p. 478.“Hear first the four roots of all things;
Shining Zeus and life-bearing Here and Aïdoneus
And Nestis who wets with tears the human source.”
But from five, Ocellus the Lucanian[13] and Aristotle. For with the four elements they include the fifth and rotating body whence, they say, are all heavenly things. But from six, the followers of Empedocles derived the birth of all things. For in the verses where he says:—
“Hear first the four roots of all things”
he makes everything come from four. But when he adds to this:—
“And baleful Strife apart from these [and] equal everywhere,
And Love with them equal in length and breadth,”[14]
he is handing down six things as sources of the universals [i. e.] four material: earth, water, fire, [and] air and two, p. 479. the agents Love and Strife. But the followers of Anaxagoras the Clazomenian and Democritus and Epicurus and very many others whose [opinions] we have before recorded in part, taught that the genesis of all things was from the boundless. But Anaxagoras says they came from things like those produced; but the followers of Democritus and Epicurus, from those unlike and impassible, that is from the atoms; and those of Heraclides the Pontian[15] and Asclepiades[16] from those which are unlike, but passible, such as disconnected corpuscles. But the followers of Plato say that they came from three, and that these are God, Matter and Exemplar; but he divides matter into four principles: fire, water, earth, air; and says that God is the Demiurge of Matter, but Exemplar the Mind.
8. Now, having been persuaded that the system of Natural Science[17] is confessedly found unworkable by all these [philosophers], we ourselves shall unhesitatingly say concerning the examples of the Truth what they are and how we believe in them. But in addition we will first set forth in epitome the [opinions] of the heresiarchs, so that p. 480. the opinions of all being thereby easy to discern, we may display the Truth as clear and easy to discern also.