All of this, however, must not be taken as casting any doubt upon the existence of Thales as a real person. Even the dates of his life—640 to 546 B.C.—may be accepted as at least approximately trustworthy; and the specific discoveries ascribed to him illustrate equally well the stage of development of Greek thought, whether Thales himself or one of his immediate disciples were the discoverer. We have already mentioned the feat which was said to have given Thales his great reputation. That Thales was universally credited with having predicted the famous eclipse is beyond question. That he actually did predict it in any precise sense of the word is open to doubt. At all events, his prediction was not based upon any such precise knowledge as that of the modern astronomer. There is, indeed, only one way in which he could have foretold the eclipse, and that is through knowledge of the regular succession of preceding eclipses. But that knowledge implies access on the part of some one to long series of records of practical observations of the heavens. Such records, as we have seen, existed in Egypt and even more notably in Babylonia. That these records were the source of the information which established the reputation of Thales is an unavoidable inference. In other words, the magical prevision of the father of Greek thought was but a reflex of Oriental wisdom. Nevertheless, it sufficed to establish Thales as the father of Greek astronomy. In point of fact, his actual astronomical attainments would appear to have been meagre enough. There is nothing to show that he gained an inkling of the true character of the solar system. He did not even recognize the sphericity of the earth, but held, still following the Oriental authorities, that the world is a flat disk. Even his famous cosmogonic guess, according to which water is the essence of all things and the primordial element out of which the earth was developed, is but an elaboration of the Babylonian conception.

When we turn to the other field of thought with which the name of Thales is associated—namely, geometry—we again find evidence of the Oriental influence. The science of geometry, Herodotus assures us, was invented in Egypt. It was there an eminently practical science, being applied, as the name literally suggests, to the measurement of the earth's surface. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians were obliged to cultivate the science because the periodical inundations washed away the boundary-lines between their farms. The primitive geometer, then, was a surveyor. The Egyptian records, as now revealed to us, show that the science had not been carried far in the land of its birth. The Egyptian geometer was able to measure irregular pieces of land only approximately. He never fully grasped the idea of the perpendicular as the true index of measurement for the triangle, but based his calculations upon measurements of the actual side of that figure. Nevertheless, he had learned to square the circle with a close approximation to the truth, and, in general, his measurement sufficed for all his practical needs. Just how much of the geometrical knowledge which added to the fame of Thales was borrowed directly from the Egyptians, and how much he actually created we cannot be sure. Nor is the question raised in disparagement of his genius. Receptivity is the first prerequisite to progressive thinking, and that Thales reached out after and imbibed portions of Oriental wisdom argues in itself for the creative character of his genius. Whether borrower of originator, however, Thales is credited with the expression of the following geometrical truths:

1. That the circle is bisected by its diameter.

2. That the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal.

3. That when two straight lines cut each other the vertical opposite angles are equal.

4. That the angle in a semicircle is a right angle.

5. That one side and one acute angle of a right-angle triangle determine the other sides of the triangle.

It was by the application of the last of these principles that Thales is said to have performed the really notable feat of measuring the distance of a ship from the shore, his method being precisely the same in principle as that by which the guns are sighted on a modern man-of-war. Another practical demonstration which Thales was credited with making, and to which also his geometrical studies led him, was the measurement of any tall object, such as a pyramid or building or tree, by means of its shadow. The method, though simple enough, was ingenious. It consisted merely in observing the moment of the day when a perpendicular stick casts a shadow equal to its own length. Obviously the tree or monument would also cast a shadow equal to its own height at the same moment. It remains then but to measure the length of this shadow to determine the height of the object. Such feats as this evidence the practicality of the genius of Thales. They suggest that Greek science, guided by imagination, was starting on the high-road of observation. We are told that Thales conceived for the first time the geometry of lines, and that this, indeed, constituted his real advance upon the Egyptians. We are told also that he conceived the eclipse of the sun as a purely natural phenomenon, and that herein lay his advance upon the Chaldean point of view. But if this be true Thales was greatly in advance of his time, for it will be recalled that fully two hundred years later the Greeks under Nicias before Syracuse were so disconcerted by the appearance of an eclipse, which was interpreted as a direct omen and warning, that Nicias threw away the last opportunity to rescue his army. Thucydides, it is true, in recording this fact speaks disparagingly of the superstitious bent of the mind of Nicias, but Thucydides also was a man far in advance of his time.

All that we know of the psychology of Thales is summed up in the famous maxim, "Know thyself," a maxim which, taken in connection with the proven receptivity of the philosopher's mind, suggests to us a marvellously rounded personality.

The disciples or successors of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, were credited with advancing knowledge through the invention or introduction of the sundial. We may be sure, however, that the gnomon, which is the rudimentary sundial, had been known and used from remote periods in the Orient, and the most that is probable is that Anaximander may have elaborated some special design, possibly the bowl-shaped sundial, through which the shadow of the gnomon would indicate the time. The same philosopher is said to have made the first sketch of a geographical map, but this again is a statement which modern researches have shown to be fallacious, since a Babylonian attempt at depicting the geography of the world is still preserved to us on a clay tablet. Anaximander may, however, have been the first Greek to make an attempt of this kind. Here again the influence of Babylonian science upon the germinating Western thought is suggested.

It is said that Anaximander departed from Thales's conception of the earth, and, it may be added, from the Babylonian conception also, in that he conceived it as a cylinder, or rather as a truncated cone, the upper end of which is the habitable portion. This conception is perhaps the first of these guesses through which the Greek mind attempted to explain the apparent fixity of the earth. To ask what supports the earth in space is most natural, but the answer given by Anaximander, like that more familiar Greek solution which transformed the cone, or cylinder, into the giant Atlas, is but another illustration of that substitution of unwarranted inference for scientific induction which we have already so often pointed out as characteristic of the primitive stages of thought.

Anaximander held at least one theory which, as vouched for by various copyists and commentators, entitles him to be considered perhaps the first teacher of the idea of organic evolution. According to this idea, man developed from a fishlike ancestor, "growing up as sharks do until able to help himself and then coming forth on dry land."(1) The thought here expressed finds its germ, perhaps, in the Babylonian conception that everything came forth from a chaos of waters. Yet the fact that the thought of Anaximander has come down to posterity through such various channels suggests that the Greek thinker had got far enough away from the Oriental conception to make his view seem to his contemporaries a novel and individual one. Indeed, nothing we know of the Oriental line of thought conveys any suggestion of the idea of transformation of species, whereas that idea is distinctly formulated in the traditional views of Anaximander.



VI. THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY

Diogenes Laertius tells a story about a youth who, clad in a purple toga, entered the arena at the Olympian games and asked to compete with the other youths in boxing. He was derisively denied admission, presumably because he was beyond the legitimate age for juvenile contestants. Nothing daunted, the youth entered the lists of men, and turned the laugh on his critics by coming off victor. The youth who performed this feat was named Pythagoras. He was the same man, if we may credit the story, who afterwards migrated to Italy and became the founder of the famous Crotonian School of Philosophy; the man who developed the religion of the Orphic mysteries; who conceived the idea of the music of the spheres; who promulgated the doctrine of metempsychosis; who first, perhaps, of all men clearly conceived the notion that this world on which we live is a ball which moves in space and which may be habitable on every side.

A strange development that for a stripling pugilist. But we must not forget that in the Greek world athletics held a peculiar place. The chief winner of Olympian games gave his name to an epoch (the ensuing Olympiad of four years), and was honored almost before all others in the land. A sound mind in a sound body was the motto of the day. To excel in feats of strength and dexterity was an accomplishment that even a philosopher need not scorn. It will be recalled that aeschylus distinguished himself at the battle of Marathon; that Thucydides, the greatest of Greek historians, was a general in the Peloponnesian War; that Xenophon, the pupil and biographer of Socrates, was chiefly famed for having led the Ten Thousand in the memorable campaign of Cyrus the Younger; that Plato himself was credited with having shown great aptitude in early life as a wrestler. If, then, Pythagoras the philosopher was really the Pythagoras who won the boxing contest, we may suppose that in looking back upon this athletic feat from the heights of his priesthood—for he came to be almost deified—he regarded it not as an indiscretion of his youth, but as one of the greatest achievements of his life. Not unlikely he recalled with pride that he was credited with being no less an innovator in athletics than in philosophy. At all events, tradition credits him with the invention of "scientific" boxing. Was it he, perhaps, who taught the Greeks to strike a rising and swinging blow from the hip, as depicted in the famous metopes of the Parthenon? If so, the innovation of Pythagoras was as little heeded in this regard in a subsequent age as was his theory of the motion of the earth; for to strike a swinging blow from the hip, rather than from the shoulder, is a trick which the pugilist learned anew in our own day.

But enough of pugilism and of what, at best, is a doubtful tradition. Our concern is with another "science" than that of the arena. We must follow the purple-robed victor to Italy—if, indeed, we be not over-credulous in accepting the tradition—and learn of triumphs of a different kind that have placed the name of Pythagoras high on the list of the fathers of Grecian thought. To Italy? Yes, to the western limits of the Greek world. Here it was, beyond the confines of actual Greek territory, that Hellenic thought found its second home, its first home being, as we have seen, in Asia Minor. Pythagoras, indeed, to whom we have just been introduced, was born on the island of Samos, which lies near the coast of Asia Minor, but he probably migrated at an early day to Crotona, in Italy. There he lived, taught, and developed his philosophy until rather late in life, when, having incurred the displeasure of his fellow-citizens, he suffered the not unusual penalty of banishment.

Of the three other great Italic leaders of thought of the early period, Xenophanes came rather late in life to Elea and founded the famous Eleatic School, of which Parmenides became the most distinguished ornament. These two were Ionians, and they lived in the sixth century before our era. Empedocles, the Sicilian, was of Doric origin. He lived about the middle of the fifth century B.C., at a time, therefore, when Athens had attained a position of chief glory among the Greek states; but there is no evidence that Empedocles ever visited that city, though it was rumored that he returned to the Peloponnesus to die. The other great Italic philosophers just named, living, as we have seen, in the previous century, can scarcely have thought of Athens as a centre of Greek thought. Indeed, the very fact that these men lived in Italy made that peninsula, rather than the mother-land of Greece, the centre of Hellenic influence. But all these men, it must constantly be borne in mind, were Greeks by birth and language, fully recognized as such in their own time and by posterity. Yet the fact that they lived in a land which was at no time a part of the geographical territory of Greece must not be forgotten. They, or their ancestors of recent generations, had been pioneers among those venturesome colonists who reached out into distant portions of the world, and made homes for themselves in much the same spirit in which colonists from Europe began to populate America some two thousand years later. In general, colonists from the different parts of Greece localized themselves somewhat definitely in their new homes; yet there must naturally have been a good deal of commingling among the various families of pioneers, and, to a certain extent, a mingling also with the earlier inhabitants of the country. This racial mingling, combined with the well-known vitalizing influence of the pioneer life, led, we may suppose, to a more rapid and more varied development than occurred among the home-staying Greeks. In proof of this, witness the remarkable schools of philosophy which, as we have seen, were thus developed at the confines of the Greek world, and which were presently to invade and, as it were, take by storm the mother-country itself.

As to the personality of these pioneer philosophers of the West, our knowledge is for the most part more or less traditional. What has been said of Thales may be repeated, in the main, regarding Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Empedocles. That they were real persons is not at all in question, but much that is merely traditional has come to be associated with their names. Pythagoras was the senior, and doubtless his ideas may have influenced the others more or less, though each is usually spoken of as the founder of an independent school. Much confusion has all along existed, however, as to the precise ideas which were to be ascribed to each of the leaders. Numberless commentators, indeed, have endeavored to pick out from among the traditions of antiquity, aided by such fragments, of the writing of the philosophers as have come down to us, the particular ideas that characterized each thinker, and to weave these ideas into systems. But such efforts, notwithstanding the mental energy that has been expended upon them, were, of necessity, futile, since, in the first place, the ancient philosophers themselves did not specialize and systematize their ideas according to modern notions, and, in the second place, the records of their individual teachings have been too scantily preserved to serve for the purpose of classification. It is freely admitted that fable has woven an impenetrable mesh of contradictions about the personalities of these ancient thinkers, and it would be folly to hope that this same artificer had been less busy with their beliefs and theories. When one reads that Pythagoras advocated an exclusively vegetable diet, yet that he was the first to train athletes on meat diet; that he sacrificed only inanimate things, yet that he offered up a hundred oxen in honor of his great discovery regarding the sides of a triangle, and such like inconsistencies in the same biography, one gains a realizing sense of the extent to which diverse traditions enter into the story as it has come down to us. And yet we must reflect that most men change their opinions in the course of a long lifetime, and that the antagonistic reports may both be true.

True or false, these fables have an abiding interest, since they prove the unique and extraordinary character of the personality about which they are woven. The alleged witticisms of a Whistler, in our own day, were doubtless, for the most part, quite unknown to Whistler himself, yet they never would have been ascribed to him were they not akin to witticisms that he did originate—were they not, in short, typical expressions of his personality. And so of the heroes of the past. "It is no ordinary man," said George Henry Lewes, speaking of Pythagoras, "whom fable exalts into the poetic region. Whenever you find romantic or miraculous deeds attributed, be certain that the hero was great enough to maintain the weight of the crown of this fabulous glory."(1) We may not doubt, then, that Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Empedocles, with whose names fable was so busy throughout antiquity, were men of extraordinary personality. We are here chiefly concerned, however, neither with the personality of the man nor yet with the precise doctrines which each one of them taught. A knowledge of the latter would be interesting were it attainable, but in the confused state of the reports that have come down to us we cannot hope to be able to ascribe each idea with precision to its proper source. At best we can merely outline, even here not too precisely, the scientific doctrines which the Italic philosophers as a whole seem to have advocated.

First and foremost, there is the doctrine that the earth is a sphere. Pythagoras is said to have been the first advocate of this theory; but, unfortunately, it is reported also that Parmenides was its author. This rivalship for the discovery of an important truth we shall see repeated over and over in more recent times. Could we know the whole truth, it would perhaps appear that the idea of the sphericity of the earth was originated long before the time of the Greek philosophers. But it must be admitted that there is no record of any sort to give tangible support to such an assumption. So far as we can ascertain, no Egyptian or Babylonian astronomer ever grasped the wonderful conception that the earth is round. That the Italic Greeks should have conceived that idea was perhaps not so much because they were astronomers as because they were practical geographers and geometers. Pythagoras, as we have noted, was born at Samos, and, therefore, made a relatively long sea voyage in passing to Italy. Now, as every one knows, the most simple and tangible demonstration of the convexity of the earth's surface is furnished by observation of an approaching ship at sea. On a clear day a keen eye may discern the mast and sails rising gradually above the horizon, to be followed in due course by the hull. Similarly, on approaching the shore, high objects become visible before those that lie nearer the water. It is at least a plausible supposition that Pythagoras may have made such observations as these during the voyage in question, and that therein may lie the germ of that wonderful conception of the world as a sphere.

To what extent further proof, based on the fact that the earth's shadow when the moon is eclipsed is always convex, may have been known to Pythagoras we cannot say. There is no proof that any of the Italic philosophers made extensive records of astronomical observations as did the Egyptians and Babylonians; but we must constantly recall that the writings of classical antiquity have been almost altogether destroyed. The absence of astronomical records is, therefore, no proof that such records never existed. Pythagoras, it should be said, is reported to have travelled in Egypt, and he must there have gained an inkling of astronomical methods. Indeed, he speaks of himself specifically, in a letter quoted by Diogenes, as one who is accustomed to study astronomy. Yet a later sentence of the letter, which asserts that the philosopher is not always occupied about speculations of his own fancy, suggesting, as it does, the dreamer rather than the observer, gives us probably a truer glimpse into the philosopher's mind. There is, indeed, reason to suppose that the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth appealed to Pythagoras chiefly because it accorded with his conception that the sphere is the most perfect solid, just as the circle is the most perfect plane surface. Be that as it may, the fact remains that we have here, as far as we can trace its origin, the first expression of the scientific theory that the earth is round. Had the Italic philosophers accomplished nothing more than this, their accomplishment would none the less mark an epoch in the progress of thought.

That Pythagoras was an observer of the heavens is further evidenced by the statement made by Diogenes, on the authority of Parmenides, that Pythagoras was the first person who discovered or asserted the identity of Hesperus and Lucifer—that is to say, of the morning and the evening star. This was really a remarkable discovery, and one that was no doubt instrumental later on in determining that theory of the mechanics of the heavens which we shall see elaborated presently. To have made such a discovery argues again for the practicality of the mind of Pythagoras. His, indeed, would seem to have been a mind in which practical common-sense was strangely blended with the capacity for wide and imaginative generalization. As further evidence of his practicality, it is asserted that he was the first person who introduced measures and weights among the Greeks, this assertion being made on the authority of Aristoxenus. It will be observed that he is said to have introduced, not to have invented, weights and measures, a statement which suggests a knowledge on the part of the Greeks that weights and measures were previously employed in Egypt and Babylonia.

The mind that could conceive the world as a sphere and that interested itself in weights and measures was, obviously, a mind of the visualizing type. It is characteristic of this type of mind to be interested in the tangibilities of geometry, hence it is not surprising to be told that Pythagoras "carried that science to perfection." The most famous discovery of Pythagoras in this field was that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the squares of the other sides of the triangle. We have already noted the fable that his enthusiasm over this discovery led him to sacrifice a hecatomb. Doubtless the story is apocryphal, but doubtless, also, it expresses the truth as to the fervid joy with which the philosopher must have contemplated the results of his creative imagination.

No line alleged to have been written by Pythagoras has come down to us. We are told that he refrained from publishing his doctrines, except by word of mouth. "The Lucanians and the Peucetians, and the Messapians and the Romans," we are assured, "flocked around him, coming with eagerness to hear his discourses; no fewer than six hundred came to him every night; and if any one of them had ever been permitted to see the master, they wrote of it to their friends as if they had gained some great advantage." Nevertheless, we are assured that until the time of Philolaus no doctrines of Pythagoras were ever published, to which statement it is added that "when the three celebrated books were published, Plato wrote to have them purchased for him for a hundred minas."(2) But if such books existed, they are lost to the modern world, and we are obliged to accept the assertions of relatively late writers as to the theories of the great Crotonian.

Perhaps we cannot do better than quote at length from an important summary of the remaining doctrines of Pythagoras, which Diogenes himself quoted from the work of a predecessor.(3) Despite its somewhat inchoate character, this summary is a most remarkable one, as a brief analysis of its contents will show. It should be explained that Alexander (whose work is now lost) is said to have found these dogmas set down in the commentaries of Pythagoras. If this assertion be accepted, we are brought one step nearer the philosopher himself. The summary is as follows:

"That the monad was the beginning of everything. From the monad proceeds an indefinite duad, which is subordinate to the monad as to its cause. That from the monad and the indefinite duad proceed numbers. And from numbers signs. And from these last, lines of which plane figures consist. And from plane figures are derived solid bodies. And from solid bodies sensible bodies, of which last there are four elements—fire, water, earth, and air. And that the world, which is indued with life and intellect, and which is of a spherical figure, having the earth, which is also spherical, and inhabited all over in its centre,(4) results from a combination of these elements, and derives its motion from them; and also that there are antipodes, and that what is below, as respects us, is above in respect of them.

"He also taught that light and darkness, and cold and heat, and dryness and moisture, were equally divided in the world; and that while heat was predominant it was summer; while cold had the mastery, it was winter; when dryness prevailed, it was spring; and when moisture preponderated, winter. And while all these qualities were on a level, then was the loveliest season of the year; of which the flourishing spring was the wholesome period, and the season of autumn the most pernicious one. Of the day, he said that the flourishing period was the morning, and the fading one the evening; on which account that also was the least healthy time.

"Another of his theories was that the air around the earth was immovable and pregnant with disease, and that everything in it was mortal; but that the upper air was in perpetual motion, and pure and salubrious, and that everything in that was immortal, and on that account divine. And that the sun and the moon and the stars were all gods; for in them the warm principle predominates which is the cause of life. And that the moon derives its light from the sun. And that there is a relationship between men and the gods, because men partake of the divine principle; on which account, also, God exercises his providence for our advantage. Also, that Fate is the cause of the arrangement of the world both generally and particularly. Moreover, that a ray from the sun penetrated both the cold aether and the dense aether; and they call the air the cold aether, and the sea and moisture they call the dense aether. And this ray descends into the depths, and in this way vivifies everything. And everything which partakes of the principle of heat lives, on which account, also, plants are animated beings; but that all living things have not necessarily souls. And that the soul is a something tom off from the aether, both warm and cold, from its partaking of the cold aether. And that the soul is something different from life. Also, that it is immortal, because that from which it has been detached is immortal.

"Also, that animals are born from one another by seeds, and that it is impossible for there to be any spontaneous production by the earth. And that seed is a drop from the brain which contains in itself a warm vapor; and that when this is applied to the womb it transmits virtue and moisture and blood from the brain, from which flesh and sinews and bones and hair and the whole body are produced. And from the vapor is produced the soul, and also sensation. And that the infant first becomes a solid body at the end of forty days; but, according to the principles of harmony, it is not perfect till seven, or perhaps nine, or at most ten months, and then it is brought forth. And that it contains in itself all the principles of life, which are all connected together, and by their union and combination form a harmonious whole, each of them developing itself at the appointed time.

"The senses in general, and especially the sight, are a vapor of excessive warmth, and on this account a man is said to see through air and through water. For the hot principle is opposed by the cold one; since, if the vapor in the eyes were cold, it would have the same temperature as the air, and so would be dissipated. As it is, in some passages he calls the eyes the gates of the sun; and he speaks in a similar manner of hearing and of the other senses.

"He also says that the soul of man is divided into three parts: into intuition and reason and mind, and that the first and last divisions are found also in other animals, but that the middle one, reason, is only found in man. And that the chief abode of the soul is in those parts of the body which are between the heart and the brain. And that that portion of it which is in the heart is the mind; but that deliberation and reason reside in the brain.

"Moreover, that the senses are drops from them; and that the reasoning sense is immortal, but the others are mortal. And that the soul is nourished by the blood; and that reasons are the winds of the soul. That it is invisible, and so are its reasons, since the aether itself is invisible. That the links of the soul are the veins and the arteries and the nerves. But that when it is vigorous, and is by itself in a quiescent state, then its links are words and actions. That when it is cast forth upon the earth it wanders about, resembling the body. Moreover, that Mercury is the steward of the souls, and that on this account he has the name of Conductor, and Commercial, and Infernal, since it is he who conducts the souls from their bodies, and from earth and sea; and that he conducts the pure souls to the highest region, and that he does not allow the impure ones to approach them, nor to come near one another, but commits them to be bound in indissoluble fetters by the Furies. The Pythagoreans also assert that the whole air is full of souls, and that these are those which are accounted daemons and heroes. Also, that it is by them that dreams are sent among men, and also the tokens of disease and health; these last, too, being sent not only to men, but to sheep also, and other cattle. Also that it is they who are concerned with purifications and expiations and all kinds of divination and oracular predictions, and things of that kind."(5)

A brief consideration of this summary of the doctrines of Pythagoras will show that it at least outlines a most extraordinary variety of scientific ideas. (1) There is suggested a theory of monads and the conception of the development from simple to more complex bodies, passing through the stages of lines, plain figures, and solids to sensible bodies. (2) The doctrine of the four elements—fire, water, earth, and air—as the basis of all organisms is put forward. (3) The idea, not merely of the sphericity of the earth, but an explicit conception of the antipodes, is expressed. (4) A conception of the sanitary influence of the air is clearly expressed. (5) An idea of the problems of generation and heredity is shown, together with a distinct disavowal of the doctrine of spontaneous generation—a doctrine which, it may be added, remained in vogue, nevertheless, for some twenty-four hundred years after the time of Pythagoras. (6) A remarkable analysis of mind is made, and a distinction between animal minds and the human mind is based on this analysis. The physiological doctrine that the heart is the organ of one department of mind is offset by the clear statement that the remaining factors of mind reside in the brain. This early recognition of brain as the organ of mind must not be forgotten in our later studies. It should be recalled, however, that a Crotonian physician, Alemaean, a younger contemporary of Pythagoras, is also credited with the same theory. (7) A knowledge of anatomy is at least vaguely foreshadowed in the assertion that veins, arteries, and nerves are the links of the soul. In this connection it should be recalled that Pythagoras was a practical physician.

As against these scientific doctrines, however, some of them being at least remarkable guesses at the truth, attention must be called to the concluding paragraph of our quotation, in which the old familiar daemonology is outlined, quite after the Oriental fashion. We shall have occasion to say more as to this phase of the subject later on. Meantime, before leaving Pythagoras, let us note that his practical studies of humanity led him to assert the doctrine that "the property of friends is common, and that friendship is equality." His disciples, we are told, used to put all their possessions together in one store and use them in common. Here, then, seemingly, is the doctrine of communism put to the test of experiment at this early day. If it seem that reference to this carries us beyond the bounds of science, it may be replied that questions such as this will not lie beyond the bounds of the science of the near future.

XENOPHANES AND PARMENIDES

There is a whimsical tale about Pythagoras, according to which the philosopher was wont to declare that in an earlier state he had visited Hades, and had there seen Homer and Hesiod tortured because of the absurd things they had said about the gods. Apocrypbal or otherwise, the tale suggests that Pythagoras was an agnostic as regards the current Greek religion of his time. The same thing is perhaps true of most of the great thinkers of this earliest period. But one among them was remembered in later times as having had a peculiar aversion to the anthropomorphic conceptions of his fellows. This was Xenophanes, who was born at Colophon probably about the year 580 B.C., and who, after a life of wandering, settled finally in Italy and became the founder of the so-called Eleatic School.

A few fragments of the philosophical poem in which Xenophanes expressed his views have come down to us, and these fragments include a tolerably definite avowal of his faith. "God is one supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind," says Xenophanes. Again he asserts that "mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), that they wear man's clothing and have human voice and body; but," he continues, "if cattle or lions had hands so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle." Elsewhere he says, with great acumen: "There has not been a man, nor will there be, who knows distinctly what I say about the gods or in regard to all things. For even if one chance for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks that he knows."(6)

In the same spirit Xenophanes speaks of the battles of Titans, of giants, and of centaurs as "fictions of former ages." All this tells of the questioning spirit which distinguishes the scientific investigator. Precisely whither this spirit led him we do not know, but the writers of a later time have preserved a tradition regarding a belief of Xenophanes that perhaps entitles him to be considered the father of geology. Thus Hippolytus records that Xenophanes studied the fossils to be found in quarries, and drew from their observation remarkable conclusions. His words are as follows: "Xenophanes believes that once the earth was mingled with the sea, but in the course of time it became freed from moisture; and his proofs are such as these: that shells are found in the midst of the land and among the mountains, that in the quarries of Syracuse the imprints of a fish and of seals had been found, and in Paros the imprint of an anchovy at some depth in the stone, and in Melite shallow impressions of all sorts of sea products. He says that these imprints were made when everything long ago was covered with mud, and then the imprint dried in the mud. Further, he says that all men will be destroyed when the earth sinks into the sea and becomes mud, and that the race will begin anew from the beginning; and this transformation takes place for all worlds."(7) Here, then, we see this earliest of paleontologists studying the fossil-bearing strata of the earth, and drawing from his observations a marvellously scientific induction. Almost two thousand years later another famous citizen of Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, was independently to think out similar conclusions from like observations. But not until the nineteenth century of our era, some twenty-four hundred years after the time of Xenophanes, was the old Greek's doctrine to be accepted by the scientific world. The ideas of Xenophanes were known to his contemporaries and, as we see, quoted for a few centuries by his successors, then they were ignored or quite forgotten; and if any philosopher of an ensuing age before the time of Leonardo championed a like rational explanation of the fossils, we have no record of the fact. The geological doctrine of Xenophanes, then, must be listed among those remarkable Greek anticipations of nineteenth-century science which suffered almost total eclipse in the intervening centuries.

Among the pupils of Xenophanes was Parmenides, the thinker who was destined to carry on the work of his master along the same scientific lines, though at the same time mingling his scientific conceptions with the mysticism of the poet. We have already had occasion to mention that Parmenides championed the idea that the earth is round; noting also that doubts exist as to whether he or Pythagoras originated this doctrine. No explicit answer to this question can possibly be hoped for. It seems clear, however, that for a long time the Italic School, to which both these philosophers belonged, had a monopoly of the belief in question. Parmenides, like Pythagoras, is credited with having believed in the motion of the earth, though the evidence furnished by the writings of the philosopher himself is not as demonstrative as one could wish. Unfortunately, the copyists of a later age were more concerned with metaphysical speculations than with more tangible things. But as far as the fragmentary references to the ideas of Parmenides may be accepted, they do not support the idea of the earth's motion. Indeed, Parmenides is made to say explicitly, in preserved fragments, that "the world is immovable, limited, and spheroidal in form."(8)

Nevertheless, some modern interpreters have found an opposite meaning in Parmenides. Thus Ritter interprets him as supposing "that the earth is in the centre spherical, and maintained in rotary motion by its equiponderance; around it lie certain rings, the highest composed of the rare element fire, the next lower a compound of light and darkness, and lowest of all one wholly of night, which probably indicated to his mind the surface of the earth, the centre of which again he probably considered to be fire."(9) But this, like too many interpretations of ancient thought, appears to read into the fragments ideas which the words themselves do not warrant. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that Parmenides actually held the doctrine of the earth's sphericity. Another glimpse of his astronomical doctrines is furnished us by a fragment which tells us that he conceived the morning and the evening stars to be the same, a doctrine which, as we have seen, was ascribed also to Pythagoras. Indeed, we may repeat that it is quite impossible to distinguish between the astronomical doctrines of these two philosophers.

The poem of Parmenides in which the cosmogonic speculations occur treats also of the origin of man. The author seems to have had a clear conception that intelligence depends on bodily organism, and that the more elaborately developed the organism the higher the intelligence. But in the interpretation of this thought we are hampered by the characteristic vagueness of expression, which may best be evidenced by putting before the reader two English translations of the same stanza. Here is Ritter's rendering, as made into English by his translator, Morrison:

"For exactly as each has the state of his limbs many-jointed, So invariably stands it with men in their mind and their reason; For the system of limbs is that which thinketh in mankind Alike in all and in each: for thought is the fulness."(10)

The same stanza is given thus by George Henry Lewes:

"Such as to each man is the nature of his many-jointed limbs, Such also is the intelligence of each man; for it is The nature of limbs (organization) which thinketh in men, Both in one and in all; for the highest degree of organization gives the highest degree of thought."(11)

Here it will be observed that there is virtual agreement between the translators except as to the last clause, but that clause is most essential. The Greek phrase is (gr to gar pleon esti nohma). Ritter, it will be observed, renders this, "for thought is the fulness." Lewes paraphrases it, "for the highest degree of organization gives the highest degree of thought." The difference is intentional, since Lewes himself criticises the translation of Ritter. Ritter's translation is certainly the more literal, but the fact that such diversity is possible suggests one of the chief elements of uncertainty that hamper our interpretation of the thought of antiquity. Unfortunately, the mind of the commentator has usually been directed towards such subtleties, rather than towards the expression of precise knowledge. Hence it is that the philosophers of Greece are usually thought of as mere dreamers, and that their true status as scientific discoverers is so often overlooked. With these intangibilities we have no present concern beyond this bare mention; for us it suffices to gain as clear an idea as we may of the really scientific conceptions of these thinkers, leaving the subtleties of their deductive reasoning for the most part untouched.

EMPEDOCLES

The latest of the important pre-Socratic philosophers of the Italic school was Empedocles, who was born about 494 B.C. and lived to the age of sixty. These dates make Empedocles strictly contemporary with Anaxagoras, a fact which we shall do well to bear in mind when we come to consider the latter's philosophy in the succeeding chapter. Like Pythagoras, Empedocles is an imposing figure. Indeed, there is much of similarity between the personalities, as between the doctrines, of the two men. Empedocles, like Pythagoras, was a physician; like him also he was the founder of a cult. As statesman, prophet, physicist, physician, reformer, and poet he showed a versatility that, coupled with profundity, marks the highest genius. In point of versatility we shall perhaps hardly find his equal at a later day—unless, indeed, an exception be made of Eratosthenes. The myths that have grown about the name of Empedocles show that he was a remarkable personality. He is said to have been an awe-inspiring figure, clothing himself in Oriental splendor and moving among mankind as a superior being. Tradition has it that he threw himself into the crater of a volcano that his otherwise unexplained disappearance might lead his disciples to believe that he had been miraculously translated; but tradition goes on to say that one of the brazen slippers of the philosopher was thrown up by the volcano, thus revealing his subterfuge. Another tradition of far more credible aspect asserts that Empedocles retreated from Italy, returning to the home of his fathers in Peloponnesus to die there obscurely. It seems odd that the facts regarding the death of so great a man, at so comparatively late a period, should be obscure; but this, perhaps, is in keeping with the personality of the man himself. His disciples would hesitate to ascribe a merely natural death to so inspired a prophet.

Empedocles appears to have been at once an observer and a dreamer. He is credited with noting that the pressure of air will sustain the weight of water in an inverted tube; with divining, without the possibility of proof, that light has actual motion in space; and with asserting that centrifugal motion must keep the heavens from falling. He is credited with a great sanitary feat in the draining of a marsh, and his knowledge of medicine was held to be supernatural. Fortunately, some fragments of the writings of Empedocles have come down to us, enabling us to judge at first hand as to part of his doctrines; while still more is known through the references made to him by Plato, Aristotle, and other commentators. Empedocles was a poet whose verses stood the test of criticism. In this regard he is in a like position with Parmenides; but in neither case are the preserved fragments sufficient to enable us fully to estimate their author's scientific attainments. Philosophical writings are obscure enough at the best, and they perforce become doubly so when expressed in verse. Yet there are certain passages of Empedocles that are unequivocal and full of interest. Perhaps the most important conception which the works of Empedocles reveal to us is the denial of anthropomorphism as applied to deity. We have seen how early the anthropomorphic conception was developed and how closely it was all along clung to; to shake the mind free from it then was a remarkable feat, in accomplishing which Empedocles took a long step in the direction of rationalism. His conception is paralleled by that of another physician, Alcmaeon, of Proton, who contended that man's ideas of the gods amounted to mere suppositions at the very most. A rationalistic or sceptical tendency has been the accompaniment of medical training in all ages.

The words in which Empedocles expresses his conception of deity have been preserved and are well worth quoting: "It is not impossible," he says, "to draw near (to god) even with the eyes or to take hold of him with our hands, which in truth is the best highway of persuasion in the mind of man; for he has no human head fitted to a body, nor do two shoots branch out from the trunk, nor has he feet, nor swift legs, nor hairy parts, but he is sacred and ineffable mind alone, darting through the whole world with swift thoughts."(8)

How far Empedocles carried his denial of anthropomorphism is illustrated by a reference of Aristotle, who asserts "that Empedocles regards god as most lacking in the power of perception; for he alone does not know one of the elements, Strife (hence), of perishable things." It is difficult to avoid the feeling that Empedocles here approaches the modern philosophical conception that God, however postulated as immutable, must also be postulated as unconscious, since intelligence, as we know it, is dependent upon the transmutations of matter. But to urge this thought would be to yield to that philosophizing tendency which has been the bane of interpretation as applied to the ancient thinkers.

Considering for a moment the more tangible accomplishments of Empedocles, we find it alleged that one of his "miracles" consisted of the preservation of a dead body without putrefaction for some weeks after death. We may assume from this that he had gained in some way a knowledge of embalming. As he was notoriously fond of experiment, and as the body in question (assuming for the moment the authenticity of the legend) must have been preserved without disfigurement, it is conceivable even that he had hit upon the idea of injecting the arteries. This, of course, is pure conjecture; yet it finds a certain warrant, both in the fact that the words of Pythagoras lead us to believe that the arteries were known and studied, and in the fact that Empedocles' own words reveal him also as a student of the vascular system. Thus Plutarch cites Empedocles as believing "that the ruling part is not in the head or in the breast, but in the blood; wherefore in whatever part of the body the more of this is spread in that part men excel."(13) And Empedocles' own words, as preserved by Stobaeus, assert "(the heart) lies in seas of blood which dart in opposite directions, and there most of all intelligence centres for men; for blood about the heart is intelligence in the case of man." All this implies a really remarkable appreciation of the dependence of vital activities upon the blood.

This correct physiological conception, however, was by no means the most remarkable of the ideas to which Empedoeles was led by his anatomical studies. His greatest accomplishment was to have conceived and clearly expressed an idea which the modern evolutionist connotes when he speaks of homologous parts—an idea which found a famous modern expositor in Goethe, as we shall see when we come to deal with eighteenth-century science. Empedocles expresses the idea in these words: "Hair, and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, are the same thing in origin, and reptile scales too on strong limbs. But on hedgehogs sharp-pointed hair bristles on their backs."(14) That the idea of transmutation of parts, as well as of mere homology, was in mind is evidenced by a very remarkable sentence in which Aristotle asserts, "Empedocles says that fingernails rise from sinew from hardening." Nor is this quite all, for surely we find the germ of the Lamarckian conception of evolution through the transmission of acquired characters in the assertion that "many characteristics appear in animals because it happened to be thus in their birth, as that they have such a spine because they happen to be descended from one that bent itself backward."(15) Aristotle, in quoting this remark, asserts, with the dogmatism which characterizes the philosophical commentators of every age, that "Empedocles is wrong," in making this assertion; but Lamarck, who lived twenty-three hundred years after Empedocles, is famous in the history of the doctrine of evolution for elaborating this very idea.

It is fair to add, however, that the dreamings of Empedocles regarding the origin of living organisms led him to some conceptions that were much less luminous. On occasion, Empedocles the poet got the better of Empedocles the scientist, and we are presented with a conception of creation as grotesque as that which delighted the readers of Paradise Lost at a later day. Empedocles assures us that "many heads grow up without necks, and arms were wandering about, necks bereft of shoulders, and eyes roamed about alone with no foreheads."(16) This chaotic condition, so the poet dreamed, led to the union of many incongruous parts, producing "creatures with double faces, offspring of oxen with human faces, and children of men with oxen heads." But out of this chaos came, finally, we are led to infer, a harmonious aggregation of parts, producing ultimately the perfected organisms that we see. Unfortunately the preserved portions of the writings of Empedocles do not enlighten us as to the precise way in which final evolution was supposed to be effected; although the idea of endless experimentation until natural selection resulted in survival of the fittest seems not far afield from certain of the poetical assertions. Thus: "As divinity was mingled yet more with divinity, these things (the various members) kept coming together in whatever way each might chance." Again: "At one time all the limbs which form the body united into one by love grew vigorously in the prime of life; but yet at another time, separated by evil Strife, they wander each in different directions along the breakers of the sea of life. Just so is it with plants, and with fishes dwelling in watery halls, and beasts whose lair is in the mountains, and birds borne on wings."(17)

All this is poetry rather than science, yet such imaginings could come only to one who was groping towards what we moderns should term an evolutionary conception of the origins of organic life; and however grotesque some of these expressions may appear, it must be admitted that the morphological ideas of Empedocles, as above quoted, give the Sicilian philosopher a secure place among the anticipators of the modern evolutionist.



VII. GREEK SCIENCE IN THE EARLY ATTIC PERIOD

We have travelled rather far in our study of Greek science, and yet we have not until now come to Greece itself. And even now, the men whose names we are to consider were, for the most part, born in out-lying portions of the empire; they differed from the others we have considered only in the fact that they were drawn presently to the capital. The change is due to a most interesting sequence of historical events. In the day when Thales and his immediate successors taught in Miletus, when the great men of the Italic school were in their prime, there was no single undisputed Centre of Greek influence. The Greeks were a disorganized company of petty nations, welded together chiefly by unity of speech; but now, early in the fifth century B.C., occurred that famous attack upon the Western world by the Persians under Darius and his son and successor Xerxes. A few months of battling determined the fate of the Western world. The Orientals were hurled back; the glorious memories of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea stimulated the patriotism and enthusiasm of all children of the Greek race. The Greeks, for the first time, occupied the centre of the historical stage; for the brief interval of about half a century the different Grecian principalities lived together in relative harmony. One city was recognized as the metropolis of the loosely bound empire; one city became the home of culture and the Mecca towards which all eyes turned; that city, of course, was Athens. For a brief time all roads led to Athens, as, at a later date, they all led to Rome. The waterways which alone bound the widely scattered parts of Hellas into a united whole led out from Athens and back to Athens, as the spokes of a wheel to its hub. Athens was the commercial centre, and, largely for that reason, it became the centre of culture and intellectual influence also. The wise men from the colonies visited the metropolis, and the wise Athenians went out to the colonies. Whoever aspired to become a leader in politics, in art, in literature, or in philosophy, made his way to the capital, and so, with almost bewildering suddenness, there blossomed the civilization of the age of Pericles; the civilization which produced aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, and Thucydides; the civilization which made possible the building of the Parthenon.

ANAXAGORAS

Sometime during the early part of this golden age there came to Athens a middle-aged man from Clazomenae, who, from our present stand-point, was a more interesting personality than perhaps any other in the great galaxy of remarkable men assembled there. The name of this new-comer was Anaxagoras. It was said in after-time, we know not with what degree of truth, that he had been a pupil of Anaximenes. If so, he was a pupil who departed far from the teachings of his master. What we know for certain is that Anaxagoras was a truly original thinker, and that he became a close friend—in a sense the teacher—of Pericles and of Euripides. Just how long he remained at Athens is not certain; but the time came when he had made himself in some way objectionable to the Athenian populace through his teachings. Filled with the spirit of the investigator, he could not accept the current conceptions as to the gods. He was a sceptic, an innovator. Such men are never welcome; they are the chief factors in the progress of thought, but they must look always to posterity for recognition of their worth; from their contemporaries they receive, not thanks, but persecution. Sometimes this persecution takes one form, sometimes another; to the credit of the Greeks be it said, that with them it usually led to nothing more severe than banishment. In the case of Anaxagoras, it is alleged that the sentence pronounced was death; but that, thanks to the influence of Pericles, this sentence was commuted to banishment. In any event, the aged philosopher was sent away from the city of his adoption. He retired to Lampsacus. "It is not I that have lost the Athenians," he said; "it is the Athenians that have lost me."

The exact position which Anaxagoras had among his contemporaries, and his exact place in the development of philosophy, have always been somewhat in dispute. It is not known, of a certainty, that he even held an open school at Athens. Ritter thinks it doubtful that he did. It was his fate to be misunderstood, or underestimated, by Aristotle; that in itself would have sufficed greatly to dim his fame—might, indeed, have led to his almost entire neglect had he not been a truly remarkable thinker. With most of the questions that have exercised the commentators we have but scant concern. Following Aristotle, most historians of philosophy have been metaphysicians; they have concerned themselves far less with what the ancient thinkers really knew than with what they thought. A chance using of a verbal quibble, an esoteric phrase, the expression of a vague mysticism—these would suffice to call forth reams of exposition. It has been the favorite pastime of historians to weave their own anachronistic theories upon the scanty woof of the half-remembered thoughts of the ancient philosophers. To make such cloth of the imagination as this is an alluring pastime, but one that must not divert us here. Our point of view reverses that of the philosophers. We are chiefly concerned, not with some vague saying of Anaxagoras, but with what he really knew regarding the phenomena of nature; with what he observed, and with the comprehensible deductions that he derived from his observations. In attempting to answer these inquiries, we are obliged, in part, to take our evidence at second-hand; but, fortunately, some fragments of writings of Anaxagoras have come down to us. We are told that he wrote only a single book. It was said even (by Diogenes) that he was the first man that ever wrote a work in prose. The latter statement would not bear too close an examination, yet it is true that no extensive prose compositions of an earlier day than this have been preserved, though numerous others are known by their fragments. Herodotus, "the father of prose," was a slightly younger contemporary of the Clazomenaean philosopher; not unlikely the two men may have met at Athens.

Notwithstanding the loss of the greater part of the writings of Anaxagoras, however, a tolerably precise account of his scientific doctrines is accessible. Diogenes Laertius expresses some of them in very clear and precise terms. We have already pointed out the uncertainty that attaches to such evidence as this, but it is as valid for Anaxagoras as for another. If we reject such evidence, we shall often have almost nothing left; in accepting it we may at least feel certain that we are viewing the thinker as his contemporaries and immediate successors viewed him. Following Diogenes, then, we shall find some remarkable scientific opinions ascribed to Anaxagoras. "He asserted," we are told, "that the sun was a mass of burning iron, greater than Peloponnesus, and that the moon contained houses and also hills and ravines." In corroboration of this, Plato represents him as having conjectured the right explanation of the moon's light, and of the solar and lunar eclipses. He had other astronomical theories that were more fanciful; thus "he said that the stars originally moved about in irregular confusion, so that at first the pole-star, which is continually visible, always appeared in the zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain declination, and that the Milky Way was a reflection of the light of the sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered to be a concourse of planets emitting rays, and the shooting-stars he thought were sparks, as it were, leaping from the firmament."

Much of this is far enough from the truth, as we now know it, yet all of it shows an earnest endeavor to explain the observed phenomena of the heavens on rational principles. To have predicated the sun as a great molten mass of iron was indeed a wonderful anticipation of the results of the modern spectroscope. Nor can it be said that this hypothesis of Anaxagoras was a purely visionary guess. It was in all probability a scientific deduction from the observed character of meteoric stones. Reference has already been made to the alleged prediction of the fall of the famous meteor at aegespotomi by Anaxagoras. The assertion that he actually predicted this fall in any proper sense of the word would be obviously absurd. Yet the fact that his name is associated with it suggests that he had studied similar meteorites, or else that he studied this particular one, since it is not quite clear whether it was before or after this fall that he made the famous assertion that space is full of falling stones. We should stretch the probabilities were we to assert that Anaxagoras knew that shooting-stars and meteors were the same, yet there is an interesting suggestiveness in his likening the shooting-stars to sparks leaping from the firmament, taken in connection with his observation on meteorites. Be this as it may, the fact that something which falls from heaven as a blazing light turns out to be an iron-like mass may very well have suggested to the most rational of thinkers that the great blazing light called the sun has the same composition. This idea grasped, it was a not unnatural extension to conceive the other heavenly bodies as having the same composition.

This led to a truly startling thought. Since the heavenly bodies are of the same composition as the earth, and since they are observed to be whirling about the earth in space, may we not suppose that they were once a part of the earth itself, and that they have been thrown off by the force of a whirling motion? Such was the conclusion which Anaxagoras reached; such his explanation of the origin of the heavenly bodies. It was a marvellous guess. Deduct from it all that recent science has shown to be untrue; bear in mind that the stars are suns, compared with which the earth is a mere speck of dust; recall that the sun is parent, not daughter, of the earth, and despite all these deductions, the cosmogonic guess of Anaxagoras remains, as it seems to us, one of the most marvellous feats of human intelligence. It was the first explanation of the cosmic bodies that could be called, in any sense, an anticipation of what the science of our own day accepts as a true explanation of cosmic origins. Moreover, let us urge again that this was no mere accidental flight of the imagination; it was a scientific induction based on the only data available; perhaps it is not too much to say that it was the only scientific induction which these data would fairly sustain. Of course it is not for a moment to be inferred that Anaxagoras understood, in the modern sense, the character of that whirling force which we call centrifugal. About two thousand years were yet to elapse before that force was explained as elementary inertia; and even that explanation, let us not forget, merely sufficed to push back the barriers of mystery by one other stage; for even in our day inertia is a statement of fact rather than an explanation.

But however little Anaxagoras could explain the centrifugal force on mechanical principles, the practical powers of that force were sufficiently open to his observation. The mere experiment of throwing a stone from a sling would, to an observing mind, be full of suggestiveness. It would be obvious that by whirling the sling about, the stone which it held would be sustained in its circling path about the hand in seeming defiance of the earth's pull, and after the stone had left the sling, it could fly away from the earth to a distance which the most casual observation would prove to be proportionate to the speed of its flight. Extremely rapid motion, then, might project bodies from the earth's surface off into space; a sufficiently rapid whirl would keep them there. Anaxagoras conceived that this was precisely what had occurred. His imagination even carried him a step farther—to a conception of a slackening of speed, through which the heavenly bodies would lose their centrifugal force, and, responding to the perpetual pull of gravitation, would fall back to the earth, just as the great stone at aegespotomi had been observed to do.

Here we would seem to have a clear conception of the idea of universal gravitation, and Anaxagoras stands before us as the anticipator of Newton. Were it not for one scientific maxim, we might exalt the old Greek above the greatest of modern natural philosophers; but that maxim bids us pause. It is phrased thus, "He discovers who proves." Anaxagoras could not prove; his argument was at best suggestive, not demonstrative. He did not even know the laws which govern falling bodies; much less could he apply such laws, even had he known them, to sidereal bodies at whose size and distance he could only guess in the vaguest terms. Still his cosmogonic speculation remains as perhaps the most remarkable one of antiquity. How widely his speculation found currency among his immediate successors is instanced in a passage from Plato, where Socrates is represented as scornfully answering a calumniator in these terms: "He asserts that I say the sun is a stone and the moon an earth. Do you think of accusing Anaxagoras, Miletas, and have you so low an opinion of these men, and think them so unskilled in laws, as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenaean are full of these doctrines. And forsooth the young men are learning these matters from me which sometimes they can buy from the orchestra for a drachma, at the most, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends they are his-particularly seeing they are so strange."

The element of error contained in these cosmogonic speculations of Anaxagoras has led critics to do them something less than justice. But there is one other astronomical speculation for which the Clazomenaean philosopher has received full credit. It is generally admitted that it was he who first found out the explanation of the phases of the moon; a knowledge that that body shines only by reflected light, and that its visible forms, waxing and waning month by month from crescent to disk and from disk to crescent, merely represent our shifting view of its sun-illumined face. It is difficult to put ourselves in the place of the ancient observer and realize how little the appearances suggest the actual fact. That a body of the same structure as the earth should shine with the radiance of the moon merely because sunlight is reflected from it, is in itself a supposition seemingly contradicted by ordinary experience. It required the mind of a philosopher, sustained, perhaps, by some experimental observations, to conceive the idea that what seems so obviously bright may be in reality dark. The germ of the conception of what the philosopher speaks of as the noumena, or actualities, back of phenomena or appearances, had perhaps this crude beginning. Anaxagoras could surely point to the moon in support of his seeming paradox that snow, being really composed of water, which is dark, is in reality black and not white—a contention to which we shall refer more at length in a moment.

But there is yet another striking thought connected with this new explanation of the phases of the moon. The explanation implies not merely the reflection of light by a dark body, but by a dark body of a particular form. Granted that reflections are in question, no body but a spherical one could give an appearance which the moon presents. The moon, then, is not merely a mass of earth, it is a spherical mass of earth. Here there were no flaws in the reasoning of Anaxagoras. By scientific induction he passed from observation to explanation. A new and most important element was added to the science of astronomy.

Looking back from the latter-day stand-point, it would seem as if the mind of the philosopher must have taken one other step: the mind that had conceived sun, moon, stars, and earth to be of one substance might naturally, we should think, have reached out to the further induction that, since the moon is a sphere, the other cosmic bodies, including the earth, must be spheres also. But generalizer as he was, Anaxagoras was too rigidly scientific a thinker to make this assumption. The data at his command did not, as he analyzed them, seem to point to this conclusion. We have seen that Pythagoras probably, and Parmenides surely, out there in Italy had conceived the idea of the earth's rotundity, but the Pythagorean doctrines were not rapidly taken up in the mother-country, and Parmenides, it must be recalled, was a strict contemporary of Anaxagoras himself. It is no reproach, therefore, to the Clazomenaean philosopher that he should have held to the old idea that the earth is flat, or at most a convex disk—the latter being the Babylonian conception which probably dominated that Milesian school to which Anaxagoras harked back.

Anaxagoras may never have seen an eclipse of the moon, and even if he had he might have reflected that, from certain directions, a disk may throw precisely the same shadow as a sphere. Moreover, in reference to the shadow cast by the earth, there was, so Anaxagoras believed, an observation open to him nightly which, we may well suppose, was not without influence in suggesting to his mind the probable shape of the earth. The Milky Way, which doubtless had puzzled astronomers from the beginnings of history and which was to continue to puzzle them for many centuries after the day of Anaxagoras, was explained by the Clazomenaean philosopher on a theory obviously suggested by the theory of the moon's phases. Since the earth-like moon shines by reflected light at night, and since the stars seem obviously brighter on dark nights, Anaxagoras was but following up a perfectly logical induction when he propounded the theory that the stars in the Milky Way seem more numerous and brighter than those of any other part of the heavens, merely because the Milky Way marks the shadow of the earth. Of course the inference was wrong, so far as the shadow of the earth is concerned; yet it contained a part truth, the force of which was never fully recognized until the time of Galileo. This consists in the assertion that the brightness of the Milky Way is merely due to the glow of many stars. The shadow-theory of Anaxagoras would naturally cease to have validity so soon as the sphericity of the earth was proved, and with it, seemingly, fell for the time the companion theory that the Milky Way is made up of a multitude of stars.

It has been said by a modern critic(1) that the shadow-theory was childish in that it failed to note that the Milky Way does not follow the course of the ecliptic. But this criticism only holds good so long as we reflect on the true character of the earth as a symmetrical body poised in space. It is quite possible to conceive a body occupying the position of the earth with reference to the sun which would cast a shadow having such a tenuous form as the Milky Way presents. Such a body obviously would not be a globe, but a long-drawn-out, attenuated figure. There is, to be sure, no direct evidence preserved to show that Anaxagoras conceived the world to present such a figure as this, but what we know of that philosopher's close-reasoning, logical mind gives some warrant to the assumption—gratuitous though in a sense it be—that the author of the theory of the moon's phases had not failed to ask himself what must be the form of that terrestrial body which could cast the tenuous shadow of the Milky Way. Moreover, we must recall that the habitable earth, as known to the Greeks of that day, was a relatively narrow band of territory, stretching far to the east and to the west.

Anaxagoras as Meteorologist

The man who had studied the meteorite of aegospotami, and been put by it on the track of such remarkable inductions, was, naturally, not oblivious to the other phenomena of the atmosphere. Indeed, such a mind as that of Anaxagoras was sure to investigate all manner of natural phenomena, and almost equally sure to throw new light on any subject that it investigated. Hence it is not surprising to find Anaxagoras credited with explaining the winds as due to the rarefactions of the atmosphere produced by the sun. This explanation gives Anaxagoras full right to be called "the father of meteorology," a title which, it may be, no one has thought of applying to him, chiefly because the science of meteorology did not make its real beginnings until some twenty-four hundred years after the death of its first great votary. Not content with explaining the winds, this prototype of Franklin turned his attention even to the tipper atmosphere. "Thunder," he is reputed to have said, "was produced by the collision of the clouds, and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds." We dare not go so far as to suggest that this implies an association in the mind of Anaxagoras between the friction of the clouds and the observed electrical effects generated by the friction of such a substance as amber. To make such a suggestion doubtless would be to fall victim to the old familiar propensity to read into Homer things that Homer never knew. Yet the significant fact remains that Anaxagoras ascribed to thunder and to lightning their true position as strictly natural phenomena. For him it was no god that menaced humanity with thundering voice and the flash of his divine fires from the clouds. Little wonder that the thinker whose science carried him to such scepticism as this should have felt the wrath of the superstitious Athenians.

Biological Speculations

Passing from the phenomena of the air to those of the earth itself, we learn that Anaxagoras explained an earthquake as being produced by the returning of air into the earth. We cannot be sure as to the exact meaning here, though the idea that gases are imprisoned in the substance of the earth seems not far afield. But a far more remarkable insight than this would imply was shown by Anaxagoras when he asserted that a certain amount of air is contained in water, and that fishes breathe this air. The passage of Aristotle in which this opinion is ascribed to Anaxagoras is of sufficient interest to be quoted at length:

"Democritus, of Abdera," says Aristotle, "and some others, that have spoken concerning respiration, have determined nothing concerning other animals, but seem to have supposed that all animals respire. But Anaxagoras and Diogenes (Apolloniates), who say that all animals respire, have also endeavored to explain how fishes, and all those animals that have a hard, rough shell, such as oysters, mussels, etc., respire. And Anaxagoras, indeed, says that fishes, when they emit water through their gills, attract air from the mouth to the vacuum in the viscera from the water which surrounds the mouth; as if air was inherent in the water."(2)

It should be recalled that of the three philosophers thus mentioned as contending that all animals respire, Anaxagoras was the elder; he, therefore, was presumably the originator of the idea. It will be observed, too, that Anaxagoras alone is held responsible for the idea that fishes respire air through their gills, "attracting" it from the water. This certainly was one of the shrewdest physiological guesses of any age, if it be regarded as a mere guess. With greater justice we might refer to it as a profound deduction from the principle of the uniformity of nature.

In making such a deduction, Anaxagoras was far in advance of his time as illustrated by the fact that Aristotle makes the citation we have just quoted merely to add that "such things are impossible," and to refute these "impossible" ideas by means of metaphysical reasonings that seemed demonstrative not merely to himself, but to many generations of his followers.

We are told that Anaxagoras alleged that all animals were originally generated out of moisture, heat, and earth particles. Just what opinion he held concerning man's development we are not informed. Yet there is one of his phrases which suggests—without, perhaps, quite proving—that he was an evolutionist. This phrase asserts, with insight that is fairly startling, that man is the most intelligent of animals because he has hands. The man who could make that assertion must, it would seem, have had in mind the idea of the development of intelligence through the use of hands—an idea the full force of which was not evident to subsequent generations of thinkers until the time of Darwin.

Physical Speculations

Anaxagoras is cited by Aristotle as believing that "plants are animals and feel pleasure and pain, inferring this because they shed their leaves and let them grow again." The idea is fanciful, yet it suggests again a truly philosophical conception of the unity of nature. The man who could conceive that idea was but little hampered by traditional conceptions. He was exercising a rare combination of the rigidly scientific spirit with the poetical imagination. He who possesses these gifts is sure not to stop in his questionings of nature until he has found some thinkable explanation of the character of matter itself. Anaxagoras found such an explanation, and, as good luck would have it, that explanation has been preserved. Let us examine his reasoning in some detail. We have already referred to the claim alleged to have been made by Anaxagoras that snow is not really white, but black. The philosopher explained his paradox, we are told, by asserting that snow is really water, and that water is dark, when viewed under proper conditions—as at the bottom of a well. That idea contains the germ of the Clazomenaean philosopher's conception of the nature of matter. Indeed, it is not unlikely that this theory of matter grew out of his observation of the changing forms of water. He seems clearly to have grasped the idea that snow on the one hand, and vapor on the other, are of the same intimate substance as the water from which they are derived and into which they may be again transformed. The fact that steam and snow can be changed back into water, and by simple manipulation cannot be changed into any other substance, finds, as we now believe, its true explanation in the fact that the molecular structure, as we phrase it—that is to say, the ultimate particle of which water is composed, is not changed, and this is precisely the explanation which Anaxagoras gave of the same phenomena. For him the unit particle of water constituted an elementary body, uncreated, unchangeable, indestructible. This particle, in association with like particles, constitutes the substance which we call water. The same particle in association with particles unlike itself, might produce totally different substances—as, for example, when water is taken up by the roots of a plant and becomes, seemingly, a part of the substance of the plant. But whatever the changed association, so Anaxagoras reasoned, the ultimate particle of water remains a particle of water still. And what was true of water was true also, so he conceived, of every other substance. Gold, silver, iron, earth, and the various vegetables and animal tissues—in short, each and every one of all the different substances with which experience makes us familiar, is made up of unit particles which maintain their integrity in whatever combination they may be associated. This implies, obviously, a multitude of primordial particles, each one having an individuality of its own; each one, like the particle of water already cited, uncreated, unchangeable, and indestructible.

Fortunately, we have the philosopher's own words to guide us as to his speculations here. The fragments of his writings that have come down to us (chiefly through the quotations of Simplicius) deal almost exclusively with these ultimate conceptions of his imagination. In ascribing to him, then, this conception of diverse, uncreated, primordial elements, which can never be changed, but can only be mixed together to form substances of the material world, we are not reading back post-Daltonian knowledge into the system of Anaxagoras. Here are his words: "The Greeks do not rightly use the terms 'coming into being' and 'perishing.' For nothing comes into being, nor, yet, does anything perish; but there is mixture and separation of things that are. So they would do right in calling 'coming into being' 'mixture' and 'perishing' 'separation.' For how could hair come from what is not hair? Or flesh from what is not flesh?"

Elsewhere he tells us that (at one stage of the world's development) "the dense, the moist, the cold, the dark, collected there where now is earth; the rare, the warm, the dry, the bright, departed towards the further part of the aether. The earth is condensed out of these things that are separated, for water is separated from the clouds, and earth from the water; and from the earth stones are condensed by the cold, and these are separated farther from the water." Here again the influence of heat and cold in determining physical qualities is kept pre-eminently in mind. The dense, the moist, the cold, the dark are contrasted with the rare, the warm, the dry, and bright; and the formation of stones is spoken of as a specific condensation due to the influence of cold. Here, then, we have nearly all the elements of the Daltonian theory of atoms on the one hand, and the nebular hypothesis of Laplace on the other. But this is not quite all. In addition to such diverse elementary particles as those of gold, water, and the rest, Anaxagoras conceived a species of particles differing from all the others, not merely as they differ from one another, but constituting a class by themselves; particles infinitely smaller than the others; particles that are described as infinite, self-powerful, mixed with nothing, but existing alone. That is to say (interpreting the theory in the only way that seems plausible), these most minute particles do not mix with the other primordial particles to form material substances in the same way in which these mixed with one another. But, on the other hand, these "infinite, self-powerful, and unmixed" particles commingle everywhere and in every substance whatever with the mixed particles that go to make up the substances.

There is a distinction here, it will be observed, which at once suggests the modern distinction between physical processes and chemical processes, or, putting it otherwise, between molecular processes and atomic processes; but the reader must be guarded against supposing that Anaxagoras had any such thought as this in mind. His ultimate mixable particles can be compared only with the Daltonian atom, not with the molecule of the modern physicist, and his "infinite, self-powerful, and unmixable" particles are not comparable with anything but the ether of the modern physicist, with which hypothetical substance they have many points of resemblance. But the "infinite, self-powerful, and unmixed" particles constituting thus an ether-like plenum which permeates all material structures, have also, in the mind of Anaxagoras, a function which carries them perhaps a stage beyond the province of the modern ether. For these "infinite, self powerful, and unmixed" particles are imbued with, and, indeed, themselves constitute, what Anaxagoras terms nous, a word which the modern translator has usually paraphrased as "mind." Neither that word nor any other available one probably conveys an accurate idea of what Anaxagoras meant to imply by the word nous. For him the word meant not merely "mind" in the sense of receptive and comprehending intelligence, but directive and creative intelligence as well. Again let Anaxagoras speak for himself: "Other things include a portion of everything, but nous is infinite, and self-powerful, and mixed with nothing, but it exists alone, itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would include parts of all things, if it were mixed with anything; for a portion of everything exists in every thing, as has been said by me before, and things mingled with it would prevent it from having power over anything in the same way that it does now that it is alone by itself. For it is the most rarefied of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge in regard to everything and the greatest power; over all that has life, both greater and less, nous rules. And nous ruled the rotation of the whole, so that it set it in rotation in the beginning. First it began the rotation from a small beginning, then more and more was included in the motion, and yet more will be included. Both the mixed and the separated and distinct, all things nous recognized. And whatever things were to be, and whatever things were, as many as are now, and whatever things shall be, all these nous arranged in order; and it arranged that rotation, according to which now rotate stars and sun and moon and air and aether, now that they are separated. Rotation itself caused the separation, and the dense is separated from the rare, the warm from the cold, the bright from the dark, the dry from the moist. And when nous began to set things in motion, there was separation from everything that was in motion, all this was made distinct. The rotation of the things that were moved and made distinct caused them to be yet more distinct."(3)

Nous, then, as Anaxagoras conceives it, is "the most rarefied of all things, and the purest, and it has knowledge in regard to everything and the greatest power; over all that has life, both greater and less, it rules." But these are postulants of omnipresence and omniscience. In other words, nous is nothing less than the omnipotent artificer of the material universe. It lacks nothing of the power of deity, save only that we are not assured that it created the primordial particles. The creation of these particles was a conception that for Anaxagoras, as for the modern Spencer, lay beyond the range of imagination. Nous is the artificer, working with "uncreated" particles. Back of nous and the particles lies, for an Anaxagoras as for a Spencer, the Unknowable. But nous itself is the equivalent of that universal energy of motion which science recognizes as operating between the particles of matter, and which the theologist personifies as Deity. It is Pantheistic deity as Anaxagoras conceives it; his may be called the first scientific conception of a non-anthropomorphic god. In elaborating this conception Anaxagoras proved himself one of the most remarkable scientific dreamers of antiquity. To have substituted for the Greek Pantheon of anthropomorphic deities the conception of a non-anthropomorphic immaterial and ethereal entity, of all things in the world "the most rarefied and the purest," is to have performed a feat which, considering the age and the environment in which it was accomplished, staggers the imagination. As a strictly scientific accomplishment the great thinker's conception of primordial elements contained a germ of the truth which was to lie dormant for 2200 years, but which then, as modified and vitalized by the genius of Dalton, was to dominate the new chemical science of the nineteenth century. If there are intimations that the primordial element of Anaxagoras and of Dalton may turn out in the near future to be itself a compound, there will still remain the yet finer particles of the nous of Anaxagoras to baffle the most subtle analysis of which to-day's science gives us any pre-vision. All in all, then, the work of Anaxagoras must stand as that of perhaps the most far-seeing scientific imagination of pre-Socratic antiquity.

LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS

But we must not leave this alluring field of speculation as to the nature of matter without referring to another scientific guess, which soon followed that of Anaxagoras and was destined to gain even wider fame, and which in modern times has been somewhat unjustly held to eclipse the glory of the other achievement. We mean, of course, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus. This theory reduced all matter to primordial elements, called atoms (gr atoma) because they are by hypothesis incapable of further division. These atoms, making up the entire material universe, are in this theory conceived as qualitatively identical, differing from one another only in size and perhaps in shape. The union of different-sized atoms in endless combinations produces the diverse substances with which our senses make us familiar.

Before we pass to a consideration of this alluring theory, and particularly to a comparison of it with the theory of Anaxagoras, we must catch a glimpse of the personality of the men to whom the theory owes its origin. One of these, Leucippus, presents so uncertain a figure as to be almost mythical. Indeed, it was long questioned whether such a man had actually lived, or whether he were not really an invention of his alleged disciple, Democritus. Latterday scholarship, however, accepts him as a real personage, though knowing scarcely more of him than that he was the author of the famous theory with which his name was associated. It is suggested that he was a wanderer, like most philosophers of his time, and that later in life he came to Abdera, in Thrace, and through this circumstance became the teacher of Democritus. This fable answers as well as another. What we really know is that Democritus himself, through whose writings and teachings the atomic theory gained vogue, was born in Abdera, about the year 460 B.C.—that is to say, just about the time when his great precursor, Anaxagoras, was migrating to Athens. Democritus, like most others of the early Greek thinkers, lives in tradition as a picturesque figure. It is vaguely reported that he travelled for a time, perhaps in the East and in Egypt, and that then he settled down to spend the remainder of his life in Abdera. Whether or not he visited Athens in the course of his wanderings we do not know. At Abdera he was revered as a sage, but his influence upon the practical civilization of the time was not marked. He was pre-eminently a dreamer and a writer. Like his confreres of the epoch, he entered all fields of thought. He wrote voluminously, but, unfortunately, his writings have, for the most part, perished. The fables and traditions of a later day asserted that Democritus had voluntarily put out his own eyes that he might turn his thoughts inward with more concentration. Doubtless this is fiction, yet, as usual with such fictions, it contains a germ of truth; for we may well suppose that the promulgator of the atomic theory was a man whose mind was attracted by the subtleties of thought rather than by the tangibilities of observation. Yet the term "laughing philosopher," which seems to have been universally applied to Democritus, suggests a mind not altogether withdrawn from the world of practicalities.

So much for Democritus the man. Let us return now to his theory of atoms. This theory, it must be confessed, made no very great impression upon his contemporaries. It found an expositor, a little later, in the philosopher Epicurus, and later still the poet Lucretius gave it popular expression. But it seemed scarcely more than the dream of a philosopher or the vagary of a poet until the day when modern science began to penetrate the mysteries of matter. When, finally, the researches of Dalton and his followers had placed the atomic theory on a surer footing as the foundation of modern chemistry, the ideas of the old laughing philosopher of Abdera, which all along had been half derisively remembered, were recalled with a new interest. Now it appeared that these ideas had curiously foreshadowed nineteenth-century knowledge. It appeared that away back in the fifth century B.C. a man had dreamed out a conception of the ultimate nature of matter which had waited all these centuries for corroboration. And now the historians of philosophy became more than anxious to do justice to the memory of Democritus.

It is possible that this effort at poetical restitution has carried the enthusiast too far. There is, indeed, a curious suggestiveness in the theory of Democritus; there is philosophical allurement in his reduction of all matter to a single element; it contains, it may be, not merely a germ of the science of the nineteenth-century chemistry, but perhaps the germs also of the yet undeveloped chemistry of the twentieth century. Yet we dare suggest that in their enthusiasm for the atomic theory of Democritus the historians of our generation have done something less than justice to that philosopher's precursor, Anaxagoras. And one suspects that the mere accident of a name has been instrumental in producing this result. Democritus called his primordial element an atom; Anaxagoras, too, conceived a primordial element, but he called it merely a seed or thing; he failed to christen it distinctively. Modern science adopted the word atom and gave it universal vogue. It owed a debt of gratitude to Democritus for supplying it the word, but it somewhat overpaid the debt in too closely linking the new meaning of the word with its old original one. For, let it be clearly understood, the Daltonian atom is not precisely comparable with the atom of Democritus. The atom, as Democritus conceived it, was monistic; all atoms, according to this hypothesis, are of the same substance; one atom differs from another merely in size and shape, but not at all in quality. But the Daltonian hypothesis conceived, and nearly all the experimental efforts of the nineteenth century seemed to prove, that there are numerous classes of atoms, each differing in its very essence from the others.

As the case stands to-day the chemist deals with seventy-odd substances, which he calls elements. Each one of these substances is, as he conceives it, made up of elementary atoms having a unique personality, each differing in quality from all the others. As far as experiment has thus far safely carried us, the atom of gold is a primordial element which remains an atom of gold and nothing else, no matter with what other atoms it is associated. So, too, of the atom of silver, or zinc, or sodium—in short, of each and every one of the seventy-odd elements. There are, indeed, as we shall see, experiments that suggest the dissolution of the atom—that suggest, in short, that the Daltonian atom is misnamed, being a structure that may, under certain conditions, be broken asunder. But these experiments have, as yet, the warrant rather of philosophy than of pure science, and to-day we demand that the philosophy of science shall be the handmaid of experiment.

When experiment shall have demonstrated that the Daltonian atom is a compound, and that in truth there is but a single true atom, which, combining with its fellows perhaps in varying numbers and in different special relations, produces the Daltonian atoms, then the philosophical theory of monism will have the experimental warrant which to-day it lacks; then we shall be a step nearer to the atom of Democritus in one direction, a step farther away in the other. We shall be nearer, in that the conception of Democritus was, in a sense, monistic; farther away, in that all the atoms of Democritus, large and small alike, were considered as permanently fixed in size. Democritus postulated all his atoms as of the same substance, differing not at all in quality; yet he was obliged to conceive that the varying size of the atoms gave to them varying functions which amounted to qualitative differences. He might claim for his largest atom the same quality of substance as for his smallest, but so long as he conceived that the large atoms, when adjusted together to form a tangible substance, formed a substance different in quality from the substance which the small atoms would make up when similarly grouped, this concession amounts to the predication of difference of quality between the atoms themselves. The entire question reduces itself virtually to a quibble over the word quality, So long as one atom conceived to be primordial and indivisible is conceded to be of such a nature as necessarily to produce a different impression on our senses, when grouped with its fellows, from the impression produced by other atoms when similarly grouped, such primordial atoms do differ among themselves in precisely the same way for all practical purposes as do the primordial elements of Anaxagoras.

The monistic conception towards which twentieth-century chemistry seems to be carrying us may perhaps show that all the so-called atoms are compounded of a single element. All the true atoms making up that element may then properly be said to have the same quality, but none the less will it remain true that the combinations of that element that go to make up the different Daltonian atoms differ from one another in quality in precisely the same sense in which such tangible substances as gold, and oxygen, and mercury, and diamonds differ from one another. In the last analysis of the monistic philosophy, there is but one substance and one quality in the universe. In the widest view of that philosophy, gold and oxygen and mercury and diamonds are one substance, and, if you please, one quality. But such refinements of analysis as this are for the transcendental philosopher, and not for the scientist. Whatever the allurement of such reasoning, we must for the purpose of science let words have a specific meaning, nor must we let a mere word-jugglery blind us to the evidence of facts. That was the rock on which Greek science foundered; it is the rock which the modern helmsman sometimes finds it difficult to avoid. And if we mistake not, this case of the atom of Democritus is precisely a case in point. Because Democritus said that his atoms did not differ in quality, the modern philosopher has seen in his theory the essentials of monism; has discovered in it not merely a forecast of the chemistry of the nineteenth century, but a forecast of the hypothetical chemistry of the future. And, on the other hand, because Anaxagoras predicted a different quality for his primordial elements, the philosopher of our day has discredited the primordial element of Anaxagoras.