12 SPECIAL RESULTS OP OBSERVATION IN THE DOMAIN 



agoras of Clazomene passed from the assumption of ma- 

 terial forces to the idea of a Spirit, distinct from all matter 

 but intermixed with all its homogeneous ultimate particles. 

 He spoke of the world-regulating Mind (vovg) governing the 

 continually progressive formation of the Universe, and being 

 the original cause of all motion, and thus of all physical 

 phenomena. It is by the assumption of a centrifugal re- 

 volving movement ( 12 ), by whose intermission, previously 

 noticed, he accounts for the fall of meteoric stones, that 

 Anaxagoras explains the apparent motion of the celestial 

 sphere from East to West. This hypothesis indicates the 

 commencement of vortex- theories, which more than two 

 thousand years afterwards became of much cosmical im- 

 portance by the writings of Descartes, Huygens, and Hooke. 

 This work is not the place in winch to enquire whether 

 Anaxagoras means by the " world-regulating Mind" the 

 Godhead itself, or whether he only means to speak pan- 

 theistically of a spiritual principle in the general life of 

 Nature. ( 13 ) 



In marked contrast with the two divisions of the Ionic 

 School, though likewise embracing the whole Universe, is 

 the mathematical symbolism of the Pythagoreans. In the 

 phenomena of the Universe, their regards were fixed ex- 

 clusively on the dominion of law in the determination of 

 form (the five fundamental forms) ; and on the ideas of 

 number, measure, harmony, and antithesis. To them, 

 things were mirrored in numbers, which are as it were an 

 " imitative representation"" (/u/^o-tc) thereof. They saw in 

 the illimitability of numbers, inasmuch as they can be 

 endlessly repeated and increased, the character of eternity, 

 and of the infinitude of Nature. They considered that the 



