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THE
FIRST PHILOSOPHERS
OF GREECE
AN EDITION AND TRANSLATION OF THE
REMAINING FRAGMENTS OF THE PRE-SOKRATIC
PHILOSOPHERS, TOGETHER WITH A TRANSLATION OF THE
MORE IMPORTANT ACCOUNTS OF THEIR OPINIONS
CONTAINED IN THE EARLY EPITOMES
OF THEIR WORKS
By
Arthur Fairbanks
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. Lrp.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS BROAD
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)
wf 6 Fila /ι /
WN ts 4 Qo ty
Preface
ee On
THe Hegelian School, and in particular Zeller, have shown us the place of the earlier thinkers in the history of Greek thought, and the importance of a knowledge of their work for all who wish to understand Plato and Aristotle. Since Zeller’s monumental work, several writers (e.g. Benn, Greek Philosophers, vol. 1. London 1883; Tannery, Science helléne, Paris 1887; Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, London 1892) have traced for us the history of this development, but the student who desires to go behind these accounts and examine the evidence for himself still finds the material difficult of access. This material consists of numerous short fragments preserved by later writers, and of accounts of the opinions of these thinkers given mainly by Aristotle and by the Greek doxographists (1.6. students of early thought who made epitomes of the opinions of the masters). The Greek text of the doxographists is now accessible to students in the admirable critical edition of H. Diels (Berlin 1879). The Greek text of the fragments has been published in numerous short monographs, most of which are not readily accessible to the student to-day; it is contained with a vast deal of other matter in Mullach’s Fragmenta Graecorum Philosophorum (Paris 1888-1888, vol. i.—iii.), but the text
vl PREFACE
is in many places so carelessly constructed that it does not serve the purposes of the scholar.
In the present work it has been my plan to prepare for the student a Greek text of the fragments of these early philosophers which shall represent as accurately as possible the results of recent scholarship, and to add such critical notes as may be necessary to enable the scholar to see on what basis the text rests. From this text I have prepared a translation of the fragments into English, and along with this a translation of the impor- tant passages bearing on these early thinkers in Plato and Aristotle, and in the Greek doxographists as col- lected by Diels, in order that the student of early Greek thought might have before him in compact form practi- cally all the materials on which the history of this thought is to be based. It has been difficult, especially in the case of Herakleitos and the Pythagoreans, to draw the line between material to be inserted, and that to be omitted ; but, in order to keep the volume within mode- rate limits, my principle has been to insert only the passages from Plato and Aristotle and from the doxo- graphists.
The Greek text of Herakleitos is based on the edition
of Bywater; that of Xenophanes on the edition of the
Greek lyric poets by Hiller-Bergk ; that of Parmenides
on the edition of Karsten; and that of Empedokles on
the edition of Stein. I have not hesitated, however, to
differ from these authorities in minor details, indicating
in the notes the basis for the text which I have given.
For a brief discussion of the relative value of the
sources of these fragments the student is referred to the
Appendix,
PREFACE Vil
My thanks are due to several friends for their kind
assistance, in particular to Professor C. L. Brownson and
Professor G. D. Lord, who have read much of the book
in proof, and have given me many valuable suggestions.
Nor can I pass over without mention the debt which all
workers in this field owe to Hermann Diels. It is my
great regret that his edition of Parmenides’ Lehrgedicht
failed to reach me until most of the present work was
already printed. Nevertheless there is scarcely a page
of the whole book which is not based on the foundation
which he has laid.
ARTHUR FAIRBANKS.
χαλια University: November 1897.
Contents
ο ae PAGE
1. IONIC SCHOOL: THALES . ; : ; : ‘
II, IONIC SCHOOL: ANAXIMANDROS . ; : ; er 8
III. IONIC SCHOOL: ANAXIMENES . : ; : 2 . 17
IV. HERAKLEITOS : ‘ : : ‘ ὦ : ο. 228
Vv. ELEATIC SCHOOL: XENOPHANES ; ‘ ‘ ; . 65
VI. ELEATIC SCHOOL: PARMENIDES . : . : . . 86
VII. ELEATIC SCHOOL: ZENO . : ‘ ; ; : . 112
VIII. ELEATIC SCHOOL: MELISSOS : : ; i . . 120
ΙΧ. PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS . : : . 1382
X. EMPEDOKLES ; ; ‘ ; : ͵ . . . 1οί
ΧΙ. ANAXAGORAS , ; : . : ; : ; . 2385
APPENDIX. ‘ ; ; : ‘ ; i . . 268
INDEXES . ; te ; ; : . 289 ~
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
Dox. = Diels, Doxographi Graeci, Berlin 1879.
Aet. = Aetw de placitis reliquiae.
Hipp. Phil. = Hippolyti philosophumena. Ticladed τή
Epi. = Epiphanii varia excerpta. Diels, Doz.
Herm. -= Hermiae trrisio gentilium philosophorum.
Simp. Phys.= Simpltctt in Aristotelis physicorum libros quattuor
priores edidit H. Diels, Berlin 1882.
Simp. Cael. = Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo.
For other abbreviations, see list of authors in the Index of sources.
The
First Philosophers of Greece
ee
I. THALES.
Accorpine to Aristotle the founder of the Ionic physical philosophy, and therefore the founder of Greek philo- sophy, was Thales of Miletos. According to Diogenes Laertios, Thales was born in the first year of the thirty- fifth Olympiad (640 Ε.ο.), and his death occurred in the fifty-eighth Olympiad (548-545 3B.c.). He attained note as a scientific thinker and was regarded as the founder of Greek philosophy because he discarded mythical explanations of things, and asserted that a physical element, water, was the first principle of all things. There are various stories of his travels, and in connection with accounts of his travels in Egypt he is credited with intro- ducing into Greece the knowledge of geometry. Tradition also claims that he was a statesman, and as a practical thinker he is classed as one of the seven wise men. A work entitled ‘Nautical Astronomy’ was ascribed to him, but it was recognised as spurious even in antiquity.
Literature: Ε'. Decker, De Thalete Milesio, Diss. Halle,
1865 ; Krische, Forsch. auf d. Gehiet d. alt. Phil.
i, pp. 84-42; V. also Acta Phil. iv. Lips. 1875,
pp. 828-880; Revue Philos. Mar. 1880; Archiv
f. ᾱ. Geschichte d. Phil. ii. 166, 515.
2 the First Philosophers οε Greece
(2) PASSAGES RELATING TO THALES IN PLATO AND IN ARISTOTLE.
Plato, de Legg. x. 899 8. And as for all the stars and the moon and the years and the months and all the seasons, can we hold any other opinion about them than this same one—that inasmuch as soul or souls appear to be the cause of all these things, and good souls the cause of every excellence, we are to call them gods, whether they order the whole heavens as living beings in bodies, or whether they accomplish this in some other form and manner? Is there any one who acknowledges this, and yet holds that all things are not full of gods ?
Arist. Met. 1. 3; 988 b 6. Most of the early students of philosophy thought that first principles in the form of matter, and only these, are the sources of all things ; for that of which all things consist, the antecedent from which they have sprung, and into which they are finally resolved (in so far as being underlies them and is changed with their changes), this they say is the ele- ment and first principle of things. 988b18. As to the quantity and form of this first principle, there is a difference of opinion; but Thales, the founder of this sort of philosophy, says that it is water (accordingly he declares that the earth rests on water), getting the idea, I suppose, because he saw that the nourishment of all beings is moist, and that warmth itself is gene- rated from moisture and persists in it (for that from which all things spring is the first principle of them) ; and getting the idea also from the fact that the germs of all beings are of a moist nature, while water is the first principle of the nature of what is moist./ And there are some who think that the ancients, and they who lived long before the present generation, and the first students of the gods, had a similar idea in regard to nature; for in their poems Okeanos and Tethys were
Thales 3
the parents of generation, and that by which the gods
swore was water,—the poets themselves called it Styx ;
for that which is most ancient is most highly esteemed,
and that which is most highly esteemed is an object to
swear by. Whether there is any such ancient and early
opinion concerning nature would be an obscure ques-
tion; but Thales is said to have expressed this opinion
in regard to the first cause.
Arist. de Coelo ii. 18; 294 a 28. Some say that the earth rests on water. We have ascertained that the oldest statement of this character is the one accredited to Thales the Milesian, to the effect that it rests on water, floating like a piece of wood or something else of that sort.'
Arist. de Anima 1. 2; 405 a 19. And Thales,
according to what is related of him, seems to have
regarded the soul as something endowed with the
power of motion, if indeed he said that the loadstone
has a soul because it moves iron. i.5; 411 a7. Some
say that soul is diffused throughout the whole uni-
verse; and it may have been this which led Thales te
think that all things are full of gods.
Simpl. in Arist. de Anima 8 r 82, 16.2—Thales posits
water as the element, but it is the element of
bodies, and he thinks that the soul is not a body
at all. 81, 21 p.—And in speaking thus of Thales
he adds with a degree of reproach that he assigned
a soul to the magnetic stone as the power which
moves the iron, that he might prove soul to be a
moving power in it; but he did not assert that this
soul was water, although water lad been designated
as the element, since he said that water is the ele-
ment of substances, but he supposed soul to be un-
substantial form. 20 r 78, 22. For Thales, also,
I suppose, thought all things to be full of gods, the
gods being blended with them ; and this is strange.
1 Cf. Herm. 1. 6. P. 10 (Dor. 653).
2 In references to Simpl. in Arist. de Anima and Physica, the first