Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/369

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ECLECTICISM AND REACTION
355

nor, for the matter of that, in any two men; but it does not differ much, only so far as is compatible with their being alike. At the same time, it is not possible for any of the things which are differentiated to be exactly like one another till they all once more become the same.

(6) Since, then, differentiation is multiform, living creatures are multiform and many, and they are like one another neither in appearance nor in intelligence, because of the multitude of differentiations. At the same time, they all live, and see, and hear by the same thing, and they all have their intelligence from the same source. R. P. 211.

(7) And this itself is an eternal and undying body, but of those things[1] some come into being and some pass away.

(8) But this, too, appears to me to be obvious, that it is both great, and mighty, and eternal, and undying, and of great knowledge. R. P. 209.

That the chief interest of Diogenes was a physiological one, is clear from his elaborate account of the veins, preserved by Aristotle.[2] It is noticeable, too, that one of his arguments for the underlying unity of all substances is that without this it would be impossible to understand how one thing could do good or harm to another (fr. 2). In fact, the writing of Diogenes is essentially of the same character as a good deal of the pseudo-Hippokratean literature, and there is much to be said for the view that the writers of these curious tracts made use of him very much as they did of Anaxagoras and Herakleitos.[3]

189.Cosmology. Like Anaximenes, Diogenes regarded Air as the primary substance; but we see from his arguments that he lived at a time when other views had become prevalent.

  1. The MSS. of Simplicius have τῷ δέ, but surely the Aldine τῶν δέ is right.
  2. Arist. Hist. An. Γ, 2. 511 b 30.
  3. See Weygoldt, "Zu Diogenes von Apollonia" (Arch. i. pp. 161 sqq.). Hippokrates himself represented just the opposite tendency to that of those writers. His great achievement was the separation of medicine from philosophy, a separation most beneficial to both (Celsus, i. pr.). This is why the Hippokratean corpus contains some works in which the "sophists" are denounced and others in which their writings are pillaged. To the latter class belong the Περὶ διαίτης and the Περὶ φυσῶν; to the former, especially the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς.