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Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for
we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first
cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. |
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Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which
were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things. |
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Yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these
principles. |
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Some think that even the ancients who lived long before the present
generation, and first framed accounts of the gods, had a similar view
of nature; |
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Anaximenes and Diogenes make air prior to water, and the most primary
of the simple bodies, while Hippasus of Metapontium and Heraclitus
of Ephesus say this of fire, and Empedocles says it of the four elements
(adding a fourth - earth - to those which have been named); |
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Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, though older than Empedocles, was
later in his philosophical activity, says the principles are infinite
in number; |
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From these facts one might think that the only cause is the so-called
material cause; |
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When these men and the principles of this kind had had their day,
as the latter were found inadequate to generate the nature of things
men were again forced by the truth itself, as we said, to inquire
into the next kind of cause. |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26