Part 58

15. Simpl. Phys. 35 v 164, 17. Cf. 35 r 166, 15.

164, 17. MS. τὸ μή, Zeller, Phil. Gr. i.⁴, 884 n. 3 τομῇ. After εἶναι Schorn inserts οὔτε τὸ μέγιστον, comparing previous line and 166, 16.

16. Simpl. Phys. 35 v 164, 24.

17. Simpl. Phys. 34 v 163, 20.

18. Schol. in Gregor. Naz. Migne 36, 911. (Cf. Hermes xiii. 4, Diels.)

TRANSLATION.

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.

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 not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would include parts of all things, if it were mixed with anything; 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 in whatever object there are the most, each single object is and was most distinctly these things.

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.

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.

15. For neither is there a least of what is small, but there is always a less. For being is not non-being. But there is always a greater than what is great. And it is equal to the small in number; but with reference to itself each thing is both small and great.

16. And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, thus also all things would be in everything. Nor yet is it possible for them to exist apart, but all things include a portion of everything. Since it is not possible for the least to exist, nothing could be separated, nor yet could it come into being of itself, but as they were in the beginning so they are now, all things together. And there are many things in all things, and of those that are separated there are things equal in number in the greater and the lesser.

17. The Greeks do not rightly use the terms ‘coming into being’ and ‘perishing.’ For nothing comes into being nor yet does anything perish, but there is mixture and separation of things that are. So they would do right in calling the coming into being ‘mixture,’ and the perishing ‘separation.’

(18.) For how could hair come from what is not hair? Or flesh from what is not flesh?

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 Sokrates if he pretends that they are his—particularly seeing they are so strange.

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.