posed a mathematical work dealing with the quadrature

most improbable ;

of the circle is due to misunderstanding of an expres- sion in Plutarch. We learn from the passage in

the Afology, referred to above, that the works of

Anaxagoras could be bought at Athens for a single
drachma ; and that the book was of some length may
be gathered from the way in which Plato goes on to
speak of it. In the sixth century A.D. Simplicius had
access to a copy, doubtless in the library of the

Academy ;° and it is to him we owe the preservation

of all our fragments, with one or two very doubtful

the pupil of Gorgias, who said these were still kept up in his own time. Arist. Rhet. B, 23. 1398 Ὁ 15.

1 Diog. i. 16; ii. 6 (R. P. 5 3 153).

2 Schaubach (4. Claz. Fragm. p. 57) fabricated a work entitled τὸ πρὸς Λεχίνεον out of the pseudo-Aristotelian de plantis, 817 ἃ 27. But the Latin version of Alfred, which is the original of the Greek, has simply e¢ tdeo dictt lechineon ; and this appears to be due to a failure to make out the Arabic text from which the Latin version was derived. Cf. Meyer, Gesch.. α΄. Bot. i. 60.

* It comes from Vitruvius, vii. pr. 11. A forger, seeking to decorate his production with a great name, would think naturally of the philosopher who was said to have taught Euripides,

* Plut. de Exzlio, 607 f. The words merely mean that he used to draw mathematical figures relating to the quadrature of the circle on the prison floor.

ἢ Apol. 26 d-e. The expression βιβλία perhaps implies that it filled more than one roll.

§ Simplicius also speaks of βιβλία.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenai 299

exceptions. Unfortunately his quotations seem to be
confined to the First Book, that dealing with general
principles, so that we are left somewhat in the dark
with regard to the treatment of details. This is the
more unfortunate, as it was Anaxagoras who first gave
the true theory of the moon’s light and, therefore, the
true theory of eclipses.

126. I give the fragments according to the text and
arrangement of Diels, who has made some of them
completely intelligible for the first time.

(1) All things were together infinite both in number and in smallness ; for the small too was infinite. And, when all things were together, none of them could be distinguished for their smallness. For air and aether prevailed over all things, being both of them infinite; for amongst all things these are the greatest both in quantity and size. R. P. 151.

(2) For air and aether are separated off from the mass
that surrounds the world, and the surrounding mass is infinite
in quantity. R. P. 2.

(3) Nor is there a least of what is small, but there is always a smaller ; for it cannot be that what is should cease to be by being cut.2 But there is also always something greater than what is great, and it is equal to the small in amount, and, compared with itself, each thing is both great and small. R. P. 159 a.

(4) And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours (R. P. 202.), and that men have been formed in them, and the other animals that have life, and that these men have inhabited cities and cultivated fields as

1 Simplicius tells us that this fragment was at the beginning of Book I. The familiar sentence quoted by Diog. ii. 6 (R. P. 153) is not a fragment of Anaxagoras, but a summary, like the πάντα ῥεῖ ascribed to Herakleitos (Chap. III. p. 162).

2 Zeller’s τομῇ still seems to me a convincing correction of the MS. τὸ μή, which Diels retains.

The Fragments

300 Early Greek Philosophy

with us ; and that they have a sun and a moon and the rest as

‘with us; and that their earth brings forth for them many

things of all kinds of which they gather the best together into their dwellings, and use them (R. P. 160 b). Thus much have I said with regard to separating off, to show that it will not be only with us that things are separated off, but elsewhere too. |

But before they were separated off, when all things were together, not even was any colour distinguishable; for the mixture of all things prevented it—of the moist and the dry, and the warm and the cold, and the light and the dark, and of much earth that was in it, and of a multitude of in- numerable seeds in no way like each other. For none of the other things either is like any other. And these things being so, we must hold that all things are in the whole. R. P. 151.!

(5) And those things having been thus decided, we must know that all of them are neither more nor less ; for it is not possible for them to be more than all, and all are always equal. 2. eT,

(6) And since the portions of the great and of the small are equal in amount, for this reason, too, all things will be in everything ; nor is it possible for them to be apart, but all things have a portion of everything. Since it is impossible for there to be a least thing, they cannot be separated, nor come to be by themselves ; but they must be now, just as they were in the beginning, all together. And in all things many things are contained, and an equal number both in the greater and in the smaller of the things that are separated off.

(7) . . . So that we cannot know the number of the things that are separated off, either in word or deed.

(8) The things that are in one world are not divided nor
cut off from one another with a hatchet, neither the warm
from the cold nor the cold from the warm. R. P. 155 e.

(9) . . . as these things revolve and are separated out by the force and swiftness. And the swiftness makes the force. Their swiftness is not like the swiftness of any of the things

11 had already pointed out in the first edition that Simplicius quotes this three times as a continuous fragment, and that we are not entitled to break it up. Diels now prints it as a single passage.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenai 301

that are now among men, but in every way many times as swift.

(10) How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh? R. P. 155 f, ἢ. 1.

(11) In everything there is a portion of everything except Nous, and there are some things in which there is Nous also. R. P. 160 b.

(12) All other things partake in a portion of everything, while Nous is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any ; for in everything there is a portion of everything, as has been said by me in what goes before, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it would have power over nothing in the same way that it has now being alone by itself. For it is the thinnest of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge about everything and the greatest strength ; and Nous has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have life. And Nous had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning ; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still. And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by Nous. And Nous set in order all things that were to be, and all things that were and are not now and that are, and this revolution in which now revolve the stars and the sun and the moon, and the air and the aether that are separated off. And this revolution caused the separating off, and the rare is separated off from the dense, the warm from the cold, the light from the dark, and the dry from the moist. And there are many portions in many things, But no thing is altogether separated _ off nor distinguished from anything else except Nous. And all Nous is alike, both the greater and the smaller; while nothing else is like anything else, but each single thing is and was most — manifestly those things of which it has most in it. R. P. 155.

(13) And when Nous began to move things, separating off took place from all that was moved, and so far as Nous set in motion all was separated. And as things were set in motion

Anaxagoras and his §

predecessors.

302 Early Greek Philosophy

and separated, the revolution caused them to be separated

much more. (14) And Nous, which ever is, is certainly there, where

‘everything else is, in the surrounding mass, and in what has

been united with it and separated off from it.’

(15) The dense and the moist and the cold and the dark
came together where the earth is now, while the rare and the
warm and the dry (and the bright) went out towards the
further part of the aether.? R. P. 156.

(16) From these as they are separated off earth is solidified ; for from mists water is separated off, and from water earth. From the earth stones are solidified by the cold, and these rush outwards more than water. R. P. 156.

(17) The Hellenes follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation. R. P. 150.

(18) It is the sun that puts brightness into the moon.

(19) We call rainbow the reflexion of the sun in the clouds. Now it is a sign of storm; for the water that flows round the cloud causes wind or pours down in rain.

(20) With the rise of the Dogstar men begin the harvest ; ; with its setting they begin to till the fields. It is hidden for forty days and nights.

(21) From the weakness of our senses we are not able to judge the truth.

(21a) What appears is a vision of the unseen,

(214) (We can make use of the lower animals) because we use our Own experience and memory and wisdom and art.

(22) What is called “ birds’ milk” is the white of the egg.

127. The system of Anaxagoras, like that of
Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine
that corporeal substance is unchangeable with the

1 Simplicius gives fr. 14 thus (p. 157, 5): ὁ δὲ νοῦς ὅσα ἐστί τε κάρτα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν. Diels now reads ὁ δὲ νοῦς, ds dc<el> ἐστι, τὸ κάρτα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν. The correspondence of ἀεὶ. . . καὶ viv is strongly in favour of this.

2 On the text of fr. 15, see R. P. 156 a. I have followed Schorn in adding καὶ τὸ λαμπρόν from Hippolytos.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenai 303

appearance of coming into being and passing away.
The conclusions of Parmenides are frankly accepted and
restated. Nothing can be added to all things ; for there
cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr. 5).
Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly
call coming into being and passing away is really
mixture and separation (fr. 17).

This last fragment reads almost like a prose para-
phrase of Empedokles (fr. 9); and it is in every way
probable that Anaxagoras derived his theory of
mixture from his younger contemporary, whose poem
was most likely published before his own treatise." We
have seen how Empedokles sought to save the world
of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot
and cold, moist and dry—were ¢hings, each one of
which was real inthe Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras
regarded this as inadequate. Everything changes into
everything else,’ the things of which the world is made
are not “cut off with a hatchet” (fr. 8) in this way.
On the contrary, the true formula must be: Zhere zs a
portion of everything in everything (fr. 11).

128. A part-of the argument by which Anaxagoras
sought to prove this point has been preserved in a
corrupt form by Aetios, and Diels has recovered some
of the original words from the scholiast on St. Gregory
Nazianzene. “ We use a simple nourishment,” he said,
“when we eat the fruit of Demeter or drink water. But
how can hair be made of what is not hair, or flesh of