anaximander's book. 275 



late historians like Diodorus, and geographers, like Strabo, at this 

 point insert a cosmology. ^^ 



This phenomenon, hardly to be explained except by the conserva- 

 tism of literary tradition, raises the question whether Hecataeus, like 

 his successors, was not herein betraying the influence of his predeces- 

 sors. But of predecessors of Hecataeus in this field we know Anaxi- 

 mander only, unless we should assume that Thales also was in some 

 sense a geographer. For Thales, however, there is no direct evidence 

 whatever. Nevertheless there is a point that deserves consideration in 

 this connection. Almost the sole doctrine attributed to Thales is that 

 all things come from water: which Aristotle and Theophrastus inter- 

 pret with reference to the origin of life. Now Anaximander likewise 

 expressed opinions regarding the origin of life, animal and human; and 

 he also held that it originated in water, as with the gradual progress 

 of evaporation of the once all-engulfing sea dry land emerged. But 

 not only Herodotus, but the entire Greek tradition, where reference 

 is not had to such myths as that of the creation of man by Prometheus, 

 represent the 'scientific' theory of the origin of life as brought into 

 relation with the swamps of the Nile Delta. There fishes were 

 spontaneously generated; there existed the ideal conditions for the 

 beginnings of life; there was the cradle of the human race and the 

 fountain head of civilization. There, we may with reason assume, 

 Anaximander (and perhaps Thales) laid the scene of the early life 

 history of the earth. ^^ But if this were true, the work in which 

 Anaximander set forth his theory of the origin of life would bear a 

 definite relation to the later known works of the historico-geographical 

 tradition. The derivation of the alphabet from Egypt through 

 Danaus proves that Anaximander shared the view which sought in 

 that land of many wonders the beginnings of civilization. 



It is quite possible also that many of the explanations of meteorolog- 



82 The ' cosmology ' is in any case embryonic, and may more properly be 

 called a brief treatise Ilepi c{>vaecos. What signifies is not so much the content 

 of the account (although here also tradition was strong), since the explanation 

 of the world and the formation of the earth, of the origines in general, necessa- 

 rily varied with the pliilosophical school to which the writer belonged, as the 

 bare fact that an explanation of any sort was given at the particular place in 

 the general economy of the treatise; for this, as one clearly sees from Strabo, 

 was a matter of constant discussion, in which tradition ruled. Strabo 2. 5 is 

 here invaluable as showing the topics properly treated at the beginning of 

 a descriptive geography. 



83 On another occasion I hope to show in considerable detail how much of 

 early Milesian science was concerned with Egypt. A critical study of Egypt 

 as it appears in the Greek tradition will serve to elucidate at many points the 

 thought of the Milesians, including Anaximander. 



