the earth as having been forced into the centre by the circular motion ;; but, though this doubtless refers to Anaximander among others, it is quite irrelevant here. It has to do only with the formation of the world after it has been once for all separated off and enclosed in its own heaven, and we shall have to remember it when we come to that part of the theory. At present, we have only to do with the motion of the Boundless itself; and, if we wish to picture that, it is much safer to regard it as a sort of shaking up and down which softs out the opposites from the infinite mass. | 18. We are told more than once that Anaximander

believed there were “innumerable worlds in the Bound-
less,”? and it is now usual to regard these with Zeller
as an infinite series succeeding one another in time.
It may be allowed at once that his disproof of the idea
that the worlds are coexistent and eternal is decisive.
To suppose that Anaximander regarded this or any
other world as eternal, is a flat contradiction of every-
thing we otherwise know, and of the Theophrastean |
tradition that he taught the world was perishable. We.
have, then, to decide between the view that, though all
the worlds are perishable, there may be an unlimited
number of them in existence at the same time, and the
view that a new world never comes into existence till

1 Arist. de Caelo, B, 13. 295 a 9. The identification of the eternal motion with the diurnal revolution is insisted on by Teichmiiller and Tannery, and is the real source of the very unnatural interpretation which they give to the word ἄπειρον. It was obviously difficult to credit Anaximander with a belief in an infinite body which revolves in a circle. The whole theory rests upon a confusion between the finite spherical κόσμος within the οὐρανός and the infinite περιέχον outside it.

2 [Plut.] Strom. fr. 2(R. P. 21 Ὁ). The words ἀνακυκλουμένων πάντων αὐτῶν are most naturally to be interpreted as referring to an ἀνακύκλησις or

cycle of γένεσις and φθορά in each of a multitude of coexistent worlds. It would be a very strange phrase to use of a succession of single worlds. ay

The Milesian School 63

the old one has passed away. Now, Zeller allows! that
there is nothing in the first of these views that is
inconsistent with what we know of Anaximander ; but
he thinks all the statements which have come down to
us point rather to the second. It seems to me that
this is by no means the case, and, as, the matter is
of fundamental importance, it will be necessary to
examine the evidence once more.

In the first place, the doxographical tradition proves
that Theophrastos discussed the views of all the early
philosophers 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,
he meant coexistent and not successive worlds. Now,
if he had really classed two such different views under
one head, he would at least have been careful to point
out in what respect they differed, and there is no trace of
any such distinction in our tradition. On the contrary,
Anaximander, Anaximenes, Archelaos, Xenophanes, |
Diogenes, Leukippos, Demokritos, and Epicurus are
all mentioned together as holding the doctrine of
“innumerable worlds” on all sides of this one,” and the
only distinction drawn between their views is that,
while Epicurus made the distances between these
worlds unequal, Anaximander said all the worlds were
equidistant. Zeller rejected this evidence, which he

1 Zeller, pp. 234 sqq.

2 Aet. ii. 1, 3 (Dox. p. 327). Zeller is wrong in understanding xara πᾶσαν περιωαγωγήν here of the revolution of a cycle. It means simply ‘in every direction we turn,” and so does the alternative reading κατὰ πᾶσαν περίστασιν. The six περιστάσεις are πρόσω, ὀπίσω, ἄνω, κάτω, δεξιά, ἀριστερά (Nicom. Zztrod. p. 85, 11, Hoche), and Polybios uses eee of sur- rounding space.

8 Aet. ii. 1, 8 (Dox. p. 329), τῶν ἀπείρους ἀποφηναμένων τοὺς κόσμους ᾿Αναξίμανδρος τὸ ἴσον αὐτοὺς ἀπέχειν ἀλλήλων, ᾿Ἐπίκουρος ἄνισον εἶναι τὸ μεταξὺ τῶν κόσμων διάστημα.

64 Early Greek Philosophy

supposed to be merely that of Stobaios, on the ground that we can have no confidence in a writer who attributes “innumerable worlds” to Anaximenes, Archelaos, and Xenophanes. With regard to the first two, I hope to show that the statement is quite correct, and that it is not even incorrect in the case of the last." In any case, it can be proved that the passage comes from Aetios,? and there is no reason for doubting that, in the last resort, it is derived from Theophrastos, though the name of Epicurus may have been added later. This is still further confirmed by what Simplicius says in his commentary on the Physics.’

Those who assumed innumerable worlds, e.g. Anaximander, Leukippos, Demokritos, and, at a later date, Epicurus, held that they came into being and passed away ad infinitum, some always coming into being and others passing away.

It is probable that this too comes from Theophrastos
through Alexander. Simplicius does not invent such
things.

We come lastly to a very important statement
which Cicero has copied from Philodemos, the author
of the Epicurean treatise on Religion found at
Herculaneum, or perhaps from the immediate source
of that work. “ Anaximander’s opinion was,” he makes
Velleius say, “that there were gods who came into
being, rising and passing away at long intervals, and

1 For Anaximenes, see § 30; Xenophanes, ὃ 59; Archelaos, Chap. X.

2 This is shown by the fact that the list of names is given also by Theodoret. See Appendix, § Io.

3 Simpl. Phys. p. 1121, 5 (R. P. 21 b). Zeller says (p. 234, ἢ. 4) that Simplicius elsewhere (ade Cae/o, p. 273 Ὁ 43) makes the same statement more doubtfully. But the words ws δοκεῖ, on which he relies, are hardly an expression of doubt, and refer, in any case, to the derivation of the doctrine of ‘innumerable worlds’’ from that of the ἄπειρον, not to the doctrine itself.

The Milesian School 65

that these were the innumerable worlds”; and this
must clearly be taken along with the statement of
Aetios to the effect that, according to Anaximander,
the “innumerable heavens” were gods.” Now it is very
much more natural to understand the “long intervals”
which Cicero mentions as intervals of space than as in-
tervals of time ;* and, if we take the passage in this way,
we have a perfect agreement among all our authorities.

It may be added that it is very unnatural to under-
stand the statement that the Boundless “ encompasses
all the worlds” of worlds succeeding one another in
time; for on this view there is at a given time only
one world to “encompass.” Moreover, the argument
mentioned by Aristotle that, if what is outside the
heavens is infinite, body must be infinite, and there
must be innumerable worlds, can only be understood
in this sense, and is certainly intended to represent
the reasoning of the Milesians; for they were the only
cosmologists who held there was a boundless body
outside the heavens.* Lastly, we happen to know that
Petron, one of the earliest Pythagoreans, held there
were just one hundred and eighty-three worlds arranged
in a triangle,” which shows that views of this sort

1 Cicero, de Nat. D. i. 25 (R. P. 21).

2 Aet. i. 7,12 (R. P. 21a). The reading of Stob., ἀπείρους οὐρανούς, is guaranteed by the ἀπείρους κόσμους of Cyril, and the ἀπείρους νοῦς (1.6. odvous) of the pseudo-Galen. See Dox. p. 11.

3 It is simplest to suppose that Cicero found διαστήμασιν in his Epicurean source, and that is a technical term for the z#/exmundia.

4 Arist. Phys. Τ', 4. 203 Ὁ 25, ἀπείρου δ᾽ ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω (sc. τοῦ οὐρανοῦ), καὶ σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ κόσμοι (sc. ἄπειροι). It is to be observed that the next words—ri yap μᾶλλον τοῦ κενοῦ ἐνταῦθα ἢ ἐνταῦθα ;—show clearly that this refers to the Atomists as well; but the ἄπειρον σῶμα will not apply to them. The suggestion is rather that both those who made the Boundless a body and those who made it a κενόν held the doctrine of ἄπειροι κόσμοι in the same sense, .

5 See below, § 53. Cf. Diels, Zlementum, pp. 63 564.

Origin of the
heavenly
bodies.

66 Early Greek Philosophy

existed long before the Atomists, and looks like an
attempt to introduce some order into Anaximander’s
universe.

19. The doxographers have not left us in the dark
as to the process by which the different parts of the
world arose from the Boundless. The following state-
ment comes ultimately from Theophrastos :—

He says that something capable of begetting hot and cold was separated off from the eternal at the origin of this world. From this arose a sphere of flame which grew round the air encircling the earth, as the bark grows round a tree. When this was torn off and enclosed in certain rings, the sun, moon, and stars came into existence.—Ps.-Plut. Stvom. fr. 2 (R. P. 19).

We see from this that when a portion of the Bound-
less had been separated off from the rest to form a
world, it first of all differentiated itself into the two
opposites, hot and cold. The hot appears as a sphere
of flame surrounding the cold; the cold, as earth with
air surrounding it. We are not told, however, in this
extract how the cold came to be differentiated into
earth, air, and water; but there is a passage in
Aristotle’s eteorology which throws some light on
the subject. We read there :—

But those who are wiser in the wisdom of men give an origin for the sea. At first, they say, all the terrestrial region

it that evaporated produced the winds and the turnings of the sun and moon, while the portion left behind was the sea. So they think the sea is becoming smaller by being dried up, and that at last it will all be dry.—AZeveor. B, 1. 353 Ὁ 5.

And the same absurdity arises for those who say that the earth and the terrestrial part of the world at first were moist,

The Milesian School 67

but that air arose from the heat of the sun, and that the whole world was thus increased, and that this is the cause of winds and the turnings of the heavens.1—Jé, 2. 355 a 21 (R. P. 20 a).

In his commentary on the passage, Alexander tells
us that this was the view of Anaximander and
Diogenes ; and what he says is amply confirmed by
Anaximander’s theory of the sea as it is given by the
doxographers (§ 20). We conclude, then, that after
the first separation of the hot and the cold, the heat of
the sphere of flame turned part of the moist, cold
interior of the world into air or vapour—it is all one
at this date—and that the expansion of this mist
broke up the sphere of flame itself into rings. I give
the theory which he adopted to explain the origin of
the heavenly bodies from these rings as it has been
preserved by Hippolytos, with some supplements from
Aetios :—

The heavenly bodies are wheels of fire separated off from the fire which encircles the world, and enclosed in air. And they have breathing-holes, certain pipe-like passages at which the heavenly bodies are seen. For this reason, too, when the breathing-holes are stopped, eclipses occur. And the moon appears now to wax and now to wane because of the stopping and opening of the passages. The circle of the sun is twenty-seven times the size (of the earth, while that) of the moon is eighteen times as large.2 The sun is highest of all,

and lowest are the wheels of the fixed stars.—Hipp. Ref i. 6 (R. P. 20).

1 Zeller’s difficulty about the meaning of rporai here (p. 223, n. 2) seems

to be an imaginary one. The moon has certainly ἃ movement in de- clination and, therefore, τροπαί (Dreyer, Planetary Systems, p. 17, n. 1). ' 2 T assume with Diels (Dox. p. 560) that something has fallen out in our text of Hippolytos. I have, however, with Tannery, Sczence helléne, p- 91, supplied “‘ eighteen times” rather than ‘‘ nineteen times.” Zeller (p. 224, ἢ. 2) prefers the text of our MS. of Hippolytos to the testimony of Aetios.

68 Early Greek Philosophy

Anaximander said the stars were hoop-like compressions of air, full of fire, breathing out flames at a certain point from orifices. The sun was highest of all, after it came the moon, and below these the fixed stars and the planets.—Aetios, Ii. a7 25, 6 Ἐς P, 19 a).