Elsewhere, however, Aristotle modifies this commendation. “Anaxagoras,” he
says, “uses Mind only as a kind of last resort, dragging it in when he fails
otherwise to account for a phenomenon, but never thinking of it else.” And
in the PhaedoPlato makes Socrates speak of the high hopes with which
he had taken to the works of Anaxagoras, and how grievously he had been
disappointed. “As I proceeded,” he says, “I found my philosopher altogether
forsaking Mind or any other principle of order, and having recourse to air,
and aether, and water, and other eccentricities.”
Anaxagoras, then, at least on this side of his teaching, must be considered
rather as the author of a phrase than as the founder of a philosophy. The
phrase remained, and had a profound influence on subsequent philosophies,
but in his own hands it was little more than a dead letter. His immediate
interest was rather in the variety of phenomena than in their conceived
principle of unity; he is theoretically, perhaps, ‘on the side of the
angels,’ in practice he is a materialist.
A History of Greek Philosophy /
THE ATOMISTS /
ANAXAGORAS
