Anaximander, and may have been born about 590 B.C. He also was a Milesian.
26. As Thales had fixed upon water, and as Anaximander had fixed on the infinite or unbounded, as the universal principle, the ultimately real in all things, so Anaximenes fixed upon air as the common principle of the universe. Anaximenes thus fell back on the ground occupied by Thales, that is to say, he chose as his principle a natural determinate element. At the same time, by selecting an element less palpable, less visible, less formed than water (air, namely), he seemed to aim at combining into one the principle of Thales and the principle of Anaximander. The principle of Thales was too sensible, too material, too definite, to be the universal in all things. The principle of Anaximander again was too indefinite to be comprehended. But air combines the two. It is sufficiently indefinite to be universal: it is sufficiently definite to be perceived and understood it is, in short, a determinate infinite. Such appears to be the position occupied by Anaximenes in the philosophical genealogy which we are sketching. He attempted to effect a sort of compromise between the philosophy of Thales and the philosophy of Anaximander.
27. In representing air as the essential and animating principle of all things, Anaximenes appears to have made a nearer approach to the conception of
