1 The view here taken most resembles that of the ‘‘ Homeric allegorist ” Herakleitos (R. P. 12a). That, however, is also a conjecture, probably of Stoic, as the others are of Peripatetic, origin.
2 Arist. de An. A, 5. 411 a 7 (R. P. 13).
3 Aet. i. 7, 11=Stob. i. 56 (R. P. 14). On the sources here referred to, see Appendix, §§ 11, 12.
4 Cicero, de Nat. D.1. 25 (R. P. 13 b). On Cicero’s source, see Dox. pp. 125, 128. The Herculanean papyrus of Philodemos is, unfortunately,
a ie ot 6 ee ee ee
The Milesian School 51
from the cautious statement of Aristotle, and can have no greater authority than its source. We need not enter,
_ then, upon the old controversy whether. Thales was an
atheist or not. It is really irrelevant. If we may judge from his successors, he may very possibly have called water divine ; but, if he had any religious beliefs at all, we may be sure they were quite unconnected with his cosmological theory. Nor must we make too much of the saying itself that “all things are full of gods.” It is often supposed to mean that Thales attributed a “plastic life” to matter, or that he was a “hylozoist.” We have seen already how misleading this way of speaking is apt to be,’ and we shall do well to avoid it. It is not safe to regard such an apophthegm as evidence for anything ; the chances are that it belongs to Thales as one of the Seven Wise Men, rather than as founder of the Milesian school. Further, such sayings are, as a rule, anonymous to begin with, and are attributed now to one sage and now to another.? On the other hand, it is extremely probable that Thales did say that the magnet and amber had souls. That is no apophthegm, but something more on the level of the statement that the earth floats on the water. It is, in fact, just the sort of thing we should expect Hekataios to record about Thales. It would be wrong, however, to draw any inferences from it as to his view of the world ; for defective just at this point, but it is not likely that the Epicurean manual anticipated Cicero’s mistake. 1 See Introd. § VIII. 3 Plato refers to the saying πάντα πλήρη θεῶν in Laws, 899 Ὁ 9 (R. P. 14 ὃ), without mentioning Thales. That ascribed to Herakleitos in the de par. An. A, 5. 645 a 17 seems to be a mere variation on it. So in Diog. ix. 7
(R. P. 46d) Herakleitos is credited with the saying πάντα ψυχῶν εἶναι κα δαιμόνων πλήρη. :
Life.
52 Early Greek Philosophy
to say that the magnet and amber are alive is to imply, if anything, that other things are not.’
Ii]. Anaximander
12. The next name that has come down to us is
that of Anaximander, son of Praxiades. He too was
a citizen of Miletos, and Theophrastos described him °
as an “associate” of Thales. We have seen how that
expression is to be understood (§ XIV.).
According to Apollodoros, Anaximander was sixty-
four years old in Ol. LVIII. 2 (547/6 B.c.); and this
is confirmed by Hippolytos, who says he was born in
Ol. XLII. 3 (610/9 B.c.), and by Pliny, who assigns
his discovery of the obliquity of the zodiac to the same
Olympiad.’ We seem to have here something more
than a mere combination of the ordinary type; for,
according to all the rules of Alexandrian chronology,
Anaximander should have “flourished” in 565 B.C,
that is, just half-way between Thales and Anaximenes,
and this would make him sixty, not sixty-four, in 546.
Now Apollodoros appears to have said that he had
met with the work of Anaximander; and his reason
for mentioning this must be that he found in it some
indication which enabled him to fix its date without
having recourse to conjectiire. Diels suggests that
Anaximander may have given his age at the time
of writing as sixty-four, and that the book may have
1 Baumker, Das Probley: der Materie, p. 10, n. 1.
2, R. P. 15d. That the words πολίτης καὶ ἑταῖρος, given by Simplicius, de Caelo, p. 615, 13, are the original words of Theophrastos is shown by the agreement of Cic. Acad. ii. 118, popularis et sodalis. The two passages represent quite independent branches of the tradition. See Appendix, S$ 7, 12. ;
3 Diog. ii. 2 (R. P. 15); Hipp. Rey. i. 6 (Dox. p. 560); Plin. .Z.
_ ii, 31. Pliny’s dates come from Apollodoros through Nepos.
i> ae
‘ .
yas ta
t a et,
se ΝΡ ἢ ree a Mae ’
The Milesian School 53
contained.some other statement showing it to have
been published in 547/6 B.c.1 Perhaps, however, this
hardly does justice to the fact that the year given is
just that which preceded the fall of Sardeis and the
subjugation of the Lydian empire by the Persians. It
may be a more plausible conjecture that Anaximander,
writing some years later, incidentally mentioned what
his age had been at the time of that great crisis. We
know from Xenophanes that the question, “How old
were you when the Mede appeared?” was considered
an interesting one in those days.” At all events, we
seem to be justified in believing that Anaximander was
a generation younger than Thales. When he died we
do not really know.®
Like his predecessor, Anaximander distinguished
himself by certain practical inventions. Some writers
credited him with that of the gvomon; but that can
hardly be correct. Herodotos tells us this instrument
came from Babylon, so perhaps it was Anaximander
who made it known among the Greeks. He was also
the first to construct a map, and Eratosthenes said this
was the map elaborated by Hekataios.*
1 Rhein. Mus. xxxi. p. 24.
* Xenophanes, fr. 22 (fr. 17, Karsten; R. P. 95 a). Jacoby (p. 190) thinks that Apollodoros fixed the orwit of Anaximander forty years before that of Pythagoras, that is, in 572/1 B.c., and that the statement as to his age in 547/6 is a mere inference from this.
3 The statement that he ‘‘ died soon after” (Diog. ii. 2; R. P. 15) seems to mean that Apollodoros made him die in the year of Sardeis (§46/5), one of his regular epochs. If this is so, Apollodoros cannot have said also that he flourished in the days of Polykrates, and Diels is probably right in supposing that this notice refers to Pythagoras and -has been inserted in _ the wrong place.
4 For the gnomon, see Introd. p. 31, n. 1; andcf. Diog. ἢ ii. r (R. P. 15) + Herod. ii. 109 (R. P. 15 a). Pliny, on the other hand, ascribes the invention of the gnomon to Anaximenes (4V.H. ii. 87). The truth seems
to be that the erection of celebrated gnomons was traditionally ascribed to certain philosophers. That of Delos was referred to Pherekydes. For o> a oy
Ong
Theophrastos
54 Early Greek Philosophy
13. Nearly all we know of Anaximander’s system
on Anaximan- , der's theory of 1S derived in the last resort from Theophrastos." As
the primary substance.
ee
re ὩΣ
to the credibility of what we are told on his authority,
it is enough to remark that the original work, which
was in the hands of Apollodoros, must certainly have
existed in the time of Theophrastos. Moreover, he
seems once at least to have quoted Anaximander’s own
words, and he criticised his style. Here are the
remains of what he said of him in the First Book :—
Anaximander of Miletos, son of Praxiades, a fellow-citizen and associate of Thales,? said that the material cause and first element of things was the Infinite, he being the first to intro- duce this name for the material cause. He says it is neither water nor any other of the so-called * elements, but a substance different from them which is infinite, from which arise all the heavens and the worlds within them.—Pfys. Of. fr. 2 (Dox. p. 476; R. P. 16).
He says that this is eternal and ageless, and that it encom- passes all the worlds.—Hipp. Ref i. 6 (R. P. 17 a).
And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, ‘“‘as is ordained; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the appointed time,” as he says * in these somewhat poetical terms.—Phys. Op. fr. 2 (R. P. 16)/
the map see Agathemeros, i. 1, ᾿Αναξίμανδρος ὁ Μιλήσιος ἀκουστὴς Θαλέω πρῶτος ἐτόλμησε τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐν πίνακι γράψαι, μεθ᾽ ὃν Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Μιλήσιος ἀνὴρ πολυπλανὴς διηκρίβωσεν, ὥστε θαυμασθῆναι τὸ πρᾶγμα. This is from Eratosthenes, Cf. Strabo, i. p. 7.
1 See the conspectus of extracts from Theophrastos given by Diels, Dox. p. 133; Vors. pp. 13 sqq. In this and other cases, where the words of the original have been preserved by Simplicius, I have given them alone. On the various writers quoted, see Appendix, §§ 9 sqq.
? Simplicius says ‘‘ successor and disciple” (διάδοχος καὶ μαθητής) in his Commentary on the Physics ; but see above, p. 52, ἢ. 2.
3 For the expression τὰ καλούμενα στοιχεῖα, see Diels, Elementum, p. 25, ἢ. 4. In view of this, we must keep the MS. reading εἶναι, instead of writing νυνέ with Usener.
4 Diels ( Vors, p.13) begins the actual quotation with the words ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσις... The Greek practice of blending quotations with the text
The Milesian School 55
And besides this, there was an eternal motion, in the course of which was brought about the origin of the worlds.—Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 17 a).
He did not ascribe the origin of things to any alteration in matter, but said that the oppositions in the substratum, which was a boundless body, were separated out.—Simpl. Phys. Ρ. 150, 20 (ΚΕ. P. 18).
14. Anaximander taught, then, that there was one The primary
substance is
eternal, indestructible substance out of which everything not one of the
arises, and into which everything once more returns ;
a boundless stock from which the waste of existence is —
continually. being made good. This is only the natural
development of the thought we have ventured to
ascribe to Thales, and there can be no doubt that
Anaximander at least distinctly formulated it. Indeed,
we can still follow to some extent the reasoning which
‘led him todoso. Thales had regarded water as the
most likely of all the things we know to be that of
which all others are forms; Anaximander appears to
have asked himself how the primary substance could
be one of these particular things. His argument seems
to be preserved by Aristotle, who has the following
passage in his discussion of the Infinite :—
Further, there cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, nor without this qualification. For there are some who make this (ze. a body distinct from the elements) the infinite, and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity. They are in opposition one to another—air is cold, water moist, and fire hot—and therefore, if any one of them were infinite, the rest would have ceased to be by this time. Accordingly they
tells against this. It is very rare for a Greek writer to open a verbal quotation abruptly. Further, it is safer not to ascribe the terms γένεσις and φθορά in their technica] Platonic sense te Anaximander.
‘* elements.”
ea
56 Early Greek Philosophy
say that what is infinite is something other than the elements, and from it the elements arise.—Arist. Phys. T, 5. 204 Ὁ 22 (R. P. 16 b).
It is clear that in this passage Anaximander is con-
trasted with Thales and with Anaximenes. Nor is there
any reason to doubt that the account given of his
reasoning is substantially correct, though the form is
Aristotle’s own,and the mention of “elements” is an
anachronism: | Anaximander was struck, it would
seem, by the opposition and strife between the things
which go to make up the world; the warm fire was
opposed to the cold air, the dry earth to the moist sea.
These opposites were at war, and any predominance of
one over the other was an “injustice” for which they
must make reparation to one another.” We may-
suppose that his thoughts ran somewhat as follows.
~ If Thales had been right in saying that water was the
fundamental reality, it would not be easy to see how
anything else could ever have existed. One side of
the opposition, tte cold and moist, would have had its
way unchecked, ‘injustice would have prevailed, and the
warm and dry would have been driven from the field
long ago. We must, then, have something which is
not itself one of the warring opposites we know, some-
thing more primitive, out of which they arise, and into
which they once more pass away. That Anaximander
called this something by the name of φύσις, is clear