Anaxagoras. Predication as a problem in physics II.pdf

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Anaxagoras: Predication as a Problem in Physics: IIAuthor(s): A. L. PeckSource: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1931), pp. 112-120Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/637008 .

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ANAXAGORAS: PREDICATION AS A PROBLEM

IN PHYSICS: II.THE former part of this paper' attempted to show-I. That in Anaxagoras' scheme of physics the following substances were elements:

(a) The animal substances (such as Flesh, Bone, Marrow, etc.);(b) The vegetable substances (such as Bark, Wood, etc.);(c) The so-called Opposites (the hot, the cold, etc.); and

2. That there is no evidence that Anaxagoras asserted any substances to behomoeomerous, and that, even if he had done so, the word 'homoeomerous' does notbear the meanings often attached to it by those theories which assume he made the

assertion. The meaning of LoLo•o•PE4ss, not 'simple in substance,' i.e. 'elementary,'but 'simple in formation.'

LUCRETIUS AND THE Rerumn Homoeomeria.

In order to make it clear that the statements of Lucretius about Anaxagoraslend no support to the view that 6LOLOLEpejp eans'simple and elemental,' we mustfirst examine a certain doctrine attributed to Anaxagoras by the ancient com-mentators, a doctrine which for the sake of convenience may be termed the principleof 'Like to Like.'

The Principle of Like to Like.-This principle is described by Hippolytus2 as follows:'Anaxagoras said that . . . all things partake of motion, being kept in motion by Nos,

and similar things came together. And the things in the sky were set in order by thecircular motion; so the dense (rb UvKVdV) and the moist and the dark and the cold and allthe 3apda came together at the middle, and when they set fast 3 the Earth was formed outof them. The opposites of these (r& dvrTLKEccPva 6oTLS), Viz. the hot and the bright and thedry and the lightweighted, went unto the further part of the Ether.

It will readily be seen that this is a fairly exact representation of what Anaxagorashimself says (in fr. 15), and that these remarks are concerned with cosmology.

A similar process is described by Simplicius, though he has made a slight mistakein running two departments of it together,4 the 'cosmological' and the 'organic.'What he gives us is an entirely accurate account of the 'organic' part of the process,viz. the formation of i- 6pOLOLoEpq. He says :

'Although they are neither generated nor destroyed, they give the appearance of cominginto being and passing out of being by O~ryKptLcts nd 8tdKptLTs, which is all that happens inreality; though, at the same time, all things are present in all things, and each one gets itscharacter according to that which holds sway in it.'

This is correct, and much of it is patently founded upon Anaxagoras' own words; butthe examples he chooses to illustrate r1 /1oLo/LEpi, namely Water, Fire and Gold, are notcorrect. It may be that his error is due to his reading of Aristotle;6 but it may alsobe due to his knowing that no loose masses of Flesh, Bone, etc., were formed at thestage which he has in mind, and therefore he chooses 'cosmological' substances,forgetting that in Anaxagoras they are not elemental. That he has the cosmologicalstage uppermost in his mind is evident from his proceeding to report the views ofTheophrastus, thus: '... Anaxagoras says that in the JdKPL~ts of the Unlimited

1 C.Q., Vol. XXV., pp. 27-37.2 Rejut. omn. her. i. 8. 2 (Diels A 42).3 • ov iraycYevrwv, s we see from fr. 16, stands

for the intermediate stages (i) Clouds (2) Waterwhich come between Ether and Earth. Thedense etc. 'separate off' from the hot etc. (i.e.from the Ether) to form Clouds, then Cloudssolidify to form Water, and Water solidifies toform Earth. See C.Q. XX., pp. 67-8.

4The difference between the two stages isslight; see below, pp. 117, I1I8, I19.

s Simpl. phys. 27 (Diels A. 41).6 It will be useful to quote the passage here

(Met. A 984a 13 sqq.) arXE6i v y&p travra ri

d6iooocppij (KaOcrp Ewp 10p ruip) obrw yiyVEarOaL Ka.drd6XXvo-OaL <ao't ovyKpioEt Kai LacKploEL L6oVO, WXXhW&b o7e ylye-Oat o$r' dcri6XXv'Oat, aiXXd 8&tavievAl~ia.







ANAXAGORAS: PREDICATION AND PHYSICS: II. 113

kindred things were carried unto each other, and what was gold in the All becamegold, and what was earth became earth.'

(We may notice in passing that Simplicius takes care to say that, although themasses

of things were formed as he describes by the aggregation of smaller bits orportions of those things, yet ' all things are present in all things,' not merely the thingwhich 'holds sway' and 'gives character' to the whole.)

We thus have evidence that the commentators rightly believed Anaxagoras tohave held this principle of r- crvyy77Ev fipEcrOat phs 1XXh)XAa.

Now it is obvious that it is this idea which Lucretius is expressing in the passagein his first book (11. 834 foil.), where he is purporting to expound the doctrine ofhomoeomeria:

principio, rerum quam dicit homoeomerian,ossa uidelicet e pauxillis atque minutisossibus hic et de pauxillis atque minutisuisceribus uiscus gigni sanguenque creari

sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibu' uttisex aurique putat micis consisters posseaurum et de terris terram concrescere aruisignibus ex ignis, umorem umoribus esse,cetera consimili fingit ratione putatque.

He is describing how visible masses of bone, flesh, etc., come into being, viz. by thecoming together of tiny invisible pieces of bone, flesh, etc. It is exactly the processwe have just been considering. He is not in any way concerned here with thedivision of substances; and he does not say that homoeomeria s a principle asserting2'the existence of a class of substances (called poLo/LEpi~) uch that, however far theyare subdivided, the pieces will always be like one another and like the whole of which

they are parts.'3 It is, for him, a theory of how the visible masses of substancesget built up; in fact, it is the principle of 'like to like.'But it is possible to go further. Lucretius has got the name homoeomeria ttached

to the wrong doctrine. He actually describes the doctrine of homoeomeria urtherdown (11.861 866); but he has tacked the name homoeomeria on to the 'like to like'doctrine. His mistake is easily explained, for the two doctrines are complementary.(I) Visible masses are formed by the aggregation of many tiny similar bits of one (ormore) substances (this is 'like to like'): but (2) at the same time there is in the wholeso formed a portion of everything as well (this is ' homoeomeria ).5 In the source fromwhich Lucretius drew, no doubt the two doctrines were mentioned consecutively, asthey are in Simplicius (p. 112), and as they must be unless a false impression is to begiven. An easy mistake indeed; for who could know beforehand what a word suchas 6p/oLoL/~pELas likely to mean ? Is not the history of the controversy itself a suffi-cient excuse for Lucretius ? A priori, the name might well have been attached to the

1 Simplicius does not explicitly introduce thesewords as a verbatim quotation from Theo-phrastus; and as he does so introduce a quota-tion a little further on, it seems probable thatTheophrastus need not be held responsible forthese two examples (gold and earth). They areof course, strictly, incorrect. 'Like' certainlydid 'come to like' to form them as to form

everything else; but they were not portions ofactual earth or gold which so came together, forthere was nothing in the All at the very beginningwhich' was earth' or which' was gold,' for neitherof them are elements (see also pp. 117, I18).

2 See above, p. 35.3 Lucretius of course says that Anaxagoras

held the principle of infinite divisibility as well ;

but he rightly makes an entirely separate pointof it (as Anaxagoras himself does: see fr. 3 and6; fr. 12, etc.). He goes on after the abovequotation to another point-(2) denial of the void(1. 843): nec tamen esse ulla idem ex parte in rebusinane concedit; and then (3) assertion of infinitedivisibility: neque corporibus finem esse secandis.'Like to like' does not automatically imply in-

finite divisibility.4 Lucretius speaks not only of bone, flesh,

blood as being formed thus, but also of gold,earth, fire, water. This is the same slight in-accuracy as was made by Simplicius (above,p. 112). It is not a serious one, unless it leadsus to suppose that the latter substances areelements. SSee below, p. I1i6, Il7.

H







114 A. L. PECK

like-to-like doctrine, as Lucretius imagines it was; and we are able to say he waswrong only because we can recognize the two doctrines which he describes (bothgenuine-and mutually complementary-doctrines of Anaxagoras), and because other

commentators, in attaching the word to the other doctrine, show us the connexionbetween it and Anaxagoras' own words, Ev w'avir 'avrbs piopa EVEo-r.1But, even if we had been unable to check Lucretius' mistake, it ought to be

impossible to claim (as some scholars do) that what Lucretius describes as being thedoctrine of the rerum homoeomneria s identical with what Aristotle means by the adjec-tive

o/oLOoLEpjSr by n-

6poLo/IEpi.The two ideas are by no means identical. We

must not be misled by a superficial resemblance between the words into supposingthat they both mean something which neither of them means.2

THE SEEDS: ARE THEY THE 'ELEMENTS' OF ANAXAGORAS' SYSTEM ?3

It remains tosay something

about the Seeds, whichfigure prominently

in someinterpretations of Anaxagoras, though our authorities say extremely little about them.

Now, according to Anaxagoras himself (fr. 3), there is no limit in either directionto the size of pieces of matter. (a) There is no limit of smallness: therefore there areno 'atoms'; and (b) there is no limit of greatness. How large, then, is a Seed?'Surely it would be extraordinary if Anaxagoras said that pieces of matter of variable andindeterminable size were his elements.5 Of course he did not say the Seeds wereelements, nor so far as I am aware is there any ancient assertion that he did. It isnot pieces, variable in size, of substances, but the substances themselves, whichrightly bear the name of' element.' In chemistry, it is not io c.c. or ? dwt. or amolecule of hydrogen which is the element, but hydrogen.

What, then, can a Seed be ? There are, I think, three possible hypotheses.6(a) If a Seed is just a convenient name for a comparatively small piece of matter

in the mixture, identical in nature and composition with a large piece of matter, thenwhat we believe about a Seed will depend upon what we believe about matter ingeneral. Here there are two possibilities:

(i.) A Seed is a tiny piece of an elemental substance.(ii.) A Seed is a tiny piece of matter containing a piece of all the elemental

substances, one (or more7) of which 'prevails'in it and gives it itscharacter.

1 Simplicius says that ' each poLoydpeca, ust

like the Whole, has all things present withinitself' (460); and Aetius says: ' Because the ydp-qin the food were similar (68oia) to the substancesproduced by them, he called them 6/oLoydpeLcL'(i. 3. 5). The word is here used in the concrete;but the tendency is clear. The connexion of theword oIoLofdpecLa not

61olopepIc)with the doctrine

iv 7ravrl etc., may thus be probably put back asfar as Theophrastus, and indeed why should wenot say with Lucretius that Anaxagoras himselfused it ?

' The word 6poro~ipeLa eems not to occur inAristotle. Similarly, the word p•fi~rea oes notappear in Aristotle in Empedocles' sense at all.See above, p. 29, nn. I, 3; and below, note 8.

3 The view that the Seeds are the elements isheld by Burnet (E.G.P., ed. iii., p. 264) and byMr. Cornford (C.Q, XXIV. 22. 29, 30, 84); andpartially by Mr. Bailey (The Greek Atomists,App. i.).

4 Unless we know the size of Seeds we cannot

profitably speak of 'more' or ' fewer' Seeds (as

Mr. Bailey does, op. cit., 548, 'the majority of theSeeds in a compound structure'; 'most bread-seeds,' ib. 549; cf. also 'more portions of theHot' (Mr. Cornford, C.Q. XXIV. 86), 'more orfewer portions' (p. 87).

See C.Q. XXIV. 84.6 I take no notice of the hypothesis that o7r1p/~a

may be equivalent to the Empedoclean Aifwoha,as it seems incompatible with fr. 4.

7 The point of this will be seen later, p. I16.s This is apparently what the doxographers

often mean by6oLor~opecac,

which may if desiredbe considered the 'units' of matter. See below,p. I16 sq. I entirely agree with Mr Bailey (op. cit.,PP. 553. 554) that the usage of 6~oLLo~perLa ustbe clearly distinguished from that of

6potooiep s;and that 'the doxographers did not get [theseusages of 6pooop'petaw] from Aristotle' (p. 555).But they are by no means consistent in theirusage. Aristotle himself never uses the word

68/oiojdpea, which is in keeping with his custom.








(b) A Seed is a Seed in the ordinary sense, viz. a Seed of a plant or of ananimal.

There is so little in Anaxagoras and in our testimonies about the Seeds, that to

choose between these hypotheses is not easy. Other things being equal, we shouldnaturally assume that the ordinary meaning is the one intended, especially in view ofAnaxagoras' interests, unless of course it is ruled out by the evidence.

TESTIMONIES MENTIONING THE SEEDS.

(Excluding those which definitely refer to Seeds of animals or plants.)(I) Anaxagoras fr. 4. These things being so, we must believe that many and manifold

things are present in all those things that are formed by combination (CvuyKptvoPvos), and(or that is to say) that there are in them Seeds of all XpcLara-Seeds, I say, which haveicai and colours and tastes of all sorts. And we must believe that men and the otheranimals, so many as have life, were compacted .. But before these things were separatedoff (drroKptOvarL), hilst all were together, not even any colour was distinguishable. This

was due to the commixture of all XpllWara, that is, of the moist and the dry, and the hot andthe cold, and the bright and the dark; and of much Earth that was present in it; and of anunlimited multitude of Seeds no whit resembling one another.

(2) Aristotle de gen. et corr., 314 a 29 (passage quoted, p. 28 above; mention ofravcrep-pla sub fin.).

(3) Aristotle de caelo, 302 a 28 (quoted above, p. 28). Translation: (a 31)' Anaxagoras says

. that the homoeomerous things (I mean, e.g., Flesh, Bone, and every such thing) areelements, whereas Air, and Fire, is a mixture of these, and of all the other Seeds, for eitherof them is a conglomeration composed of all homoeomerous things, which are invisible.Hence all things, he says, come into being out of them' [viz., out of Air and Fire].

So far as I know, these are the only passages1 in the fragments of Anaxagorasand in Aristotle's notices of him which mention Seeds (other than Seeds of animalsand plants).

In (I) it will be seen that Anaxagoras passes immediately from the mention ofSeeds to the mention of animals. In (3) Aristotle says that, in Anaxagoras, so farfrom being elements (as Empedocles made them), Air and Fire were mixtures of theelements Flesh, Bone, etc., that is, of tiny invisible pieces of them, for in Air andFire there are of course no large masses of Flesh, Bone, etc., but only tiny pieces ofthem (dd c ara 4potoIEp5i), too small to be recognizable. These invisible piecesAristotle describes also as Seeds; and the same seems to be implied in (2), where heapplies to Earth, Air, Fire, Water the description cravco-rwEplla 7-o•rzov (sc. IVv

6•oLopMEptv-Flesh, Bone, etc.) 'a mass of seeds of Flesh, Bone, etc.'Here, again, we cannot be certain that Anaxagoras used the word

ocr-p/ain just

the sense that Aristotle here uses it, though he may have done so. We see thatAristotle uses the word WravorEptl with reference to Democritus too.2 However, ifwe accept this usage of orip-~pta s being that of Anaxagoras himself, the connotationwill be 'a tiny invisible piece' of an elemental substance. This is equivalent tohypothesis (a) (i.) above.3ary procedure (see note 2 above). It so happened,however, that some of Anaxagoras' elementalsubstances coincided with some of the substancescalled r& 6boto/epii by Aristotle. There is reallyno essential connexion between

6/ocoudpcpaand 'rd

6pooLocop7/,although a superficial reading of the

evidence has frequently given rise to the beliefthat there is, and that Anaxagoras himself usedthe term

oo10ooEpgS.SMr. Cornford (C.Q. XXIV. 22) says: 'Our

authorities agree that, in Anaxagoras' system, the

OroLXEta . . are the Seeds or homoeomeriai (Aris-totle calls them rxrp~cara or ci6para 6o/otoefpj) ...They cannot begin or cease to exist, and so can-not be increased or diminished in number.

'. .. Aristotle's repeated statements that the Seedsare the only elements in Anaxagoras' (ib. 29).These assertions are based on the equation of fiveterms: r& 6/otolepfL7= c6para 6lO/Ol1oepy = 6LotoOEpELaL=7 dndppLraor w-- LXEa, for which no justificationis, or indeed can be, offered. Some of them,though not all, can be equated, as we have seen.For example, although the 0rotxEra (i.e., thekinds of elementary substances) cannot be in-creased or diminished in number, this cannot

apply to the rwripp.raa (i.e., the bits of thoseelementary substances), unless they are of a fixedsize. 2 Phys. 203 a 19 sq.

SThe meaning in hypothesis (a) (ii.) is notsuggested by Aristotle's words.







II6 A. L. PECK

If we take the ordinary meaning ofo-r-ppa=

Seed of plant or animal, then wehave a good deal of information given us about it by the Scholiast on Gregory.' ASeed would be what he calls a yovi. And the nature of a Seed must have been one

of the problemswhich

particularlyinterested

Anaxagoras.The matter is

clearlyput

by the Scholiast. A Seed must contain a bit of all the substances which will appearin the creature which is to develop from it.2 This would fit in well with Anaxagoraswords in fr. 4, for a Seed of this sort would contain what he mentions there. Sowould a Seed in the first sense, unless we take the words of fr. 4 (as some do) to

imply that there is (e.g.) a Xpos; as well as a j)on), etc., in every Seed, which we arenot bound to do.4

It seems impossible to decide between these meanings; but nothing importantis involved. I shall therefore choose (b), for the reason already given, though withoutsuggesting that the other two are wrong. It will be seen that all three refer to some-thing that actually occurs in the scheme.

Some of the misunderstandings that have arisen about the Seeds have been dueto the confusion and identification of' element' with 'unit of matter.' An elementof course must ex hy~pothesi e simple and uniform; a unit need not be.

We have seen already that there can be no 'atom,' no indivisible body, in

Anaxagoras' system: therefore the unit cannot be fixed in respect of size.Now Anaxagoras tells us that the things in this world are not cut off one from

another like as with a hatchet, and that there is a portion of everything in everything.This is supported by his assertion (fr. 6) that, as at the beginning, so now, all thingsare mixed together. This clearly indicates that the unit of matter is a unit fixed inrespect of its composition, not of its size; and that that composition (' formula' almost)is 'a

portionof

everything.'Let us take an example-any piece of matter, say a piece of bone; not theelement ' bone,' but any bone out of a lump of meat. There is in this bone a portionof everything that exists-of flesh, of bone, of hair, of bark, of wood, of the hot, ofthe cold, of the sweet, of the bitter, etc. There is more5 of some of these in it thanof others. For consider: what is this before us ? It is bone. It is hard. It is white.

Then there is a greater portion of 'bone' in it, a greater portion of ' the hard' in it,a greater portion of 'the white' in it, than of other 'things.' And that is why it ishard white bone--and so with all the things it can truly be said to be. Those thingshold sway in it and give it its character. 'rmwv

wrdo-r'aIvc, -ra-ia Ev3s/Xo'TaCa v EKarUTOV

E07C KO~L

A similar description can be given of any other object.Now matter is infinitely divisible. Thus the portion of everything in that bone,

as well as the whole lump, is infinitely divisible. Hence, however small you care tocut up that bone, none of the things in it will be forced to part company because

1 Diels B. Io.

2 And, of course, of every other substance too.See also Ar. de gen. an. 763b 30.

a So might a Seed of meaning (a) (ii.). In manyrespects these two meanings coincide.

That is, taking the words to mean that oneSeed would have the iac Flesh, another the Xpot&

Xvic6v, anotherthe

ilovij r•Kp6v, etc.;and as

they would be 'all 6to8' always, what we call*qualities' would not be found apart from whatwe call ' substances.'

a That is, of course, a larger portion, not moreportions numerically.

6 This is an interesting stage in the history ofpredication. With it may be compared the 6vap-theory in Plato's Theaetetus, 20oId-2o2c, in which

the problem is treated as one of logic and psy-chology rather than of physics. There seemsalso to be an implicit analogy with Anaxagorasin the statement that isolated rrotXEda are &hAoya,have no meaning. For the 7roXX&v6dcara, cf.Sophist, 2511, b.

7 Frag. 12. It will be seen that, with thisexplanation, the plurals

6rwovnd ra3ra are readily

intelligible.8 Note that a complete description of any

object is provided for by Anaxagoras' schemesince every one of what we call 'qualities' willhave a substance corresponding to it in his thirdclass of elements (the so-called Opposites). Thefirst two classes consist of 'substances' proper.








they have reached their limit of division. You will never come to the time when youhave all the bone-substance on one side of the knife, or all the hot, or all the white.There will always be a portion of all the substances in every fraction of that bone.

We are fortunate in having this point stated in Anaxagoras' own words (fr. 6):'And inasmuch as the portions of the great and of the small are equal in number,thus too all things will be in everything. Nor is it possible for them to be asunder,but all things have in them a portion of everything. Inasmuch as there can be nosmallest, they cannot be sundered, nor can any come to be by itself, but even as atthe beginning, so now all things are together.'

The same, though with a slight necessary modification, holds good in the cosmo-logical realm as well as in the organic. Take the instance of ether (fire). All thingsare in ether as well as in bone; but here we do not find a large portion of 'ether'prevailing, for there is no such thing. What we call 'ether' is simply a mixture ofall the elements. Thus, in ether, nothing organic such as flesh or wood prevails:the things there is most of in ether are z- dpaLwV, b Gplp~v, '- (pPv (fr. 15); but allthe others are there too (frr. 8, 12). Similarly with air, and the things that are'separated out' from it, viz. water, earth, stones, etc.: here we find prevailing gener-ally

-b IitKV4V,r-

&EpOV, '-6 eXpdv and'-6 (of pdv. In stones, apparently, b vXP>p6vas

an even greater preponderance than in the others (fr. 16). Perhaps that is why wedo not eat stones; they have too much of 'the cold' and 'the hard,' although theyhave flesh and bone in them too. Air and water nourish us because their proportionsare more manageable. Fire will have too much of 'the hot' in it.

Thus the differences among the 'cosmological' things, fire, air, earth, water,stones, minerals, and metals, are accounted for by the prevalence of different permuta-tions of the

elementary 'Opposites.'It is, then, as Anaxagoras says, because matter is infinitely divisible that the differentkinds of it cannot be separated. That is why Aristotle's objection,' that you wouldbe able to get all the flesh out of a given amount of water, fails. Anaxagoras saysyou cannot. Things cannot be sundered. If he assumes this as his axiom, we arenot entitled to contradict him in our attempts to interpret what he meant. Thereforeyou cannot get all the flesh out of a pint of water ;2 and the same holds good in allcases and of all things. And, further, if we maintain this principle of Anaxagoras,we escape the infinite regress of substance within substance for ever. As soon aswe admit the separability3 f the elements, we are involved in that regress.4

We thus see that Anaxagoras' statement ivwrav'- ~'avibs oo~p

V

rvcra'applies

universally. Whatever piece of matter you take, there is present in it a portion ofall the things that are. Whatever amount of earth or water, flesh or rind, hair orbark you may take, there is in it a portion of every one of the things that are; andthis is true however small or great the amount you take or can think of.

1 Ar. phys. 187b 24 sqq.SSee too p. 119, para. 6.

'I take this opportunity of correcting an in-

accuracy of mine in C.Q. XX. 66 which has misledMr. Bailey (op. cit., p. 544). I said there: 'AnO/oroLo/peta (meaning a 'unit' as described above,p. Ii6) is not divisible.' This would be more

accurately stated 'the substances in it are notseparable,' which is what the context thereindicates. Mr. Bailey however in his own in-terpretation introduces (p. 547) a contrast be-tween 'juxtaposition' and 'fusion,' and holdsthat things in juxtaposition are separable, andcan be inseparable only if in fusion. Thereseems to be no justification for this view. Nor

does it help: for Mr. Bailey assumes the pro-portions of the fusion in each 'Seed' (= ? unit ofdefinite size) to remain ixed so that the substancesare locked up within it; which means that as faras explaining change is concerned, the positionis the same as if the 'Seeds' were simple, andMr. Bailey has further to assume Seeds of allsorts in everything (p. 549). Thus things arefused in Seeds and Seeds juxtaposed in objects.Mr. Bailey's view can be corrected by makingthe Seeds simple (destroying the fusion and theirfixed size) and admitting universal inseparability.& s if Anaxagoras had said, 'A portion ofeverything in every portion of everything ineverything.' See above, p. 33, n. 7.







118 A. L. PECK

Hence, the portions in anything you care to choose are similar to the portions inany other thing, for there is a portion or part of everything in them all. What couldbe a more exact name for this doctrine than 'Ooto~oppla, the Similarity of Parts, or,as Lucretius

puts it, Rerum homnoeomeria '1This has the

advantagenot

onlyof

fittingthe doctrine exactly, but of being a clear echo of the famous phrase ivc-av•- ravrbs

CtO P 2V~LLO OL EV'TEtT.2

OUTLINE RECONSTRUCTION OF ANAXAGORAS' PHYSICS3

I. In the beginning there was a mixture, in which all the elements (v. p. 1i2) werepresent mixed up together, and in such tiny pieces that they would have been im-perceptible. The appearance presented by this mixture was however exactly thatpresented by Air and Ether, which KhR'1EXE riva as they still do (p.ywora ~Evar-). Byfar the greater part of the universe at present consists of the Air and the Ether,therefore there must have been a corresponding preponderance of the sorts of matterwhich compose them even at the very beginning, before any sorting together of thetiny pieces into larger masses took place.4

2. Nov^s caused this mixture to revolve. The revolution was quite small at first,but has been gradually increasing.5

3. The result of this revolution was the sorting out of some of the tiny pieces ofsome of the elements so that larger masses of them were produced. (First stage ofthe' like to like' process.6) The chief elements, bits of which 'came together'atthis stage, are the so-called Opposites.' (The elements such as flesh, bone, leaf,wood, etc., still remained in their tiny pieces; and as the others were sortedtogether these were probably sorted into seeds of animals and plants in the Air.8)Thus, this sorting out or 'separating off' of pieces of the Opposites meant the

production of what we know as Ether (Fire), Air, Water, Earth, Stones, Mineralsand Metals-what I have called the cosmological or inorganic things.9 (They werenot, of course, produced by the coming together of tiny pieces of actual Water, Air,etc., because these are not elemental substances and there can be no such piecesof them.) There was some of every one of the elements in each of these, but differentelements prevailed in each,t' giving each its character. Yet in no case did any oneelement become entirely separated from the others; there was no complete -rdKpL(OSor 8~dKpa~.LO11

All these activities were controlled by vo;s.1The manner in which Anaxagoras conceived these cosmological masses to be

formed was well known in physics: it was condensation.13

1 It is necessary to repeat this explanation ofo/otoydpera (see C.Q. XX. 62), since in essence ithas been dismissed without argument as impos-sible (Mr. Cornford, C.Q. XXIV. 16, n. 4: ' The

suggestion in Aet. i. 3- 5 . . . is the irresponsibleconjecture of a doxographer. Anaxagoras, if hecalled flesh and the other tissues things havinglike parts could not have meant having partslike the parts of the food which nourishes them ').

2 Mr. Cornford (C.Q. XXIV. 90 sqq.) representsthe doctrine dv iravri iravri~s /oippa t'ror

as a

means of explaining ' the eternal differences be-

tween one elementary substance and another.'(a) But in no case can it be that; for the differ-ence between one element and another is ex

hypothesi ultimate, and therefore incapable ofexplanation. (b) Consonant with this, all ourevidence is that Anaxagoras meant it as an

explanation of 'becoming' and ' change.' Mr.Cornford's remarks on p. 91 about beer and theletters of the alphabet depend on the identifica-

tion of element (e.g. bone) with object (bone):see above, pp. 36, 116. (c) It is difficult to seehow the difference between one 'element' andanother can be accounted for by supposing thateach 'element' consists of the self-same sub-

stances, viz. the ' Opposites.' (d) Mr. Cornford'scriticism of Mr. Bailey (C.Q. XXIV. 91, n. r)hardly applies. Mr. Bailey's theory does not pro-fess to explain the differences between the elements.

3 In this summary I have confined myself to

points which seemed particularly to need state-ment, and have not mentioned others which take

their placesin the scheme without difficulty.

4 Frag. I. 5 Frag. 12.8 See above, pp. 112, 113. 7 Frr. 12, 15, 16.8 Theoph. hist. plan. iii. I. 4. Cf. Anax. fr. 4.o Cf. also Hippol. ref. i. 8. 2.

1o Anaxagoras tells us about the chief com-ponents of some of them in frr. 15 and I6.

11 Frr. 4, 6, 8, 12.12 Fr. 12.

13 ~vo~irsyvvrat yij,XLBot v~rIerflvvv~raL, fr. i6.








The Sun 1and Moon and Stars were some of the stones which had been whirledout towards the edge of the eddy by its revolution, and were 'fired' by the ether asit carried them round.2 (This shows that there must have been some of 'the hot'

even in stones, or they could never have become hot again.3)4. The earth as we see it is fairly extensive; so we are not surprised to hearthat there was a good deal of earth in the mixture, at any rate, before the time whenanimals were formed;4 though at the very beginning the elements which later formedthe earth were not bulky enough to affect noticeably the appearance of the mixture.5It was only when the sorting out was under way that earth appeared.

5. The Seeds of animals and plants, which had been formed in the Air,6 werebrought down to Earth with the Water.7 In every such Seed, as indeed in anyactual lump of matter (any object), be the amount of it great or small,s there was tobe found a portion of every element, including those which would eventually appearin the living organism destined to develop from the Seed.Y Now vos controls thethings that have life ;o and thus vo• gave power to one Seed to develop the substanceswithin itself in such a way that it produced a plant of grass; to another, an oak.Thus for the first time were formed large, visible masses of the other class of ele-mental substances, such as leaf, wood, stalk. (Second stage of the 'like to like'process.)'1 They, too, were formed by the aggregation of little bits of all the elementalsubstances, a few of which substances would prevail and give the object its character;and here of course it was actually e.g. bits of wood that came together12 (becausewood is an element whereas water was not) as well as bits of all the other elements,more of some, less of others (e.g. more of 'the hard,' less of 'the soft,' etc.) Thegrowth of the tree and all the things in it is made possible by the presence in the

earth and water and air of tiny bits of those substances, which it draws to itself fornourishment. The fact that only certain of the elemental substances in the Seedgrow, and in a certain way, is due to the controlling power (Kpa-redv) of voDs.1

6. The same, mutatis mutandis, may be said of the Seeds of animals. They, too,must begin in a congenial environment.'4 Such Seeds are nourished first by the foodwhich they get, as embryos, in the parent or in the egg; and when the offspring hasbeen born or hatched it is nourished by vegetable and animal food and by air andwater, all of which contain some portion of the substances which the body needs(such as flesh, feather, the sweet, the bitter, or whatever it may be.) When as muchas possible (though not all, for that would violate the canon wravTriacr- oSJr/dTroKplvErLl'5) of the substances which the body needs has been extracted'6 from the

Whence Anaxagoras' ' impiety': the Sun isno god; it is not even alive; for it is inorganic.Cf. Achilles (Diels A. 79), and Diog. ii. 8 and 12.

2 Aetius ii. 13. 3, Plut. Lys. 12, Hipp. ref. i.b. i. Cf. frr. 12, 16.

SAnd of course fire comes out of stones,Simplicius 460 (Diels A. 45).

P Fr. 4. 5 Fr. I.6 Theoph. hist, pl. iii. I. 4.7 Ibid.; Ireneus ii. 14. 2; Aetius ii. 8. 1.8 Fr. 6.

O Schol. in Greg. xxxvi. 911I (Diels B. Io).30

Fr. 12.It Cf. Simplicius (Diels A. 45), trav oK rcVrbOS

yLy6tlcevovo, ei KOl p• de&ros, XX& KaT& rci~LV :

cf. id. fhys. 174. I9; 176. 27.12 Cf. Arist. Met. 984a 11 sqq. See also fr. Io,

where the Schol. definitely connects&dKp•t-rwith

a0n6.o's.13 The alternative to saying that all things are

in all things is to say that some things are insome things, which is the view put forward byMr. Cornford (C.Q. XXIV. 17-21). But this, asAnaxagoras no doubt saw, is impracticable, un-less we are able definitely to say (e.g.)' This foodnourishes hair, and is the only food in whichthere is any.' Anaxagoras took the only prac-tical course when he said every thing was in

everything, (Mr. Cornford's difficulty arisesfrom his view that gold, emeralds, rubies, etc.,are elements, ib. i6, 17, 20.)

14 Cf. r. yov)s, 22-34; ir. &ai•rys, , 26.

15 Fr. 12.'6 This does not imply that (e.g.) isolated flesh

can be obtained out of a food by cutting it up.The transference goes on inside the body, andthe flesh in the food attaches itself directly tothe flesh in the body. In other words, theprocess depends upon the controlling power ofvois. It is biological, not mechanical.







120 ANAXAGORAS : PREDICATION AND PHYSICS: II.

foods, what remains is expelled from it as inorganic (lifeless) matter, which (becauseit lacks the special control of vois) no longer has the power of growth, and the greatmass of it now consists of the 'Opposites.' We might expect e.g. the vegetable

substances to prevail in the excrement; but their failure to do so can be explainedby the combination with them of large amounts of the ' Opposites' supplied by meansof the air and water which enter the body.

A. L. PECK.CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

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