954 REV. H. J. CLARKE. 
object of thought has become something absolutely uncon- 
ditioned, save in respect to the conceivableness of repetition. 
In the perception of relativity in this solitary particular the 
Unit as such is recognised, and thereby is opened up a way 
for the intellectual representation of an unlimited diversity 
of arithmetical complications. Thus it will be evident 
that, in the process of philosophic analysis which these 
teachers adopted, the universe resolves itself ultimately into 
the emptiest of all conceivable abstractions. Upon this they 
had lighted in their laborious inquiry after a cause which 
should account for all things, and, believing they had found 
tke object of their search, they had gone no farther afield. 
But in the philosophy of Anaxagoras, the lurid fog, in which 
conjectures both inanely metaphysical and grossly material- 
istic, as it were cold vapour charged with heavy clouds 
of smoke, had veiled in deep obscurity the Fundamental 
Cause, begins to roll away. A gleam of sunny, but still 
chilly, light is visible in the distinction he expressly draws 
between Mind and Matter, and, in his assumption, that the 
former gives the impetus from which proceeds all move- 
ment, and at the same time knows what it is doing.* His 
doctrine is, as will be seen, not that matter is a form of 
thought, or that out of it, in process of molecular develop- 
ment, degrees and kinds of psychic energy evolve them- 
selves, and therefore were potentially inherent in it, but 
that it is essentially inert, that its inertia is overcome by 
something of a nature higher than its own, and that here 
is to be found the ultimate account of every indication of 
design, method, and arrangement which may be discovered in 
the universe. Accordingly, his Logos, although not like that of 
Heracleitus, undistinguishable from matter, virtually com- 
prises the supposition that it exists. But seeing that the 
term, if comprehensively applied in strict conformity with 
the requirements of his speculations, would not have been 
sufficiently explicit for his purpose, he avails himself of 
another in naming the Psychic Essence, and one which brings 
out. clearly into view the chief distinctive feature of his 
system : he calls it Nous (vovc),+ that is, Mind or Intellect. 
Now, things, considered as significant, thereby admit of 
being designated words. But if, in sober earnest and with 
philosophical intent, an intellect applies its own distinctive 
* Aristot., De Anim., i. 2, 17. 
: tT Plato, Cratylus, 400 A: “ry réy Gov axdvrwv gbow ob TorEbEc 
Avatayope vouy rt cai Wuyny eivar tiv dtaxoopovoay Kai éxovour.” 
