These thinkers, as we say, evidently grasped, and to this
extent, two of the causes which we distinguished in our work on
nature-the matter and the source of the movement-vaguely, however, and
with no clearness, but as untrained men behave in fights; for they
go round their opponents and often strike fine blows, but they do
not fight on scientific principles, and so too these thinkers do not
seem to know what they say; for it is evident that, as a rule, they
make no use of their causes except to a small extent. For Anaxagoras
uses reason as a deus ex machina for the making of the world, and when
he is at a loss to tell from what cause something necessarily is, then
he drags reason in, but in all other cases ascribes events to anything
rather than to reason. And Empedocles, though he uses the causes to
a greater extent than this, neither does so sufficiently nor attains
consistency in their use. At least, in many cases he makes love
segregate things, and strife aggregate them. For whenever the universe
is dissolved into its elements by strife, fire is aggregated into one,
and so is each of the other elements; but whenever again under the
influence of love they come together into one, the parts must again be
segregated out of each element.
Empedocles, then, in contrast with his precessors, was the first
to introduce the dividing of this cause, not positing one source of
movement, but different and contrary sources. Again, he was the
first to speak of four material elements; yet he does not use four,
but treats them as two only; he treats fire by itself, and its
opposite-earth, air, and water-as one kind of thing.
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