that the growing thought which may be traced through the successive representatives of any school is always that which concerns the primary substance,[1] whereas the astronomical and other theories are, in the main, peculiar to the individual thinkers. The chief interest of all is the quest for what is abiding in the flux of things.[2]
VIII.Motion and Rest. According to Aristotle and his followers, the early cosmologists believed also in an "eternal motion" (ἀίδιος κίνησις) but that is probably their own way of putting the thing. It is not at all likely that the Ionians said anything about the eternity of motion in their writings. In early times, it is not movement but rest that has to be accounted for, and it is unlikely that the origin of motion was discussed till its possibility had been denied. As we shall see, that was done by Parmenides; and accordingly his successors, accepting the fact of motion, were bound to show how it originated. I understand Aristotle's statement, then, as meaning no more than that the early thinkers did not feel the need of assigning an origin for motion. The eternity of motion is an inference, which is substantially correct, but is misleading in so far as it suggests deliberate rejection of a doctrine not yet formulated.[3]
- ↑ I am conscious of the unsatisfactory character of the phrase "primary substance" (πρῶτον ὑποκείμενον), but it is hard to find a better. The German Urstoff is less misleading in its associations, but the English "stuff" is not very satisfactory.
- ↑ The view of O. Gilbert (Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums, Leipzig, 1907) that the early cosmologists started from the traditional and popular theory of "the four elements" derives all its plausibility from the ambiguity of the term "element." If we only mean the great aggregates of Fire, Air, Water and Earth, there is no doubt that these were distinguished from an early date. But that is not what is meant by an "element" (στοιχεῖον) in cosmology, where it is always an irreducible something with a φύσις of its own. The remarkable thing really is that the early cosmologists went behind the theory of "elements" in the popular sense, and it was only the accident that Empedokles, the first to maintain a plurality of elements, selected the four that have become traditional that has led to the loose use of the word "element" for the great aggregates referred to.
- ↑ This way of thinking is often called Hylozoism, but that is still more misleading. No doubt the early cosmologists said things about the world and the primary substance which, from our point of view, imply
