parts similar or
homogeneous) to be the original cause of all beings; it seemed to him
impossible that anything could arise of nothing or be dissolved into
nothing. Let us therefore instance in nourishment, which appears simple
and uniform, such as bread which we owe to Ceres and water which we
drink. Of this very nutriment, our hair, our veins, our arteries,
nerves, bones, and all our other parts are nourished. These things
thus being performed, it must be granted that the nourishment which
is received by us contains all those things by which these of us are
produced. In it there are those particles which are producers of blood,
bones, nerves, and all other parts; these particles (he thought) reason
discovers for us. For it is not necessary that we should reduce all
things under the objects of sense; for bread and water are fitted to
the senses, yet in them there are those particles latent which are
discoverable only by reason. It being therefore plain that there are
particles in the nourishment similar to what is produced by it, he
terms these homogeneous parts, averring that they are the principles
of beings. Matter is according to him these similar parts, and the
efficient cause is a Mind, which orders all things that have an
existence. Thus he begins his discourse: "All things were confused one
among another; but Mind divided and brought them to order." In this he
is to be commended, that he yokes together matter and an intellectual
agent.

Archelaus the son of Apollodorus, the Athenian, pronounceth, that the
principles of all things have their origin from an infinite air rarefied
or condensed. Air rarefied is fire, condensed is water.

These philosophers, the followers of Thales, succeeding one another,
made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination of the Ionic.

Pythagoras the Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, from another origin
deduces the principles of all things; it was he who first called
philosophy by its name. He thought the first principles to be numbers,
and those symmetries in them which he styles harmonies; and the
composition of both he terms elements, called geometrical. Again, he
places unity and the indefinite binary number amongst the principles.
One of these principles ends in an efficient and forming cause, which is
Mind, and that is God; the other to the passive and material part, and
that is the visible world. Moreover, the nature of number (he saith)
consists in the ten; for all pe