hended danger to the accepted religion, but by heavy suspicion that the philosopher looked with no unfavourable eye on the progress of Persian power. We are obliged to refer the reader for whatever details are needful in illustration of this remarkable exercise of democratic authority, to the pages of historians, and, above all, to the classic work of Mr. Grote: all our disposable space is required for the right designation of the position of Anaxagoras the Inquirer.—It is extremely difficult to reproduce, in modern times, any one of these old Philosophers as he really was. We are met in the first place by the extremest paucity of documents; nor would it have been possible to reconstruct one of their modes of thought, but for the precious and apparently most faithful, although brief summaries, which we owe to the immortal Stagyrite. There is the farther difficulty too—caused by the tendency of the Thinkers of any epoch to contemplate the speculations of those of other epochs from their own point of view, and to interpret them according to the forms of the philosophies environing themselves—a difficulty augmenting with the intervals of time which separate them, and which in this case has been largely increased by the absurd mysticism thrown around all early inquiries by Alexandrine commentators and enthusiasts. Above all things, the student must beware of attributing extraordinary and unfathomed profundity to the systems of ancient Greece, or of expecting to find there, anything save first and rude essays to penetrate towards the laws of the Universe, by men of singular force and clearness of intellect, but all ignorant of experiment, unskilled in Observation even, and in nowise cognizant of any Method that could guide them towards ultimate physical truth.—The following rapid remarks may clear away certain errors connected with usual appreciations of the ancient philosophies; they will farther tend to fix the true and elevated place of Anaxagoras. The belief in a principle of Order is not a result of science, but the cause of it. Science grows out of that necessity felt by the human mind to realize among objective phenomena some law of Order. The effort of all the Greek schools, accordingly, was to discover an ἀρχή;—not a beginning, but a principle, or substratum, of all things. Inquiry soon diverged into two methods:—the first, endeavouring to detect that ἀρχή or substratum, from indications offered by external phenomena,—the second, expecting to reach the same results by inquiring what laws of order are suggested by the phenomena of mind itself. The latter method was that of Pythagoras and the Ionic school—a school which sought, in the laws of harmony and the relations of number, some key to the solution of the problem of the Universe. The opposite method was followed by the Ionic or physical school—that of which Anaxagoras is the culminating name, or rather the supplement and philosophical completion. This school is usually said to have begun with Thales; and ordinary history presents us with a chronological list of his disciples and interpreters. But none of these ancient schools ought to be treated chronologically, or as a school, according to the modern interpretation of the word:—the inquirers, so classed, were rather independent thinkers, following something of the same method. The character of Ionic inquiry may, however, be fairly enough characterized by reference to one portion of the speculations of Thales. With him, as with all, the predominant question was, what is the ἀρχή? what the substratum of all this perplexing external variety of change? Thales looked around him in quest of some one physical substance capable of assuming all varieties of condition; and his limited and poor experimental knowledge induced him to consider water that substratum. A most imperfect analysis certainly, but one whose origin it is not difficult to perceive. Thales had seen water in every cardinal form which matter can assume; he had seen it a solid; its normal state is that of a liquid; and he had seen it evaporate or change into invisible air. No question as to the puerility of this speculation, regarded as a physical speculation; but the critic must reflect that progress in physics has been most laborious and slow. Chemistry had to pass through alchemy,—why marvel that, at the epoch of Thales, there should have been so rude a beginning of chemical analysis? Others followed in the foregoing track. One proposed air as the substratum; others, earth; others, fire. But the idea of a substratum or principle as a necessary existence influenced and vivified all. It is interesting also to trace the course of this unitarian speculative physics. The supposed ἀρχή became more and more purified and ethereal in the conceptions of Inquirers, until Heraclitus determined as its essence—fire in perpetual flux. Empedocles (444 b.c.) may be said to have inaugurated a new era. He compounded all former systems, declaring that there are four elements or substances, and that these are combined or animated by forces which he termed love and hate. It is strange, that instead of discerning here the crude but meritorious initiation of Inquiry as to the existence of forces which may co-ordinate different natural elements, some historians of philosophy have traced to it our modern doctrine of Polarities! Passing from Empedocles, who indeed introduced the idea of forces or coordinating powers amid various elements, we reach at once the Clazomenian Anaxagoras. The main or central principle of his system is this,—"Matter, ever numerically the same, undergoes combination and separation from the energy and dictates of a Supreme Mind." Previous to the period of Anaxagoras, not a trace of pure theism appears among the speculations of the Greeks; their ultimate principle (or God, as moderns have often written it) was a pure physical ἀρχή, with which, indeed, they conjoined, or rather to which they assimilated, the nature and action of the human soul; nor can there be a loftier tribute to the illustrious philosopher of Clazomenœ, or a more certain attestation to the reality of the revolution he inaugurated, than the words of Aristotle (Metaphysics, I., 3d): "When a man said, that there is in nature, as in animals, an intelligence which is the cause of the arrangement and of the order of the universe, this man appeared alone to have preserved his reason in the midst of the follies of his predecessors. Now we know that Anaxagoras of Clazomenœ first openly maintained these views." Can a loftier tribute be offered to any philosopher? Or is it wonderful that the popular polytheism of Athens felt itself in danger, when confronted by the criticism of a man who first ascended to the idea of one harmonizing intelligence? The νοῦς, however, became a moral providence only in the hands of Socrates.—J. P. N.
ANAXAGORAS, a brass-caster of Ægina, who lived about 480 b.c. He executed the famous statue of Jupiter, raised by the Greeks at Elis after the battle of Platæa.
ANAXANDRIDES, the son of Leon, was the fifteenth king of Sparta of the line of the Agidæ, and reigned about 560 b.c. He was the father of Leonidas. Died probably 520 b.c.
ANAXANDRIDES, a comic dramatist, who flourished during the time of Philip of Macedon, and was a native of Rhodes, or of Colophon in Ionia. He wrote sixty-five plays, fragments of some of which have been preserved; but having libelled the Athenian government, it is said that he was condemned to die by starvation; this, however, is doubtful.—F.
ANAXARCHUS, surnamed Eudæmonicus, or "the Happy," was a Greek philosopher, a native of Abdera, who lived in the fourth century b.c., and is said to have been one of the preceptors of Alexander the Great, or rather, as Lucian observes, one of his parasites; for when Alexander killed his friend and foster-brother Clitus, the philosopher was base enough to assure the prince that "kings could do no wrong." After the death of Alexander, Anaxarchus fell into the hands of his enemy Nicocreon, king of Cyprus, who caused him to be pounded to death in a mortar.—F.
ANAXILAS, a comic poet of Athens, a contemporary of Plato and Demosthenes, about 340 b.c.
ANAXILAUS, a king of Rhegium, descended from Alcidamas, who had brought a Greek colony into Sicily. His death took place about 476 b.c.
ANAXILAUS, a Pythagorean philosopher, who lived at Rome in the Augustan age, and was a native of Larissa. He was banished from Italy on a charge of practising magic, which originated in his skill in chemistry and experimental philosophy.
ANAXIMANDER of Miletus, a disciple of Thales, lived 610-547 b.c. Under article Anaxagoras, the general character of the Ionic school has been briefly described. Anaximander, also, sought for a physical ἀρχή, and he thought he had found it, in what he termed ἄπειρον—a word usually translated by "infinitude." According to Aristotle, however, who renders the word by what he deems a synonym—μίγμα, or a mixing of elements—it would appear that Anaximander took, as his substratum, a state of being indistinct and undivided,—a condition in which all elements were in a sort of chaotic combination. In so far as this goes, he may be accounted in advance of some of the Ionic school, who, as we have seen, sought to reduce all material variety to changes in the state of some one element. Farther, the question was most strongly forced on him, What is that which divided this μίγμα—by what energy was such a chaos reduced into order, and made to evolve definite and individual
