is, and in many
legends diffused through the world even in modern times. He said that
everything was nourished by moisture, from which heat itself was
derived, and that moisture was the seed of all things; that water is the
origin of this moisture, and since all things are derived from it it is
the primitive principle of the world. We see how much this theory is
concerned with natural phenomena in their life, nutrition, and birth by
means of seed. He regarded the world as a living being, which had been
evolved from an imperfect germ of moisture. This mode of animating the
world, which consists in tracing the development of a germ already in
existence, reappears in other parts of his philosophy. He saw life in
the appearance of death, and held the loadstone and yellow amber to be
animate bodies, declaring generally that the world is alive, and filled
with demons and genii.[32]

We trace the basis of these ideas in traditions prior to Thales,
declaring the world to be a living being, and that everything was
derived from a primitive condition of germs. The same opinion was held
by Hippo, by Diogenes of Apollonia, by Heraclitus, and by Anaxagoras.
Aristotle states that the theory of development by germs was extremely
ancient in his time. The other philosophers of the Ionic and successive
schools mingled these fanciful ideas with the systematic arrangement of
their theories as to the origin and constitution of the world, so that
it is unnecessary to refer to them, since the method and conceptions are
identical.

It is evident from this sketch that while thought gradually evolved a
more rational system of general knowledge, the earlier idols and
primitive mythical interpretations were not abandoned, although they
assumed a larger and more scientific form. Thales and others assigned a
mechanical origin to things, such as water, fire, or the like, which was
contrary to anthropomorphic ideas; yet they still regarded the world as
a living being, developed and perfected by the same laws and functions
as all plants and animals, and they peopled it with genii and demons,
thus handing on the earliest and rudest traditions of the race.

While the scientific faculty was gathering strength and leading the way
to a more rational consideration of the world and natural phenomena,
really advancing beyond the earlier ideas which had been almost wholly
mythical, myth was still the matrix of thought, although its
envelopment was partly rent