Text was scanned at St. Olaf Spring, 1992.
Aristotle Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
1933, 1989 English Greek Spring 1993 WPM (n/a) Tagged in conformance with Prose.e dtd.
7/27, 1993 em (n/a) Put Bekker line 1 milestone tags at the beginning of each section so that the incoming list creator would work. Changed RREFDECL.
5/27/09 RS (n/a) fixed Aristotle bibls fixed bad bibl refs fixed bad bibl refs cleaned up bad place tags in a few texts and cleaned up the document format fixed bibls for Plut. Mor. to correct work title more reorganizing of texts module by collection began reorganizing texts module by collection. created separate work directory in texts module to keep hopper files separate from in progress files edited entity tags CEH fixed bad bibls fixed bad bibls fixed bibl errors through book 14 (end) - zr fixed bibl errors through book 13 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 12 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 11 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 9 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 6 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 4 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 3 - zr fixed bibl errors through book 1 - zr added cvs log keyword All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions. Now animals are by nature born with the power of sensation, and from this some acquire the faculty of memory, whereas others do not. Accordingly the former are more intelligent and capable of learning than those which cannot remember. Such as cannot hear sounds (as the bee, and any other similar type of creature) are intelligent, but cannot learn; those only are capable of learning which possess this sense in addition to the faculty of memory. Thus the other animals live by impressions and memories, and have but a small share of experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasoning. It is from memory that men acquire experience, because the numerous memories of the same thing eventually produce the effect of a single experience. Experience seems very similar to science and art, but actually it is through experience that men acquire science and art; for as Polus rightly says, "experience produces art, but inexperience chance." Plat. Gorgias 448c, Plat. Gorg. 462b-c. Art is produced when from many notions of experience a single universal judgement is formed with regard to like objects. To have a judgement that when Callias was suffering from this or that disease this or that benefited him, and similarly with Socrates and various other individuals, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it benefits all persons of a certain type, considered as a class, who suffer from this or that disease (e.g. the phlegmatic or bilious when suffering from burning fever) is a matter of art. It would seem that for practical purposes experience is in no way inferior to art; indeed we see men of experience succeeding more than those who have theory without experience. The reason of this is a that experience is knowledge of particulars, but art of universals; and actions and the effects produced are all concerned with the particular. For it is not man that the physician cures, except incidentally, but Callias or Socrates or some other person similarly named, who is incidentally a man as well. So if a man has theory without experience, and knows the universal, but does not know the particular contained in it, he will often fail in his treatment; for it is the particular that must be treated. Nevertheless we consider that knowledge and proficiency belong to art rather than to experience, and we assume that artists are wiser than men of mere experience (which implies that in all cases wisdom depends rather upon knowledge); and this is because the former know the cause, whereas the latter do not. For the experienced know the fact, but not the wherefore; but the artists know the wherefore and the cause. For the same reason we consider that the master craftsmen in every profession are more estimable and know more and are wiser than the artisans, because they know the reasons of the things which are done; but we think that the artisans, like certain inanimate objects, do things, but without knowing what they are doing (as, for instance, fire burns); only whereas inanimate objects perform all their actions in virtue of a certain natural quality, artisans perform theirs through habit. Thus the master craftsmen are superior in wisdom, not because they can do things, but because they possess a theory and know the causes. In general the sign of knowledge or ignorance is the ability to teach, and for this reason we hold that art rather than experience is scientific knowledge; for the artists can teach, but the others cannot. Further, we do not consider any of the senses to be Wisdom. They are indeed our chief sources of knowledge about particulars, but they do not tell us the reason for anything, as for example why fire is hot, but only that it is hot. It is therefore probable that at first the inventor of any art which went further than the ordinary sensations was admired by his fellow-men, not merely because some of his inventions were useful, but as being a wise and superior person. And as more and more arts were discovered, some relating to the necessities and some to the pastimes of life, the inventors of the latter were always considered wiser than those of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all the discoveries of this kind were fully developed, the sciences which relate neither to pleasure nor yet to the necessities of life were invented, and first in those places where men had leisure. Thus the mathematical sciences originated in the neighborhood of Egypt, because there the priestly class was allowed leisure. Cf. Plat. Phaedrus 274, Hdt. 2.109. The difference between art and science and the other kindred mental activities has been stated in the Ethics Aristot. Nic. Eth.
6.1139b 14-1141b 8.; the reason for our present discussion is that it is generally assumed that what is called Wisdom i.e.
Metaphysics. is concerned with the primary causes and principles, so that, as has been already stated, the man of experience is held to be wiser than the mere possessors of any power of sensation, the artist than the man of experience, the master craftsman than the artisan; and the speculative sciences to be more learned than the productive. Thus it is clear that Wisdom is knowledge of certain principles and causes. Since we are investigating this kind of knowledge, we must consider what these causes and principles are whose knowledge is Wisdom. Perhaps it will be clearer if we take the opinions which we hold about the wise man. We consider first, then, that the wise man knows all things, so far as it is possible, without having knowledge of every one of them individually; next, that the wise man is he who can comprehend difficult things, such as are not easy for human comprehension (for sense-perception, being common to all, is easy, and has nothing to do with Wisdom); and further that in every branch of knowledge a man is wiser in proportion as he is more accurately informed and better able to expound the causes. Again among the sciences we consider that that science which is desirable in itself and for the sake of knowledge is more nearly Wisdom than that which is desirable for its results, and that the superior is more nearly Wisdom than the subsidiary; for the wise man should give orders, not receive them; nor should he obey others, but the less wise should obey him. Such in kind and in number are the opinions which we hold with regard to Wisdom and the wise. Of the qualities there described the knowledge of everything must necessarily belong to him who in the highest degree possesses knowledge of the universal, because he knows in a sense all the particulars which it comprises.
These things, viz. the most universal, are perhaps the hardest for man to grasp, because they are furthest removed from the senses. Again, the most exact of the sciences are those which are most concerned with the first principles; for those which are based on fewer principles are more exact than those which include additional principles; e.g., arithmetic is more exact than geometry. Moreover, the science which investigates causes is more instructive than one which does not, for it is those who tell us the causes of any particular thing who instruct us. Moreover, knowledge and understanding which are desirable for their own sake are most attainable in the knowledge of that which is most knowable. For the man who desires knowledge for its own sake will most desire the most perfect knowledge, and this is the knowledge of the most knowable, and the things which are most knowable are first principles and causes; for it is through these and from these that other things come to be known, and not these through the particulars which fall under them. And that science is supreme, and superior to the subsidiary, which knows for what end each action is to be done; i.e. the Good in each particular case, and in general the highest Good in the whole of nature. Thus as a result of all the above considerations the term which we are investigating falls under the same science, which must speculate about first principles and causes; for the Good, i.e. the end, is one of the causes. That it is not a productive science is clear from a consideration of the first philosophers. It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe. Now he who wonders and is perplexed feels that he is ignorant (thus the myth-lover is in a sense a philosopher, since myths are composed of wonders); therefore if it was to escape ignorance that men studied philosophy, it is obvious that they pursued science for the sake of knowledge, and not for any practical utility. The actual course of events bears witness to this; for speculation of this kind began with a view to recreation and pastime, at a time when practically all the necessities of life were already supplied. Clearly then it is for no extrinsic advantage that we seek this knowledge; for just as we call a man independent who exists for himself and not for another, so we call this the only independent science, since it alone exists for itself. For this reason its acquisition might justly be supposed to be beyond human power, since in many respects human nature is servile; in which case, as Simonides Simon. Fr. 3 (Hiller). says, "God alone can have this privilege," and man should only seek the knowledge which is within his reach. Indeed if the poets are right and the Deity is by nature jealous, it is probable that in this case He would be particularly jealous, and all those who excel in knowledge unfortunate. But it is impossible for the Deity to be jealous (indeed, as the proverb Cf. Solon, Fr. 26 (Hiller); Leutsch and Schneidwin, Paroemiographi, 1.371. says, "poets tell many a lie"), nor must we suppose that any other form of knowledge is more precious than this; for what is most divine is most precious. Now there are two ways only in which it can be divine. A science is divine if it is peculiarly the possession of God, or if it is concerned with divine matters. And this science alone fulfils both these conditions; for (a) all believe that God is one of the causes and a kind of principle, and (b) God is the sole or chief possessor of this sort of knowledge.
Accordingly, although all other sciences are more necessary than this, none is more excellent. The acquisition of this knowledge, however, must in a sense result in something which is the reverse of the outlook with which we first approached the inquiry. All begin, as we have said, by wondering that things should be as they are, e.g. with regard to marionettes, or the solstices, or the incommensurability i.e.
the fact that the diagonal of a square cannot be rationally expressed in terms of the side. of the diagonal of a square; because it seems wonderful to everyone who has not yet perceived the cause that a thing should not be measurable by the smallest unit. But we must end with the contrary and (according to the proverb) i.e. deute/ron a)meino/nwn ("second thoughts are better"). Leutsch and Schneidwin 1.62. the better view, as men do even in these cases when they understand them; for a geometrician would wonder at nothing so much as if the diagonal were to become measurable. Thus we have stated what is the nature of the science which we are seeking, and what is the object which our search and our whole investigation must attain. It is clear that we must obtain knowledge of the primary causes, because it is when we think that we understand its primary cause that we claim to know each particular thing. Now there are four recognized kinds of cause. Of these we hold that one is the essence or essential nature of the thing (since the "reason why" of a thing is ultimately reducible to its formula, and the ultimate "reason why" is a cause and principle); another is the matter or substrate; the third is the source of motion; and the fourth is the cause which is opposite to this, namely the purpose or "good"; for this is the end of every generative or motive process. We have investigated these sufficiently in the Physics Phys. 2.3, Phys. 2.7; however, let us avail ourselves of the evidence of those who have before us approached the investigation of reality and philosophized about Truth. For clearly they too recognize certain principles and causes, and so it will be of some assistance to our present inquiry if we study their teaching; because we shall either discover some other kind of cause, or have more confidence in those which we have just described. Most of the earliest philosophers conceived only of material principles as underlying all things. That of which all things consist, from which they first come and into which on their destruction they are ultimately resolved, of which the essence persists although modified by its affections—this, they say, is an element and principle of existing things. Hence they believe that nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this kind of primary entity always persists.
Similarly we do not say that Socrates comes into being absolutely when he becomes handsome or cultured, nor that he is destroyed when he loses these qualities; because the substrate, Socrates himself, persists. In the same way nothing else is generated or destroyed; for there is some one entity (or more than one) which always persists and from which all other things are generated. All are not agreed, however, as to the number and character of these principles.
Thales, Thales of Miletus, fl.
585 B.C. the founder of this school of philosophy, That of the Ionian monists, who sought a single material principle of everything. says the permanent entity is water (which is why he also propounded that the earth floats on water). Presumably he derived this assumption from seeing that the nutriment of everything is moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence (and that from which a thing is generated is always its first principle). He derived his assumption, then, from this; and also from the fact that the seeds of everything have a moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things. There are some Cf. Plat. Crat. 402b, Plat. Theaet. 152e, Plat. Theaet.
180c,d. who think that the men of very ancient times, long before the present era, who first speculated about the gods, also held this same opinion about the primary entity. For they cf. Hom.
Il. 14. 201, Hom. Il. 14.246. represented Oceanus and Tethys to be the parents of creation, and the oath of the gods to be by water— Styx, Cf.
Hom. Il. 2.755, Hom. Il. 14.271, Hom. Il.15.37. as they call it. Now what is most ancient is most revered, and what is most revered is what we swear by.
Whether this view of the primary entity is really ancient and time-honored may perhaps be considered uncertain; however, it is said that this was Thales' opinion concerning the first cause. (I say nothing of Hippo, Hippo of Samos, a medical writer and eclectic philosopher who lived in the latter half of the fifth century B.C. Cf. Aristot. De Anima 405b 2. because no one would presume to include him in this company, in view of the paltriness of his intelligence.) Anaximenes The third Milesian monist; fl. circa 545 B.C. and Diogenes Diogenes of Apollonia, an eclectic philosopher roughly contemporary with Hippo.
held that air is prior to water, and is of all corporeal elements most truly the first principle. Hippasus A Pythagorean, probably slightly junior to Heraclitus. of Metapontum and Heraclitus Fl. about 500 B.C. of Ephesus hold this of fire; and Empedocles Of Acragas; fl.
450 B.C. —adding earth as a fourth to those already mentioned—takes all four.
These, he says, always persist, and are only generated in respect of multitude and paucity, according as they are combined into unity or differentiated out of unity. Cf.
Empedocles, Fr. 17 (Diels), R.P.
166; Burnet, E.G.P. 108-109. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae—prior to Empedocles in point of age, but posterior in his activities—says that the first principles are infinite in number. For he says that as a general rule all things which are, like fire and water, This is Aristotle's illustration; apparently Anaxagoras did not regard the "elements" as homoeomerous (i.e.
composed of parts which are similar to one another and to the whole). Cf. Aristot. De Caelo 302a 28, Aristot. De Gen. et Corr. 314a 24. homoeomerous, are generated and destroyed in this sense only, by combination and differentiation; otherwise they are neither generated nor destroyed, but persist eternally. Cf. Anaxagoras Fr. 4 (Diels); and see Burnet, E.G.P. 130. From this account it might be supposed that the only cause is of the kind called "material." But as men proceeded in this way, the very circumstances of the case led them on and compelled them to seek further; because if it is really true that all generation and destruction is out of some one entity or even more than one, why does this happen, and what is the cause? It is surely not the substrate itself which causes itself to change. I mean, e.g., that neither wood nor bronze is responsible for changing itself; wood does not make a bed, nor bronze a statue, but something else is the cause of the change. Now to investigate this is to investigate the second type of cause: the source of motion, as we should say. Those who were the very first to take up this inquiry, and who maintained that the substrate is one thing, had no misgivings on the subject; but some of those i.e. the Eleatic school. who regard it as one thing, being baffled, as it were, by the inquiry, say that that one thing (and indeed the whole physical world) is immovable in respect not only of generation and destruction (this was a primitive belief and was generally admitted) but of all other change. This belief is peculiar to them. None of those who maintained that the universe is a unity achieved any conception of this type of cause, except perhaps Parmenides Founder of the above; fl. about 475.; and him only in so far as he admits, in a sense, not one cause only but two. i.e.
in the *do/ca. Parmenides Fr. 8 (Diels); R.P.
121. But those who recognize more than one entity, e.g. hot and cold, or fire and earth, are better able to give a systematic explanation, because they avail themselves of fire as being of a kinetic nature, and of water, earth, etc., as being the opposite. Aristotle is probably thinking of Empedocles. Cf.
Aristot. Met.
4.8. After these thinkers and the discovery of these causes, since they were insufficient to account for the generation of the actual world, men were again compelled (as we have said) by truth itself to investigate the next first principle. For presumably it is unnatural that either fire or earth or any other such element should cause existing things to be or become well and beautifully disposed; or indeed that those thinkers should hold such a view. Nor again was it satisfactory to commit so important a matter to spontaneity and chance. Hence when someone Anaxagoras. said that there is Mind in nature, just as in animals, and that this is the cause of all order and arrangement, he seemed like a sane man in contrast with the haphazard statements of his predecessors. Cf. Plat. Phaedo 97b-98b. We know definitely that Anaxagoras adopted this view; but Hermotimus A semi-mythical person supposed to have been a preincarnation of Pythagoras. of Clazomenae is credited with having stated it earlier. Those thinkers, then, who held this view assumed a principle in things which is the cause of beauty, and the sort of cause by which motion is communicated to things. It might be inferred that the first person to consider this question was Hesiod, or indeed anyone else who assumed Love or Desire as a first principle in things; e.g. Parmenides. For he says, where he is describing the creation of the universe, Love she Probably Aphrodite (so Simplicius, Plutarch). created first of all the gods...Parmenides Fr. 13 (Diels) And Hesiod says, Hes.
Th. 116-20. The quotation is slightly inaccurate.
First of all things was Chaos made, and then/Broad-bosomed Earth.../And Love, the foremost of immortal beings, thus implying that there must be in the world some cause to move things and combine them. The question of arranging these thinkers in order of priority may be decided later. Now since it was apparent that nature also contains the opposite of what is good, i.e.
not only order and beauty, but disorder and ugliness; and that there are more bad and common things than there are good and beautiful: in view of this another thinker introduced Love and Strife Empedocles Fr. 17, 26 (Diels); R.P.
166. Cf. Burnet, E.G.P. 108 ff. as the respective causes of these things— because if one follows up and appreciates the statements of Empedocles with a view to his real meaning and not to his obscure language, it will be found that Love is the cause of good, and Strife of evil. Thus it would perhaps be correct to say that Empedocles in a sense spoke of evil and good as first principles, and was the first to do so—that is, if the cause of all good things is absolute good. These thinkers then, as I say, down to the time of Empedocles, seem to have grasped two of the causes which we have defined in the Physics Aristot. Phys. 2.3, 7.: the material cause and the source of motion; but only vaguely and indefinitely. They are like untrained soldiers in a battle, who rush about and often strike good blows, but without science; in the same way these thinkers do not seem to understand their own statements, since it is clear that upon the whole they seldom or never apply them. Anaxagoras avails himself of Mind as an artificial device for producing order, and drags it in whenever he is at a loss to explain some necessary result; but otherwise he makes anything rather than Mind the cause of what happens. Cf. Plat. Phaedo 98b, Plat. Laws 967b; also Aristot. Met.
7.5. Again, Empedocles does indeed use causes to a greater degree than Anaxagoras, but not sufficiently; nor does he attain to consistency in their use. At any rate Love often differentiates and Strife combines: because whenever the universe is differentiated into its elements by Strife, fire and each of the other elements are agglomerated into a unity; and whenever they are all combined together again by Love, the particles of each element are necessarily again differentiated. Empedocles, then, differed from his predecessors in that he first introduced the division of this cause, making the source of motion not one but two contrary forces. Further, he was the first to maintain that the so-called material elements are four—not that he uses them as four, but as two only, treating fire on the one hand by itself, and the elements opposed to it—earth, air and water—on the other, as a single nature. Cf. 3.14.
This can be seen from a study of his writings. e.g. Empedocles, Fr. 62 (Diels). Such, then, as I say, is his account of the nature and number of the first principles. Leucippus, Of Miletus; fl.
circa 440 (?) B.C. See Burnet, E.G.P. 171 ff. however, and his disciple Democritus Of Abdera; fl.
circa 420 B.C. E.G.P loc. cit.
hold that the elements are the Full and the Void—calling the one "what is" and the other "what is not." Of these they identify the full or solid with "what is," and the void or rare with "what is not" (hence they hold that what is not is no less real than what is, For the probable connection between the Atomists and the Eleatics see E.G.P. 173, 175, and cf. De Gen. et Corr. 324b 35-325a 32. because Void is as real as Body); and they say that these are the material causes of things. And just as those who make the underlying substance a unity generate all other things by means of its modifications, assuming rarity and density as first principles of these modifications, so these thinkers hold that the "differences" i.e., of the atoms. are the causes of everything else. These differences, they say, are three: shape, arrangement, and position; because they hold that what is differs only in contour, inter-contact, and inclination. Cf.
R.P. 194. (Of these contour means shape, inter-contact arrangement, and inclination position.) Thus, e.g., A differs from N in shape, AN from NA in arrangement, and Z from N These letters will convey Aristotle's point better to the English reader, but see critical note. in position. As for motion, whence and how it arises in things, they casually ignored this point, very much as the other thinkers did. Such, then, as I say, seems to be the extent of the inquiries which the earlier thinkers made into these two kinds of cause. At the same time, however, and even earlier the so-called Aristotle seems to have regarded Pythagoras as a legendary person. Pythagoreans applied themselves to mathematics, and were the first to develop this science Pythagoras himself (fl. 532 B.C.) is said by Aristoxenus (ap. Stobaeus 1.20.1 ) to have been the first to make a theoretical study of arithmetic.; and through studying it they came to believe that its principles are the principles of everything. And since numbers are by nature first among these principles, and they fancied that they could detect in numbers, to a greater extent than in fire and earth and water, many analogues Cf. Aristot. Met.
14.6ff.. of what is and comes into being—such and such a property of number being justice, Apparently (cf. infra, Aristot. Met. 1.17 ） they identified these not only with properties of number but with numbers themselves. Thus justice (properly=squareness)=4, the first square number; soul or mind=1, opportunity=7 (Alexander). and such and such soul or mind, another opportunity, and similarly, more or less, with all the rest—and since they saw further that the properties and ratios of the musical scales are based on numbers, Pythagoras himself is credited with having discovered the ratios of the octave (2: 1), the fifth (3: 2) and the fourth (4: 3).
Burnet, E.G.P. 51. and since it seemed clear that all other things have their whole nature modelled upon numbers, and that numbers are the ultimate things in the whole physical universe, they assumed the elements of numbers to be the elements of everything, and the whole universe to be a proportion Or "harmony." Cf. Aristot. De Caelo 2.9, and E.G.P. 152. or number. Whatever analogues to the processes and parts of the heavens and to the whole order of the universe they could exhibit in numbers and proportions, these they collected and correlated; and if there was any deficiency anywhere, they made haste to supply it, in order to make their system a connected whole. For example, since the decad is considered to be a complete thing and to comprise the whole essential nature of the numerical system, they assert that the bodies which revolve in the heavens are ten; and there being only nine Earth, sun, moon, five planets, and the sphere of the fixed stars. that are visible, they make the "antichthon" i.e. "counter-earth"; a planet revolving round the "central fire" in such a way as to be always in opposition to the earth. the tenth. We have treated this subject in greater detail elsewhere In the lost work On the Pythagoreans; but cf. Aristot. De Caelo 2.13.; but the object of our present review is to discover from these thinkers too what causes they assume and how these coincide with our list of causes. Well, it is obvious that these thinkers too consider number to be a first principle, both as the material See Burnet, E.G.P 143-146. of things and as constituting their properties and states. i.e., as a formal principle. Cf. Ross ad loc. The elements of number, according to them, are the Even and the Odd. Of these the former is limited and the latter unlimited; Unity consists of both (since it is both odd and even) Either because by addition it makes odd numbers even and even odd (Alexander, Theo Smyrnaeus) or because it was regarded as the principle of both odd and even numbers (Heath).; number is derived from Unity; and numbers, as we have said, compose the whole sensible universe. Others Zeller attributes the authorship of this theory to Philolaus. of this same school hold that there are ten principles, which they enunciate in a series of corresponding pairs: (1.) Limit and the Unlimited; (2.) Odd and Even; (3.) Unity and Plurality; (4.) Right and Left; (5.) Male and Female; (6.) Rest and Motion; (7.) Straight and Crooked; (8.) Light and Darkness; (9.) Good and Evil; (10.) Square and Oblong. Apparently Alcmaeon of Croton speculated along the same lines, and either he derived the theory from them or they from him; for [Alcmaeon was contemporary with the old age of Pythagoras, and] This statement is probably true, but a later addition. his doctrines were very similar to theirs. He was generally regarded as a Pythagorean. He says that the majority of things in the world of men are in pairs; but the contraries which he mentions are not, as in the case of the Pythagoreans, carefully defined, but are taken at random, e.g. white and black, sweet and bitter, good and bad, great and small. Thus Alcmaeon only threw out vague hints with regard to the other instances of contrariety, but the Pythagoreans pronounced how many and what the contraries are. Thus from both these authorities The section of Pythagoreans mentioned in 6, and Lacmaeon. we can gather thus much, that the contraries are first principles of things; and from the former, how many and what the contraries are. How these can be referred to our list of causes is not definitely expressed by them, but they appear to reckon their elements as material; for they say that these are the original constituents of which Being is fashioned and composed. From this survey we can sufficiently understand the meaning of those ancients who taught that the elements of the natural world are a plurality. Others, however, theorized about the universe as though it were a single entity; but their doctrines are not all alike either in point of soundness or in respect of conformity with the facts of nature. For the purposes of our present inquiry an account of their teaching is quite irrelevant, since they do not, while assuming a unity, at the same time make out that Being is generated from the unity as from matter, as do some physicists, but give a different explanation; for the physicists assume motion also, at any rate when explaining the generation of the universe; but these thinkers hold that it is immovable. Nevertheless thus much is pertinent to our present inquiry. It appears that Parmenides conceived of the Unity as one in definition, His argument was "Everything that is is one, if 'what is' has one meaning" ( pa/nta (/en, ei) to\ o)\n (\en shmai/nei, Aristot.
Phys. 187a 1 ); but he probably believed, no less than Melissus, in the material unity of reality. Cf. Melissus Fr. 8 (Diels). It has been suggested, however (by the Rev. C. F. Angus), that he was simply trying to convey in figurative language a conception of absolute existence. but Melissus Of Samos; defeated the Athenian fleet in 441 B.C. as materially one. Hence the former says that it is finite, Melissus Fr. 8, ll. 32-3, 42-3. and the latter that it is infinite. Melissus Fr. 3. But Xenophanes, Of Colophon, b. 565 (?)
B.C. Criticized and ridiculed most of the views of his day, especially the anthropomorphic conception of the gods. Burnet, E.G.P. 55 ff., esp. 61-62. Cf. Xenophanes Fr. 23 (Diels). the first exponent of the Unity (for Parmenides is said to have been his disciple), gave no definite teaching, nor does he seem to have grasped either of these conceptions of unity; but regarding the whole material universe he stated that the Unity is God. This school then, as we have said, may be disregarded for the purposes of our present inquiry; two of them, Xenophanes and Melissus, may be completely ignored, as being somewhat too crude in their views.