ANAX'IMAN'DER (Gk. 'A ra.Vpar6poc, .to aximandros) (610-546 n.e.). A Creek mathe matician, astronomer. and philosopher. Ile was born at Miletus, the son of l'raxiades, and was a disciple and friend of Thales, whom he suc ceeded as the head of the Ionian School. Be is said to have discovered the obliquity of the eclip tic. and certainly taught it. Ile appoars to have been the first to introduce in Greece the gno nirnt (an instrument for determining the sol stices), and the Bolos (sun-dial). The invention of geographical maps is also ascribed to him. According to Simplicins and Diogenes. Anax inlander approximated the size and distances of the planets, constructed astronomical globes. and wrote a work on geometry in prose. lle seems to have conceived of the universe as a number of concentric cylinders, of which the outer is the sun, the middle the moon, and the innermost the stars. Within these all is the cylindrical earth. As a philosopher, lie speculated on the origin arctic) of the phenomenal world; and this principle he held to be the infinite or inde terminate a7reipoe, to opciron). This indeter
minate principle of Anaximander is generally supposed to have been much the same with the chaos of other philosophers. From it lie con ceived all opposites, such as hot and cold, dry and moist, to proceed through a perpetual mo tion, and to return to it again. Of the manner in which lie imagined these opposites to he formed, and of his hypothesis concerning the formation of the heavenly bodies from them, we have no accurate information. It would seem, however, that he did not believe in the generation of anything in the proper sense of the word, but supposed that the infinite atoms or units of which the ap.ej, or primary matter. is composed, merely change their relative positions in obedience to a moving power resid ing in it. Consult Zeller, tleschichtc der grie ehischcn. Philosophic (Leipzig, 1S93).