Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/229

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174
GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

sophy of Anaxagoras stands opposed to the doctrines of the Atomists.

10. I stated in paragraph third that the philosophy of Anaxagoras centred in these two points; his doctrine of the ὁμοιομερῆ, and his doctrine of νοῦς, or a designing and directing intelligence. In summing up the first of the two topics, I request you to observe that all that I have hitherto said has been in reference to Anaxagoras's conception of matter in its original and primary condition. His doctrine of the ὁμοιομερῆ has special reference to matter in this crude and primitive state. How far the doctrine applies to matter in its secondary, that is, in the more finished and orderly condition in which we behold it, this is what we shall have hereafter to consider; so far as we have gone, we may say that we have dealt not with the κόσμος, but only with the chaos of Anaxagoras. We have endeavoured to describe the world as he supposes it to exist before it has been subjected to the operations of a designing and directing intelligence.

11. The second topic which falls to be considered in treating of the philosophy of Anaxagoras is, as I have said, his doctrine of νοῦς, or intelligence, as the designing and arranging principle of the universe. Referring to this doctrine, Aristotle remarks, that "the man," to wit, Anaxagoras, "who first announced that Reason was the cause of the world and of all orderly arrangement in nature, no less than in living