Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/225

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
170
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

which is so intimately mixed with and through every other ingredient, that each portion of it, however infinitesimally small, is a sample and representative of the whole; in other words, contains everything which the whole contains, or, as we may otherwise express it, is identical with the whole in quality, though, of course, not in quantity. Thus every particle is in parvo what the whole mass is in magno. Every particle, however small or however great, thus understood as containing within it all that the whole contains, is, I conceive, what Anaxagoras means by the ὁμοιομερῆ. I may here remark that when I spoke of each of the ὁμοιομερῆ as embracing ten thousand different kinds of matter, or as being itself matter with ten thousand qualities, I did so merely for purposes of illustration; for Anaxagoras himself sets no limits to the different kinds of matter, or to the number of qualities which may be embraced within each of the ὁμοιομερῆ. He seems to have regarded the kinds or qualities of matter as infinite, or, at any rate, as not to be measured or limited by any assignable number.

7. Bearing in mind what matter is, according to the conception of Anaxagoras, in its original character and constitution, let us now consider how this conception stands related to the doctrines of the Atomical philosophers. We find that the system of Anaxagoras stands opposed to the Atomic theory in two essential particulars: first, it denies and