(Theophrastos, _Dox._ 477) Simpl. _Phys._ 6 r; 24, 26. Among those who say that the first principle is one and movable and infinite, is Anaximandros of Miletos, son of Praxiades, pupil and successor of Thales. He said that the first principle and element of all things is infinite, and he was the first to apply this word to the first principle; and he says that it is neither water nor any other one of the things called elements, but the infinite is something of a different nature, from which came all the heavens and the worlds in them; and from what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for he says that they suffer punishment and give satisfaction[8] to one another for injustice according to the order of time, putting it in rather poetical language. Evidently when he sees the four elements changing into one another, he does not deem it right to make any one of these the underlying substance, but something else besides them. And he does not think that things come into being by change in the nature of the element, but by the separation of the opposites which the eternal motion causes. On this account Aristotle compares him with Anaxagoras. Simpl. _Phys._ 6 v; 27, 23; _Dox._ 478. The translation is given under Anaxagoras, _infra_. Alex. in _Meteor._ 91 r (vol. i. 268 Id.), _Dox._ 494. Some of the physicists say that the sea is what is left of the first moisture;[9] for when the region about the earth was moist, the upper part of the moisture was evaporated by the sun, and from it came the winds and the revolutions of the sun and moon, since these made their revolutions by reason of the vapours and exhalations, and revolved in those regions where they found an abundance of them. What is left of this moisture in the hollow places is the sea; so it diminishes in quantity, being evaporated gradually by the sun, and finally it will be completely dried up. Theophrastos says that Anaximandros and Diogenes were of this opinion.