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Rh you that before the time of Anaxagoras philosophers, in forming the conception of cause, beginning, or origin, had never risen above the conception of power, force, energy, activity, or efficiency. They undoubtedly conceived that the operations of the universe were brought about by some efficient cause, by some force competent to produce them—that an all-powerful energy was at the bottom of the ongoings of nature. But this power, though irresistible, was blind and unintelligent. At least, so far as the speculations of these philosophers went, no proof had as yet been furnished that the power in question was intelligent as well as omnipotent; efficiency, and not intelligence, was its characteristic.

14. Anaxagoras struck into a new direction. He looked rather to the ends than to the beginnings of things, rather to the purposes for which things were designed than to the sources from which they sprang. This at least was the tendency of his philosophy, although we cannot say that it was more than a tendency, for he did not advance far in the new path which he had opened up. He did not turn to much account the new conception on which he had hit; but he did effect something. He turned the thoughts of philosophers into an unexplored channel. He introduced into philosophy a conception which, even in its germ, was great. Looking to the ends which the objects and operations of the universe served, and seeing that these ends were good, he concluded that