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s everything by the transformations of a single substance is bound to regard all differences as purely quantitative. The infinite substance of Anaximander, from which the opposites "in it" are "separated out," cannot, strictly speaking, be thought of as homogeneous, and the only way to save the unity of the primary substance is to say that all diversities are due to the presence of more or less of it in a given space. And when once this important step has been taken, it is no longer necessary to make the primary substance something "distinct from the elements," to use Aristotle's inaccurate but convenient phrase; it may just as well be one of them.

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It was natural for Anaximenes to fix upon Air in this sense as the primary substance; for, in the system of Anaximander, it occupied an intermediate place between the two fundamental opposites, the sphere of flame and the cold, moist mass within it . We know from Plutarch that he fancied air became warmer when rarefied, and colder when condensed. Of this he satisfied himself by a curious experimental proof. When we breathe with our mouths open, the air is warm; when we breathe with our lips closed, it is cold.

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Aet. i. 3, 4 .

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The stars are fixed like nails in the crystalline vault of the heavens.--Aet. ii. 14, 3 .

Hail is produced when water freezes in falling; snow, when there is some air imprisoned in the water.--Aet. iii 4, 1 .

The earth was like a table in shape.--Aet. iii. 10, 3 .

Footnote 158:

The text is very corrupt here. I retain ??????????????, because we are told above that winds are condensed air, and I adopt Zeller's ????? ?????????? .

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?, 1. 354 a 28 .

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The earthy bodies, which circulate among the planets, are doubtless intended to account for eclipses and the phases of the moon.

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In particular, the authority of Anaximenes was so great that both Leukippos and Demokritos adhered to his theory of a disc-like earth. Cf. Aet. iii. 10, 3-5 , ?????????? ??????????? . ????????? ???????????. ?????????? ????????? ??? ?? ??????, ?????? ?? ?? ????. This, in spite of the fact that the spherical form of the earth was already a commonplace in circles affected by Pythagoreanism.

Footnote 169:

For the theological views of Anaximander and Anaximenes, see ? 22 and 30.

The chief figures in the philosophical history of the period were Pythagoras of Samos and Xenophanes of Kolophon. Both were Ionians by birth, and yet both spent the greater part of their lives in the West. We see from Herodotos how the Persian advance in Asia Minor occasioned a series of migrations to Sicily and Southern Italy; and this, of course, made a great difference to philosophy as well as to religion. The new views had probably grown up so naturally and gradually in Ionia that the shock of conflict and reaction was avoided; but that could no longer be so, when they were transplanted to a region where men were wholly unprepared to receive them.

Footnote 170:

Cf. Herod. i. 170 ; vi. 22 sqq. .

Another, though a somewhat later, effect of these migrations was to bring Science into contact with Rhetoric, one of the most characteristic products of Western Hellas. Already in Parmenides we may note the presence of that dialectical and controversial spirit which was destined to have so great an influence on Greek thought, and it was just this fusion of the art of arguing for victory with the search for truth that before long gave birth to Logic.

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Before the time with which we are dealing, tradition shows us dimly an age of inspired prophets--Bakides and Sibyls--followed by one of strange medicine-men like Abaris and Aristeas of Prokonnesos. With Epimenides of Crete, we touch the fringe of history, while Pherekydes of Syros is the contemporary of the early cosmologists, and we still have some fragments of his discourse. It looked as if Greek religion were about to enter upon the same stage as that already reached by the religions of the East; and, but for the rise of science, it is hard to see what could have checked this tendency. It is usual to say that the Greeks were saved from a religion of the Oriental type by their having no priesthood; but this is to mistake the effect for the cause. Priesthoods do not make dogmas, though they preserve them once they are made; and in the earlier stages of their development, the Oriental peoples had no priesthoods either in the sense intended. It was not so much the absence of a priesthood as the existence of the scientific schools that saved Greece.

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For Empedokles, see ? 119; for the Pythagoreans, see ? 149.

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Arist. fr. 45, 1483 a 19, ???? ??????????? ?? ?????? ?? ????, ???? ?????? ??? ??????????.

Footnote 185:

See E. Rohde's admirable papers, "Die Quellen des Iamblichus in seiner Biographie des Pythagoras" .

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