°Nothing is born of nothing" (Parmenides of the Eleatic School). From what then did the existing world come? In the history of the Ionian School (q.v.) two principal ways of viewing nature, a dynamical and a mechanical way, present themselves at its very beginning and proceed side by side to its very dose. The dynamical theorist proceeds on the supposition of living energy which in its development spontaneously undergoes continuous alteration both of form and quality and consequently con siders all generation in nature as explicable by successive transmutations of energy. The mechanist, on the other hand, rejects all gen eration in the proper sense of the word and all alteration of the qualities and forms in nature, and accounts for all appearances by certain changes in the outer relations of space. Here a theorist proceeds, therefore, on the assumption of certain permanent material ele ments, which change place in obedience to motion, either originally inherent or extrin sically impressed; and thus it is a theoretical explanation of the world which if carried out in all its implications will lead to the conclu sion that all apparent generation of natural forms and qualities is educed by the various combinations into which material elements of originally distinct forms mutually enter. The two theories rest on views directly opposed to each other. With the exceptions of Anaxag oras, Anaximander and Archelaus, the Ionian hylozoists all show an inclination to adopt the dynamical explanation of the world. By all, excepting the three philosophers named, nature is regarded as naively animated, alive, and its successive changes as so many spon taneous developments of life. And by them it was accepted as a principle that a single elementary substance passes through a series of transformations, by means of expansions, condensations and other modifications con sidered as processes of life. Thus those who admitted one rather than a plurality of ele ments were obliged to endow it with a prin ciple of vitality to account for existing variety. They thus adopt dynamism, a rather crude form of henism. Archelaus, Anaximander and Anaxagoras, on the contrary, believed in a plurality of elements, two or more; and con sidered mechanical interaction of these as suffi cient to account for the existing state of things. What is the original element, if only one, or, what are the original elements, if more than one of which the universe consists. Two periods can likewise be distinguished in the development of the reply to this question owing to its reformulation and the manner in which different thinkers in the school approached it. Prior to the advent of Heraclitus attempts were made to find a material substance of which all things consist. What were the materials out of which all things arose and into which they will again return? What is the sub stratum of things seen? Thales, Anaximenes, Diogenes and other dynamists as well agree in regarding the universe as the result of a single principle, element or power. All sensible things are modifications of this principle, real only in reference to their ultimate ground, a substance of which all things consist. After the time of Heraclitus the question became: How did the sensible world become what it is? Of what nature is the motive force? Here the germs of a more philosophic doctrine is ap parent. Heraclitus, indeed, retains the sim plicity of an original element, his °fire," but it is apparent that this fire is only a sensible symbol, used only to present more vividly to the mind the idea of an energy of a vital prin ciple, the ground of all outward appearances. He with his principle of universal flux gave thinking a new turn and proceeded to explain everything in terms of force and motion, or dynamic energy. It would indeed be a mistake to regard philosophers of the Ionian school as materialists. They distinguish between law operating in the external world and the appre hension of phenomena; and vaguely also be tween subjective and objective. But we meet with thinkers of the mechanistic tendency. Anaxagoras and Anaximander agree in this respect, that they consider the world to be made up of numberless small particles of differ ent kinds and various shapes by the change in whose relative position all phenomena are to be accounted for. hypothesis is combined by Anaxagoras with the Supreme Reason, au thor of all that is regular and harmonious in the disposition of the particles or elementary atoms. Out of what did the existing world proceed? Thales, the first _Ionian philosopher, answered out of water, which Anaximander denied and replied that the ground of all being is the boundless, the infinite or the all-embrac ing. Pherecydes of Syra believed that the primal substratum of all things was earth but both Anaximenes and Diogenes contended that the existing state of things proceeded out of air. Heraclitus said the original element was fire; Anaxagoras, however, that the world came into being through the motor energy of intelligence; while Archelaus, the teacher of Socrates, believed that primordially the ele ments were two in number, fire and water, sense-perceptible symbols of heat and cold which can be felt but not seen. And to Hermotimus,
whose existence, however, some deny, deeming him mythical, others credit the original formu lation of the doctrine of the supreme regulative intelligence, an idea which he is said to have taught his pupil Anaxagoras.
Aristotle believed that the view of Thales had its origin in the observation that all that grows appears to have its nourishment in moisture and the observation that germination seems to owe its existence to the presence of water. Aristotle adds further that Thales maintained the world to be full of gods and that all motion indicated their presence and the presence' of souls. Thales believed that be hind infinite multiplicity there was unity. This unity he symbolized with water. Anaximander sought for the primal substance of all things; and postulated an entity intermediate between air and fire on one hand; between earth and water on the other. This entity he called the infinite. To him all differences being finite, these differences have emerged out of the infinite. This infinite has been always and will remain throughout all eternity. Change, growth and decay are explained on the principle of compensation. All things proceeded out of the infinite. All will at some time return to it. According to • all appearances, Anaximander's *infinite* is equivalent to the *chaos* of other philosophers and of the myths. 'Nous,* ac cording to him, is the most pure and subtle of all things. It has all knowledge about all things and also infinite power. Anaximander's theory is thus only one step from pure theism. With him the work of the eternal begins with a kind of providence, not with creation. He did not allow that objects had taken their shape through the accidental or through blind fate. They received 'their form through the agency of a shaping spirit or Nous, infinite, or bound less, self-potent and unmixed with anything else. The infinite always preserved its unity; its parts alone underwent changes. Thus he tells us that there are an infinite number of worlds, a product of infinity, and that corrup tion proceeds from separation. Anaximenes made the first principle of things to consist in air, an entity considered as infinite, and pos sessed of perpetual motion. All things pro ceeded from this air; all are definite and cir cumscribed; and divine power resided in air and agitated it. Coldness and moisture, heat and motion rendered this substance visible. Likewise they gave air forms, according to the different degrees of condensation. All ele ments thus proceed from heat and cold. Diog enes contradicted the pluralism of Heraclitus and claimed that all things were at bottom the same, or interaction he claimed would be im possible. The substrate confirming the opinion of Anaximenes, he declared, was air; and gave it out that the attributes of this substrate were infinity, eternity and intelligence. This intelli gence alone. according to Diogenes, would produce unaided the orderly arrangement which is observable in nature; and it is likewise the foundation of human mentality, which originates simply by inhalation. Anaxagoras may be considered the first who clearly and broadly distinguished between mind and matter. By isolating reason •from all else, by represent ing it as motor-energy of the Cosmos, in pop ularizing the terms which suggested personality and will, Anaxagoras gave an impetus to ideas which were the starting point of Aristotelian philosophy in Greece and in Europe at large. Before Anaxagoras no one can be said to have postulated clearly a creative intelligence. In nature this thinker imagined that there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound bodies. He was the first to super add mind to matter, opening his work with the pleasing language: 'All things were confused. Then came mind and disposed them in order.* Heraclitus felt that charge is the essential fact of experience. That this is, what it is, in virtue of its perpetually changing relations. Fire, symbol of the primary substance, is that out of which all came, into which again all will return. It is a divine, rational process, the harmony which constitutes the universe. Here follows the doctrine of immortality. The individual, like the phenomena of sense, comes out of the infinite and is again merged in it. While we live our souls are dead within us. When we die our souls are restored to life. For then they approach most nearly to perfection when least differentiated from the elemental fire. This is at once the assertion and the denial of self resembling a fundamental principle in Bud dhism. See GREEK PHILOSOPHY; PHILOSOPHY; PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY OF.