Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/371

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ECLECTICISM AND REACTION
357

flesh, and bones. In this he followed Anaxagoras (§130), as it was natural that he should. That portion of Air, on the other hand, which was rarefied became fiery, and produced the sun and heavenly bodies. The circular motion of the world is due to the intelligence of the Air, as is also the division of all things into different forms of body and the observance of the "measures" by these forms.[1]

Like Anaximander (§ 20), Diogenes regarded the sea as the remainder of the original moist state, which had been partially evaporated by the sun, so as to separate out the remaining earth.[2] The earth itself is round, that is to say, it is a disc: for the language of the doxographers does not point to the spherical form.[3] Its solidification by the cold is due to the fact that cold is a form of condensation.

Diogenes did not hold with the earlier cosmologists that the heavenly bodies were made of air or fire, nor yet with Anaxagoras, that they were stones. They were, he said, pumice-like, a view in which we may trace the influence of Leukippos. They were earthy, indeed, but not solid, and the celestial fire permeated their pores. And this explains why we do not see the dark bodies which, in common with Anaxagoras, he held to revolve along with the stars. They really are solid stones, and therefore cannot be penetrated by the fire. It was one of these that fell into the Aigospotamos. Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes affirmed that the inclination of the earth happened subsequently to the rise of animals.[4]

We are prepared to find that Diogenes held the doctrine of innumerable worlds; for it was the old Milesian belief, and had just been revived by Anaxagoras and Leukippos. He is mentioned with the rest in the Placita; and if Simplicius classes him and Anaximenes with Herakleitos as holding the Stoic doctrine of successive formations and destructions of

  1. On the "measures" see Chap. III. § 72.
  2. Theophr, ap Alex. in Meteor. p. 67, 1 (Dox. p. 494).
  3. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 215).
  4. Aet. ii. 8, 1 (R. P. 215).