It is called Nous, that is, mind or intelligence. It is intelli-
gence which produces the movement in things which brings
about the formation of the world. What was it, now, which
led Anaxagoras to the doctrine of a world-governing intel-
ligence? It seems that he was struck with the apparent
design, order, beauty and harmony of the universe. These
things, he thought, could not be accounted for by blind
forces. The world is apparently a rationally governed world.
It moves towards definite ends. Nature shows plentiful ex-
amples of the adaptation of means to ends. There appears
to be plan and purpose in the world. The Atomists had as-
sumed nothing but matter and physical force. How can de-
sign, order, harmony and beauty be brought about by blind
forces acting upon chaotic matter? Blind forces acting upon
a chaos would produce motion and change. But the change
would be meaningless and purposeless. They could not pro-
duce a rationally ordered cosmos. One chaos would succeed
another chaos ad infinitum. That alone which can produce
law and order is intelligence. There must therefore be a
world-controlling Nous.
{98}
What is the character of the Nous, according to Anaxago-
ras? Is it, in the first place, really conceived as purely
non-material and incorporeal? Aristotle, who was in a po-
sition to know more of the matter than any modern scholar,
clearly implies in his criticism that the Nous of Anaxagoras
is an incorporeal principle, and he has been followed in this
by the majority of the best modern writers, such as Zeller
and Erdmann. But the opposite view has been maintained,
by Grote, for example, and more recently by Professor Bur-
net, who thinks that Anaxagoras conceived the Nous as a
material and physical force. [Footnote 8] As the matter is
of fundamental importance, I will mention the chief argu-
ments upon which Professor Burnet rests his case. In the
first place Anaxagoras described the Nous as the “thinnest
and purest of all things.” He also said that it was “un-
mixed,” that it had in it no mixture of anything besides
itself. Professor Burnet argues that such words as “thin”
and “unmixed” would be meaningless in connection with an
incorporeal principle. Only material things can properly be
described as thin, pure, and unmixed. Secondly, Professor
Burnet thinks that it is quite certain that the Nous occupies
space, for Anaxagoras speaks of greater and smaller por-
tions of it. Greater and smaller are spatial relations. Hence
the Nous occupies space, and that which occupies space is
material. But surely these are very inconclusive arguments.
In the first place as regards the use of the words “thin” and
“unmixed.” It is true that these terms express primarily
physical qualities. But, as I pointed out in {99} the first
chapter, almost all words by which we seek to express in-
corporeal ideas have originally a physical signification. And
if Anaxagoras is to be called a materialist because he de-
scribed the Nous as thin, then we must also plead guilty
to materialism if we say that the thought of Plato is “lumi-
nous,” or that the mind of Aristotle is “clear.” The fact is
that all philosophy labours under the difficulty of having to
express non-sensuous thought in language which has been
evolved for the purpose of expressing sensuous ideas. There
is no philosophy in the world, even up to the present day,
in which expressions could not be found in plenty which are
based upon the use of physical analogies to express entirely