HEIDEL. — Iltpl <j>v<r«os. 93 



/cat ov&ev avev <pvcrio<; ytVerat. — " Every thing has its natural cause and 

 nothing occurs without a natural cause." Nature has usurped the 

 power of deity. Lest any should fail to catch his meaning, the writer, 

 after detailing his naturalistic explanation, repeats: "but as I said 

 above, this is equally divine with other things ; but everything occurs 

 in accordance with natural law." Elsewhere 58 Hippocrates suggests 

 that it is ignorance alone which inclines the vulgar to regard epilepsy 

 as a divine visitation. It is in keeping with this view that teleol- 

 ogy is excluded ; even where a modern scientist would involuntarily 

 slip into modes of expression which imply final causes, the pre-Socra- 

 tics, though at a loss for a satisfactory explanation, offer no such sug- 

 gestion. 59 To the Socratics it was a scandal that Anaxagoras made no 

 teleological use of his Novs. 60 



When nature was thus interpreted, it is clear that the gods must 

 suffer. One recourse was to attribute the organization of the world to 

 them, and then to have done with them. This is suggested by Hip- 



a direct intervention of the gods in the regular course of nature. The scientific 

 assumption of proximate, special causes is perhaps an outgrowth of the suppositions 

 of magic, for which see Ed. Meyer, Gcsch. clcs Altcrtums, i. (a) p. 97. Heraclitus, 

 fr. 1 (Diels) diatpeuv eKaarov Kara <pv<jiv /ecu <ppafav okws #x €L appears to mean that 

 the philosopher proposes to give in his philosophical \6yos both the general law or 

 cause (for (ptiais includes both ; cp. IT. lepijs vovtrov, 1 (6, 352 Littre) <pvaiv p,ev ?x ei 

 (epilepsy) i)v /ecu t<x Acu7ra vovo-^fxara, 66ev yivercu ' <pv<nv dt avTrj ko.1 irpocpacnv kt\.) 

 and the proximate, particular cause. This latter promise he failed, of course, to 

 keep ; but that is true of every philosophy that has been, or ever will be, devised. 



58 IT. lepijs voiaov, 1 (6, 352 Littre) Kara p.ei> ttjv airoplrjv ai/Toiai tov fir] yivuiaKeiv 

 to Qetov avrfj diao-ojfeTat. The similarity of this case with that of tuxv and to clvto- 

 p.arov (see above, n. 50 and 51) is at once apparent. Science can dispense with 

 chance and God, in proportion as it apprehends the proximate causes of things. 

 The religious bearings of this position need not be developed. 



59 Cp. Hippocrates, TI. <ptcrios Tracdiov, 19, 21 (7, 506 and 510 foil. Littre) in 

 regard to the nails on fingers and toes, and in regard to the rising of milk to the 

 breasts of the mother at parturition. Almost countless other examples might be 

 cited. The significance of this fact is made clear when one thinks of the constant 

 opposition of to od eW^a to to avayKouov by Aristotle (Hist. Animal., Partt. Animal., 

 etc.) and Galen (Be Usu Partt.), the latter being the point of view of the pre-Socrat- 

 ics, the former that of the Socratic. Plato, Tim. 46 C foil, regards physical causes 

 as mere avvairia, oh debs inryiperoucnv xPV Tai T W T °u dpiarov Kara to dvuarbv ibiav 

 airoTeKuv. 



60 See Diels, Vorsokratiker, Anaxagoras, § 47. Eohde, Psyche u. 192, n. 1 gives 

 the impression that Anaxagoras employed teleology. Such a statement would be 

 absurd. Our sources are explicit on this head. Proclus ad Tim. (ed. Diehl. i. 1) 

 says : Ap<x£., 6s d-rj dot<e? KadevdSvruv tCov (LWwv tov vovv aiTiov 6vTa tCov yiyvofxtvwv 

 ib~elv, ovdev ev Tats d7ro56ceo"t ir po<rxpv T al T V "V- I a dd the passage because 

 it is omitted by Diels. Cp. Gilbert, Aristoteles tend die Vorsokratiker, Philol., 68, 

 392-395. 



