22. In the course of our discussion of the “in- numerable worlds” we saw that Anaximander regarded these as gods, It is true, of course, as Zeller says,” that to the Greeks the word θεός meant primarily an object of worship, and he rightly adds that no one would think of worshipping innumerable worlds. This, however, is no real objection to our interpretation, though it serves to bring out an interesting point in the development of Greek theological ideas. The philosophers, in fact, departed altogether from the received usage of the word θεός. Empedokles called the Sphere and the ~ Elements gods, though it is not to be supposed that he regarded them as objects of worship, and in the same
1 On Aristotle and the ga/eus levis, see Johannes Miiller, ‘‘ Ueber den glatten Haides Aristoteles” (A. Preuss. Akad., 1842), to which my attention has been directed by my colleague, Prof. D’Arcy Thomson. The precise point of the words τρεφόμενοι ὥσπερ of γαλεοί appears from Arist. Hist. An. Z, το. 565 b I, of δὲ καλούμενοι λεῖοι τῶν γαλεῶν τὰ μὲν Ga ἴσχουσι μεταξὺ τῶν ὑστερῶν ὁμοίως τοῖς σκυλίοις, περιστάντα δὲ ταῦτα εἰς ἑκατέραν τὴν δικρόαν τῆς ὑστέρας καταβαίνει, καὶ τὰ ζῷα γίνεται τὸν ὀμφαλὸν ἔχοντα πρὸς τῇ ὑστέρᾳ, ὥστε ἀναλισκομένων τῶν φῶν ὁμοίως δοκεῖν ἔχειν τὸ ἔμβρυον τοῖς τετράποσιν. It is not necessary to suppose that Anaximander referred to the further phenomenon described by Aristotle, who more than once says that all the γαλεοί except the ἀκανθίας ‘‘send out their young and take them back again” (ἐξαφιᾶσι καὶ δέχονται els ἑαυτοὺς τοὺς νεοττούς, 7b. 565 Ὁ 23), for which compare also Ael. 1, 17; Plut. de soll. anim. 982 a. The placenta and umbilical cord described by Johannes Miiller will account sufficiently for all he says. At the same time, I understand that deep-sea fishermen at the present day confirm this remarkable statement also, and two credible witnesses have informed me that they believe they have seen the thing happen with their own eyes.
2 Zeller, p. 230.
The Milesian School 75
way we shall find that Diogenes of Apollonia spoke of
Air as a god.’ As we may learn from the Clouds of
Aristophanes, it was just this way of speaking that got
philosophers the name of being ἄθεοι. It is of great
importance to bear this point in mind; for, when we
come to Xenophanes, we shall see that the god or gods |
he spoke of meant just the world or worlds. It seems ||
also that. Anaximander called the Boundless itself
divine,’ which is quite in accordance with the language
of Empedokles and Diogenes referred to above.
Iii. Anaximenes
23. Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, was, Life. according to Theophratos, an “associate” of Anaxi- mander.* Apollodoros said, it appears, that he “flourished” about the time of the fall of Sardeis (5465 B.C), and died in Ol. LXIII. (528/524 8.0. In other words, he was born when Thales “ flourished,” and “flourished” when Thales died, and this means that Apollodoros had no definite information about his date at all. He most probably made him die in the sixty-third Olympiad because that gives just a hundred years, or three generations, for the Milesian school from the birth of Thales.° We cannot, therefore, say any-
1 For Empedokles, see Chap. V. § 119 and for Diogenes, Chap. X, § 188, fr. 5. The cosmologists followed the theogonists and cosmogonists in this. No one worshipped Okeanos and Tethys, or even Ouranos.
3. Arist. Phys. T, 4. 203 Ὁ 13 (R. P. 17).
8 Theophr. Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).
* This follows from a comparison of Diog. ii. 3.with Hipp. Ref i. 7 (R. P. 23). In the latter passage we must, however, read τρίτον for πρῶτον with Diels. The suggestion in R. P. 23 e that Apollodoros mentioned the Olympiad without giving the number of the year is inadequate; for Apollodoros did not reckon by Olympiads, but Athenian archons.
® Jacoby (p. 194) brings the date of his death into connexion with the Jtoruit of Pythagoras, which seems to me less probable. Lortzing (/ahreséer., 1898, p. 202) objects to my view on the ground that the period of a hundred
His book.
Theory of the
primary sub-
stance.
76 Early Greek Philosophy
thing positive as to his date, except that he must have
been younger than Anaximander, and must have
flourished before 494 Β.0., when the school was, of
course, broken up by the destruction of Miletos.
24. Anaximenes wrote a book which certainly sur-
vived until the age of literary criticism ; for we are told
that he used a simple and unpretentious Ionic,’ very
different, we may suppose, from the poetical prose of
Anaximander.” We may probably trust this criticism,
which comes ultimately from Theophrastos; and it
furnishes a good illustration of the truth that the
character of a man’s thoughts is sure to find expression
in his style. We have seen that the speculations of
Anaximander were distinguished for their hardihood
and breadth ; those of Anaximenes are marked by just
the opposite quality. He appears to have thought out
his system carefully, but he rejects the more audacious
theories of his predecessor. The result is that, while
his view of the world is on the whole much less like
the truth than Anaximander’s, it is more fruitful in
ideas that were destined to hold their ground.
BP 25. Anaximenes is one of the philosophers on whom
_Theophrastos wrote a special monograph ;* and this
gives us an additional guarantee for the trustworthiness
of the tradition derived from his great work. The
following * are the passages which seem to contain the
fullest and most accurate account of what he had to
say on the central feature of the system :-—
years plays no part in Apollodoros’s calculations. It will be seen, however, from Jacoby, pp. 39 sqq., that there is some reason for believing he made use of the generation of 334 years.
1 Diog. ii. 3 (R. P. 23).
2 Cf. the statement of Theophrastos above, § 13.
3% On these monographs see Dox. p. 103.
4 See the conspectus of extracts from Theophrastos given in Dox. p. 135.
wi THE MILESIAN SCHOOL 77
Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, who had been an associate of Anaximander, said, like him, that the under- lying substance was one and infinite. He did not, however, say it was indeterminate, like Anaximander, but determinate ; for he said it was Air.—P/ys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).
From it, he said, the things that are, and have been, and shall be, the gods and things divine, took their rise, while other things come from its offspring. — Hipp. Ref i. 7 (R. P. 28).
“Just as,” he said, “our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole world.”—Aet. i. 3, 4 (R. P. 24). ᾿
And the form of the air is as follows. Where it is most even, it is invisible to our sight ; but cold and heat, moisture and motion, make it visible. It is always in motion; for, if it were not, it would not change so much as it does.—Hipp. Ref. i. 7 (R. P. 28).
It differs in different substances in virtue of its rarefaction and condensation.—Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 26).
When it is dilated so as to be rarer, it becomes fire ; while winds, on the other hand, are condensed Air. Cloud is formed from Air by felting; and this, still further condensed, becomes water. Water, condensed still more, turns to earth ; and when condensed as much as it can be, to stones.—Hipp. Ref. i. 7 (R. P. 28).?
26. At the first glance, this undoubtedly looks like Rarefaction
. : . and condensa- a falling off from the more refined doctrine of Anaxi- ER σι, κι
mander to a cruder view ; but a moment’s reflexion will
show that this is not altogether the case. On the
contrary, the introduction of rarefaction and condensa-
tion into the theory is a notable advance.’ In fact, it
1 ἐς Felting” (πίλησις) is the regular term for this process with all the early cosmologists, from whom Plato has taken it (7%. 58 Ὁ 4; 76 3).
2 A more condensed form of the same doxographical tradition is given by Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 3 (R. P. 25).
8 Simplicius, Phys. p. 149, 32 (R. P. 26 b), says, according to the MSS., that Theophrastos spoke of rarefaction and condensation in the case of Anaximenes a/one. We must either suppose with Zeller (p. 193, n. 2) that
Air.
78 Early Greek Philosophy
makes the Milesian cosmology thoroughly consistent
for the first time ; since it is clear that a theory which
explains everything by the transformations of a single
substance is bound to regard all differences as purely
quantitative. The infinite substance of Anaximander,
from which the opposites “in it” are “separated out,”
cannot, strictly speaking, be thought of as homogeneous,
and the only way to save the unity of the primary
substance is to say that all diversities are due to the-
presence of more or less of it ina given space. And
when once this important step has been taken, it is no
longer necessary to make the primary substance some-
thing “distinct from the elements,” to use Aristotle’s
inaccurate but convenient phrase; it may just as well
be one of them.
27. The air that Anaximenes speaks of includes a good deal that we should not call by that name, In its normal condition, when most evenly distributed, it is invisible, and it then corresponds to our “air”; it is identical with the breath we inhale and the wind that blows. That is why he called it πνεῦμα. On the other hand, the old idea, familiar to us in Homer, that mist or vapour is condensed air, is still accepted with- out question. In other words, we may say that Anaxi- menes supposed it to be a good deal easier to get liquid air than it has since proved to be. It was Empedokles, we shall see, who first discovered that what we call air was a distinct corporeal substance, and was not identical either with vapour or with empty space. In the earlier
6 ase”
cosmologists “air” is always a form of vapour, and this means “‘alone among the oldest Ionians” or read πρώτου for μόνου with Usener. The regular terms are πύκνωσις and ἀραίωσις or μάνωσις.
Plutarch, de prim. frig. 947 f (R. P. 27), says that Anaximenes used the term τὸ χαλαρόν for the rarefied air.
The Milesian School 79
even darkness is a form of it. It was Empedokles who
cleared up this point too by showing that darkness is a
shadow." _/ .
It was natural for Anaximenes to fix upon Air in
this sense as the primary substance ; for, in the system
of Anaximander, it occupied an intermediate place
between the two fundamental opposites, the sphere of
flame and the cold, moist mass within it (§ 19). We
know from Plutarch that he fancied air became warmer
when rarefied, and colder when condensed. Of this
he satisfied himself by a curious experimental proof.
When we breathe with our mouths open, the air is
warm; when we breathe with our lips closed, it
is cold?
28. This argument from human breathing brings us The world to an important point in the theory of Anaximenes, presse 5 which is attested by the single fragment that has come down to us.2 “Just as our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole world.” The primary substance bears the same relation to the life of the world as to that of man. Now this, we shall see, was the Pythagorean view ; ἡ an early instance of the argument from the microcosm to the macrocosm, and so marks the first beginnings of
and it is also
an interest in physiological matters. a
1 For the meaning of ἀήρ in Homer, see Schmidt, Synonomik, § 35 ; and for its survival in Ionic prose, Hippokrates, Περὶ ἀέρων, ὑδάτων, τόπων, 15, ἀήρ τε πολὺς κατέχει τὴν χώρην ἀπὸ τῶν ὑδάτων. Plato is still conscious of the old meaning of the word ; for he makes Timaios say ἀέρος (γένη) τὸ μὲν εὐαγέστατον ἐπίκλην αἰθὴρ καλούμενος, ὁ δὲ θολερώτατος ὁμίχλη Kal σκότος (Zim. 58d). The view given in the text has been criticised by Tannery, “* Une nouvelle hypothése sur Anaximandre” (4vch. viii. pp. 443 544.), and I have slightly altered my expression of it to meet these criticisms. The point-is of fundamental importance, as we shall see, for the interpretation of Pythagoreanism. 2 Plut. de prim. frig. 947 f (R. P. 27).
3 Aet. i, 3, 4 (R. P. 24). 4 See Chap. II. § 53.
80 Early Greek Philosophy
The partsof 29. We turn now to the doxographical tradition “oCaleg concerning the formation of the world and its parts :—