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| Anaximander; His Theory of the Infinite; His Astronomic Opinions; His Physics.
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Chapter
V.—Anaximander; His Theory of the Infinite; His Astronomic
Opinions; His Physics.
Anaximander, then, was the hearer of Thales.
Anaximander was son of Praxiadas, and a native of Miletus. This
man said that the originating principle of existing things is a certain
constitution of the Infinite, out of which the heavens are generated,
and the worlds therein; and that this principle is eternal and
undecaying, and comprising all the worlds. And he speaks of time
as something of limited generation, and subsistence, and
destruction. This person declared the Infinite to be an
originating principle and element of existing things, being the first
to employ such a denomination of the originating principle. But,
moreover, he asserted that there is an eternal motion, by the agency of
which it happens that the heavens71
are generated; but that the earth is poised aloft, upheld by
nothing, continuing
(so) on account of its equal distance from all (the heavenly bodies);
and that the figure of it is curved, circular,72
similar to a column of stone.73
And one of the surfaces we tread
upon, but the other is opposite.74
| 74 That is,
Antipodes. Diogenes Laertius was of the opinion that Plato first
indicated by name the Antipodes. |
And that the stars are a circle of fire, separated from the fire which
is in the vicinity of the world, and encompassed by air. And that
certain atmospheric exhalations arise in places where the stars shine;
wherefore, also, when these exhalations are obstructed, that eclipses
take place. And that the moon sometimes appears full and
sometimes waning, according to the obstruction or opening of its
(orbital) paths. But that the circle of the sun is twenty-seven
times75
| 75 Or,
“727 times,” an improbable reading. | larger than the moon,
and that the sun is situated in the highest (quarter of the firmament);
whereas the orbs of the fixed stars in the lowest. And that
animals are produced (in moisture76
| 76
“In moisture” is properly added, as Plutarch, in his
De Placitis, v. xix., remarks that “Anaximander affirms
that primary animals were produced in moisture.” | )
by evaporation from the sun. And that man was, originally,
similar to a different animal, that is, a fish. And that winds
are caused by the separation of very rarified exhalations of the
atmosphere, and by their motion after they have been condensed.
And that rain arises from earth’s giving back (the vapours which
it receives) from the (clouds77
| 77 This word
seems requisite to the sense of the passage. | )
under the sun. And that there are flashes of lightning when the
wind coming down severs the clouds. This person was born in the
third year of the xlii. Olympiad.78
| 78
b.c. 610. On Olympiads, see
Jarvis, Introd., p. 21.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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