bine the element of truth contained in each.

_Anaxagoras of Clazomencoe_ (B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian
philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of a
_spirit_ distinct from, and independent of the world, which has within
itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Nous autocrates, and
which is the first cause of motion in the universe--arche tes
kineseos.[461]

[Footnote 461: Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.]

In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one
element, he declared that the elements or first principles were
numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these
atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature,
there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound
bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any
body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body
itself. This was the celebrated doctrine of _Homoeomeria_, of which
Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De
Natura Rerum"--

"That bone from bones
Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."[462]

These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because
he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be
really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse
reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of
"_inert_" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and
the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another
power--_the power of Intelligence_. "All things were in chaos; then came
Intelligence and introduced Order."[463]

Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school,
rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe.
The Nous of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent
(autocrates), omnipresent (en panti pantos moioa enon), the subtilest
and purest of things (lepitotaton panion chrematon kaikai katharotaton);
and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient
(panta egno), and unchangeable (pas omoios esti).