into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation. R. P. 150.
(18) It is the sun that puts brightness into the moon.
(19) We call rainbow the reflexion of the sun in the clouds. Now it is a sign of storm; for the water that flows round the cloud causes wind or pours down in rain.
(20) With the rise of the Dogstar (?) men begin the harvest; with its setting they begin to till the fields. It is hidden for forty days and nights.
(21) From the weakness of our senses we are not able to judge the truth.
(21a) What appears is a vision of the unseen.
(21b) (We can make use of the lower animals) because we use our own experience and memory and wisdom and art.
(22) What is called "birds' milk" is the white of the egg.
127.Anaxagoras and his predecessors. The system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with the existence of a world which everywhere presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away. The conclusions of Parmenides are frankly accepted and restated. Nothing can be added to all things; for there cannot be more than all, and all is always equal (fr. 5). Nor can anything pass away. What men commonly call coming into being and passing away is really mixture and separation (fr. 17).
It is in every way probable that Anaxagoras derived his theory of mixture from his younger contemporary; whose poem may have been published before his own treatise.[1] In any case, we have seen that the opinions of the latter were known at Athens before the middle of the fifth century. We have seen how Empedokles sought to save the world of
- ↑ I do not now think, however, that this is the meaning of the words τοῖς ἔργοις ὕστερος in Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 a 12 (R. P. 150 a). At any rate Theophrastos did not take them so; for he imitates the passage in speaking of Plato (Dox. 484, 19), of whom he says Τούτοις ἐπιγενόμενος Πλάτων τῇ μὲν δόξῃ καὶ τῇ δυνάμει πρότερος, τοῖς δὲ χρόνοις ὕστερος. It seems that he understood the Aristotelian formula as "inferior in his achievements."
