Note 164 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Anaxagoras, Fr. 8, p. 100, Schaub.

ἐστὶ γὰρ λεπτότατόν τε πάντων χρημάτων, &c.

This means, not that νοῦς was unextended or immaterial, but that it was thinner or more subtle than either fire or air. Herakleitus regarded τὸ περιέχον as λογικὸν καὶ φρενῆρες. Diogenes of Apollonia considered air as endued with cognition, and as imparting cognition by being inhaled. Compare Plutarch, De Placit. Philos. iv. 3.

I cannot think, with Brücker (Hist. Philosop. part ii. b. ii. De Sectâ Ionicâ, p. 504, ed. 2nd), and with Tennemann, Ges. Ph. i. 8, p. 312, that Anaxagoras was “primus qui Dei ideam inter Græcos à materialitate quasi purificavit,” &c. I agree rather with Zeller (Philos. der Griech. i. p. 680-683, ed. 2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is not conceived as having either immateriality or personality.