And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring." [462]
These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of "inert" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another power--the power of Intelligence. "All things were in chaos; then came Intelligence and introduced Order." [463]
Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school, rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe. The Νοῦς of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent (αὺτοκρατές), omnipresent (ἐν παντὶ παντὸς µοίοα ἔνον), the subtilest and purest of things (λεπτότατον πάντων χρηµάτων καὶ καθαρώτατον); and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient (πάντα ἔγνω), and unchangeable (πᾶς ὁµοῖός ἐστι).--Simplicius, in "Arist. Phys." i. 33. [464]
[Footnote 462: ][ (return) ] Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.
[Footnote 463: ][ (return) ] Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.
[Footnote 464: ][ (return) ] Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.
Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the MANY").
On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge, Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude. He held that reason (λόγος) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as the Νοῦς, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses, then, perceive phenomena, but it is the reason alone which recognizes noumena, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena, substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental principle of modern psychology--"that every power or substance in existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena." Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.