anaximander's book. 271 



are told, with the origin of the cosmos. Out of the Infinite it came: 

 into the Infinite it will be resolved. The cosmos is described, and its 

 constituent members are placed in due order with their intervals noted, 

 the earth being at the centre. This world is but one of an infinite 

 number, past, present and still to come. These worlds may be called 

 gods. Certain phenomena of the cosmos are noted and explained. 

 The earth does not lie in the plane of the zodiac, but the latter runs 

 obliquely about it. The nature of sun, moon and stars is set forth, 

 and eclipses are explained. He explains also the origin of the sea and 

 the reason why it is salt, and offers explanations of various meteoro- 

 logical phenomena. Aristotle treats most of these topics in De caelo, 

 De generatione et corruptionc, and Meteorological^ 



One recurrent note cannot fail to arrest the attention: it is the 

 quest after origins, and the glance ahead, seeking to divine the end. 

 Whence and how the cosmos arose, where it will vanish at last; how 

 the sea originated and became salt, and how in the end it will quite 

 dry up : — these are, one may say, the all-inclusive questions, giving 

 the setting of the whole and providing for matters in detail of lesser 

 importance. Judging by our records, the outlook of Anaximander 

 is in the last analysis historical. It is in keeping with this point of 

 view that, as we have seen in tracing the record of his book, Anaxi- 

 mander displayed an interest in heroic genealogies and in the origin 

 of writing, a question then as now of vital concern to the historian, 

 because the use of writing is the precondition of the existence of records 

 serviceable for history. Of like character are the questions, to which 

 we know Anaximander addressed himself, concerning the origin of 

 land animals and especially of the human species. 



That Anaximander concerned himself with geography we know. 

 We have tried to point out the actual, or at any rate the possible, 

 relation to his geographical studies of his pursuit of geometry and his 

 use of the gnomon. But this instrument had obvious uses also in 

 determining the calendar, which is the basis of chronology and of 

 history; for history without definite measures of time is impossible. 

 History and geography go necessarily together: in Greece they formed 

 from the beginning a unit, geography being generally treated in 

 excursus in the historical narrative. It was only by Ephorus and 

 Polybius that geography came to be set apart as distinct books, though 

 embodied, as were the earlier geographical excursus, in works by inten- 



76 The importance of Aristotle's Meteorologica for the spirit and contents of 

 Milesian science does not seem to be fully recognized, — probably because he 

 does not often refer to his predecessors by name. 



