Source on Anaxagoras

“[W]e may assume [Anaxagoras] belonged to a family which had won distinction in the State. Nor need we reject the tradition that Anaxagoras neglected his possessions to follow science. ...[I]n the fourth century he was... regarded as the type of the man who leads the "theoretic life."”

“One incident belonging to the early manhood of Anaxagoras is... his observation of the huge meteoric stone which fell into the Aigospotamos in 468-67 B.c. ...[I]t may have occasioned one of his most striking departures from the earlier cosmology, and led to ...the ...view for which he was condemned at Athens.”

“We are not to suppose... he was attracted... by... the character of the Athenians. ...Athens had ...become the political centre of the Hellenic world; but it had not yet produced a single scientific man. ...[T]he temper of the citizen body... remained hostile to free inquiry... Sokrates, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle fell victims... to the bigotry of the democracy, though... their offence was political rather than religious. They were condemned not as heretics, but as innovators in the state religion. ..[A] recent historian observes, "Athens... was far from... a place for free inquiry to thrive unchecked." ...T]his ...has been in the minds of ...writers who ...represented philosophy as ...un-Greek. It was in reality thoroughly Greek, though... thoroughly unAthenian.”

“It seems... reasonable... that Perikles... brought Anaxagoras to Athens... Holm has shown... the aim... was... to Ionise his ...citizens, to impart ...flexibility and openness of mind which characterised their kinsmen across the sea. ...The close relation in which Anaxagoras stood to Perikles is placed ...by the testimony of Plato ...In the Phaedrus ...Sokrates say[s]: "For all arts that are great, there is need of talk and discussion on the parts of natural science that deal with things on high; for that seems to be the source which inspires high-mindedness and effectiveness in every direction. Perikles added this very acquirement to his original gifts. He fell in... with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man; and, satiating himself with the theory of things on high, and having attained to a knowledge of the true nature of intellect and folly, which were... what the discourses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew from that source... to further him in the art of speech."”

“Alexander of Aitolia... referred to Euripides as the "nursling of brave Anaxagoras." ...The famous fragment on the blessedness of the scientific life might just as well refer to any other cosmologist as to Anaxagoras, and ...suggests ...a thinker ...more primitive ...[T]here is one fragment which distinctly expounds the central thought of Anaxagoras ...We may conclude ...that Euripides knew the philosopher and his views ...”

“Shortly before the ...Peloponnesian War ...enemies of Perikles began ...attacks upon him through his friends. Pheidias was the first to suffer, and Anaxagoras... next. ...[H]e was an object of special hatred to the religious party ...even though the charge ...against him does not suggest ...he went out of his way to hurt their susceptibilities. The details of the trial are somewhat obscure... [F]irst ...was ...a psephism by Diopeithes—the same whom Aristophanes laughs at in The Birds—enacting that an impeachment should be brought against those who did not practise religion, and taught theories about "the things on high." ...[A]t the actual trial ... authorities give ... conflicting accounts. ...[F]rom Plato ...the accusation was ...that Anaxagoras taught the sun was a red-hot stone, and the moon earth; ...[H]e ...did hold these views ...[H]e was got out of prison and sent away by Perikles.”

“Anaxagoras... went back to Ionia... settled at Lampsakos, and... founded a school there. Probably he did not live long after his exile. The Lampsakenes erected an altar to his memory in their market-place, dedicated to Mind and Truth; and the anniversary of his death was long kept as a holiday for school-children...”

“The system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with... a world which... presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away. The conclusions of Parmenides are... accepted and restated. Nothing can be added to all things; for there cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr. 5). Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly call coming into being and passing away is... mixture and separation (fr. 17). This... reads almost like a prose paraphrase of Empedokles (fr. 9); and it is... probable... Anaxagoras derived his theory... from his younger contemporary, whose poem was most likely published before his own treatise.”

“'''Empedokles sought to save the world of appearance by maintaining that the opposites—hot and cold, moist and dry—were things, each...real in the Parmenidean sense. Anaxagoras regarded this as inadequate. ...[T]hings of which the world is made are not "cut off with a hatchet" (fr. 8) ...the true formula must be: ''There is a portion of everything in everything''''' (fr. 11).”

“The statement... there is a portion of everything in everything, is not... referring simply to the original mixture of things before the formation of the worlds (fr. 1). ...[E]ven now “all things are together,” and everything... has an equal number of “portions” (fr. 6). A smaller particle... could only contain a smaller number of portions... [I]f anything is, in the... Parmenidean sense, it is impossible that mere division should make it cease to be (fr. 3). Matter is infinitely divisible... there is no least thing, any more than there is a greatest. But however great or small.., it contains... the same number of "portions,"... [i.e.,] a portion of everything.”

“Aristotle says... if we suppose the first principles to be infinite, they may either be one in kind, as with Demokritos, or opposite. Simpliciuss, following Porphyry and Themistios, refers the latter view to Anaxagoras; and Aristotle... implies that the opposites of Anaxagoras had as much right to be... first principles as the "homoeomeries."”

“Anaxagoras held that, however far you may divide... things—and they are infinitely divisible—you never come to a part so small that it does not contain portions of all the opposites. The smallest portion of bone is... bone. On the other hand, everything can pass into everything else... because the "seeds"... of each form of matter contain a portion of everything... [i.e.,] of all the opposites, though in different proportions. If we... use the word "element" at all, it is these seeds... [T]he "seeds"... he... substituted for the "roots" of Empedokles, were not the opposites in a state of separation, but each contained a portion of them all.”

“Though everything has a portion of everything in it, things appear to be that of which there is most in them (fr. 12 sub fin.). ...Air is that in which there is most cold, Fire that in which there is most heat ... [etc.]”

“[W]hen "all things were together," and when the different seeds... were mixed... in infinitely small particles (fr. 1), the appearance... would be that of one of... the primary substances. ...[T]hey did present the appearance of "air and aether"; for the qualities (things) which belong to these prevail in quantity... and everything is... that of which it has most... (fr. 12 sub fin.). Here... Anaxagoras attaches... to Anaximenes. The primary condition... before... formation of... worlds, is much the same in both; only, with Anaxagoras, the original mass is no longer the primary substance, but a mixture of innumerable seeds divided into infinitely small parts. This mass is infinite, like the air of Anaximenes, and... supports itself, since there is nothing surrounding it. ... [T]he "seeds" of all things which it contains are infinite in number (fr. 1). But... the... seeds may be divided into those in which the portions of cold, moist, dense, and dark prevail, and those which have most... warm, dry, rare, and light... the original mass was a mixture of infinite Air and... Fire. ...”

“[T]here is no void in this mixture, an addition... made necessary by... arguments of Parmenides. Anaxagoras added an experimental proof of this to the purely dialectical one of the Eleatics. He used the klepsydra experiment ... as Empedokles had done... and... showed the corporeal nature of air by means of inflated skins.”

“Like Empedokles, Anaxagoras required some external cause to produce motion in the mixture. Body, Parmenides had shown, would never move itself... Anaxagoras called the cause of motion... Nous. ...[T]his ...made Aristotle say that he "stood out like a sober man from the random talkers that had preceded him," and he has often been credited with the introduction of the spiritual into philosophy. ...[D]isappointment [was] expressed ...by Plato and Aristotle as to the way in which Anaxagoras worked out the theory ... Plato makes Sokrates say: "I once heard a man reading a book... of Anaxagoras... saying it was Mind that ordered the world and was the cause of all things. I was delighted... and... thought he... was right. ...But my extravagant expectations were all dashed... when I... found... the man made no use of Mind... He ascribed no causal power... to it in the ordering of things, but to airs, and aethers, and waters, and a host of other strange things." Aristotle... says: "Anaxagoras uses Mind as a deus ex machina to account for the formation of the world ; and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything necessarily is, he drags it in. But in other cases he makes anything rather than Mind the cause." These utterances... suggest... Nous of Anaxagoras did not... stand on a higher level than... Love and Strife of Empedokles...”

“Nous is unmixed (fr. 12), and does not... contain a portion of everything. This would hardly be worth saying of an immaterial mind... The result of its being unmixed is that it "has power over" everything... [i.e.,] it causes things to move. Herakleitos had said as much of Fire, and Empedokles of Strife. Further, it is the "thinnest" of all things, so that it can penetrate everywhere... Nous also "knows all things"... [P]robably... Anaxagoras substituted Nous for the Love and Strife of Empedokles... to retain the old Ionic doctrine of a substance that "knows" all things, and... identify this with the new... substance that "moves" all things. Perhaps... his increased interest in physiological as distinguished from purely cosmological matters... led him to... Mind rather than Soul. ...[T]he originality of Anaxagoras lies ...more in the theory of matter than ...of Nous.”

“The formation of a world starts with a rotatory motion which Nous imparts to a portion of the mixed mass in which "all things are together" (fr. 13), and this... motion gradually extends over... wider space. Its rapidity (fr. 9) produced a separation of the rare and the dense, the cold and the hot, the dark and the light, the moist and the dry (fr. 15). This... produces two great masses, the one... of the rare, hot, light, and dry, called... "Aether"; the other... [of] the opposite qualities... called "Air" (fr. 1). ...the Aether or Fire took the outside while the Air occupied the centre (fr. 15).”

“The next stage is the separation of the air into clouds, water, earth, and stones (fr. 16). In this Anaxagoras follows Anaximenes... In his account of the origin of the heavenly bodies... he... [was] more original. ...[A]t the end of fr. 16... stones "rush outwards more than water," and... from the doxographers... heavenly bodies were... stones torn from the earth by the rapidity of its revolution and made red-hot by the speed... Perhaps the fall of the meteoric stone at Aigospotamoi had something to do with... this theory. ...[W]hile in the earlier stages of the world-formation we are guided... by the analogy of water rotating with light and heavy bodies... in it, we are here reminded... of a sling.”

“Anaxagoras adopted the ordinary Ionian theory of innumerable worlds... fr. 4... The words "that it was not only with us that things were separated off, but elsewhere too" can only mean... Nous... caused a rotatory movement in more parts of the boundless mixture than one.”

“The cosmology of Anaxagoras is clearly based upon that of Anaximenes... Theophrastos... [states] that Anaxagoras had belonged to the school of Anaximenes. The flat earth floating on the air, the dark bodies below the moon, the explanation of the solstices and the "turnings" of the moon by the resistance of air, the explanations given of wind and of thunder and lightning, are all derived from the earlier inquirer.”

“"There is a portion of everything in everything except Nous, and there are some things in which there is Nous also" (fr. 11). In these words Anaxagoras laid down the distinction between animate and inanimate things. ...[T]he same Nous ..."has power over," ...[i.e.,] sets in motion, all things that have life ...(fr. 12). ...The Nous was the same, but it had more opportunities in one body than another. Man was the wisest... not because he had... better... Nous, but... because he had hands. ...Parmenides ...had ...made the thought of men depend upon ...their limbs.”

“As all Nous is the same... plants were regarded as living creatures. ...Plutarch says... [Anaxagoras] called plants "animals fixed in the earth." ...Plants first arose when the seeds... which the air contained were brought down by the rain-water, and animals originated in a similar way.”

“It was a happy thought of Anaxagoras to make sensation depend upon irritation by opposites, and to connect it with pain. Many modern theories are based upon a similar idea.”

“That Anaxagoras regarded the senses as incapable of reaching the truth... is shown by... fragments preserved by Sextus. But we must not... turn him into a sceptic. ... He did say (fr. 21) that "the weakness of our senses prevents our discerning the truth," but this meant... we do not see the "portions"... [e.g.,] the portions of black which are in the white. Our senses simply show us the portions that prevail. He also said... things which are seen give us the power of seeing the invisible, which is the... opposite of scepticism (fr. 21a).”