(_a_) FRAGMENT ACCREDITED TO ANAXIMENES. _Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs_, Livre i., Paris 1887, p. 83, ll. 7-10, Olympiodoros. μίαν δὲ κινουμένην ἄπειρον ἀρχὴν πάντων τῶν ὄντων ἐδόξαζεν Ἀναξιμένης τὸν ἀέρα. λέγει γὰρ οὕτως· ἐγγύς ἐστιν ὁ ἀὴρ τοῦ ἀσωμάτου· καὶ ὅτι κατ’ ἔκροιαν τούτου γινόμεθα, ἀνάγκη αὐτὸν καὶ ἄπειρον εἶναι καὶ πλούσιον διὰ τὸ μηδέποτε ἐκλείπειν. _Translation_—Anaximenes arrived at the conclusion that air is the one, movable, infinite, first principle of all things. For he speaks as follows: Air is the nearest to an immaterial thing; for since we are generated in the flow of air, it is necessary that it should be infinite and abundant, because it is never exhausted.[17] (_b_) PASSAGES RELATING TO ANAXIMENES IN ARISTOTLE, &c. Arist. _Meteor._ ii. 1; 354 a 28. Most of the earlier students of the heavenly bodies believed that the sun did not go underneath the earth, but rather around the earth and this region, and that it disappeared from view and produced night, because the earth was so high toward the north. Simpl. _de Coelo_ 273 b 45; Schol. Arist. 514 a 33. He regarded the first principle as unlimited, but not as undefined, for he called it air, thinking that air had a sufficient adaptability to change. Simpl. _Phys._ 32 r 149, 32. Of this one writer alone, Theophrastos, in his account of the Physicists, uses the words μάνωσις and πύκνωσις of texture. The rest, of course, spoke of μανότης and πυκνότης. Simpl. _Phys._ 257 v. Some say that the universe always existed, not that it has always been the same, but rather that it successively changes its character in certain periods of time; as, for instance, Anaximenes and Herakleitos and Diogenes. Arist. _de Coelo_ ii. 13; 294 b 13. Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Demokritos say that the breadth of the earth is the reason why it remains where it is. Arist. _Meteor._ ii. 7; 365 (a 17), b 6. Anaximenes says that the earth was wet, and when it dried it broke apart, and that earthquakes are due to the breaking and falling of hills; accordingly earthquakes occur in droughts, and in rainy seasons also; they occur in drought, as has been said, because the earth dries and breaks apart, and it also crumbles when it is wet through with waters. Arist. _Metaph._ i. 3; 984 a 5. Anaximenes regarded air as the first principle.