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| Anaxagoras; His Theory of Mind; Recognises an Efficient Cause; His Cosmogony and Astronomy.
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Chapter
VII.—Anaxagoras; His Theory of Mind; Recognises an Efficient
Cause; His Cosmogony and Astronomy.
After this (thinker) comes Anaxagoras,82
| 82 Aristotle
considers that Anaxagoras was the first to broach the existence of
efficient causes in nature. He states, however, that Hermotimus
received the credit of so doing at an earlier date. | son of Hegesibulus,83
a native of Clazomenæ. This
person affirmed the originating principle of the universe to be mind
and matter; mind being the efficient cause, whereas matter that
which was being formed. For all things coming into existence
simultaneously, mind supervening introduced order. And material
principles, he says, are infinite; even the smaller of these are
infinite.84
| 84
Simplicius, in his Commentary on Aristotle’s
Physics, where (book i. c. 2) Anaxagoras is spoken of, says that
the latter maintained that “all things existed
simultaneously—infinite things, and plurality, and
diminutiveness, for even what was diminutive was infinite.”
(See Aristotle’s Metaphysics, iii. 4, Macmahon’s
translation, p. 93.) This explains Hippolytus’ remark,
while it suggests an emendation of the text. | And that all
things partake of motion by being moved by mind, and that similar
bodies coalesce. And that celestial bodies were arranged by
orbicular motion. That, therefore, what was thick and moist, and
dark and cold, and all things heavy, came together into the centre,
from the solidification of which earth derived support; but that the
things opposite to these—namely, heat and brilliancy, and dryness
and lightness—hurried impetuously into the farther portion of the
atmosphere. And that the earth is in figure plane; and that it
continues suspended aloft, by reason of its magnitude, and by reason of
there being no vacuum, and by reason of the air, which was most
powerful, bearing along the wafted earth. But that among moist
substances on earth, was the sea, and the waters in it; and when these
evaporated (from the sun), or had settled under, that the ocean was
formed in this manner, as well as from the rivers that from time to
time flow into it. And that the rivers also derive support from
the rains and from the actual waters in the earth; for that this is
hollow, and contains water in its caverns. And that the Nile is
inundated in summer, by reason of the waters carried down into it from
the snows in northern (latitudes).85
| 85 Or,
“in the Antipodes;” or, “from the snow in
Æthiopia.” | And that the sun and moon and all the
stars are fiery stones, that were rolled round by the rotation of the
atmosphere. And that beneath the stars are sun and moon, and
certain invisible bodies that are carried along with us; and that we
have no perception of the heat of the stars, both on account of their
being so far away, and on account of their distance from the earth; and
further, they are not to the same degree hot as the sun, on account of
their occupying a colder situation. And that the moon, being
lower than the sun, is nearer us. And that the sun surpasses the
Peloponnesus in size. And that the moon has not light of its own,
but from the sun. But that the revolution of the stars takes
place under the earth. And that the moon is eclipsed when the
earth is interposed, and occasionally also those (stars) that are
underneath the moon. And that the sun (is eclipsed) when, at the
beginning of the month, the moon is interposed. And that the
solstices are caused by both sun and moon being repulsed by the
air. And that the moon is often turned, by its not being able to
make head against the cold. This person was the first to frame
definitions regarding eclipses and illuminations. And he affirmed
that the moon is earthy, and has in it plains and ravines. And
that the milky way is a reflection of the light of the stars which do
not derive their radiance from the sun;86
| 86 Or,
“overpowered by the sun,” that is, whose light was lost in
the superior brilliancy of the sun. | and that the stars, coursing (the
firmament) as shooting sparks, arise out of the motion of the
pole. And that winds are caused when the atmosphere is rarified
by the sun, and by those burning orbs that advance under the pole, and
are borne from (it). And that thunder and lightning are caused by
heat falling on the clouds. And that earthquakes are produced by
the air above falling on that under the earth; for when this is moved,
that the earth also, being wafted by it, is shaken. And that
animals originally came into existence87
in moisture, and after this one from
another; and that males are procreated when the seed secreted from the
right parts adhered to the right parts of the womb, and that females
are born when the contrary took place. This philosopher
flourished in the first year of the lxxxviii.
Olympiad,88
| 88
[Died b.c. 428 or 429.] | at which time
they say that Plato also was born. They maintain that Anaxagoras
was likewise prescient.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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