with us, because for us, like the gods worshipped by the Epicureans, they are at rest. In the process of origination, the sun, indeed, descends as the universal, but in nature it is that which comes later; thus in truth the earth is the totality, and the sun but an abstract moment. 3. _Anaximenes._ Anaximenes still remains as having made his appearance between the 55th and 58th Olympiads (560-548 B.C.). He was likewise of Miletus, a contemporary and friend of Anaximander; he has little to distinguish him, and very little is known about him. Diogenes Laertius says neither with consideration nor consistency (II. 3): “He was born, according to Apollodorus in the 63rd Olympiad, and died in the year Sardis was conquered” (by Cyrus, Olympiad 58th). In place of the undetermined matter of Anaximander, he brings forward a definite natural element; hence the absolute is in a real form, but instead of the water of Thales, that form is air. He found that for matter a sensuous being was indeed essential, and air has the additional advantage of being more devoid of form; it is less corporeal than water, for we do not see it, but feel it first in movement. Plutarch (De plac. phil. I. 3) says: “Out of it everything comes forth, and into it everything is again resolved.” According to Cicero (De Nat. Deor. I. 10), “he defined it as immeasurable, infinite, and in constant motion.” Diogenes Laertius expresses this in the passage already quoted: “The principle is air and the infinite” (_οὖτος ἀρχὴν ἀέρα εἶπε καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον_) as if there were two principles; however, _ἀρχὴν καὶ ἄπειρον_ may be taken together as subject, and _ἀέρα_ regarded as the predicate in the statement. For Simplicius, in dealing with the Physics of Aristotle, expressly says (p. 6, a) “that the first principle was to him one and infinite in nature as it was to Anaximander, but it was not indefinite as with the latter, but determined, that is, it was air,” which, however, he seems to have understood as endowed with soul.