20 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



phical map. We find Aristagoras, not many years afterwards, in 

 possession of a map of the world, engraven on brass. (Herod, v. 49.) 

 He is said to have invented the gnomon, not the sun-dial used to dis- 

 tinguish the hours of the day, but an instrument for determining the 

 times of the equinoxes and the meridian line. It seems doubtful 

 whether the division of the day into hours was known in Greece till 

 two centuries after the time of Anaximander. (See Ernesti ' Opusc. 

 Philol.' p. 23.) 



His Anaximander held that the origin and element of all things was TO 



trmes. infinity. What this aireipov was he did not determine ; 



whether anything material, or an infinite intelligence : later philo- 

 sophers explained it of the former ; and in consequence Anaximander 

 has been classed amongst the atheists. According to Cudworth, 

 Thales was a theist; but Anaximander, Anaximenes, Hippo, and 

 others, were atheistical, who held that matter devoid of life and 

 understanding was the first principle. But, in point of fact, so little 

 is really known of the doctrines of these philosophers, that it is not 

 easy to say whether they were believers in the existence of a God or 

 not. One thing should be remembered, that many of them, in all 

 likelihood, may have broached opinions concerning the formation of 

 the world which ultimately conducted their followers to atheism, 

 without being sensible at the time of their tendency. 



Anaximenes. The successor of Anaximander was ANAXIMENES, who taught that 

 the aTretpov of his master was air ; which was in some degree recur- 

 ring to the mythology of the poets, who identified the supreme Deity 

 with J^ther, the atmosphere. Anaximenes, however, maintained 

 that the gods had their origin from this eternal and infinite air. We 

 may here remark, that these philosophers, when they spoke of the 

 existence of gods, or rather deities, 3rujuoj'c, did not refer to them as 

 the creators or original causes of things, but merely as a kind of 

 beings greatly superior to man, arid possessing authority over them. 

 So that a belief in their existence was perfectly compatible with a real 

 and philosophical atheism. The grand doctrine of atheism is this : 

 that the substance of matter, or extended body, is the only real 

 entity, and therefore the only unmade thing, which is neither gene- 

 The eternity rable nor to be created, but self-existent from all eternity. But it 

 of matter. ^ QQS no ^ f \\ ow fa^ everv philosopher who asserted the eternity of 

 matter thereby intended to deny the eternity of God. On the con- 

 trary, some appear to have thought that an eternal cause must have 

 had an eternal effect ; as, for instance, Aristotle, who maintained the 

 eternal existence of the world, says, "If there were nothing but 

 matter in the world, there would be no original cause, but an infinite 

 succession of causes." Others, again, entertain the contradictory 

 hypothesis that matter was eternal and self-existent, and that the 

 Deity was coexistent with it; in short, that the artificer of the 

 universe and his materials were both self-existent. So that it remains 

 very doubtful whether the philosophers of the Ionic school did really 



