ANAXAGORAS
Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae in Asia Minor about 500 B.C. He was
a man of noble family, and possessed considerable property. He
neglected his property in the search for knowledge and in the pursuit
of science and philosophy. Leaving his home at Clazomenae, he settled
down in Athens. We have not heard so far anything of Athens in the
history of Greek Philosophy. It was Anaxagoras who transplanted
philosophy to Athens, which from his time forward became the chief
centre of Greek thought. At Athens, Anaxagoras came into contact with
all the famous men of the time. He was an intimate friend of Pericles,
the statesman, and of Euripides, the poet. But his friendship with
Pericles cost him dear. There was a strong political faction opposed
to Pericles. So far as we know Anaxagoras never meddled in politics,
but he was a friend of the statesman Pericles, and that was quite
enough. The enemies of Pericles determined to teach Anaxagoras a
lesson, and a charge of atheism and blasphemy was accordingly brought
against him. The particulars of the charge were that Anaxagoras said
that the sun was a red-hot stone, and that the moon was made of earth.
This was quite true, as that is exactly what Anaxagoras did say of the
sun and the moon. But the Greeks {95} regarded the heavenly bodies as
gods; even Plato and Aristotle thought that the stars were divine
beings. To call the sun a red-hot stone, and to say that the moon was
made of earth, was therefore blasphemy according to Greek ideas.
Anaxagoras was charged, tried, and condemned. The details of the
trial, and of what followed, are not known with accuracy. But it
appears that Anaxagoras escaped, probably with the help of Pericles,
and from Athens went back to his native country in Asia Minor. He
settled at Lampsacus, and died there at the age of 72. He was the
author of a treatise in which he wrote down his philosophical ideas.
This treatise was well-known at the time of Socrates, but only
fragments now remain.
The foundation of the philosophy of Anaxagoras is the same as that of
Empedocles and the Atomists. He denied any absolute becoming in the
strict sense of the passing of being into not-being and not-being into
being. Matter is uncreated and indestructible, and all becoming must
be accounted for by the mixing and unmixing of its component parts.
This principle Anaxagoras himself expressed with great clearness, in a
fragment of his treatise which has come down to us. "The Greeks," he
says, "erroneously assume origination and destruction, for nothing
originates and nothing is destroyed. All is only mixed and unmixed out
of pre-existent things, and it were more correct to call the one
process composition and the other process decomposition."
The Atomists had assumed the ultimate constituents of things to be
atoms composed of the same kind of matter. Empedocles had believed in
four ultimate and underived kinds of matter. With neither of these
does Anaxagoras agree. For him, all the different kinds of {96} matter
are equally ultimate and underived, that is to say, such things as
gold, bone, hair, earth, water, wood, etc., are ultimate kinds of
matter, which do not arise from anything else, and do not pass over
into one another. He also disagrees with the conception of the
Atomists that if matter is divided far enough, ultimate and
indivisible particles will be reached. According to Anaxagoras matter
is infinitely divisible. In the beginning all these kinds of matter
were mixed together in a chaotic mass. The mass stretches infinitely
throughout space. The different kinds of matter wholly intermingle and
interpenetrate each other. The process of world-formation is brought
about by the unmixing of the conglomeration of all kinds of matter,
and the bringing together of like matter with like. Thus the gold
particles separating out of the mass come together, and form gold; the
wood particles come together and form wood, and so on. But as matter
is infinitely divisible and the original mixing of the elements was
complete, they were, so to speak, mixed to an infinite extent.
Therefore the process of unmixing would take infinite time, is now
going on, and will always go on. Even in the purest element there is
still a certain admixture of particles of other kinds of matter. There
is no such thing as pure gold. Gold is merely matter in which the gold
particles predominate.
As with Empedocles and the Atomists, a moving force is required to
explain the world-process of unmixing. What, in the philosophy of
Anaxagoras, is this force? Now up to the present point the philosophy
of Anaxagoras does not rise above the previous philosophies of
Empedocles and the Atomists. On the contrary, in clearness {97} and
logical consistency, it falls considerably below the teaching of the
latter. But it is just here, on the question of the moving force, that
Anaxagoras becomes for the first time wholly original, and introduces
a principle peculiar to himself, a principle, moreover, which is
entirely new in philosophy. Empedocles had taken as his moving forces,
Love and Hate, mythical and fanciful on the one hand, and yet purely
physical on the other. The forces of the Atomists were also completely
material. But Anaxagoras conceives the moving force as wholly
non-physical and incorporeal. It is called Nous, that is, mind or
intelligence. It is intelligence which produces the movement in things
which brings about the formation of the world. What was it, now, which
led Anaxagoras to the doctrine of a world-governing intelligence? It
seems that he was struck with the apparent design, order, beauty and
harmony of the universe. These things, he thought, could not be
accounted for by blind forces. The world is apparently a rationally
governed world. It moves towards definite ends. Nature shows plentiful
examples of the adaptation of means to ends. There appears to be plan
and purpose in the world. The Atomists had assumed nothing but matter
and physical force. How can design, order, harmony and beauty be
brought about by blind forces acting upon chaotic matter? Blind forces
acting upon a chaos would produce motion and change. But the change
would be meaningless and purposeless. They could not produce a
rationally ordered cosmos. One chaos would succeed another chaos ad
infinitum. That alone which can produce law and order is intelligence.
There must therefore be a world-controlling Nous.
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What is the character of the Nous, according to Anaxagoras? Is it, in
the first place, really conceived as purely non-material and
incorporeal? Aristotle, who was in a position to know more of the
matter than any modern scholar, clearly implies in his criticism that
the Nous of Anaxagoras is an incorporeal principle, and he has been
followed in this by the majority of the best modern writers, such as
Zeller and Erdmann. But the opposite view has been maintained, by
Grote, for example, and more recently by Professor Burnet, who thinks
that Anaxagoras conceived the Nous as a material and physical force.
[Footnote 8] As the matter is of fundamental importance, I will
mention the chief arguments upon which Professor Burnet rests his
case. In the first place Anaxagoras described the Nous as the
"thinnest and purest of all things." He also said that it was
"unmixed," that it had in it no mixture of anything besides itself.
Professor Burnet argues that such words as "thin" and "unmixed" would
be meaningless in connection with an incorporeal principle. Only
material things can properly be described as thin, pure, and unmixed.
Secondly, Professor Burnet thinks that it is quite certain that the
Nous occupies space, for Anaxagoras speaks of greater and smaller
portions of it. Greater and smaller are spatial relations. Hence the
Nous occupies space, and that which occupies space is material. But
surely these are very inconclusive arguments. In the first place as
regards the use of the words "thin" and "unmixed." It is true that
these terms express primarily physical qualities. But, as I pointed
out in {99} the first chapter, almost all words by which we seek to
express incorporeal ideas have originally a physical signification.
And if Anaxagoras is to be called a materialist because he described
the Nous as thin, then we must also plead guilty to materialism if we
say that the thought of Plato is "luminous," or that the mind of
Aristotle is "clear." The fact is that all philosophy labours under
the difficulty of having to express non-sensuous thought in language
which has been evolved for the purpose of expressing sensuous ideas.
There is no philosophy in the world, even up to the present day, in
which expressions could not be found in plenty which are based upon
the use of physical analogies to express entirely non-physical ideas.
Then as regards the Nous occupying space, it is not true that greater
and smaller are necessarily spatial relations. They are also
qualitative relations of degree. I say that the mind of Plato is
greater than the mind of Callias. Am I to be called a materialist? Am
I to be supposed to mean that Plato's mind occupies more space than
that of Callias? And it is certainly in this way that Anaxagoras uses
the terms. "All Nous," he says, "is alike, both the greater and the
smaller." He means thereby that the world-forming mind (the greater)
is identical in character with the mind of man (the smaller). For
Anaxagoras it is the one Nous which animates all living beings, men,
animals, and even plants. These different orders of beings are
animated by the same Nous but in different degrees, that of man being
the greatest. But this does not mean that the Nous in man occupies
more space than the Nous in a plant. But even if Anaxagoras did
conceive the Nous as spatial, it does not follow that he {100}
regarded it as material. The doctrine of the non-spatiality of mind is
a modern doctrine, never fully developed till the time of Descartes.
And to say that Anaxagoras did not realize that mind is non-spatial is
merely to say that he lived before the time of Descartes. No doubt it
would follow from this that the incorporeality of mind is vaguely and
indistinctly conceived by Anaxagoras, that the antithesis between
matter and mind is not so sharply drawn by him as it is by us. But
still the antithesis is conceived, and therefore it is correct to say
that the Nous of Anaxagoras is an incorporeal principle. The whole
point of this introduction of the Nous into the philosophy of
Anaxagoras is because he could not explain the design and order of the
universe on a purely physical basis.
[Footnote 8: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap. vi. Sec. 132.]
The next characteristic of Nous is that it is to be thought of as
essentially the ground of motion. It is because he cannot in any other
way explain purposive motion that Anaxagoras introduces mind into his
otherwise materialistic system. Mind plays the part of the moving
force which explains the world-process of unmixing. As the ground of
motion, the Nous is itself unmoved; for if there were any motion in it
we should have to seek for the ground of this motion in something else
outside it. That which is the cause of all motion, cannot itself be
moved. Next, the Nous is absolutely pure and unmixed with anything
else. It exists apart, by itself, wholly in itself, and for itself. In
contrast to matter, it is uncompounded and simple. It is this which
gives it omnipotence, complete power over everything, because there is
no mixture of matter in it to limit it, to clog and hinder its
activities. We moderns are {101} inclined to ask the question whether
the Nous is personal. Is it, for example, a personal being like the
God of the Christians? This is a question which it is almost
impossible to answer. Anaxagoras certainly never considered it.
According to Zeller, the Greeks had an imperfect and undeveloped
conception of personality. Even in Plato we find the same difficulty.
The antithesis between God as a personal and as an impersonal being,
is a wholly modern idea. No Greek ever discussed it.
To come now to the question of the activity of the Nous and its
function in the philosophy of Anaxagoras, we must note that it is
essentially a world-forming, and not a world-creating, intelligence.
The Nous and matter exist side by side from eternity. It does not
create matter, but only arranges it. "All things were together," says
Anaxagoras, "infinitely numerous, infinitely little; then came the
Nous and set them in order." In this Anaxagoras showed a sound logical
sense. He based his idea of the existence of Nous upon the design
which exhibits itself in the world. In modern times the existence of
design in the world has been made the foundation of an argument for
the existence of God, which is known as the teleological argument. The
word teleology means the view of things as adapting means towards
purposive ends. To see intelligent design in the universe is to view
the universe teleologically. And the teleological argument for the
existence of God asserts that, as there is evidence of purpose in
nature, this must be due to an intelligent cause. But, as a matter of
fact, taken by itself, teleology cannot possibly be made the basis of
an argument for the existence of a world-creating intelligence, but
only for the existence of a world-designing {102} intelligence. If you
find in the desert the ruins of ancient cities and temples, you are
entitled to conclude therefrom, that there existed a mind which
designed these cities and buildings, and which arranged matter in that
purposive way, but you are not entitled to conclude that the mind
which designed the cities also created the matter out of which they
were made. Anaxagoras was, therefore, in that sense quite right.
Teleology is not evidence of a world-creating mind, and if we are to
prove that, we must have recourse to other lines of reasoning.
In the beginning, then, there was a chaotic mixture of different kinds
of matter. The Nous produced a vortex at one point in the middle of
this mass. This vortex spread itself outwards in the mass of matter,
like rings caused by the fall of a stone in water. It goes on for ever
and continually draws more and more matter out of the infinite mass
into itself. The movement, therefore, is never-ending. It causes like
kinds of matter to come together with like, gold to gold, wood to
wood, water to water, and so on. It is to be noted, therefore, that
the action of the Nous is apparently confined to the first movement.
It acts only at the one central point, and every subsequent movement
is caused by the vortex itself, which draws in more and more of the
surrounding matter into itself. First are separated out the warm, dry,
and light particles, and these form the aether or upper air. Next come
the cold, moist, dark, and dense particles which form the lower air.
Rotation takes the latter towards the centre, and out of this the
earth is formed. The earth, as with Anaximenes, is a flat disc, borne
upon the air. The heavenly bodies consist of {103} masses of stone
which have been torn from the earth by the force of its rotation, and
being projected outwards become incandescent through the rapidity of
their movement. The moon is made of earth and reflects the light of
the sun. Anaxagoras was thus the first to give the true cause of the
moon's light. He was also the first to discover the true theory of
eclipses, since he taught that the solar eclipse is due to the
intervention of the moon between the sun and the earth, and that lunar
eclipses arise from the shadow of the earth falling upon the moon. He
believed that there are other worlds besides our own with their own
suns and moons. These worlds are inhabited. The sun, according to
Anaxagoras, is many times as large as the Peloponnese. The origin of
life upon the earth is accounted for by germs which existed in the
atmosphere, and which were brought down into the terrestrial slime by
rain water, and there fructified. Anaxagoras's theory of perception is
the opposite of the theories of Empedocles and the Atomists.
Perception takes place by unlike matter meeting unlike.
Anaxagoras owes his importance in the history of philosophy to the
theory of the Nous. This was the first time that a definite
distinction had been made between the corporeal and incorporeal.
Anaxagoras is the last philosopher of the first period of Greek
philosophy. In the second chapter, [Footnote 9] I observed that this
first period is characterized by the fact that in it the Greek mind
looks only outward upon the external world. It attempts to explain the
operations of nature. It had not yet learned to look inward upon
itself. But the transition to the introspective study of mind is found
in the Nous of {104} Anaxagoras. Mind is now brought to the fore as a
problem for philosophy. To find reason, intelligence, mind, in all
things, in the State, in the individual, in external nature, this is
the characteristic of the second period of Greek philosophy. To have
formulated the antithesis between mind and matter is the most
important work of Anaxagoras.
[Footnote 9: Pages 23-4.]
Secondly, it is to the credit of Anaxagoras that he was the first to
introduce the idea of teleology into philosophy. The system of the
Atomists formed the logical completion of the mechanical theory of the
world. The theory of mechanism seeks to explain all things by causes.
But, as we saw, causation can explain nothing. The mechanism of the
world shows us by what means events are brought about, but it does not
explain why they are brought about at all. That can only be explained
by showing the reason for things, by exhibiting all process as a means
towards rational ends. To look to the beginning (cause) of things for
their explanation is the theory of mechanism. To look to their ends
for explanation of them is teleology. Anaxagoras was the first to have
dimly seen this. And for this reason Aristotle praises him, and,
contrasting him with the mechanists, Leucippus and Democritus, says
that he appears like "a sober man among vain babblers." The new
principle which he thus introduced into philosophy was developed, and
formed the central idea of Plato and Aristotle. To have realized the
twin antitheses of matter and mind, of mechanism and teleology, is the
glory of Anaxagoras.
But it is just here, in the development of these two ideas, that the
defects of his system make their appearance. Firstly, he so separated
matter and mind that {105} his philosophy ends in sheer dualism. He
assumes the Nous and matter as existing from the beginning, side by
side, as equally ultimate and underived principles. A monistic
materialism would have derived the Nous from matter, and a monistic
idealism would have derived matter from the Nous. But Anaxagoras does
neither. Each is left, in his theory, an inexplicable ultimate
mystery. His philosophy is, therefore, an irreconcilable dualism.
Secondly, his teleology turns out in the end to be only a new theory
of mechanism. The only reason which induces him to introduce the Nous
into the world, is because he cannot otherwise explain the origin of
movement. It is only the first movement of things, the formation of
the vortex, which he explains by mind. All subsequent process is
explained by the action of the vortex itself, which draws the
surrounding matter into itself. The Nous is thus nothing but another
piece of mechanism to account for the first impulse to motion. He
regards the Nous simply as a first cause, and thus the characteristic
of all mechanism, to look back to first causes, to the beginning,
rather than to the end of things for their explanation, appears here.
Aristotle, as usual, puts the matter in a nutshell. "Anaxagoras," he
says, "uses mind as a _deus ex machina_ to account for the formation
of the world, and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything
necessarily is, he drags it in by force. But in other cases he assigns
as a cause for things anything else in preference to mind." [Footnote
10]
[Footnote 10; Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, book i, chap. iv.]
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