Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/366

362 a large meteoric stone which fell near the Aegospotamos River, on the northern shore of the Hellespont. Who can tell what his thoughts were then, as he perceived with his own eyes the material character of this messenger from the heavenly bodies, the so-called gods?

The influence of the idea of the Nous on the political life of Athens can not be estimated. Perikles was a political idealist, bent on making the most of the intellectual ability of every Athenian citizen, and the close intimacy with a man like Anaxagoras probably accounts for much of the fineness of his work and his freedom from the superstitions of his age. The ruins of the Akropolis of Athens at the present time show us something of what his idealism did for art. Anaxagoras taught that the Nous exists in all things in a greater or less degree, and the art of his age, the highest that the world has known, expresses to a degree never before attained the psychical basis of beauty.

Anaxagoras's service to philosophy was, however, the greatest, although it has not been fully appreciated. For the first time the psychical element entered into philosophic research. The Nous had to be reckoned with, as well as matter so-called, and since then we have had different grades of world theories, some of which attribute to the psychical the whole of reality, like that of Plato, some the part, as with Aristotle, and some none at all, as with the materialists. With Anaxagoras was born the idea of spirit, yet in the vague and glimmering way in which all ideas come into existence, and the gratitude of the world for this idea has been given to Sokrates and Plato, who presented it in its fulness. Anaxagoras, therefore, does not rank as great among philosophers in popular opinion, because he was so soon overshadowed by those who completed his conception of the spiritual.

When Perikles's power began to wane and he could no longer protect his friend and teacher, the vengeance of the multitude whose gods had been attacked fell upon Anaxagoras. He was cast into prison, and saved with difficulty by his pupil, and exiled to Lampsacus, on the southern shore of the Hellespont. There he organized a school of philosophy, and the Anaxagoreans are referred to occasionally by later Greek philosophers, but the school was soon overshadowed by the results of the age immediately succeeding. When Anaxagoras was ill and likely to die, his friends in Lampsacus asked him what they could do in his memory, and he replied that he would be pleased to have the anniversary of his death kept as a holiday, and this custom was long observed. The people of Lampsacus also honored Anaxagoras after his death by erecting an altar to him, bearing on one side the word 'Nous' and on the other the word 'Truth.'

The greatest tribute, however, to Anaxagoras was paid in the time of imperial Rome, a tribute of which he was' not unworthy. An imperial Roman coin was issued at Klazomenai, on the reverse of which was the philosopher Anaxagoras with the globe in his hand.