shape is hollow and round, and like a stone pillar. We are on one of the surfaces, and the other is on the opposite side.[1]—Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 20).
Adopting for a moment the popular theory of "elements," we see that Anaximander put fire on one side as the hot and dry, and all the rest on the other as the cold, which is also moist. This may explain how Aristotle came to speak of the Boundless as intermediate between fire and water. And we have seen also that the moist element was partly turned into "air" or vapour by the fire, which explains how Aristotle could say the Boundless was something between fire and air, or between air and water.[2]
The moist, cold interior of the world is not, in fact, water. It is always called "the moist" or "the moist state." That is because it has to be still further differentiated under the influence of heat into earth, water, and vapour. The gradual drying up of the water by the fire is a good example of what Anaximander meant by "injustice."
Thales had said that the earth floated on the water, but Anaximander realised that it was freely suspended in space (μετέωρος) and did not require any support. Aristotle has preserved the argument he used. The earth is equally distant from the circumference of the vortex in every direction, and there is no reason for it to move up or down
- ↑ The MSS. of Hippolytos have ὑγρὸν στρογγύλον, and so has Cedrenus, a writer of the eleventh century who made extracts from him. Roeper read γυρὸν [στρογγύλον], supposing the second word to be a gloss on the first. Diels (Dox. p. 218) holds that the first applies to the surface of the earth; while the second refers to its circuit. Professor A. E. Taylor has pointed out to me, however, the great improbability of the view that γυρόν means convex. The Ionians down to Archelaos (§ 192) and Demokritos (Aet. iii. 10, 5, κοίλην τῷ μέσῳ) regularly regarded the surface of the earth as concave, and γυρός can just as well mean that. The next words are also of doubtful meaning. The MSS. of Hippolytos have χίονι λίθῳ, while Aetios (iii. 10, 2) has λίθῳ κίονι. Diels doubtfully conjectures λίθῳ κίονι, which he suggests might represent an original λιθέῃ κίονι (Dox. p. 219). In any case the pillar seems genuine, and the general sense is guaranteed by the Plutarchean Stromateis (loc. cit.), ὑπάρχειν . . . τῷ μὲν σχήματι τὴν γῆν κυλινδροειδῆ.
- ↑ See above, p. 55, n. 4.
