(235) Anaxagoras of Klazomenae, son of Hegesiboulos, was born in the seventh Olympiad (500-497) and died in the first year of the eighty-eighth Olympiad (428), according to the chronicles of Apollodoros. it is said that he neglected his possessions in his pursuit of philosophy; he began to teach philosophy in Athens (480). The fall of metoeoric stone at Aegos Potamoi (467 or 469) influenced profoundly his views of the heavenly bodies. Pericles brought him to Athens, and tradition says he remained there thirty years. His exile (434-432) was brought about by enemies of Pericles, and he died at Lampsakos. He wrote but one book, according to Diogenes, and the same authority says this was written in a pleasing and lofty style.

The Fragments of Anaxagoras

1. All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small also was infinite. And when they were all together, nothing was clear and distinct because of their smallness; for air and aether comprehended all things, both being infinite; for these are present in everything, and are greatest both as to number and as to greatness.

2. For air and aether are separated from the surrounding mass; and the surrounding (mass) is infinite in quantity.

4. But before these were separated, when all things were together, not even was any colour clear and distinct for the mixture of all things prevented it, the mixture of moist and dry, of the warm and the cold, and of the bright and the dark (since much earth was present), and of germs infinite in number, in no way like each other; for none of the other things at all resembles the one the other.

3. And since these things are so, it is necessary to think that in all the objects that are compound there existed many things of all sorts, and germs of all objects, having all sorts of forms and colours and tastes.

(239) 10. And men were constituted, and the other animals, as many as have life. And the men have inhabited cities and works constructed as among us, and they have sun and moon and other things as among us; and the earth brings forth for them many things of all sorts, of which they carry the most serviceable into the house and use them. These things then I have said concerning the separation, that not only among us would the separation take place, but elsewhere too.

11. So these things rotate and are separated by force and swiftness. And the swiftness produces force; and their swiftness is in no way like the swiftness of the things now existing among men, but it is certainly many times as swift.

14. When they are thus distinguished, it is necessary to recognise that they all become no fewer and no more. For it is impossible that more than all should exist, but all are always equal.

5. In all things there is a portion of everything except mind; and there are things in which there is mind also.

6. Other things include a portion of everything, but mind is infinite and self-powerful and mixed with nothing, but it exists alone itself by itself. For if it were (241) not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would include parts of all things, if it were mixed with any thing; for a portion of everything exists in everything, as has been said by me before, and things mingled with it would prevent it from having power over anything in the same way that it does now that it is alone by itself. For it is the most rarefied of all things and the purest, and it has all knowledge in regard to everything and the greatest power; over all that has life, both greater and less, mind rules. And mind ruled the rotation of the whole, so that it set it in rotation in the beginning. First it began the rotation from a small beginning, then more and more was included in the motion, and yet more will be included. Both the mixed and the separated and distinct, all things mind recognised. And whatever things were to be, and whatever things were, as many as are now, and whatever things shall be, all these mind arranged in order; and it arranged that rotation, according to which now rotate stars and sun and moon and air and aether, now that they are separated. Rotation itself caused the separation, and the dense is separated from the rare, the warm from the cold, the bright from the dark, the dry from the moist. And there are many portions of many things. Nothing is absolutely separated nor distinct, one thing from another, except mind. All mind is of like character, both the greater and the smaller. But nothing different is like anything else, but (243) in whatever object there are the most, each single object is and was most distinctly these things. 1 7. And when mind began to set things in motion, there was separation from everything that was in motion, and however much mind set in motion, all this was made distinct. The rotation of the things that were moved and made distinct caused them to be yet more distinct. 8. The dense, the moist, the cold, the dark, collected there where now is the earth; the rare, the warm, the dry, the bright, departed toward the farther part of the aether. 9. Earth is condensed out of these things that are separated. For water is separated from the clouds, and earth from the water; and from the earth stones are condensed by cold; and these are separated farther from water.2 12. But mind, as it always has been, especially now also is where all other things are, in the surrounding mass, and in the things that were separated, and in the things that are being separated.

13. Things in the one universe are not divided from each other, nor yet are they cut off with an axe, neither hot from cold, nor cold from hot.

PASSAGES FROM PLATO REFERRING TO ANAXAGORAS

Apol. 26 D. He asserts that I say the sun is a stone and the moon is earth. Do you think of accusing Anaxagoras, Meletos, and have you so low an opinion of these men and think them so unskilled in letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Klazomenae are full of these doctrines? And forsooth the young men are learning these matters from me, which sometimes they can buy from the orchestra for a drachma at the most, and laugh at Socrates if he pretends that they are his particularly seeing they are so strange.[ (246) Phaedo 72 c]. And if all things were composite and were not separated, speedily the statement of Anaxagoras would become true, 'All things were together.'

97 C. I heard a man reading from a book of one Anaxagoras (he said), to the effect that it is mind which arranges all things and is the cause of all things.

98 B. Reading the book, I see that the man does not make any use of mind, nor does he assign any causes for the arrangement of things, but he treats air and aether and water as causes, and many other strange things.

Kratyl. 400 A. And do you not believe Anaxagoras that the nature of all other things is mind, and that it is soul which arranges and controls them? (cf. Phaedo 72 c).

413 C. Anaxagoras is right in saying that this is mind, for he says that mind exercising absolute power and mingled with nothing disposes all things, running through all

Phil. 28 c. All the wise men agree that mind is king of heaven and earth for us. (247) 30 D. Some long ago declared that always mind rules the all.

Legg. 967 B. And some had the daring to conjecture this very thing, saying that it is mind which disposes all things in the heavens. And the same men again, being in error as to the nature of soul, in that it is older than bodies, while they regarded it as younger, to put it in a word, turned all things upside down, and themselves most of all. For indeed all things before their eyes-the things moving in the heavens-appeared to them to be full of stones and earth and many other soulless bodies, which dispose the causes of all the universe.

Phaedr. 270 A. All the arts that are great require subtlety and the higher kind of philosophy of nature so such loftiness and complete effectiveness seem to come from this source. This Perikles acquired in addition to being a man of genius; for as the result, I think, of his acquaintance with such a man as Anaxagoras he became imbued with high philosophy, and arrived at the nature of intelligence [GREEK] and its opposite, concerning which Anaxagoras often discoursed, so that he brought to the art of speaking what was advantageous to him.

PASSAGES IN ARISTOTLE REFERRING TO ANAXAGORAS

Phys. i. 4; 187 a 20. And others say that the opposites existing in the one are separated out of it, as Anaximandros says, and as many as say that things are one and many, as Empedokles and Anaxagoras; for these separate other things out of the mixture. . . And Anaxagoras seems to have thought (the elements) infinite because he assumed the common opinion of the physicists to be true, that nothing arises out of non being; for this is why they say, as they do, that all (248) things were together, and he established the fact that such 'arising' was change of form.

Meta. i. 4; 985 a 18. Anaxagoras uses mind as a device by which to construct the universe, and when he is (252) at a loss for the cause why anything necessarily is, then he drags this in, but in other cases he assigns any other cause rather than mind for what comes into being.

Meta. i. 8; 989 a 30. And if any one were to assume that Anaxagoras said the elements were two, he certainly would assume it according to a principle which that one did not describe distinctly; nevertheless he would follow along a necessary path those who guided him. For though it is strange particularly that he said all things had been mixed together at first, and that they must first have existed unmixed because they came together, and because chance had not in its nature to be mingled with chance; and in addition to this it is strange that he should separate qualities and accidental characteristics from essences (for there is mixture and separation of these), nevertheless if any one should follow him and try to put together what he wanted to say, perhaps he would seem to speak in a very novel manner. For when nothing was separated, clearly it was not possible to say anything true of that essence, I mean to. say that anything was white or black or grey or any other colour, but everything was necessarily colourless; for it might have any of these colours. In like manner it is tasteless, nor according to the same line of argument could it have any other of the like qualities; for it could not have any quality, or quantity, or anything. For then one of what are sometimes called forms would exist for it, and this is impossible when all things are mixed together; for it would have been already separated, and he says that all things are mixed together except mind, and this alone is unmixed and pure. It results from these views that he says the first principles are unity (for this is simple and unmixed), and what is different from unity, such as we suppose the undefined to be before it was defined and partook of any form. So he (253) does not speak rightly or clearly, still he means something like those who spoke later and with greater clearness.

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/anaxagor.htm