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The Philosophy of Anaxagoras.

For the efficient cause of the combining and separating of the elements Anaxagoras selected one of the elements. He called it the Nous, the Greek word for mind or reason. Many historians have therefore concluded that Anaxagoras is the author of an idealistic philosophy. Aristotle says of Anaxagoras that he “stood out like a sober man among the random talkers that had preceded him.” But both Plato12 and Aristotle are disappointed with the way in which Anaxagoras handles the conception of Nous and, as a matter of fact, the Nous, as Anaxagoras uses it, is not less hylozoistic than the Love and Hate of Empedocles. In the Nous Anaxagoras threw out a thought that was too big for him. Its introduction, however, marks the breaking up of pre-Socratic hylozoism. Anaxagoras wrote down the word, Nous, from which comes the contrast with matter. He stripped the mythical dress from the efficient cause of Empedocles and substituted Nous, because he wished to emphasize the unity of the cosmic process. The Nous is one of the elements; it is “thought-stuff,” it is a corporeal substance. It differs from all the other elements in that it is the finest, the most mobile, and has the power of self-motion. If among the early schools motion is life, here we find the new conception of self-motion as most alive. Instead of a departure from hylozoism, this is a rehabilitation of hylozoism in more perfect form. The Nous is the cause of the harmony and order of the cosmos.