Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/222

Rh The result of his scrutiny or examination I give you in Creech's translation of Lucretius:—

This popular or poetical version of the doctrine of Anaxagoras does not carry us very far in the way of understanding it. Taken literally, the word  signifies things made up of similar parts, or, perhaps more explicitly, things made up of particles similar to the things themselves. But the more complete and exact interpretation of the doctrine seems to be this, that in everything, and in every fraction of everything, there is a fraction of everything; in each there is a sample of each; in other words, all is in all. Such, stated in a somewhat abstract form, is Anaxagoras's doctrine of the , a name probably invented, not by himself, but by some subsequent philosopher—I believe, by Aristotle.

5. Let me endeavour to throw some light on this doctrine by handling it in a less abstract fashion. I shall endeavour to make it clear by means of some homely and familiar illustrations. Let us suppose the world and all that it contains, the world and all its produce, animal, vegetable, and mineral—let us suppose this to be chopped up into the finest