476 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 



creator of a complete and regular system, in which he adopted hy- 

 potheses derived by induction from the experience of facts, and m 

 this light capable of being applied to more profound researches. If 

 he instituted no precise method for the use of others, he was at least 

 the first who knew how to prepare one for his own. 



Anaximander, his friend rather than his disciple, profited by his ex- 

 ample, and advanced some steps in the career of science. He wrote 

 a book on Nature. Thales had given the first example of a demon- 

 strated principle ; Anaximander endeavoured to render his demon- 

 stration more vigorous, and in this endeavour he arrived at a purely 

 metaphysical syllogism " Nothing comes of nothing/' Thus ori- 

 ginated the celebrated axiom on which all the philosophy of the 

 Greeks for many years turned as one proof. It contains the most ex- 

 tended possible generalization of the principle of reproduction. 



Commencing from this fundamental proposition, he arrived at a 

 conclusion which astonishes by its boldness " Infinity is the begin- 

 ning of all things.'' Nothing which admitted of change or confine- 

 ment appeared to him sufficiently great for the universal and perpe- 

 tual generation of beings. 



Like Thale?, he confounded the idea of a producing cause with 

 elements on which the effect was produced by the agency of the 

 cause. 



Anaximander, as well as Thales, endeavoured to establish some 

 general laws of nature; such as the constant and mutual attraction of 

 the homogeneous particles of matter to one another. By the effects 

 of this attraction the forms of material bodies are produced, and mo- 

 tion as well as reproduction are eternal. Bodies like worlds are sub- 

 ject to continual revolution, and the destruction of one only takes 

 place in order to the formation of another. Heat and cold are the 

 two instruments of composition and decomposition. 



Anaximenes, a man of less originality and boldness of thought than 

 his two predecessors, admitting the doctrine of Anaximander with re- 

 spect to the infinite substance, which was the first principle, sought 

 for the seat of this principle in space. He considered the air which 

 fills space and so rapidly takes any form which is attempted to be 

 given to it to have the properties most appropriate for the universal 

 element. To the air he attributed life, the power of motion even 

 thought. 



It was requisite that that from which all beings emanated should 

 itself contain the qualities essential to these beings; hence he consi- 

 dered the soul as an aerial being, if by air he means the substance 

 vulgarly so called, the atmosphere which we breathe. At all events 

 the merit of recognizing the notion of intelligence and volition as in- 

 digenous in the first cause belongs to him. Of the many moral axioms 

 of Anaximenes preserved by Stobceus, the most remarkable is per- 

 haps this : " Poverty teaches wisdom, for she is the mother of in- 

 dustry." 



At length comes the name of the illustrious Anaxagoras. His ex- 

 istence deservedly makes an epoch in the history of philosophy. He 

 was the first philosopher who taught within the walls of Athens, and 

 his doctrines contained a sublime theory on the first cause. With him 



