Note 13 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Aristotel. Meteorol. ii. 2, p. 355, a. 21, which is referred by Alexander of Aphrodisias to Anaximander; also De Cœlo, ii. 13, p. 295, b. 12.

A doctrine somewhat like it is ascribed even to Thales. See Alexander’s Commentary on Aristotel. Metaphys. i. p. 983, b. 17.

The reason here assigned by Anaximander why the Earth remained still, is the earliest example in Greek philosophy of that fallacy called the principle of the Sufficient Reason, so well analysed and elucidated by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic, book v., ch. 3, sect. 5.

The remarks which Aristotle himself makes upon it are also very interesting, when he cites the opinion of Anaximander. Compare Plato, Phædon, p. 109, c. 132, with the citations in Wyttenbach’s note.