BEGINNINGS IN GREECE 47 



of earthquakes. . . . Thales thinks that the Etesian winds blowing 

 against Egypt raise the mass of the Nile, because its outflow is beaten 

 back by the swelling of the sea which lies over its mouth. Mtius. 



ANAXIMANDER. A second native of Miletus, Anaximander 

 (about 611-545 B.C.) had a different interpretation of nature, 

 holding that the fundamental stuff, out of which all things are 

 made, is something between air and water. He believed the earth 

 to be balanced in the centre of the world, because being in the 

 centre and having the same relation to all parts of the circum- 

 ference, it ought not to tend to fall in one direction rather than in 

 any other. This point of view, not easily taken by the layman, 

 illustrates the natural tendency of the Greek philosopher to em- 

 phasize geometrical symmetry. 



Among those who say that the first principle is one and movable 

 and infinite is Anaximander of Miletos, son of Praxiades, pupil and 

 successor of Thales. He said that the first principle and element of 

 all things is infinite, and he was the first to apply this word to the 

 first principle ; and he says that it is neither water nor any other one 

 of the things called elements, but the infinite is something of a dif- 

 ferent nature from which came all the heavens and the worlds in 

 them; and from what source things arise, but that they return of 

 necessity when they are destroyed. . . . Evidently when he sees the 

 four elements changing into one another, he does not deem it right to 

 make any one of these the underlying substance, but something else 

 besides them. Theophrastus. 



The earth is a heavenly body, controlled by no other power and 

 keeping its position because it is the same distance from all things. 

 The form of it is curved, cylindrical, like a stone column. It has two 

 faces. One of these is the ground beneath our feet and the other is 

 opposite to it. The stars are the circle of fire, separated from the 

 fire about the world, and surrounded by air. There are certain 

 breathing-holes like the holes of a flute through which we see the 

 stars ; so that when the holes are stopped up there are eclipses. The 

 moon is sometimes full and sometimes in other phases, as these holes 

 .are stopped up or open. The circle of the sun is 27 times that of the 

 moon. . . . Man came into being from another animal, namely the 

 fish, for at first he was like a fish. Hippolytus (on Anaximander). 



