Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
the actuality of the transformation of these like qualitative
differences is essentially maintained. But to Anaxagoras with whom
the elements are a mingled chaos formed therefrom, having only an
apparent uniformity, concrete things arise through the severance of
these infinitely many principles from such a chaos, since like finds
like. Respecting the difference between Empedocles and Anaxagoras,
there is further what Aristotle adds in the same place: “The former
allows a change (_περίοδον_) in these conditions, the latter only
their one appearance.” The conception of Democritus is similar to that
of Anaxagoras in so far as that an infinite manifold is the original
source. But with Anaxagoras the determination of the fundamental
principles appears to contain that which we consider as organized, and
to be by no means an independently existent simple; thus perfectly
individualized atoms such as particles of flesh and of gold, form,
through their coming together, that which appears to be organized. That
comes near our ordinary ideas. Means of nourishment, it is thought,
contain such parts as are homogeneous to blood, flesh, &c. Anaxagoras
hence says, according to Aristotle (De gen. anim. I. 18), “Flesh
comes to flesh through food.” Digestion is thus nothing more than the
taking up of the homogeneous and separation of the heterogeneous;
all nourishment and growth is thus not true assimilation but only
increase, because each internal organ of the animal only draws its
parts to itself out of the various plants, bodies, &c. Death is, on
the other hand, the separation of the like and the mingling with the
heterogeneous. The activity of the _νοῦς_, as the sundering of the like
out of the chaos and the putting together of the like, as also the
setting at liberty again of this like, is certainly simple and relative
to itself, but purely formal and thus for itself contentless.