Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/228

Rh saying, that matter is originally endowed with innumerable qualities. He conceived that qualities, or inherent differences, existed in things, and that the attempt to deduce these qualities from mere quantity was equivalent to deducing them from nothing, was deriving them from a source which did not contain them and could not produce them—was, in short, a violation of the maxim which was at that time accepted as the canon of all right reason, Ex nihilo nihil fit. The deduction of quality from quantity was a deduction of something from nothing, and was consequently an impossibility and an absurdity. Hence Anaxagoras concluded that quality was coeval with quantity, and was equally original with the original matter of the universe. And he held, further, that these qualities were innumerable or infinite, inasmuch as new qualities might continually manifest themselves, and inasmuch as (in obedience to the canon just referred to) no one quality was capable of being transmuted into any other. When a new quality appears we cannot suppose it to spring from nothing, for that would violate the maxim, Ex nihilo nihil fit; neither can we suppose it to spring from another quality, for that would equally violate the maxim; therefore, we must suppose that it was in existence all the while, and from the very first, only that it was latent; and further, as these new qualities are or may continually present themselves, we must conclude that they are infinite or innumerable. Such are the two points in which I think the