Note 154 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Aristotle, in two places (De Cœlo, iii. 3, p. 302, a. 28, and Gen. et Corr. i. 1, p. 314, a. 18) appears to state that Anaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as simple and elementary: air, fire, and earth, as compounds from these and other Homœomeries. So Zeller (Philos. d. Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed. 2), with Ritter, and others, understand him. Schaubach (Anax. Fr. p. 81, 82) dissents from this opinion, but does not give a clear explanation. Another passage of Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 3, p. 984, a. 11) appears to contradict the above two passages, and to put fire and water, in the Anaxagorean theory, in the same general category as flesh and bone: the explanatory note of Bonitz, who tries to show that the passage in the Metaphysica is in harmony with the other two above named passages, seems to me not satisfactory.

Lucretius (i. 835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh, bone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homœomeries; and I cannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with Empedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have been used by the latter. Ἐναντίως δὲ φαίνονται λέγοντες οἱ περὶ Ἀναξαγόραν τοῖς περὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέα. Ὁ μὲν γάρ (Emp.) φησι πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀέρα καὶ γῆν στοιχεῖα τέσσαρα καὶ ἁπλᾶ εἶναι, μᾶλλον ἢ σάρκα καὶ ὀστοῦν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῶν ὁμοιομερῶν. Οἱ δὲ (Anaxag.) ταῦτα μὲν ἁπλᾶ καὶ στοιχεῖα, γῆν δὲ καὶ πῦρ καὶ ἀέρα σύνθετα· πανσπερμίαν γὰρ εἶναι τούτων. (Gen. et Corr. i. 1.) The last words (πανσπερμίαν) are fully illustrated by a portion of the other passage, De Cœlo, iii. 3, ἀέρα δὲ καὶ πῦρ μῖγμα τούτων (the Homœomeries, such as flesh and blood) καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σπερμάτων πάντων· εἶναι γὰρ ἑκάτερον αὐτῶν ἐξ ἀοράτων ὁμοιομερῶν πάντων ἠθροισμένων· διὸ καὶ γίγνεσθαι πάντα ἐκ τούτων.

Now it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies as simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set of bodies as such. Anaxagoras expressly denied all simple bodies. In his theory, all bodies were compound: Nous alone formed an exception. Everything existed in everything. But they were compounds in which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had come together into such positive and marked action, as practically to nullify the remainder. The generation of the Homœomeric aggregate was by disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which their agency had before lain buried (γένεσις, ἔκφανσις μόνον καὶ ἔκκρισις τοῦ πρὶν κρυπτομένου. Simplikius ap. Schaub. Anax. Fr. p. 115). The Homœomeric aggregates or bodies were infinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined in countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive and definite manifestations. Considered in reference to the Homœomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense be called elements.