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| Paragraph 1 |
One might suspect that Hesiod was the first to look for such a thing - or
some one else who put love or desire among existing things as a principle,
as Parmenides, too, does; |
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And Hesiod says: |
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which implies that among existing things there must be from the first
a cause which will move things and bring them together. |
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These thinkers, as we say, evidently grasped, and to this extent,
two of the causes which we distinguished in our work on nature - the
matter and the source of the movement - vaguely, however, and with no
clearness, but as untrained men behave in fights; |
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Empedocles, then, in contrast with his precessors, was the first
to introduce the dividing of this cause, not positing one source of
movement, but different and contrary sources. |
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This philosopher then, as we say, has spoken of the principles in
this way, and made them of this number. |
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Regarding the two causes, then, as we say, the inquiry seems to have
been pushed thus far by the early philosophers. |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26