refore,
not completely passed out of the stage of sorcery.

His system obtained importance not only from its own plausibility, but
because it was introduced under favourable auspices and at a favourable
time. It came into Asia Minor as a portion of the wisdom of Egypt, and
therefore with a prestige sufficient to assure for it an attentive
reception. But this would have been of little avail had not the mental
culture of Ionia been advanced to a degree suitable for offering to it
conditions of development. Under such circumstances the Egyptian dogma
formed the starting-point for a special method of philosophizing.

[Sidenote: They constitute the starting-point of Ionian philosophy.]

The manner in which that development took place illustrates the vigour
of the Grecian mind. In Egypt a doctrine might exist for thousands of
years, protected by its mere antiquity from controversy or even
examination, and hence sink with the lapse of time into an ineffectual
and lifeless state; but the same doctrine brought into a young community
full of activity would quickly be made productive and yield new results.
As seeds taken from the coffins of mummies, wherein they have been shut
up for thousands of years, when placed under circumstances favourable
for development in a rich soil, and supplied with moisture, have
forthwith, even in our own times, germinated, borne flowers, and matured
new seeds, so the rude philosophy of Thales passed through a like
development. Its tendency is shown in the attempt it at once made to
describe the universe, even before the parts thereof had been
determined.

[Sidenote: Anaximenes asserts that air is the first principle.]

[Sidenote: It is also the soul.]

[Sidenote: The air is God.]

But it is not alone the water or ocean that seems to be infinite, and
capable of furnishing a supply for the origin of all other things. The
air, also, appears to reach as far as the stars. On it, as Anaximenes of
Miletus remarks, "the very earth itself floats like a broad leaf."
Accordingly, this Ionian, stimulated doubtless by the hope of sharing in
or succeeding to the celebrity that Thales had enjoyed for a century,
proposed to substitute for water, as the primitive source of things,
atmospheric air. And, in truth, there seem to be reasons for bestowing
upon it such a pre-eminence. To those who have not looked closely into
the matter, it would appear that water itself is generated from it, as
when clouds are fo