CHAPTER VI.
Note 1, p. 159. In the way that Empedocles, &c.] The passage cited in support of the above opinion is not very
apposite; for Empedocles[1], who had made "nature to be nothing more than the combination of (μίξις) and change among commingled particles," (attraction and repulsion, in other words), is quoted by Aristotle[2] in the words,
"many heads of creatures without necks budded forth;" and, as if to turn against him, as it were, his own doctrine, it is added, "they were by affinity joined together." This led Aristotle to the simile in the text, as Empedocles[3] formed things in nature by the combination of individual particles, so may the mind eliminate new by
the association of former or admitted ideas; and as, in the verse cited, head and neck lie dissevered, so, in the idea of quantity, there is nothing in common between the measure of the diagonal and the side of the square. Thus, as there is no common measure for the diagonal and the side of the square, they are, in so far, distinct; but although, in themselves, distinct, they can, in thought, be combined and made one. "By diameter may be
