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The former believed that chaotic matter was the principle of all things, the latter taught that it was air. The Eleatic school is represented by Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno. As the philosophers of the first school were called Ionians from the country in which they resided, so these were named from Elea, a Greek colony of Italy.

But, as Pindar says, Whom Jove abhors, he starts to hear The Muses sounding in his ear. To this discourse Ammonius, as he used to do, subjoined that verse of Xenophanes, This fine discourse seems near allied to truth, and desired every one to deliver his opinion.

Xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite space. Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the middle place, and this is the source fire of the universe; the second place to the Antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is placed in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite, which is the reason that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us.

Xenophanes said, "if the ox or the elephant understood either sculpture or painting, they would not fail to represent the divinity under their own peculiar figure that in this, they would have as much reason as Polyclitus or Phidias, who gave him the human form."

And Ionic speculation took a quite different direction. Not till a century later, in Euripides, do we observe a distinct influence of his criticism of popular belief; but at that time other currents of opinion had intervened which are not dependent on Xenophanes, but might direct attention to him. Ancient Greek naturalism is essentially calculated to collide with the popular belief.

Air and fire also as agencies of change are sometimes referred to by him; anticipations in fact are visible of the fourfold classification of the elements which was formally made by some of his successors. II. PARMENIDES. The pupil and successor of Xenophanes was PARMENIDES, a native of Elea.

One of the finest examples of early Greek skepticism was the discovery of Xenophanes that man created the gods in his own image.

"God is one supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind," says Xenophanes. Elsewhere he says, with great acumen: "There has not been a man, nor will there be, who knows distinctly what I say about the gods or in regard to all things. For even if one chance for the most part to say what is true, still he would not know; but every one thinks that he knows."

Reference has amongst other things been made to the fact that he speaks in several places aboutgodswhere he, according to his view, ought to sayGod”; nay, he has even formulated his fundamental idea in the words: “One God, the greatest amongst gods and men, neither in shape nor mind like unto any mortal.” To be sure, Xenophanes is not always consistent in his language; but no weight whatever ought to be attached to this, least of all in the case of a man who exclusively expressed himself in verse.

But the Stoics, not trained in the same humane and critical school, had felt the unity, of things more dramatically and vaguely in the realm of physics. Like Xenophanes of old, they gazed at the broad sky and exclaimed, "The All is One."