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| Chapter III.—Opinions of the school of Thales.
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Chapter III.—Opinions of the school
of Thales.
And if
you decline citing the poets, because you say it is allowable for them to
frame myths, and to relate in a mythical way many things about the gods
which are far from true, do you suppose you have some others for your
religious teachers, or how do you say that they themselves2517
have learned this religion of yours? For it is impossible that
any should know matters so great and divine, who have not themselves
learned them first from the initiated.2518
| 2518 Literally, “those who knew.” | You
will no doubt say, “The sages and philosophers.” For to them,
as to a fortified wall, you are wont to flee, when any one quotes the
opinions of your poets about the gods. Therefore, since it is fit that we
commence with the ancients and the earliest, beginning thence I will
produce the opinion of each, much more ridiculous as it is than the
theology of the poets. For
Thales of Miletus, who took the lead in the study of natural philosophy,
declared that water was the first principle of all things; for from water
he says that all things are, and that into water all are resolved. And after him Anaximander, who
came from the same Miletus, said that the infinite was the first
principle of all things; for that from this indeed all things are
produced, and into this do all decay. Thirdly, Anaximenes—and he
too was from Miletus—says that air is the first principle of all
things; for he says that from this all things are produced, and into this
all are resolved. Heraclitus
and Hippasus, from Metapontus, say that fire is the first principle of
all things; for from fire all things proceed, and in fire do all things
terminate. Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ said that the homogeneous parts are
the first principles of all things. Archelaus, the son of Apollodorus, an
Athenian, says that the infinite air and its density and rarity are the
first principle of all things. All these, forming a succession from
Thales, followed the philosophy called by themselves physical.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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