Thales
ThalesFragments and Commentary
Arthur Fairbanks, ed. and trans. The First Philosophers of Greece (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1898), 1-6.
Hanover Historical Texts ProjectScanned and proofread by Aaron Gulyas, May 1998.Proofread and pages added by Jonathan Perry, March 2001.
Fairbanks's Introduction
Passages relating to Thales in Plato and Aristotle
Passages relating to Thales in the Doxographists
Fairbanks's Introduction
According to Aristotle the founder of the Ionic physical
philosophy, and therefore the founder of Greek
philosophy, was Thales of Miletos. According to Diogenes
Laertios, Thales was born in the first year of the thirty-
fifth Olympiad (640 B.C.), and his death occurred in the
fifty-eighth Olympiad (548-545 B.C.). He attained note
as a scientific thinker and was regarded as the founder
of Greek philosophy because he discarded mythical
explanations of things, and asserted that a physical
element, water, was the first principle of all things. There
are various stories of his travels, and in connection with
accounts of his travels in Egypt he is credited with
introducing into Greece the knowledge of geometry. Tradition
also claims that he was a statesman, and as a practical
thinker he is classed as one of the seven wise men. A
work entitled 'Nautical Astronomy' was ascribed to
him, but it was recognised as spurious even in antiquity.
Literature: F. Decker, De Thalete Milesio, Diss. Halle, 1865; Krische, Forsch. auf d. Gebiet d. alt. Phil. i. pp. 34-42; V. also Acta. Phil. iv. Lips. 1875, pp. 328-330; Revue Philos. Mar. 1880; Archiv f. d. Geschichte d. Phil. ii. 165, 515.
Passages relating to Thales in Plato and Aristotle
[Page 2] Plato, De Legg. X. 899 B. And as for all the stars
and the moon and the years and the months and all
the seasons, can we hold any other opinion about them
than this same one-that inasmuch as soul or souls
appear to be the cause of all these things, and good souls
the cause of every excellence, we are to call them gods,
whether they order the whole heavens as living beings
in bodies, or whether they accomplish this in some other
form and manner? Is there any one who acknowledges
this, and yet holds that all things are not full of gods?
Arist. Met. i. 3 ; 983 b 6. most of the early students
of philosophy thought that first principles in the form
of matter, and only these, are the sources of all things;
for that of which all things consist, the antecedent
from which they have sprung, and into which they are
finally resolved (in so far as being underlies them and is
changed with their changes), this they say is the
element and first principle of things. 983 b 18. As to the
quantity and form of this first principle, there is a
difference of opinion; but Thales, the founder of this
sort of philosophy, says that it is water (accordingly he
declares that the earth rests on water), getting the idea,
I suppose, because he saw that the nourishment of
all beings is moist, and that warmth itself is gene-
rated from moisture and persists in it (for that from
which all things spring is the first principle of them);
and getting the idea also from the fact that the germs
of all beings are of a moist nature, while water is the
first principle of the nature of what is moist. And
there are some who think that the ancients, and they
who lived long before the present generation, and the
first students of the gods, had a similar idea in regard
to nature; for in their poems Okeanos and Tethys were
[Page 3]
the parents of generation, and that by which the gods
swore was water,-the poets themselves called it Styx ;
for that which is most ancient is most highly esteemed,
and that which is most highly esteemed is an object to
swear by. Whether there is any such ancient and early
opinion concerning nature would be an obscure
question; but Thales is said to have expressed this opinion
in regard to the first cause.
Arist. de Coelo ii. 13; 294 a 28. Some say that
the earth rests on water. We have ascertained that the
oldest statement of this character is the one accredited
to Thales the Milesian, to the effect that it rests on water,
floating like a piece of wood or something else of that sort.
Arist. de Anima i. 2; 405 a 19. And Thales,
according to what is related of him, seems to have
regarded the soul as something endowed with the
power of motion, if indeed he said that the loadstone
has a soul because it moves iron. i. 5 ; 411 a 7. Some
say that soul is diffused throughout the whole
universe; and it may have been this which led Thales to
think that all things are full of gods.
Simpl. in Arist. de Anima 8 r 32, 16.3 -Thales posits
water as the element, but it is the element of
bodies, and he thinks that the soul is not a body
at all. 31, 21 D.-Ancl irt speaking thus of Thales
he adds with a degree of reproach that he assigned
a soul to the magnetic stone as the power which
moves the iron, that he might prove soul to be a
moving power in it; but he did not assert that this
soul was water, although water had been designated
as the element, since he said that water is the
element of substances, but he supposed soul to be
unsubstantial form. 20 r 73, 22. For Thales, also,
I suppose, thought all things to be full of gods, the
gods being blended with them; and this is strange.
Passages relating to Thales in the Doxographists
(Theophrastos, Dox. 475) Simpl. Phys, 6 r; 23, 21.
Of those who say that the first principle [apxn] is one
and movable, to whom Aristotle applies the distinctive
name of physicists, some say that it is limited; as, for
instance, Thales of Miletos, son of Examyes, and Hippo
who seems also to have lost belief in the gods. These
say that the first principle is water, and they are led to
this result by things that appear to sense; for warmth
lives in moisture and dead things wither up and all
germs are moist and all nutriment is moist. Now
it is natural that things should be nourished by that
from which each has come; and water is the first
principle of moist nature . . . ; accordingly they assume
that water is the first principle of all things, and they
assert that the earth rests on water. Thales is the first
to have set on foot the investigation of nature by the
Greeks; although so many others preceded him, in
Theophrastos's opinion he so far surpassed them as to
cause them to be forgotten. It is said that he left
nothing in writing except a book entitled 'Nautical
Astronomy.'
Hipp. i. ; Dox. 555. It is said that Thales of Miletos,
one of the seven wise men, was the first to undertake the
study of physical philosophy. He said that the
beginning (the first principle) and the end of all things is water.
All things acquire firmness as this solidifies, and again
as it is melted their existence is threatened; to this are
due earthquakes and whirlwinds and movements of the
stars. And all things are movable and in a fluid state,
the character of the compound being determined by the
nature of the principle from which it springs. This
principle is god, and it has neither beginning nor end.
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Thales was the first of the Greeks to devote himself to
the study and investigation of the stars, and was the
originator of this branch of science; on one occasion
he was looking up at the heavens, and was just saying
he was intent on studying what was overhead, when
he fell into a well; whereupon a maidservant named
Thratta laughed at him and said : In his zeal for
things in the sky he does not see what is at his feet.
And he lived in the time of Kroesos.
Plut. Strom. 1 ; Dox. 579.5 He says that Thales was
the earliest thinker to regard water as the first principle
of all things. For from this all things come, and to it
they all return.
Aet. Plac. i. 2 ; Dox. 275. Thales of Miletos regards
the first principle and the elements as the same thing.
But there is a very great difference between them,
for elements are composite, but we claim that first
principles are neither composite nor the result of
processes. So we call earth, water, air, fire, elements ;
and we call them first principles for the reason that there
is nothing antecedent to them from which they are
sprung, since this would not be a first principle, but
rather that from which it is derived. Now there is
something anterior to earth and water from which they
are derived, namely the matter that is formless and
invisible, and the form which we call entelechy, and
privation. So Thales was in error when he called water
an element and a first principle. i. 3 ; 276. Thales
the Milesian declared that the first principle of things is
water, [This man seems to have been the first philo-
sopher, and the Ionic school derived its name from
him; for there were very many successive leaders in
philosophy. And Thales was a student of philosophy in
[Page 6]
Egypt, but he came to Miletos in his old age.] For he
says that all things come from water and all are resolved
into water. The first basis for this conclusion is the
fact that the seed of all animals is their first principle
and it is moist ; thus it is natural to conclude that all
things come from water as their first principle. Secondly,
the fact that all plants are nourished by moisture and
bear fruit, and unless they get moisture they wither
away. Thirdly, the fact that the very fire of the sun
and the stars is fed by the exhalations from the waters,
and so is the universe itself. 7; 301. Thales said that
the mind in the universe is god, and the all is endowed
with soul and is full of spirits ; and its divine moving
power pervades the elementary water. 8; 307. Thales
et al. say that spirits are psychical beings ; and that
heroes are souls separated from bodies, good heroes are
good souls, bad heroes are bad souls, 8; 307, The
followers of Thales et al. assert that matter is turned
about, varying, changing and in a fluid state, the
whole in every part of the whole. 12; 310. Thales
and his successors declared that the first cause is
immovable, 16; 314. The followers of Thales and
Pythagoras hold that bodies can receive impressions and can
be divided even to infinity; and so can all figures, lines,
surfaces, solids, matter, place, and time. 18; 315. The
physicists, followers of Thales, all recognise that the
void is really a void. 21 ; 321. Thales : Necessity is
most powerful, for it controls everything.
Aet. ii. 1 ; Dox. 327. Thales and his successors hold
that the universe is one, 12; 340. Thales et al. hold
that the sphere of the entire heaven is divided into five
circles which they call zones ; and of these the first is
called the arctic zone, and is always visible, the next is
the summer solstice, the next is the equinoctial, the next
the winter solstice, and the next the antarctic, which is
invisible. And the ecliptic in the three middle ones is
called the zodiac and is projected to touch the three middle
ones. All these are cut by the meridian at a right angle
from the north to the opposite quarter. 13; 341. The
stars consist of earth, but are on fire. 20;349. The
sun consists of earth. 24; 353. The eclipses of the sun
take place when the moon passes across it in direct line,
since the moon is earthy in character ; and it seems to
the eye to be laid on the disk of the sun. 28; 358.
The moon is lighted from the sun. 29; 360. Thales
et al. agree with the mathematicians that the monthly
phases of the moon show that it travels along with
the sun and is lighted by it, and eclipses show that it
comes into the shadow of the earth, the earth coming
between the two heavenly bodies and blocking the light
of the moon.
Aet. iii. 9-10; 376. The earth is one and spherical
in form. 11 ; 377. It is in the midst of the universe.
15 ; 379. Thales and Demokritos find in water the cause
of earthquakes.
Aet. iv. 1 ; 384. Thales thinks that the Etesian
winds blowing against Egypt raise the mass of the Nile ,
because its outflow is beaten back by the swelling of the
sea which lies over against its mouth. 2; 386. Thales
was the first to declare that the soul is by nature always
moving or self-moving.
Aet. v. 26; 438. Plants are living animals; this is
evident from the fact that they wave their branches and
keep them extended, and they yield to attack and relax
them freely again, so that weights also draw them down.
(Philodemos) Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10; Dox. 531.
For Thales of Miletos, who first studied these matters,
said that water is the first principle of things, while god
is the mind which formed all things from water, if
gods exist without sense and mind, why should god be
connected with water, if mind itself can exist without
a body?
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