earth, or light, or
sun, or moon, or grass, or the beast of the field, when the "earth was
without form, and void, and darkness was upon the {9} face of the
deep." Only, be it observed, that while in the primitive Biblical idea
this formless void precedes in _time_ an ordered universe, in
Anaximander's conception this formless infinitude is always here, is in
fact the only reality which ever is here, something without beginning
or ending, underlying all, enwrapping all, governing all.

To modern criticism this may seem to be little better than verbiage,
having, perhaps, some possibilities of poetic treatment, but certainly
very unsatisfactory if regarded as science. But to this we have to
reply that one is not called upon to regard it as science. Behind
science, as much to-day when our knowledge of the details of phenomena
is so enormously increased, as in the times when science had hardly
begun, there lies a world of mystery which we cannot pierce, and yet
which we are compelled to assume. No scientific treatise can begin
without assuming Matter and Force as data, and however much we may have
learned about the relations of _forces_ and the affinities of _things_,
Matter and Force as such remain very much the same dim infinities, that
the originative 'Infinite' was to Anaximander.

It is to be noted, however, that while modern science assumes
necessarily _two_ correlative data or originative principles,--Force,
namely, as well as Matter,--Anaximander seems to have been content {10}
with the formulation of but one; and perhaps it is just here that a
kinship still remains between him and Thales and other philosophers of
the school. He, no more than they, seems to have definitely raised the
question, How are we to account for, or formulate, the principle of
_difference_ or change? What is it that causes things to come into
being out of, or recalls them back from being into, the infinite void?
It is to be confessed, however, that our accounts on this point are
somewhat conflicting. One authority actually says that he formulated
motion as eternal also. So far as he attempted to grasp the idea of
difference in relation to that of unity, he seems to have regarded the
principle of change or difference as inhering in [13] the infinite
itself. Aristotle in this connection contrasts his doctrine with that
of Anaxagoras, who formulated _two_ principles of existence--Matter and
Mind (see below, p. 54). Anaximander, he poi