Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/137

Rh many suns and moons, one of each for every region of the earth.

The vigorous expression "tumbling into a hole" seems clearly to come from the verses of Xenophanes himself, and there are others of a similar kind, which we must suppose were quoted by Theophrastos. The stars go out in the daytime, but glow again at night "like charcoal embers." The sun is of some use in producing the world and the living creatures in it, but the moon "does no work in the boat." Such expressions can only be meant to make the heavenly bodies appear ridiculous, and it will therefore be well to ask whether the other supposed cosmological fragments can be interpreted on the same principle.

59. In fr. 29 Xenophanes says that "all things are earth and water," and Hippolytos has preserved the account given by Theophrastos of the context in which this occurred. It was as follows: