Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1
Plato · en
This difference followed naturally from the opinions of the two
philosophers on the nature of the soul or mind. Anaxagoras supposed it
peculiar in itself, and dissimilar to the Homoeomeries without.
Empedokles conceived it as a compound of the four elements, analogous
to all that was without: hence man knew each exterior element by its
like within himself--earth by earth, water by water, &c.]
[Footnote 179: Anaxag. Fr. 19, Schaub.; Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathem.
vii. 91-140; Cicero, Academ. i. 12.
Anaxagoras remarked that the contrast between black and white might be
made imperceptible to sense by a succession of numerous intermediate
colours very finely graduated. He is said to have affirmed that snow
was really black, notwithstanding that it appeared white to our
senses: since water was black, and snow was only frozen water (Cicero,
Academ. iv. 31; Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 33). "Anaxagoras non
modo id ita esse (_sc._ albam nivem esse) negabat, sed sibi, quia
sciret aquam nigram esse, unde illa concreta esset, albam ipsam esse
_ne videri quidem_." Whether Anaxagoras ever affirmed that snow did
not _appear to him_ white, may reasonably be doubted: his real
affirmation probably was, that snow, though it appeared white, was not
really white. And this affirmation depended upon the line which he
drew between the fact of sense, the phenomenal, the relative, on one
side--and the substratum, the real, the absolute, on the other. Most
philosophers recognise a distinction between the two; but the line
between the two has been drawn in very different directions.
Anaxagoras assumed as his substratum, real, or absolute, the
Homoeomeries--numerous primordial varieties of matter, each with its
inherent qualities. Among these varieties he reckoned _water_, but he
did not reckon _snow_. He also considered that water was really and
absolutely black or dark (the Homeric [Greek: me/lan u(/dôr])--that
blackness was among its primary qualities. Water, when consolidated
into snow, was so disguised as to produce upon the spectator the
appearance of whiteness; but it did not really lose, nor could it
lose, its inherent colour. A negro covered with white paint, and
therefore looking white, is still really black: a wheel painted with
the seven prismatic colours, and made to revolve rapidly, will look
white, but it is still really septi-coloured: _i.e._ the state of
rapid revolution would be considered as an exceptional state, not
natural to it. Compare Plato, Lysis, c. 32, p. 217 D.]
[Side-note: The doctrines of Anaxagoras were regarded as offensive and
impious.]