NOTES ON EARLY GREEK COSMOGONICAL SPECULATIONS 51 



coming into being might never cease.' This can hardly mean any- 

 thing else than that the supply of matter would in time give out 

 unless it were infinite in quantity. Such an assumption, as Aristotle 

 points out^, is entirely unnecessary if the indestructibility of matter 

 be assumed. 



The statement of Burnet is, however, generally true for early 

 philosophy. The doctrine that nothing can come into existence out 

 of nothing and nothing can pass away into nothing, seems, with 

 the exception above pointed out, to have been a tacit assumption in 

 early philosophy, until it finds explicit statement in Parmenides, 

 after which it becomes recognized as a fundamental law. 



For the first part of the doctrine, however, that nothing can be 

 created out of nothing, we need not make an exception even of An- 

 aximander. He himself would subscribe to the words of Lucretius: 



Principium cuius hinc nobis exordia sumet, 

 Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus umquam.^ 



The poet, antedating the philosopher in his mythical account of 

 the origin of the world, does not, of course, state this doctrine, nor is 

 he conscious of it as a principle, but he nevertheless unconsciously 

 assumes it. For he starts, in his picture of the creation of the world, 

 not with a god who creates, but with matter out of which is created, 

 though, as we shall see, he rather vaguely and crudely personifies his 

 primal matter into a god.* To take only a single instance: Hesiod, 

 in his Theogony, starts with Chaos, a great gulf filled with dark 



' Plac. I 3, 3. Diels, Doxagr. 277. ' Kva^i^avhpo<; he 6 MtXT^o-to? 

 ^rjcn rSiv ovtchv ttjv ap')(r)v elvat to aireipov. * * * Xeyei yovv 

 SioTi airdpavTov eariv, Iva firjSev iWeiTrr} rj <y€V€ai<; 77 vcfyiara/JievT]. 



^ Phys. Ill S. 208^8. ovre jap Xva rj 'yeveac'i fir) 'eTrtXeiTrrj, avajKalov 

 evepyeta aireipov elvai aa)fia aladrjrov. ivSe'x^eTai jap Trjv darepov 

 (pdopav Oarepov eivac yeveatv, Treirepacr/jLevov ovro^ rov 7rdvT0<i. 



^ De Rerum Natura I. 149-150. 



*Preller, Griechische Mythologie, 4th Ed., p. 30. Zwei Grundge- 

 dauken gehen durch das Ganze. Der erste ist dass die Welt 

 nicht auf einmal d. h. durch Schopfung entstanden, sondern aus 

 dunklen und elementaren Aufilngen durch organische Entwick- 



