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Updated: June 5, 2025
From such conditions Anaxagoras proves that all the parts of an animal body pre-exist in the food, and are merely collected therefrom. As to the phenomena of life, he explains it on his doctrine of dualism between mind and matter; he teaches that sleep is produced by the reaction of the latter on the former.
The frugal supper waited long on the table before Plato returned. As he entered, Anaxagoras pointed to the board, which rested on rude sticks cut from the trees, and said, "Son of Aristo, all I have to offer you are dried grapes, bread, wild honey, and water from the brook." "More I should not taste if I were at the table of Alcibiades," replied the philosopher of Athens.
"Pericles has indeed obtained unbounded influence," rejoined Anaxagoras; "but he did it by counterfeiting the very principle that needed to be checked; and this is so easily counterfeited, that democracy is always in danger of becoming tyranny in disguise.
One servant, Euangelos, kept all his accounts, as no one else had either capacity or education enough to be able to do so. These proceedings differed greatly from those of Anaxagoras the philosopher, who left his house, and let his estate go to ruin, while he pursued his lofty speculations.
With a faint smile, Anaxagoras replied, "Alas for unhappy Athens! If half we hear be true, her exiled children can hardly wish to be restored to her bosom. Atropos has decreed that I at least shall never again enter her walls. I am not disposed to murmur. Yet the voice of Plato would be pleasant to my ears, as music on the waters in the night-time.
After this, nothing could restore the courtesy he had previously assumed. He scarcely tasted the offered fruit and wine; bade a cold farewell, and soon rolled away in his splendid chariot, followed by his train of attendants. This unexpected interview produced a singular excitement in the mind of Anaxagoras.
"And what monument would you have reared to mark the spot where Anaxagoras sleeps?" said Chrysippus. "I wish to be buried after the ancient manner, with the least possible trouble and expense," rejoined the invalid. "The money you would expend for a monument may be given to some captive sighing in bondage.
Anaxagoras could not prove; his argument was at best suggestive, not demonstrative. He did not even know the laws which govern falling bodies; much less could he apply such laws, even had he known them, to sidereal bodies at whose size and distance he could only guess in the vaguest terms. Still his cosmogonic speculation remains as perhaps the most remarkable one of antiquity.
Anaxagoras, Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Galileo Galilei, in their deaths or their imprisonments, offer instances of this kind, and nothing can be more striking than what appears to have been the ingratitude of men towards their greatest benefactors; but hereafter, when you understand more of the scheme of the universe, you will see the cause and the effect of this, and you will find the whole system governed by principles of immutable justice.
The amiable disposition of Anaxagoras, and the general character of his teachings, are pleasantly and very correctly set forth in the following poem, which is a supposed letter from the poet Cleon, of Lampsacus, to Pericles, giving an account of the philosopher's death: The Death of Anaxagoras.
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