Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I — David Hume — John Shaqi
Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I
David Hume · en
But Heraclitus of Ephesus, a physicist, bewailed all things,
accusing the ignorance of all life and of all men, and pitying the
life of mortals. For he claimed that he knew all things and other
men nothing.[52] And he also made statements nearly in accord with
Empedocles, as he said that Discord and Friendship were the beginning
of all things, and that the intellectual fire was God and that all
things were borne in upon one another and did not stand still. And
like Empedocles he said that every place of ours was filled with evil
things, and that these come as far as the moon extending from the
place surrounding the earth, but go no further, since the whole place
above the moon is very pure.[53] Thus, too, it seemed to Heraclitus.
[Sidenote: p. 16.] And after these came other physicists whose opinions
we do not think it needful to declare as they are in no way incongruous
with those aforesaid. But since the school was by no means small,
and many physicists afterwards sprang from these, all discoursing in
different fashion on the nature of the universe, it seems also fit to
us, now that we have set forth the philosophy derived from Pythagoras,
to return in order of succession to the opinions of those who adhered
to Thales, and after recounting the same to come to the ethical
and logical philosophies, whereof Socrates founded the ethical and
Aristotle the dialectic.
5. _About Anaximander._
Now Anaximander was a hearer of Thales. He was Anaximander of Miletus,
son of Praxiades.[54] He said that the beginning of the things that are
was a certain nature of the Boundless from which came into being the
heavens and the ordered worlds[55] within them. And that this principle
is eternal and grows not old and encompasses all the ordered worlds.
And he says time is limited by birth, [Sidenote: p. 17.] substance,[56]
and death. He said that the Boundless is a principle and element of the
things that are and was the first to call it by the name of principle.
But that there is an eternal movement towards Him wherein it happens
that the heavens are born. And that the earth is a heavenly body[57]
supported by nothing, but remaining in its place by reason of its equal
distance from everything. And that its form is a watery cylinder[58]
like a stone pillar; and that we tread on one of its surfaces, but that
there is another opposite to it. And that the stars are a circle of
fire distinct from the fire in the cosmos, but surrounded by air. And
that certain fiery exhalations exist in those places where the stars
appear, and by the obstruction of these exhalations come the eclipses.
And that the moon appears sometimes waxing and sometimes waning through
the obstruction or closing of her paths. And that the circle of the sun
is 27 times greater than that of the moon and that the sun is in the
highest place in the heavens and the circles of the fixed [Sidenote:
p. 18.] stars in the lowest. And that the animals came into being in