We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles, who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
Anaxagoras of Clazomencœ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a spirit distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Νοῦς αὐτοκρατής, and which is the first cause of motion in the universe--ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως. [461]
[Footnote 461: ][ (return) ] Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.
In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one element, he declared that the elements or first principles were numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature, there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of Homœomeria, of which Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De Natura Rerum"--
"That bone from bones
Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;