114 Emp. Fr. v. 66-70, Karsten:

πάντα γὰρ ἐξείης πελεμίζετο γυῖα θεοῖο.

115 Plutarch ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8, 10; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 6, p. 887; Aristot. Ethic. Nic. viii. 2.

116 Emped. Fr. 185, Karsten. αἰθὴρ σφίγγων περὶ κύκλον ἅπαντα. Aristot. De Cœlo, ii. 13, 14; iii. 2, 2. τὴν γῆν ὑπὸ τῆς δίνης ἠρεμεῖν, &c. Empedokles called the sea ἵδρωτα τῆς γῆς. Emp. Fr. 451, Karsten; Aristot. Meteor. ii. 3.

117 Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 20, p. 890.

118 Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 532-535, 2nd ed.: Karsten — De Emped. Philos. p. 424-431.

The very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and meteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by these two authors.

119 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; Schaubach, Anaxag. Fragm. p. 175. Compare the remarks of Gruppe (Ueber die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-Gebäude of Empedokles.

Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and plants.

From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles120 proceeded to describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first produced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals.121 After a certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propagated.122 Among these productions were not only plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the “long-lived Gods”.123 All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in different proportions, more or less harmonious.124 These elements remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,125 could not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.

120 Hippokrates — Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς — c. 20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littré. καθάπερ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἢ ἄλλοι οἳ περὶ φύσιος γεγράφασιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὅ τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ὅπως ἐγενετο πρώτον, καὶ ὅπως ξυνεπάγη.

This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.

121 Emp. Fr. v. 253, Kar. τοὺς μὲν πῦρ ἀνεπεμπ’ ἔθελον πρὸς ὅμοιον ἱκέσθαι, &c.

Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. εἶπε πάλιν ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ὅτι τὰ φυτὰ ἔχουσι γένεσιν ἐν κόσμῳ ἠλαττωμένῳ, καὶ οὐ τελείῳ κατὰ τὴν συμπλήρωσιν αὐτοῦ· ταύτης δὲ συμπληρουμένης (while it is in course of being completed), οὐ γεννᾶται ζῶον.

122 Emp. Frag. v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed. Karst. Ver. 238:—

πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφίστερν’ ἐφύοντο,
βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρωρα, &c.

Ver. 251:—

Οὐλοφυεῖς μὲν πρῶτα τύποι χθονὸς ἑξανέτελλον, &c.

Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20; Physic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Cœlo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29; with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.

123 Emp. Frag. v. 135, Kar.

124 Plato, Menon. p. 76 A.; Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 324, b. 30 seq.

125 Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐξ ἀμεταβλήτων τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων ἡγεῖτο γίγνεσθαι τὴν τῶν συνθέτων σωμάτων φύσιν, οὕτως ἀναμεμιγμένων ἀλλήλοις τῶν πρώτων, ὡς εἴ τις λειώσας ἀκριβῶς καὶ χνοώδη ποιήσας ἰὸν καὶ χαλκῖτιν καὶ καδμείαν καὶ μίσυ μίξειεν, ὡς μηδὲν ἐξ αὐτοῦ μεταχειρίσασθαι χωρὶς ἑτέρου.

Galen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De Homin. Nat. t. iii. p. 101. See Karsten, De Emped. Phil. p. 407, and Emp. Fr. v. 155.

Galen says, however (after Aristot. Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 334, a. 30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture properly speaking, but merely close proximity. Hippokrates (he says) was the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture. But Empedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the structure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles. Oil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no such symmetry between them — ὅλως γὰρ ποιεῖ (Empedokles) τὴν μίξιν τῇ συμμετρίᾳ τῶν πόρων· διόπερ ἔλαιον μὲν καὶ ὕδωρ οὐ μίγνυσθαι, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ὑγρὰ καὶ περὶ ὅσων δὴ καταριθμεῖται τὰς ἰδίας κράσεις (Theophrastus, De Sensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol. i. p. 651, ed. Schneider).

Physiology of Empedokles — Procreation — Respiration — movement of the blood.

Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology. He dwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details respecting gestation and the fœtus, and even tried to explain what it was that determined the birth of male or female offspring. About respiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories: his explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments. He supposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs, but partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with those pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the blood vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre. Such was the movement which Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood: alternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession backwards towards the centre. When the blood thus receded, the extremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without entered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had thus entered was expelled.126 Empedokles conceived this outward tide of blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape and join its analogous element without.127

126 Emp. Fr. v. 275, seqq. Karst.

The comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly pertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not what Empedokles had in view (Aristot. De Respirat. c. 3).

127 Karsten, De Emp. Philosoph. p. 480.

Emp. Fr. v. 307 — τό τ’ ἐν μήνιγξιν ἐεργμένον ὠγύγιον πῦρ — πῦρ δ’ ἔξω διαθρῶσκον, &c.

Empedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by the klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a broad bottom pierced with many small holes. When the neck was kept closed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into water, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the bottom, because of the resistance of the air within. As soon as the neck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape, the water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.

This illustration is interesting. It shows that Empedokles was distinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the ascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as allowing such movement. Vers. 286:—

οὐδέ τ’ ἐς ἄγγος δ’ ὄμβρος ἐσέρχεται, ἀλλά μιν εἴργει
ἀέρος ὄγκος ἔσωθε πεσὼν ἐπὶ τρήματα πυκνά, &c.

This dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite amusement with children.

Doctrine of effluvia and pores — explanation of perceptions — Intercommunication of the elements with the sentient subject — like acting upon like.

The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain sensation. He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had advanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that sensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike acting upon unlike. Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried) to apply his doctrine to the various senses separately.128 Man was composed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and since like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements within himself, he perceived and knew the like element without. Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a suitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by water, and so forth.129 Empedokles, assuming perception and knowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four elements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other substances besides, perceived and knew in the same way. Everything possessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than man, who was a more compound structure.130 Perception and knowledge was more developed in different animals in proportion as their elementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood, as the most compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of intelligence.131

128 Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 2, p. 647, Schneid.

129 Emp. Frag. Karst. v. 267, seq.

γνῶθ’, ὅτι πάντων εἰσὶν ἀποῤῥοαὶ ὅσσ’ ἐγένοντο, &c.

ib. v. 321:

γαίῃ μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δ’ ὕδωρ,
αἰθέρι δ’ αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀῒδηλον,
στοργῇ δὲ στοργήν, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκεϊ λυγρῷ.

Theophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.

Aristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a ψυχὴ (soul, vital principle) by itself. Sextus Empiricus treats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a κριτήριον ἀληθείας (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 116).

130 Emp. Fr. v. 313, Karst. ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem. viii. 286; also apud Diogen. L. viii. 77.

πάντα γὰρ ἴσθ’ φρόνησιν ἔχειν καὶ νώματος αἶσαν.

Stein gives (Emp. Fr. v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding this from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.

Parmenides had held the same opinion before — καὶ ὅλως πᾶν τὸ ὂν ἔχειν τινὰ γνῶσιν — ap. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 4.

Theophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as one of his grounds of objection — That Empedokles, in maintaining sensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into pores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances (Theophr. De Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts this as if it were an inconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so considered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have accepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference, except one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.

131 Emp. Frag. 316, Karst. αἷμα γὰρ ἀνθρώποις περικάρδιόν ἐστι νόημα. Comp. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 11.

Sense of vision.

In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly by the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light without. The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior coat was a thin layer of earth and air. Colours were brought to the eye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by passing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white colour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black colour with those of water.132 Some animals had the proportions of fire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently located, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on the outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others, water was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the animals which saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light being required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former class of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little light without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed — or left more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to them.133

132 Emp. Frag. v. 301-310, Karst. τό τ’ ἐν μήνιγξιν ἐεργμένον ὠγύγιον πῦρ, &c. Theophr. De Sensu, s. 7, 8; Aristot. De Sensu, c. 3; Aristot. De Gen. et Corrupt. i. 8.

133 Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.

Senses of hearing, smell, taste.

In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or trumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the solid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and caused the sensation of sound within.134 Smell was, in his view, an adjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin. Respecting taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate and actual contact. Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid it down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not merely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or ducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious with them in respect to elementary mixture.135

134 Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9-21.

Empedokles described the ear under the metaphor of σάρκινον ὄζον, “the fleshy branch.”

135 Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9, 10. The criticisms of Theophrastus upon this theory of Empedokles are extremely interesting, as illustrating the change in the Grecian physiological point of view during a century and a half, but I reserve them until I come to the Aristotelian age. I may remark, however, that Theophrastus, disputing the doctrine of sensory effluvia generally, disputes the existence of the olfactory effluvia not less than the rest (s. 20).

Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the killing of anything that had life. His belief in the metempsychosis. Sufferings of life are an expiation for wrong done during an antecedent life. Pretensions to magic power.

Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries — especially that of the metempsychosis. He represented himself as having passed through prior states of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He proclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not to kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the sacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the soul of a deceased friend or brother.136 His religious faith, however, and his opinions about Gods, Dæmons, and the human soul, stood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on kosmology and physiology. In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid great stress on the existence of Dæmons (of intermediate order and power between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the Gods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long period of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals. He laments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others, condemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they could regain the society of the Gods.137 In one of his remaining fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured pupil the most wonderful gifts — powers to excite or abate the winds, to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead.138 He was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer. Gorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical ceremonies.139

136 Emp. Frag. v. 380-410, Karsten; Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, p. 997-8.

Aristot. Rhetoric. i. 13, 2: ἐστὶ γὰρ, ὃ μαντεύονταί τι πάντες, φύσει κοινὸν δίκαιον καὶ ἄδικον, κἂν μηδεμία κοινωνία πρὸς ἀλλήλους ᾖ, μηδὲ συνθήκη — ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς λέγει περὶ τοῦ μὴ κτείνειν τὸ ἔμψυχον· τοῦτο γὰρ οὐ τισὶ μὲν δίκαιον, τισὶ δ’ οὐ δίκαιον,

Ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν πάντων νόμιμον διά τ’ εὐρυμέδοντος
Αἰθέρος ἠνεκέως τέταται διά τ’ ἀπλέτου αὐγῆς.

Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix. 127.

137 Emp. Frag. v. 5-18, Karst.; compare Herod. ii. 123; Plato, Phædrus, 55, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 26. Plutarch observes in another place on the large proportion of religious mysticism blended with the philosophy of Empedokles — Σωκράτης, φασμάτων καὶ δεισιδαιμονίας ἀναπλέω φιλοσοφίαν ἀπὸ Πυθαγόρου καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέους δεξάμενος, εὖ μάλα βεβακχευμένην, &c. (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 580, C.)

See Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 151.

138 Emp. Fr. v. 390-425, Karst.

139 Diog. Laert. viii. 59.

Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding out truth.

None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than a few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great or comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings of our short life. Every man took a different road, confiding only in his own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man could obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.140

140 Emp. Fr. v. 34, ed. Karst., p. 88.

παῦρον δὲ ζώης ἀβίου μέρος ἀθλήσαντες
ὠκύμοροι, κάπνοιο δίκην ἀρθέντες, ἀπέπταν,
αὐτὸ μόνον πεισθέντες ὅτῳ προσέκυρσεν ἕκαστος,
πάντοσ’ ἐλαυνόμενοι· τὸ δὲ οὖλον ἐπεύχεται εὑρεῖν
αὔτως. οὔτ’ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ’ ἀνδράσιν οὔτ’ ἐπακουστὰ
οὔτε νόῳ περιληπτά.

Theory of Anaxagoras — denied generation and destruction — recognises only mixture and severance of pre-existing kinds of matter.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenæ, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less ambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry, without any of those mystical pretentions common among the Pythagoreans. His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic dialect.141 His theory, like all those of his age, was all-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning, and shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come into those appearances which were exhibited to sense. He agreed with Empedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other Ionic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which, by various transformations, other sensible things were generated — and into which, when destroyed, they were again resolved. Like Empedokles, and like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation, understood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no existing thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or could undergo real transformation into any other thing different from what it was.142 Existing things were what they were, possessing their several inherent properties: there could be no generation except the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any transformation except the substitution of one compound for another.

141 Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. i. 4, 5; Diogen. Laert. ii. 10.

142 Anaxagor. Fr. 22, p. 135, ed. Schaubach. τὸ δὲ γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀπόλλυσθαι οὐκ ὀρθῶς νομίζουσιν οἱ Ἕλληνες. Οὐδὲν γὰρ χρῆμα γίνεται, οὐδὲ ἀπόλλυται, ἀλλ’ ἀπ’ ἐόντων χρημάτων συμμίσγεταί τε καὶ διακρίνεται· καὶ οὕτως ἂν ὀρθῶς καλοῖεν τό τε γίνεσθαι συμμίσγεσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀπόλλυσθαι διακρίνεσθαι.

Homœomeries — small particles of diverse kinds of matter, all mixed together.

But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum total of first substances. He reckoned all the different sorts of matter as original and primæval existences: he supposed them all to lie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no greatest and no least.143 Particles of the same sort he called Homœomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts; wherein the parts were like each other and like the whole. Flesh, bone, blood, fire,144 earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of particles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh, bone, and blood, than the whole mass.

143 Anaxag. Fr. 5, ed. Schaub, p. 94.

Τὰ ὁμοιομερῆ are the primordial particles themselves: ὁμοιομέρεια is the abstract word formed from this concrete — existence in the form or condition of ὁμοιομερῆ. Each distinct substance has its own ὁμοιομερῆ, little particles like each other, and each possessing the characteristics of the substance. But the state called ὁμοιομέρεια pervades all substances (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53, note 3.)

144 Lucretius, i. 830:

Nunc et Anaxagoræ scrutemur Homœomerian,
Quam Grai memorant, nec nostrâ dicere linguâ
Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.

Lucretius calls this theory Homœomeria, and it appears to me that this name must have been bestowed upon it by its author. Zeller and several others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first from Aristotle and his physiological classification. But what other name was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?

But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homœomeries145 was a special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one of them could have an existence apart from the rest. Everything was mixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one of them could be obtained pure and unmixed. This was true of any portion however small. The visible and tangible bodies around us affected our senses, and received their denominations according to that one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided preponderance and prominence. But each of them included in itself all the other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.146

145 Anaxag. Fr. 8; Schaub. p. 101; compare p. 113. ἕτερον δὲ οὐδέν ἐστιν ὅμοιον οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ. Ἀλλ’ ὅτεῳ πλεῖστα ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἓν ἕκαστόν ἐστι καὶ ἦν.

146 Lucretius, i. 876:

Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes
Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud
Apparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,
Et magis in promptu primâque in fronte locata.

Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, 3. Διό φασι πᾶν ἐν παντὶ μεμῖχθαι, διότι πᾶν ἐκ παντὸς ἑώρων γιγνόμενον· φαίνεσθαι δὲ διαφέροντα καί προσαγορεύεσθαι ἕτερα ἀλλήλων, ἐκ τοῦ μάλιστα ὑπερέχοντος, διὰ τὸ πλῆθος ἐν τῇ μίξει τῶν ἀπείρων· εἰλικρινῶς μὲν γὰρ ὅλον λευκὸν ἢ μέλαν ἢ σάρκα ἢ ὀστοῦν, οὐκ εἶναι· ὅτου δὲ πλεῖστον ἕκαστον ἔχει, τοῦτο δοκεῖν εἶναι τὴν φύσιν τοῦ πράγματος. Also Aristot. De Cœlo, iii. 3; Gen. et Corr. i. 1.

First condition of things — all the primordial varieties of matter were huddled together in confusion. Nous, or Reason, distinct from all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass, setting the constituent particles in movement.

In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter) were together, in one mass or mixture. Infinitely numerous and infinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded together that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite figure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself. Nothing was distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and Æther (Fire), which surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together.147 Thus all things continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity. The fundamental contraries — wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense, rare, — in their intimate contact neutralised each other.148 Upon this inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind. The characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus marked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with each other. Having no communion of nature with other things, it was noway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and was of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and purest of all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things. It was like to itself throughout — the greater manifestations of mind similar to the less.149

147 Anaxag. Frag. 1; Schaub. p. 65; Ὁμοῦ πάντα χρήματα ἦν, ἄπειρα καὶ πλῆθος καὶ σμικρότητα. Καὶ γὰρ τὸ σμικρὸν ἄπειρον ἦν. Καὶ πάντων ὁμοῦ ἐόντων οὐδὲν εὔδηλον ἦν ὑπὸ σμικρότητος. Πάντα γὰρ ἀήρ τε καὶ αἰθὴρ κατεῖχεν, ἀμφότερα ἄπειρα ἐόντα. Ταῦτα γὰρ μέγιστα ἔνεστιν ἐν τοῖς συμπᾶσι καὶ πλήθει καὶ μεγέθει.

The first three words — ὁμοῦ πάντα χρήματα — were the commencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected and cited than any other words in it. See Fragm. 16, 17, Schaubach, and p. 66-68. Aristotle calls this primeval chaos τὸ μίγμα.