Further, there cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, nor without this qualification. For there are some who make this (_i.e._ a body distinct from the elements) the infinite, and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity. _They are in opposition one to another_—air is cold, water moist, and fire hot—and therefore, _if any one of them were infinite, the rest would have ceased to be by this time_. Accordingly they say that what is infinite is something other than the elements, and from it the elements arise.—Arist. _Phys._ Γ, 5. 204 b 22 (R. P. 16 b). It is clear that in this passage Anaximander is contrasted with Thales and with Anaximenes. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the account given of his reasoning is substantially correct, though the form is Aristotle’s own, and the mention of “elements” is an anachronism.[103] Anaximander was struck, it would seem, by the opposition and strife between the things which go to make up the world; the warm fire was opposed to the cold air, the dry earth to the moist sea. These opposites were at war, and any predominance of one over the other was an “injustice” for which they must make reparation to one another.[104] We may suppose that his thoughts ran somewhat as follows. If Thales had been right in saying that water was the fundamental reality, it would not be easy to see how anything else could ever have existed. One side of the opposition, the cold and moist, would have had its way unchecked, injustice would have prevailed, and the warm and dry would have been driven from the field long ago. We must, then, have something which is not itself one of the warring opposites we know, something more primitive, out of which they arise, and into which they once more pass away. That Anaximander called this something by the name of φύσις, is clear from the doxographers; the current statement that the word ἀρχή in the sense of a “first principle” was introduced by him, is probably due to a misunderstanding of what Theophrastos said.[105] Footnote 103: The conception of elements is not older than Empedokles (§ 106), and the _word_ στοιχεῖα, which is properly translated by _elementa_, was first used in this sense by Plato. For the history of the term, see Diels, _Elementum_ (1899). Footnote 104: The important word ἀλλήλοις was omitted in the Aldine Simplicius, but is in all the MSS. We shall see that in Herakleitos “justice” means the observance of an equal balance between what were called later the elements (§ 72). See also Introd. p. 32, _n._ 45. Footnote 105: