Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/404

 586 HISTORY OF GREECE. it was to lie eternally productive of different phenomec /.,--* sort of mathematical point, which counts for nothing ir, meif, but is vigorous in generating lines to any extent thr*t /nay be desired. In this manner, Anaximander professed to givo a com prehensive explanation of change in general, or g.jrwration, or destruction, how it happened that one sensible thir^ began and another ceased to exist, according to the va;-nie problems which these early inquirers were in the habit of setting to themselves. 1 He avoided that which the fiivt philosophers especially dreaded, the affirmation that genera/Jon could take place out of Nothing ; yet the primeval Something, which he supposed was only distinguished from no f h'.ng by possessing this very power of generation. In his theory, he passed from the provinc; of physics into that of metaphysics. He first introduced into Grecian philosophy that important word which signifies a beginning or a principle, 2 and first opened that metaphysical discuflsion, which was carried on in various ways throughout the whole period of Grecian phi- losophy, as to the one and the many the continuous and the variable that which exists eternally, a distinguished from that which comes and passes away in ever- changing manifestations His physiology, or explanation of na ure, thus conducted the mind into a different route from that suggested by the hypothesis of Thales, which was built upon physic al considerations, and was therefore calculated to suggest and stimulate observations of physical phenomena for the purpose of verifying or confuting it, while the hypothesis of Anaximander admitted only of being Tennemann (Gesch. Philos. i, 2, p. 67) and Panzerbieter affirm (ad Diogcnis Apolloniat. Fragment, c. 13, p. 16.) I think doubtful: this is rather an inference which Aristotle elicits from his language. Yet in another pas- sage, which is difficult to reconcile, Aristotle ascribes to Anaximander the water-doctrine of Thales, (Aristotel. de Xenophaue, p. 975. Bek.) Anaximander seems to have followed speculations analogous to those of Thales, in explaining the first production of the human race (Plutarch Piacit. Philos. v, 19, p. 908), and in other matters (ibid, iii, 16, p. 896). 'Aristotel. De Generat. et Destruct. c. 3, p. 317, Bek. 6 9t6jtOf9t AitTe/.taav oi -npuroi 7/GavTCf, TO CK firjifvog rrup^ovTOf compare Physic. Auscultat. i, 4, p. 187, Bek. me
 * Simplinus in Aristotel. Physic, fol. & 32. Trpwrof avrbq 'A.p%r/v