The portions.

129. What are these “things” of which everything contains a portion? It once was usual to represent the theory of Anaxagoras as if he had said that wheat, for instance, contained small particles of flesh, blood, bones, and the like; but we have just seen that matter is infinitely divisible (fr. [3]), and that there are as many “portions” in the smallest particle as in the greatest (fr. [6]). This is fatal to the old view. If everything were made up of minute particles of everything else, we could certainly arrive at a point where everything was “unmixed,” if only we carried division far enough.

This difficulty can only be solved in one way.[[690]] In fr. [8] the examples given of things which are not “cut off from one another with a hatchet” are the hot and the cold; and elsewhere (frs. [4], [15]), mention is made of the other traditional “opposites.” Aristotle says that, if we suppose the first principles to be infinite, they may either be one in kind, as with Demokritos, or opposite.[[691]] Simplicius, following Porphyry and Themistios, refers the latter view to Anaxagoras;[[692]] and Aristotle himself implies that the opposites of Anaxagoras had as much right to be called first principles as the “homoeomeries.”[[693]]

It is of those opposites, then, and not of the different forms of matter, that everything contains a portion. Every particle, however large or however small, contains every one of those opposite qualities. That which is hot is also to a certain extent cold. Even snow, Anaxagoras affirmed, was black;[[694]] that is, even the white contains a certain portion of the opposite quality. It is enough to indicate the connexion of this with the views of Herakleitos ([§ 80]).[[695]]

Seeds.

130. The difference, then, between the theory of Anaxagoras and that of Empedokles is this. Empedokles had taught that, if you divide the various things which make up this world, and in particular the parts of the body, such as flesh, bones, and the like, far enough, you come to the four “roots” or elements, which are, accordingly, the ultimate reality. Anaxagoras held that, however far you may divide any of these things—and they are infinitely divisible—you never come to a part so small that it does not contain portions of all the opposites. The smallest portion of bone is still bone. On the other hand, everything can pass into everything else just because the “seeds,” as he called them, of each form of matter contain a portion of everything, that is, of all the opposites, though in different proportions. If we are to use the word “element” at all, it is these seeds that are the elements in the system of Anaxagoras.

Aristotle expresses this by saying that Anaxagoras regards the ὁμοιομερῆ as στοιχεῖα.[[696]] We have seen that the term στοιχεῖον is of later date than Anaxagoras, and it is natural to suppose that the word ὁμοιομερῆ is also only Aristotle’s name for the “seeds.” In his own system, the ὁμοιομερῆ are intermediate between the elements (στοιχεῖα), of which they are composed, and the organs (ὄργανα), which are composed of them. The heart cannot be divided into hearts, but the parts of flesh are flesh. That being so, Aristotle’s statement is quite intelligible from his own point of view, but there is no reason for supposing that Anaxagoras expressed himself in that particular way. All we are entitled to infer is that he said the “seeds,” which he had substituted for the “roots” of Empedokles, were not the opposites in a state of separation, but each contained a portion of them all. If Anaxagoras had used the term “homoeomeries”[[697]] himself, it would be strange that Simplicius should quote no fragment containing it.

The difference between the two systems may also be regarded from another point of view. Anaxagoras was not obliged by his theory to regard the elements of Empedokles as primary, a view to which there were obvious objections, especially in the case of earth. He explained them in quite another way. Though everything has a portion of everything in it, things appear to be that of which there is most in them (fr. [12] sub fin.). We may say, then, that Air is that in which there is most cold, Fire that in which there is most heat, and so on, without giving up the view that there is a portion of cold in the fire and a portion of heat in the air.[[698]] The great masses which Empedokles had taken for elements are really vast collections of all manner of “seeds.” Each of them is, in fact, a πανσπερμία.[[699]]

“All things together.”

131. From all this it follows that, when “all things were together,” and when the different seeds of things were mixed together in infinitely small particles (fr. [1]), the appearance presented would be that of one of what had hitherto been regarded as the primary substances. As a matter of fact, they did present the appearance of “air and aether”; for the qualities (things) which belong to these prevail in quantity over all other things in the universe, and everything is most obviously that of which it has most in it (fr. [12] sub fin.). Here, then, Anaxagoras attaches himself to Anaximenes. The primary condition of things, before the formation of the worlds, is much the same in both; only, with Anaxagoras, the original mass is no longer the primary substance, but a mixture of innumerable seeds divided into infinitely small parts.