We have seen that Simplicius, with the poem of Parmenides before him, corrects Aristotle by substituting Light and Darkness for Fire and Earth, and in this he is amply borne out by the fragments which he quotes. Parmenides himself calls one “form” Light, Flame, and Fire, and the other Night, and we have now to consider whether these can be identified with the Pythagorean Limit and Unlimited. We have seen good reason to believe (§ 58) that the idea of the world breathing belonged to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism, and there can be no difficulty in identifying this “boundless breath” with Darkness, which stands very well for the Unlimited. “Air” or mist was always regarded as the dark element.[467] And that which gives definiteness to the vague darkness is certainly light or fire, and this may account for the prominence given to that element by Hippasos.[468] We may probably conclude, then, that the Pythagorean distinction between the Limit and the Unlimited, which we shall have to consider later (Chap. VII.), made its first appearance in this crude form. If, on the other hand, we identify darkness with the Limit, and light with the Unlimited, as most critics do, we get into insuperable difficulties. Footnote 467: Note the identification of the dense element with “air” in [Plut.] _Strom._, quoted p. 213, _n._ 462; and for the identification of this “air” with “mist and darkness,” cf. Chap. I. § 27, and Chap. V. § 107. It is to be observed further that Plato puts this last identification into the mouth of a Pythagorean (_Tim._ 52 d). Footnote 468: See above, p. 121. [Sidenote: The heavenly bodies.] 92. We must now look at the general cosmical view expounded in the Second Part of the poem. The fragments are scanty, and the doxographical tradition hard to interpret; but enough remains to show that here, too, we are on Pythagorean ground. All discussion of the subject must start from the following important passage of Aetios:— Parmenides held that there were crowns crossing one another[469] and encircling one another, formed of the rare and the dense element respectively, and that between these there were other mixed crowns made up of light and darkness. That which surrounds them all was solid like a wall, and under it is a fiery crown. That which is in the middle of all the crowns is also solid, and surrounded in turn by a fiery circle. The central circle of the mixed crowns is the cause of movement and becoming to all the rest. He calls it “the goddess who directs their course,” “the Holder of Lots,” and “Necessity.” Aet. ii. 7. 1 (R. P. 126). Footnote 469: It seems most likely that ἐπαλλήλους here means “crossing one another,” as the Milky Way crosses the Zodiac. The term ἐπάλληλος is opposed to παράλληλος. [Sidenote: The “crowns.”]