Spinoza or the active Idea of Hegel; for the Substance of Spinoza and the Idea of Hegel know things only through the mediation of the human brain; that is to say, by means of previously-organized matter. Anaxagoras is so decided in his assumption that the vous is free and conscious of its action, that he regards the word Fate (eipapuévn) as devoid of meaning. Besides, the very term which he uses to designate the motive principle signifies reason, purpose. He seems to make a transcendent being of it, one that exists independently of other beings, and acts upon them in a purely mechanical way. He even seems to consider these beings, not as intelligent in the true sense of the word, but as automata which appear to be intelligent without really being so. On the other hand, he speaks of the presence of the vous in living creatures as though he were a pantheist. The long and short of it is, the thinkers of this remote age never broached the questions of transcendency and immanency, personality and impersonality, conscious intelligence and unconscious intelligence. Heraclitus found nothing objectionable in assuming a primitive substance and a perpetual state of change. Similarly, we may suppose, Anaxagoras maintained both the transcendency and the immanency of the vous, without even suspecting that he was contradicting himself.

The same may be said in answer to the question whether the vous of Anaxagoras is simply less material than other substances, or whether it is an absolutely immaterial entity. It is undoubtedly true, on the one hand, that the attributes of the vous are altogether like those of the spirit of spiritualism, and that the vous seems to have nothing in common with matter except existence. Yet, on the other hand, there seems to be but a difference of degree between the vous and material substances: the vous, in fact, is the finest, the most mobile thing of all (ATTótatov távtwv χρημάτων); it is identical with the ἀήρ ψυχή of Anax

DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA, ARCHELAUS, ETC. 53

imenes. Hence, it is merely the highest kind of matter and, consequently, not absolutely opposed to it as in spiritualism proper. The dualistic conception is, as yet, only vaguely defined in the system of Anaxagoras, who finds it hard to cut loose from the materialism of the physicists. This is evident from the fact that Archelaus, his disciple, considers the voûs as the finest kind of matter. Moreover, Anaxagoras himself fails to apply the notion of finality and his principle that the prime mover is an intelligent being. Aristotle justly censures him for using mind as a deus ex machina to account for the movement of matter, and then wholly abandoning it for physical and mechanical causes as soon as it has served his purpose in explaining the origin of the first movement.2

Nevertheless, Anaxagoras went far enough in spiritualism to cause a reaction in Ionian physics, which became decidedly materialistic in consequence of this opposition.

§ 12. Diogenes of Apollonia, Archelaus, Leucippus,

Democritus

1. DIOGENES of Apollonia rejects both the pluralism of elements and the dualism of unintelligent matter and immaterial intelligence. He is a disciple of Anaximenes, and assumes only one original element, air, which is the source of all life in nature, and the essence of all bodies. Mind, which Anaxagoras seems to regard as a separate

Thus Aristotle finds fault with Anaxagoras for identifying vous with ux, though pretending to distinguish between them (De anima, I., 2).

2 Aristotle, Met., I., 4, 7. Cf., Plato, Phædo, 97 B.

* Simplicius, In Phys., 32, 33; Diog. L., IX.; [Fragments, coll. by Schorn, Bonn, 1829]; Mullach, I., pp. 252 ff.; [Ritter and Preller, pp. 172 ff.; Burnet, pp. 361 f.; Schleiermacher, Ueber Diogenes von Apol lonia (Works, part III., vol. 2, Berlin, 1838); Panzerbieter, De Diog. A. vita et scriptis, Meiningen, 1823. — TR.].

principle, is wholly dependent on air. This is proved by the fact that the spirit leaves the body as soon as the breath is taken away. Hence we cannot say that air is the product of mind or thought; nay, the reverse is true, mind is the product of air. Without air there can be no life, no consciousness, no intelligence; hence air, that is, matter, is the only principle. Intelligence is not a distinct substance, but an attribute of air. It is obvious, says Diogenes, that the principle we assume is both great and mighty and eternal and undying and of great knowledge (μέγα καὶ ἰσχυρὸν καὶ ἀϊδιόν τε καὶ ἀθάνατον καὶ πολλὰ eidos). It is the opinion of this physicist, whose views are closely akin to those of Melissus and the Eleatics, that dualism is the negation of the fundamental principle of science (è évòs aπavта). I believe, he goes on to say, that all things are differentiations of the same thing, and are the same thing; and this seems obvious to me. How, indeed, could the so-called elements, earth, water, air, etc., mix with one another, if they were not fundamentally the same? How could they help or harm each other? How could the earth produce plants, and plants animals? Let us therefore confess, with the ancient physicists, that all things arise from the same substance, and are destined to return to the same thing.1

2. ARCHELAUS.2- Archelaus of Athens, or, according to others, of Miletus, is a disciple of Anaxagoras. He adheres to his teacher's atomism, but protests against the dualistic interpretation of his system. The voûs is a separate thing like water, gold, and iron. It differs from these substances as these substances differ among themselves. Gold is not iron, but iron and gold are both matter. So, too, mind, though neither gold nor iron, is, nevertheless,

2 Diog. L., II.; Simpl., In Arist. Phys., fol. 6; [Ritter and Preller, pp. 178; Mullach, I., pp. 257 ff.; Burnet, pp. 367 ff.].

material; it is the finest, the most subtle, the most intangible substance, without, however, being a simple thing. A simple substance is a substance that is composed of nothing, and consequently does not exist. Matter and substance are, therefore, synonymous terms.

3. THE ATOMISTS. That is also, on the whole, the teaching of Leucippus and his disciple, Democritus of Abdera, in Thrace, the most learned of the Ionian physicists and the head of the ancient and modern materialistic 1 school (420 B.C.). His numerous writings have been lost, but important fragments remain. Besides, direct sources being wanting, we may refer to the exposition of atomistic principles in the poem of Lucretius.2

The somewhat vague doctrines of Anaximenes, Diogenes, and Anaxagoras, on the nature and organization. of matter, are clearly formulated by Democritus.3 With Anaximenes and Diogenes, he affirms the homogeneity of all bodies; but, with Anaxagoras, he conceives this indeterminate matter as divided into an infinite number of infinitely small molecules, which come together and separate. In that way bodies are formed and destroyed. These molecules are infinite in number and indivisible

1 We say materialistic, and not atomistic. For atomism is as old as Anaxagoras and his theory of the χρήματα άπειρα καὶ πλῆθος καὶ σμικρό in fact if not in name.

τητα,

2 [De natura rerum, ed. by Lachmann (1850), Bernays (1852), Munro, with Eng. tr. (1886). See Masson, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius, London, 1884.

1

TR.]

8 Aristotle, Met., I., 4; De cœlo, III., 2; De anima, I., 2; Sext. Emp., Adv. math., VII., 135; Diog. L., IX.; Lucretius, De rerum natura; Clem. of Alex., Stromateis; Mullach, I., pp. 330 ff.; Ritter and Preller, pp. 154 ff.; [Liard, De Democrito philosopho, Paris, 1873; Brieger, Die Urbewegung der Atome, Halle, 1884; Natorp, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Erkenntnissproblems im Alterthum, Berlin, 1884; Liepmann, Die Mechanik der Leucipp-Demokritschen Atome, Leipsic, 1885; Hart, Zur Seelen- und Erkenntnisslehre des Demokrit, Mülhausen. 1886; Natorp, Die Ethika des Demokritos, Marburg, 1893. - TR.].

(ǎToμa), without, however, being mathematical points, for an unextended thing would be nothing. They are identical in chemical quality (rò yévos ev), but differ in size (uéyelos) and form (σxâμa). They are endowed with perpetual motion, which they do not receive from a transcendent principle, but which belongs to their essence. The force which moves them acts according to necessity (καθ' εἱμαρμένη ὑπ' ἀνάγκης), and not, as Anaxagoras seems to think, according to design (voûs) and purpose (Téλos). Democritus rejects all teleology, but denies chance also, though he sometimes employs the word rúxŋ in the sense of necessity (ȧváукη). According to him, the word chance" merely expresses man's ignorance of the real causes of phenomena. Nothing in nature happens without cause; all things have their reason and necessity.1

66

The Eleatics denied the void and consequently motion. To assume movement is equivalent to affirming the void (TO KEVÓV). If there were no void, the atoms could not even be distinguished from one another; that is to say, they could not exist. Hence the void is the indispensable condition of their existence. It is also the condition of movement, and therefore as important in the formation of things as the full (τò πλñpes). The void is, as it were, a second principle, which is added to the matter of materialism, and gives the system of Democritus the dualistic turn which the most consistent monistic philosophies have not been able wholly to avoid. The void of Democritus meets us under the name of aπeipov in Pythagoras; it is the unov of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, the negativity of Campanella and of Hegel. Democritus regards it as the condition of motion and of matter; the idealists regard it as the condition of the dialectical movement of thought.

The perpetual motion (aïdios kívηois) produces a whirl

1 Stobæus, Ecl. phys., p. 160; Mullach, p. 365: Ovdèv xpîμa párηv γίνεται, ἀλλὰ πάντα ἐκ λόγου καὶ ὑπ ̓ ἀνάγκης.