the long run there was only one " thing," and at last they came to the conclusion that all apparent differences were due to rarefaction and condensation. Theophrastos (ap. Simpl, Phys. 150, 22) says ivovaas yap ras ivavTibras iv t(? viroKeLix^vt^ . . . iKKpiveadai. I do not believe these words are even a paraphrase of anything Anaximander said. They are merely an attempt to " accommo- date " his views to Peripatetic ideas, and ivo6(yas is as unhistorical as the VTTOKelfxevov. 2 Phys. V, 8. 208 a 8 (R. P. 16 a). Cf. Aet. i. 3, 3 (R. P. 16 a). The same argument is given in Phys. V, 4. 203 b 18, a passage where Anaxi- mander has just been named, ry ourws div fioi^ov fir] viroXelireiv yiveaip Kal (pdopdv, €1 dweipop elt] SOev d0atpeirat rb yLyvofievov. I cannot, however, believe that the arguments at the beginning of this chapter (203 b 7 ; R. P.. 17) are Anaximander's, They bear the stamp of the Eleatic dialectic, and are, in fact, those of Melissos.'^ *-'''*-''s->'»^*.^i.v»*j!Vi««^*««jftiiv«jfc'^^ 58 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY the cold in winter, and this would lead in the long run to the destruction of everything but the Boundless itself, if there were not an inexhaustible supply ol^^'iFTrom which opposites might continually be separated out afresh. We must picture, then, an endless mass, which is not any one of the opposites we know, stretching out without Hmit on every side of the world we live in.^ This mass is a body, out of which our world once emerged, and into which it will one day^.be absorbed again. ' '; 17. We are told that Anaximander believed there were " innumerable worlds in the Boundless," ^ and we have to ecide between the interpretation that, though all the orlds are perishable, there are an unhmited number of hem in existence at the same time, and Zeller's view that ^a new world never comes into existence till the old ^one has passed away, so that there is never more than §one world at a time. As this point is of fundamental 4' importance, it will be necessary to examine the evidence ■ carefully. In the first place, the doxographical tradition proves that Theophrastos^ discussed the views of all the early philosopBSs as to whether there was one world or an infinite number, and there can be no doubt that, when he ascribed " innumerable worlds " to the Atomists^e meant coexistent and not successge_pj^|^|^,. Now, une nad cM-^^eaT'^fWe^M^^^ifferent views 'under one head, he would 1 I have assumed that the word &Treipov means spatially infinite, not qualitatively indeterminate, as maintained by Teichmiiller and Tannery. The decisive reasons for holding that the sense of the word is ' boundless in extent " are as follows : (i) Theophrastos said the primary substance of Anaximander was direipov and contained all the worlds, and the word wepiex^iv everywhere means " to encompass," not, as has been suggested, " to contain potentially." (2) Aristotle says {Phys. V, 4. 203 b 23) 5td yap TO iv TTJ voTjaei fxr] vnoXeiireiv ,/caJ 6 dpid/ibs 5ok€i diretpos ehaL /cat to. /xadrj/xariK^ /xey^Orj Kai ra ?|w rod ovpavov ' atreipov 8' 6vtos tov ^^cj, Kal cQjfxa 6.irei.pov elvat. 5ok€i K-al K6(TfxoL. The mention of vT]vai and diroppayelarjs. He also points out correctly that " the sphere of flame " is an inaccuracy. The comparison to the bark of a tree distinctly suggests something annular. -* Zeller (p. 223, n. 5) asks what can be meant by rpoiral rrjs a-eXrjvrjs, but his difficulty is an imaginary one. The moon has certainly a move- ment in decUnation and therefore rpoirai. In other words, the moon does not always rise at the same point of the horizon any more than the sun. This is admitted by Sir T. L. Heath {Aristarchus, p. 33, «. 3), though he has unfortunately followed Zeller in supposing that Tpowai here means " revolutions." This seems to me impossible ; for rpeweadai. means " to turn back " or " to turn aside," never " to turn round," which is arpi^eadai. It is conceivable, indeed, that rpoTal ijeXioLo in Od. xv. 404 means the place where the sun sets and turns back from west to east, though it is not very likely, as Hesiod already uses rpoirai rieXioLo of the winter and summer solstices {O.D. 479, 564, 663). Zeller's statement (repeated by Heath) that Aristotle speaks of Tpowai of the fixed stars in De caelo, B, 14. 296 b 4, is erroneous. What Aristotle does say is that, if the earth is in motion, there ought to be TrdpoSot (movements in latitude) and rpoirai of the fixed stars, which there are not. The passage is correctly rendered by Sir T. L. Heath himself in a subsequent chapter (p. 241). For the other passages referred to, see p. 64, n. i, and p. 76, n. 3. i 64 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY 'they think the sea is becoming smaller by being dried up, and that at last it will all be dry. — Meteor, B, i. 353 b 5. And the same absurdity arises for those who say the earth too was at first moist, and that, when the region of the world about the earth was heated by the sun, air was produced and the whole heavens were increased, and that it (the air) produced winds and caused its (the sun's) turnings back.^ — Ih. 2. 355 a 21 (R. P. 20 a). In his commentary on the passage, Alexander says this was the view of Anaximander and Diogenes7"and cites Theophrastos as his aufli6nty'for*tiie'«tatertl^t^ This is confirmed by Anaximander's theory of the sea as given by the doxographers (§ 20). |We conclude, then, that after the first separation of the hot and the cold by the hivrj, the heat SftKe 'li^e liJrriSa^^l^^ of the world into air or vapour — it is all one at this date — and that the expansion of this mist broke up the flame itself into rings. We shall come back to these rings presently, but we must look first at what we are told of the earth. Earth / 20. The Origin of earth and sea from the moist, cold and sea. / " , • 1 matter which was " separated off " m the beginning is thus described : The sea is what is left of the original moisture.^^The fire has dried up most of it and turned the rest salt by scorching it. — Aet. iii. 16, i (R. P. 20 a). /^^ He says that the earth is cyUndrical in form, and that its depth ^ as a third part of its breadth.— Ps.-Plut. Strom, fr. 2 (R. P. ih.). The earth swings free, held in its place by nothing. It stays where it is because of its equal distance from ^verjihmg. Its 1 From the whole context it is plain that ras rpowas avrov means rhs Tov i]\iov rpoirds, and not rds tov ovpavov, as Zeller and Heath say. The " air " in this passage answers to " the portion that evaporated " {to diaT/xlaav) in that previously quoted, and toCtov must therefore refer to it. Cf. the paraphrase of Alexander (p. 67, 3 from Theophrastos, Dox. p. 494), t6 flip Ti T^s vypoTTjros virb tov i]\Lov e^aTfil^eadai, Kal yiveadai, irvevfiaTo. re i^ avTov Kal Tpoiras rjkiov re koL a-eXrjprjs (see last note). In this chapter of the Meteorology, Aristctle is discussing the doctrine that the sun is " fed " by moisture and the relation of that doctrine to its Tpowai at the solstices, and we must interpret accordingly. THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 65 shape is hollow and round, and like a stone piUar./ We are on one of the surfaces, and the other is on the opposite side.^ — Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 20). Adopting for a moment the popular theory of "elements/* we see that Anaximander put fire on one side as the hot and dry, and all the rest on the other as the cold, which is also moist. This may explain how Aristotle came to sp<^J)^.„g|fr^ the Boundless as intermediate between fire and wate^ And we have seen also that the moist element was partly turned into " air " or vapour by the fire, which explains how Aristotle could say the Boundless was something between fire and air, or between air and water. ^ ^r»> -> The moist, cold interior of the world is not, in fact, water. It is always called " the moist " or " the moist state." That is because it has to be still further differ- entiated under the influence of heat into earth, water, and vapour. The gradual drying up of the water by the fire is a good example of what Anaximander meant by ** injustice." f Thales had said that the earth floated on the water, /but Anaximander reahsed that it was freely suspended in If space (fjL6Tecopo(;) and did not require any support. Aristotle "has preserved the argument he used. The earth is equally distant from the circumference of the vortex in every direction, and there is no reason for it to move up or down 1 The MSS. of Hippolytos have vypbv trrpoyy^Xop, and so has Cedrenus, a writer of the eleventh century who made extracts from him. Roeper read yvpov [epofxivr] diii T^u dLvrjaiV TatJTTjv yap tt]v ahlav irdures Xiyovaiv iK tQp iu tols vypoLS Koi irepl Tov d4pa (TVjx^aLvbvTiav ' ev toijtols ydp del (piperai rd jmel^u Kal rd ^apirepa irpos t3| fiiaov TTJs divTjs. 5l6 drj Kal ttju yrjv irdvTes 6(rot rbv ovpavbv yevvCJciP iirl rb fiiaolk (TweXdetv (paaLv. ' This was expressly stated by Eudemos {ap. Theon. Smyrn. p. igSl 18), 'Apa^ifxavdpos d^ oti iarlv ij yrj fieriiopos Kal KiPeLTai Trepl rb ^x^aovi Anaxagoras held the same view (§ 133). I THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 67 the passages. The wheel of the sun is 27 times the size oir>^J^ 7' (the earth, while that of) the moon is 18 times as large.| ^The sun is the highest of all, and lowest are the wheels of the ^ars. —Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 20). The heavenly bodies were hoop-like compressions of air, full of fire, breathing out flames at a certain point through orifices. — Aet. ii. 13, 7 (R. P. 19 a). The sun was a wheel 28 times the size of the earth, like a chariot - wheel with the felloe hollow, full of fire, showing the fire at a certain point through an orifice, as through the nozzle of a pair of bellows. — Aet. ii. 20, i (R. P. 19 a). The sun was equal to the earth, but the wheel from which it breathes out and by which it is carried round was 27 times the size of the earth. — Aet. ii. 21, i. The sun was eclipsed when the orifice of the fire's breathing- hole was stopped. — Aet. ii. 24, 2. The moon was a wheel 19 times the size of the earth, like a chariot-wheel with its felloe hollow and full of fire like that of the sun, lying oblique also like it, with one breathing-hole like the nozzle of a pair of bellows. [It is eclipsed because of the turnings of the wheel.] ^ — Aet. ii. 25, i. The moon was eclipsed when the orifice of the wheel was stopped. — Aet. ii. 29, i. (Thunder and lightning, etc.) were all caused by the blast of the wind. When it is shut up in a thick cloud and bursts forth with violence, then the tearing of the cloud makes the noise, and the rift gives the appearance of a flash in contrast with the blackness of the cloud. — Aet. iii. 3, i. Wind was a current of air (i.e. vapour), which arose when its finest and moist est particles were stirred or melted by the sun. — Aet. iii. 7, i. ^ I assume with Diels {Dox. p. 560) that something has fallen out of the text, but I have made the moon's circle 18 and not 19 times as large, as agreeing better with the other figure, 27. See p. 68, n. 1. ^ There is clearly some confusion here, as Anaximander's real account of lunar eclipses is given in the next extract. There is also some doubt about the reading. Both Plutarch and Eusebios {P.E. xv. 26, i) have iiriaTpocpas, SO the Tpoirds of Stob. may be neglected, especially as the codex Sambuci had arpocpas. It looks as if this were a stray reference to the theory of Herakleitos that eclipses were due to a arpoipri or iTn(XTpo(f>ri of the (r/cd077 (§71). In any case, the passage cannot be relied on in sup- port of the meaning given to Tpoirai by Zeller and Heath (p. 63, n. 2). 68 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY There is a curious variation in the figures given for the size of the wheels of the heavenly bodies, and it seems most likely that refer to their that ttie wheels of the " stars " were nine times the size of the earth ; for the numbers ,2^8, 27 play a considerable part in primitive co^sjHiQgftjsies^^ We '&d not see the wheels of fire as complete circles ; for the vapour or mist which formed them encloses the fire, and forms an outer ring except at one point of their circumference, through which the fire escapes, and that is the heavenly body we actually see.^ It is possible that the theory of " wheels " was suggested by the Milky Way. If we ask how it is that the wheels of air can make the fire invisible to us without becoming visible themselves, the answer is that such is the property of what the Greeks at this date called " air/' For instance, when a Homeric hero is made invisible by being clothed in ^v;.v " air," we can see right through both the " air *' and the { *hero.^ It should be added that lightning is explained in eft the same way as the heavenly bodies. It, too, was fire breaking through condensed air, in this case storm- clouds. It seems probable that this was really the origin of the theory, and that Anaximander explained the heavenly bodies on the analogy of lightning, not vice versa. It must be remembered that meteorology and astronomy were still undifferentiated,* and that the theory of " wheels " ^ See Tannery, Science helUne, p. 91 ; Diels, " Ueber Anaximanders Kosmos " {Arch. x. pp. 231 sqq.). * The true meaning of this doctrine was first explained by Diels {Dox. pp. 25 sqq.). The flames issue per magni circum spiracula mundi, as Lucretius has it (vi. 493). The wpTja-TTjpos aiXos, to which these are com- pared, is simply the mouthpiece of the smith's bellows, a sense the word TrprjcTTrip has in ApoUonios of Rhodes (iv. 776), and has nothing to do with the meteorological phenomenon of the same name (see Chap; III. § 71), except that the Greek sailors very likely named the fiery waterspout after the familiar instrument. It is not necessary now to discuss the earlier interpretations of the phrase. 3 This is not so strange a view as might appear. An island or a rock in the ofl&ng may disappear completely when shrouded in mist (di^p), and we seem to see the sky beyond it. * See above, p. 27. THE MILESIAN SbHOOL 69 or rings is a natural inference from the idea of the vortex. So far we seem to be justified, by the authority of Theo- phrastos, in going; and, if that is so, certain further inferences seem to be inevitable. In the first place, Anaximander had shaken himself free of the old idea that the heavens are a solid vault^., f There is nothing to prevent us from seeing right out into the Boundless, and it is hard to think that Anaximander did not beheve he did. The traditiai;^,, cosmos has ^^nkyIjJa£^.,to a much grancto. scheme, that of innumerable vortices in a boundless ^p^^^J^hich is neither water nor air. In that case, it is difficult to resist the belief that what we call the fixed stars were identified with the " innumerable worlds " which were also " gods." It would follow that the diurnal revolution is only apparent ; for the stars are at unequal distances from us, and can have no rotation in common. It must, then, be due to the rotation of the cylindrical earth in twenty-four hours. We have seen that the earth certainly shared in the rotation of the BlvT}^ That gets rid of one difficulty, the wheel of the *^ slars," which is between the earth and the moon ; for the fixed stars could not be explained by a " wheel '* at all ; a sphere would be required. What, then, are the " stars " which are accounted for by this inner wheel ? I venture to suggest that they are the morning ami the evening stars, which, we have seen (p. 23, n. i), were not recognised yet as a single luminary. In other words, I believe that Anaximander regarded the , fixed stars as stationary, each rotating in its own vortex.^y-^No doubt this involves us in a difficulty regardi»g''*tne rota- tion of the sun and the moon. It follows from the nature of the vortex that they must rotate in the same direction as the earth, and, on the assumption just made, that must be from west to east, and it must be a slower rotation than that of the earth, which is inconsistent with the fact that the circumference of a vortex rotates more rapidly 70 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY than the centre. That, however, is a difficulty which all the Ionian cosmologists down to Demokritos had to face. Holding, as they did, that the whole rotation was in the same diTection,^^^,ihe^'^^t^ri^'''^m "=we- call the ""greatest velocities were the leasj J'' The moon, for instance, did not rotate so rapidly as the sun, since the sun more nearly keeps up with the fixed stars. ^ That Anaximander failed to observe this difficulty is not surprising, if we remember that he was the first to attack the problem. Tit is not immediately obvious that the centre of the ySrt'S'x must have a slower niotion than the circumference, j This serves to explain the origin of the theory that the heavenly bodies have a rotation of their own in the opposite direction to the diurnal revolution which we shall see reason for attributing to Pythagoras (§ 54). ^^j^wM**-^' 22. We have, in any case, seen enough to show us that the speculations of Anaximander .^Q^j^fe. tb^^w^si^-mj^e of ^3^.v>^.^tfg;S,^ly jlari^^^ charactej^ We.j?p^Oi^,,Uft55U.to the crowning. ,aii3^d® ^i^f^JJC S iheory -ol thB ' ari^ qf Hving creatures. The Theophrastean accoi^it ol^hi^.te^^ well preserved by the doxographers : y'^^'^lliving creatures ai»se from the moist' element as it was / evaporated by the sun.J Man was like another animal, namely, Va fish, in the beginning. — Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 22 a). The first animals were produced in the moisture, each enclosed in a prickly bark. As they advanced in age, they came out upon the drier part. When the bark broke off,^ they survived for a short time.^ — Aet. v. 19, 4 (R. P. 22). Further, he says that originally man was born from animals of another species. His reason is that while other animals ^ Lucretius, v. 619 sqq. 2 This is to be understood in the light of what we are told about yaXeoi below. Cf. Arist. Hist. An. Z, 10. 565 a 25, rots /xey oZv ffKvXlois, oOs KoXovffl TLves ve^pias yaXeovs, orap irepippay^ koL iKir^arj rb tarpaKov, flvovTat oi veorrol. 3 The true reading is ^tt' dXiyov xp^^o^ ixera^wvaL, the omission of Xpovov by Diels in Vors.^ and Vors.^ being apparently a slip. In the Index to Dox., Diels s.v. /xera^Lovv says " mutare vitam [cf. /ieraStaiTai/]," and I followed him in my first edition. Heidel well compares Archelaos, ap. Hipp. Ref. i. 9, 5 (of the first animals) 9jv 5e oXtyoxp^via. THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 71 quickly find food by themselves, man alone requires a lengthy period of suckling. Hence, had he been originally as" he is npW^"'*^, he would never have survived. — Ps.-Plut. Strom, fr. 2 (R. P. iBTf."*' y He declares that at first human beings arose in the inside of / fishes, and after having been reared like sharks,^ and become ^capable of protecting themselves, they were finally cast ashore and took to land. — Plut. Symp. Quaest. 730 f (R. P. ih). / The importance of these statements has sometimes Dfeen overrated and still more often underestimated. Anaximander has. been called a precursor of Darwin by some, while others hav^^^te^ed the whole thing as a mytho- logical survival. It is therefore important to notice that this is one of the rare cases where we have not merely a placitum, but an indication of the observations on which it was base A It is clear from tEE"tliat AnaximanaerlEiad" an -id^^'oi what is meant by adaptation to ^^331 WQiUuent and survival of the fittest , %nd tEat he saw _th£_highpr marhmals could not retJfesent the o riginal t ype of animal. For this he looked to the sea, and he naturally fixed upon those fishes which present the closest analogy to the mammq}i(i,^i:.: The statements of Aristotle about the galeus levis were shown by Johannes Miiller to be more accurate than those of later naturalists, and we now see that these observations were already made by Anaximander. The way in which the ^ . shark nourishes its young furnished him with the very thing he required to explain the survival of the earliest animals. ^ ^ Reading Cjairep ol yaXeoi for Cbairep ol TaXaLoi with Doehner, who compares Plut. De soil. anim. 982 a, where the (pCKbaropyov of the shark is described. 2 On Aristotle and the galeus levis, see Johannes Miiller, " Ueber den glatten Hai des Aristoteles " {K. Preuss. Akad., 1842), to which my attention was directed by my colleague, Professor D'Arcy Thompson. The precise point of the words rpecpofxcpoi Sjo-irep ol yaXeoL appears from Arist, Hist. An. Z, 10. 565 b I, ot 5^ Ka\ovp.€voi. \etoL rdv yaXewv tcl p.kv i^a taxovai fiera^ii tCjv varepuiv ofMoius rois aKvXLoLS, irepLdTavTa ok ravra ets cKar^pav Tr,v biKpbav TTis vcTT^pas KarajSalvei, Kal to. ^ipa yiveraL tov ofKpaXov ^x^^t^'- '"'P^^ '''V ^crrepq,, Cbare avaXLaKOfieuwv tCjv i^dv ofxoiojs boKelv ^x^"' "^^ efi^pvov tois TeTpdvocnu. It IS not necessary to suppose that Anaximander referred to the further phenomenon " described by Aristotle, who more than once says that all the 7aXeot except the dKav6Las " send out their young and take them back again " {e^a*'^ J' di versities are due to the presence of more or less of it in / j5 ! ^T^en^space. !|^nd when once this step has been taken, I I I It is no longer necessary to make the primary substance I .| I Something " distinct from the elements," to use Aristotle's I ;' / inaccurate but convenient phrase ; it may just as well be t bne^glthem. Air. y' 27. The air Anaximenes speaks of includes a good deal / that we should not call by the name. In its normal con- dition, when most evenly distributed, it is invisible, and it then corresponds to our ** air " ; it is the breath we inhale and the wind that blows. That is why he called it irvevfia^ On the other hand, the old idea that mist or vapour is I condensed air, is still accepted without question. It was f^Empedokles,|we shall see, \yho first discovered that what we "call' air was a distinct corporeaf stflManceV ^nd not identical either with vapour or with empty space. / In the earher cosmologists " air " is alwa5^s a form of vapour, and even darkness is a form of " air.' j It wa^^Emp^^^okleswho cleared up, this point too by showing that darkness is a shadow. 2 I 1 Simplicius, Phys. p. 149, 32 (R. P. 26 b), says that Theophrastos spoke of rarefaction and condensation in the case of Anaximenes alone. It should be noted, however, that Aristotle, Phys. A, 4. 187 a 12, seems imply that Anaximander too had spoken of rarefaction and condenss tion, especially if 6 eVn irvpbs fikv irvKvbTepov d^pos 8k XeirTOTepov is referred him. On the other hand, at 20, ol 8' 4k rod evbs ivovaas ras epavrtoTrjTd iKKpiveadai, ibairep 'Ava^i/xapSpos (f)rjat seems to be opposed to a 12, oi fxkv kt^ As I have indicated already, it looks as if we were dealing here wit Aristotle's own inferences and interpretations, which are far from clej They are outweighed by the definite statement quoted by SimpUcius froi Theophrastos, though Simplicius himself adds 8ri\op 8k tbs /cai ol &\\ol t^ fmpoTTiTL Kal TTVKPOTTjTi ixP'^^To. That, howcvcr, is only his own inference^ from Aristotle's somewhat confused statement. 2 For the meaning of d??p in Homer, cf, e.g. Od. viii. i, 7j4pi Kai p( K€Ka\vfji,fA4pai ; and for its survival in Ionic prose, Hippokrates, THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 75 It was natural for Anaximenes to fix upon " air " as the primary substance ; for, in the system of Anaximander, it f occupied an intermediate place between the two fun'Sa- * mental opposites, the ring of flame and the cold, moist J\qO^^^ mass within it. .(§ 19). We know from Plutarch that he - ^j t^^^"'^ fancie3 air became warmer when rarefied, and colder when condensed, '{jOf this he satisfied himself by a curious -- experimental proof. When we breathe with our mouthsTT"*/ ■ open, the air is warm ; when our lips are closed, it is cold.V^?*^: 28. This argument brings us to an important point m The world the theory, which is attested by the single fragment that ^£^.^*^^^* has come down to us.^ " Just as our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole\^ The primary substance bears the same relation to the hfe of the world as to that of man. \ Now this was the Pythagorean viaw >^ and it is al^o ah early instance of the argument from the microcosm to the macrocosm, and SO marks the beginning of an interest in physiological matters. 29. We turn now to the doxographical tradition con- The parts cerning the formation of the world and its parts : world. He says that, as the air was felted, the earth first came into being. It is very broad and is accordingly supported by tbe^,..,. air.— Ps.-Plut. StronLlr.'s (R. P. 25). In the same way the sun and the moon and the other heavenly bodies, which are of ^ fiery nature, are supported by the air d^ptav, vSdroov, Tbiriav, 15, ai^p re ■7roXi>s /car^xei tt]v x^PV^ *^^^ '^^'^ vSariov. Plato is still conscious of the old meaning ; for he makes Timaios say d^pos {y^vTf) rb fikv evayia-raTov iwiKk-qv aldT]p KaXoOfxevos, 6 5k doXepdoraros ofiixXrj Kal