and Aristotle, and the Dialectics of their age, we find the meaning or concept corresponding to these terms invested with an objective character, and represented as a cause or beginning; by which, or out of which, real concrete things were produced. Logical, metaphysical, ethical, entities, whose existence consists in being named and reasoned about, are presented to us (by Plato) as the real antecedents and producers of the sensible Kosmos and its contents, or (by Aristotle) as coeternal with the Kosmos, but as its underlying constituents--the [Greek: a)rchai\], primordia or ultimata--into which it was the purpose and duty of the philosopher to resolve sensible things. The men of words and debate, the dialecticians or metaphysical speculators of the period since Zeno and Sokrates, who took little notice of the facts of Nature, stand contrasted in the language of Aristotle with the antecedent physical philosophers who meddled less with debate and more with facts. The contrast is taken in his mind between Plato and Demokritus.[10] [Footnote 9: Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 314, a. 6; 325, a. 2; Metaphys. [Greek: L]. 1069, a. 25. See the sense of [Greek: a)rchai+kô=s], Met. N. 1089, a. 2, with the note of Bonitz. Adam Smith, in his very instructive examination of the ancient systems of Physics and Metaphysics, is too much inclined to criticise Plato and Aristotle as if they were the earliest theorizers, and as if they had no predecessors.] [Footnote 10: Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 316, a. 6.--[Greek: dio\ o(/soi e)nô|kê/kasi ma=llon e)n toi=s phusikoi=s, ma=llon du/nantai u(poti/thesthai toiau/tas a)rcha\s, ai(\ e)pi\ polu\ du/nantai sunei/rein; oi( d' e)k tô=n pollô=n lo/gôn a)theô/rêtoi tô=n u(parcho/ntôn o)/ntes, pro\s o)li/ga ble/psantes, a)pophai/nontai r(a=|on; i)/doi d' a)/n tis kai\ e)k tou/tôn o(/son diaphe/rousin oi( phusikô=s kai\ logikô=s skopou=ntes], &c. This remark is thoroughly Baconian. [Greek: Oi( en toi=s lo/gois] is the phrase by which Aristotle characterises the Platonici.--Metaphys. [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 35.] [Side-note: The early theorists were studied along with Plato and Aristotle, in the third and second centuries B.C.] Both by Stoics and by Epikureans, during the third and second centuries B.C., Demokritus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Herakleitus were studied along with Plato and Aristotle--by some, even more. Lucretius mentions and criticises all the four, though he never names Plato or Aristotle. Cicero greatly admires the style of Demokritus, whose works were arranged in tetralogies by Thrasyllus, as those of Plato were.[11] [Footnote 11: Epikurus is said to have especially admired Anaxagoras (Diog. L. x. 12).] [Side-note: Negative attribute common to all the early theorists--little or no dialectic.]