Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/141

Rh the certain facts of his life make it very unlikely that he settled at Elea and founded a school there, and it is probable that, as usual in such cases, Aristotle is simply reproducing certain statements of Plato. At any rate, Plato had spoken of the Eleatics as the "partisans of the Whole," and he had also spoken of the school as "starting with Xenophanes and even earlier." The last words, however, show clearly what he meant. Just as he called the Herakleiteans "followers of Homer and still more ancient teachers," so he attached the Eleatics to Xenophanes and still earlier authorities. We have seen before how these playful and ironical remarks of Plato were taken seriously by his successors, and we must not make too much of this fresh instance of Aristotelian literalness.

Aristotle goes on to tell us that Xenophanes, "referring to the whole world, said the One was god." This clearly alludes to frs. 23-26, where all human attributes are denied of a god who is said to be one and "the greatest among gods and men." It may be added that these verses gain much in point if we think of them as closely connected with frs. 11-16, instead of referring the one set of verses to the Satires and the other to a