rth; from their contemporaries they
receive, not thanks, but persecution. Sometimes this persecution takes
one form, sometimes another; to the credit of the Greeks be it said,
that with them it usually led to nothing more severe than banishment. In
the case of Anaxagoras, it is alleged that the sentence pronounced was
death; but that, thanks to the influence of Pericles, this sentence was
commuted to banishment. In any event, the aged philosopher was sent away
from the city of his adoption. He retired to Lampsacus. "It is not I
that have lost the Athenians," he said; "it is the Athenians that have
lost me."

The exact position which Anaxagoras had among his contemporaries, and
his exact place in the development of philosophy, have always been
somewhat in dispute. It is not known, of a certainty, that he even held
an open school at Athens. Ritter thinks it doubtful that he did. It was
his fate to be misunderstood, or underestimated, by Aristotle; that in
itself would have sufficed greatly to dim his fame--might, indeed, have
led to his almost entire neglect had he not been a truly remarkable
thinker. With most of the questions that have exercised the commentators
we have but scant concern. Following Aristotle, most historians of
philosophy have been metaphysicians; they have concerned themselves
far less with what the ancient thinkers really knew than with what they
thought. A chance using of a verbal quibble, an esoteric phrase, the
expression of a vague mysticism--these would suffice to call forth reams
of exposition. It has been the favorite pastime of historians to
weave their own anachronistic theories upon the scanty woof of the
half-remembered thoughts of the ancient philosophers. To make such cloth
of the imagination as this is an alluring pastime, but one that must not
divert us here. Our point of view reverses that of the philosophers.
We are chiefly concerned, not with some vague saying of Anaxagoras, but
with what he really knew regarding the phenomena of nature; with what
he observed, and with the comprehensible deductions that he derived
from his observations. In attempting to answer these inquiries, we are
obliged, in part, to take our evidence at second-hand; but, fortunately,
some fragments of writings of Anaxagoras have come down to us. We are
told that he wrote only a single book. It was said even (by Diogenes)
that he was the first man that ever wrote a work in prose. The latter
statement would not be