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The first known philosopher to teach in Athens, Anaxagoras (fifth century B.C.), introduced the perennially relevant notion of universal Mind, or Intellect, into Western thought. Both Mind and Intellect are translations of the Greek nous, which is the equivalent of the Latin mens.79 In the newly established cultural center of the Hellenic world, Anaxagoras soon earned the admiration of such luminaries as the statesman Pericles and the poet Euripides. With his unequivocal insistence on the role of universal Mind in the cosmos, as exemplified in both his life and his teaching, Anaxagoras earned the epithet Nous from the Athenians.80 His social standing notwithstanding, Anaxagoras would eventually be exiled from Athens on charges of impiety. According to the early Christian theologian Hippolytus (in his Refutation of all Heresies), Anaxagoras had taught, for instance, that the Sun, Moon, and stars are not gods but fiery rocks.81 Not surprisingly, this naturalistic view arose the ire of the guardians of the Hellenic pantheon. Banished to Lampsacus near Troy, Anaxagoras once again enjoyed high esteem there for the remaining few years of his life.

The Activity of Mind

In Anaxagoras’ prose work On Nature the cosmos is depicted as arising out of an undifferentiated mass (i.e., formless matter) through the action of Mind: “Mind is unlimited and self-ruled and is mixed with no thing, but is alone and by itself . . . For it is the finest of all things and the purest, and it has all judgement about everything and the greatest power. And Mind rules all things that possess life—both the larger and the smaller. And Mind ruled the entire rotation, so that it rotated in the beginning . . . And Mind knew all the things that are being mixed together and separated off and separated apart. And Mind set in order all things, whatever kinds of things were to be—whatever were and all that are now and whatever will be—and also this rotation in which are now rotating the stars and the sun and the moon . . . All Mind is alike, both the larger and the smaller” (Fragment 12); and also, “Mind, which is always, is very much even now where all other things are too, in the surrounding multitude and in things that have come together in the process of separating and in things that have separated off” (Fragment 14).

It appears from these fragments that Anaxagoras conceived of the cosmos as arising from a rotary motion of Mind, thereby causing a separating effect in the unlimited mass out of which the cosmos finally arises.82 In an alternative translation a section of Fragment 12 reads as follows: “Mind took command of the universal revolution, so as to make (things) revolve at the outset.” This activity of Mind explains the existence of a conscious order in nature, based on the principle of rotation or circulation. Moreover, since Mind ‘takes command of’ and ‘understands’ all things for a certain end or purpose, Anaxagoras should be credited with introducing the concept of teleology into Western thought.83 Teleology is the study of design and purpose (Greek, telos) in the cosmos, including the living kingdoms.

The omnipresence of Mind implies that it is unlimited (Greek, apeiron) in time and space. As commented by Richard McKirahan, “Mind’s unlimited spatial extent, its extreme fineness, and its lack of mixture with other things suggest that Anaxagoras is striving towards the notion of immaterial existence.” This implies that Mind is a metaphysical essence and not a physical one. In Anaxagoras’ conception, Mind is so fine that it penetrates and permeates everything (outside Mind itself) and causes them to move by its presence.84 The cosmological parallels between the universal Mind of Anaxagoras and the divine Logos of Heraclitus are notable, and could be attributed to Anaxagoras being familiar with the thought of his Ionian predecessor. Ultimately, since Mind is eternal and infinite, it brings order to the primordial chaos through the imposition of cosmic law.85 Thus, by transforming pre-cosmic chaos into cosmic order, Mind produces the physical world.

In the light of these statements, we could say that Anaxagoras is the father of philosophical Idealism in the Western world. According to this doctrine, reality is fundamentally mental in nature. In the Asian metaphysical traditions, Idealism also made an early appearance in the Vedanta and in Yogacara Buddhism (although the latter instance is disputed by some commentators). This philosophical tradition would be continued by Plato, the Middle Platonists, and the Neoplatonists, as well as their successors over the ages. They include several prominent physicists since the early twentieth century, when the crude materialism of some earlier scientists became undermined by the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. For example, the astrophysicist Arthur Eddington wrote about a cosmic ‘mind-stuff’ which underlies space and time, and which is therefore the primary thing of which we can have experience, with all else being remote inference. Another British astrophysicist, James Jeans, famously stated that the universe is beginning to look more like a great thought than a great machine.86 It thus appears that philosophical Idealism harbours a more valid explanation of reality than does materialism and its corollary, mechanism.

In the Western world, philosophical Idealism found its most lucid and comprehensive expression in Neoplatonism. Its hierarchical view of reality rests on two interrelated principles: the simple precedes the complex, and the intelligible precedes the sensible. Accordingly, the complex is explained by the simple and the sensible is explained by the intelligible.87 In terms of the ‘top-down’ metaphysics of Neoplatonism, the material is explained by the psychical, just as the latter is explained by the intellectual. In other words, the physical world is explained in the light of the metaphysical world. In this world-view, which is the precise opposite of a materialist one, “the material world can only be accounted for in terms of the non-material, the visible in terms of the invisible, the measurable in terms of the non-measurable.” Thus, Lord Northbourne concludes, “the ultimate truth is enshrined in the latter and not in the former [of each pair].”88

The cosmology of Anaxagoras is also relevant to other aspects of modern physics. In contrast to the commonly held view of his time on the separate realms of the gods and the cosmos, Anaxagoras postulates a bringing-together of the various levels of reality. In terms thereof, Mind indwells the physical cosmos while remaining unmixed with it, due to Mind being the finest and purest of all things. It has been remarked by a recent commentator that this world-view is reflected in modern physical theories such as the equivalence of energy and matter, and the substantial nature of the ‘vacuum’ of space.89

The teaching of Anaxagoras on Mind furthermore evokes a correlation between the macrocosm and the microcosm. Through his observations of the motions of the celestial bodies as well as his own mind/body interaction, Anaxagoras became convinced that the cosmos likewise consists of body and mind. Just as in the human being the mind activates the body and controls its motions, so does the universal Mind control the motions of the cosmos. Thus, “the role of mind in the control and function of the body and the principles of birth, growth, decay and death extend outward into the creation.”90 This concept of a correlation between the macrocosm and the microcosm would become axiomatic in both Hellenic and Christian thought in the centuries following Anaxagoras.

As was the case with other Pre-Socratic thinkers, Anaxagoras viewed the cosmos as alive. The source of the living cosmos is the Logos of Heraclitus, the realm of Being of Parmenides, and the Mind of Anaxagoras.91 The notion of a living cosmos fashioned by the Demiurge (i.e., the personification of Intellect) would be elaborated by Plato in his dialogue Timaeus: “This, then, in keeping with our likely account, is how we must say divine providence brought our world into being as a truly living thing (zoion), endowed with soul and intelligence” (29e–30c), and “Since the god wanted nothing more than to make the world like the best of the intelligible things, complete in every way, he made it a single visible living thing, which contains within itself all the living things whose nature it is to share its kind” (30c–31a). The cosmos is therefore alive due to the activity of the universal Mind.

It is highly significant to an authentic philosophy of life that Anaxagoras disagreed with the prevailing Hellenic view (not to mention the modern humanistic view) that among mortal beings, Mind is limited to humans. In contrast, Anaxagoras recognized that each living thing has a share of Mind, including the lower animals and plants. As we read in Fragment 12, “And Mind rules all things that possess life—both the larger and the smaller.” It is precisely due to the presence of Mind that plants and animals possess sensation, thought, and feelings in varying degrees. And since all living things are sources of change and motion, for Anaxagoras these are due to the activity of Mind, which is the universal cosmic principle of change.92 This admirable stance towards our fellow Earth-dwellers provides a further link between Anaxagoras and Indian philosophy, with its teaching that the individual self is identical with the World-Soul, or Atman. The latter is the life-principle which animates all organisms, just as the universal Mind does.93

For the sake of conceptual clarity, we must emphasize that Mind, or Intellect, should not be confused with reason, as any number of translators and commentators have done. In the Hellenic understanding, reason (dianoia) is an individual faculty limited to humans, whereas Intellect (nous) is universal and divine. This was understood by Meister Eckhart, who wrote that there is something in the human soul which is uncreated, and this is the Intellect. The two are yet related, Thomas Taylor noted, since reason is the power of the soul which derives the principles of its reasoning (logismos) from the Intellect.94 However, in most of modern Western philosophy the concepts of Intellect and reason have become conflated.

Moreover, since Mind is the first cause of the cosmos arising from the relative non-being of formless matter, it implies that Mind provides the ultimate standard whereby things are measured and judged. Idealism is by its very nature opposed to the world-view of humanism, which holds mankind as such to be the final arbiter in all things—in other words, reality is viewed as man-centred instead of Mind-centred. In Western philosophy, the notion of humanism was first enunciated by Protagoras, an Athenian contemporary of Anaxagoras, who famously held that man (ho anthrōpos, which in Greek comprises male and female) is the measure (metron) of everything. As reported by Socrates, Protagoras said that “Man is the measure of all things: of the things which are, that they are, and of the things which are not, that they are not” (Theaet, 152a). This implies that truth is relative, and that different individuals will view it differently—the opposite of the stance taken in Idealism.

With his doctrine that Mind/Intellect is the ultimate cause of motion, Anaxagoras also became the first Western philosopher to clearly distinguish between the mover and the moved. In other words, all the motions of material things can be traced to the action of Mind. The basis of Mind’s rule over all things is its power of causing them to move, not in a random fashion but in a way that sets them in order; the verb diakosmein (to set in order) is related to the noun kosmos, which means order.95 That is to say, Intellect is the first cause of the orderly motion of the cosmos.

Given the wide-ranging relevance of Anaxagoras’ thought, it is fitting that the American scholars Daniel Gersenshon and Daniel Greenberg declared Anaxagoras to be the first scientist, in the sense in which the latter term is used today (in their 1964 book Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics). A few years earlier the celebrated physicist Erwin Schrödinger had already opposed the modernist dismissal of the Pre-Socratic natural philosophers in his treatise Nature and the Greeks. As recently commented, “This convergence of science and philosophy in Anaxagoras is significant and brings us to a consideration of Universal Mind as a property of physics as well as a subject of philosophy.”96

According to Diogenes of Apollonia, a younger contemporary of Socrates, the entire world of physical phenomena arises from the intelligence (noēsis) underlying it. The term noēsis is cognate to nous, which (as we saw) is used by Anaxagoras for Mind. The following fragments from Diogenes’ writing are relevant here: “In my opinion, to sum it all up, all things that are, are differentiated from the same thing and are the same thing. But all these things (earth, water, air, fire, and all the rest of the things in the cosmos), being differentiated out of the same thing, come to be different things at different times and return into the same thing” (Fragment 2); “For without intelligence (noēsis) it [i.e., the same thing] could not be distributed in such a way as to have the measures of all things—winter and summer, night and day, rains and winds and good weather” (Fragment 3); “Humans and animals live by means of air through breathing. And this (air) is both soul and intelligence for them, as will be displayed manifestly in this book. And if this departs, they die and their intelligence fails” (Fragment 4); “And in my opinion, that which possesses intelligence is what people call air, and all humans are governed by it and it rules all things. For in my opinion this very thing is god, and it reaches everything and arranges all things and is in everything. And there is no single thing which does not share in this. But no single thing shares in it in the same way as anything else, but there are many forms both of air itself and of intelligence. For it is multiform. And the soul of all animals is the same thing. Now since the differentiation is multiform, also the animals are multiform and many and are like one another in neither shape nor way of life nor intelligence, on account of the large number of their differentiations. Nevertheless, all things live, see, and hear by means of the same thing, and all get the rest of their intelligence from the same thing” (Fragment 5).

It appears that for Diogenes all things in the cosmos arise as differentiations of Mind/Intellect and eventually return to it. And since everything arise through differentiation, the cosmos is multiform and not uniform in nature. Therefore, although humans and animals obtain their intelligence through breathing air (thus sharing in Mind), there is no question of a monistic reality for Diogenes. Instead, Diogenes continues the traditional metaphysics according to which cosmic reality comprises a differentiated unity—that is to say, a many-in-One.

Furthermore, for Diogenes the order in the universe is conceived as the result of intelligence, since if everything is arranged in the best possible way, it follows that the cause of that arrangement is intelligent.97 In this way, as is the case with Anaxagoras, the world-view of Diogenes is teleological and not mechanistic in nature. This understanding of reality as entailing design (although not entirely so, as we will discuss) and purpose would be continued by Plato and Aristotle in the century after Anaxagoras and Diogenes.

Motion

The phenomenon of motion (Greek, kinēsis) has been investigated especially by Aristotle. Motion is defined by him as the fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially (Phys, III.201a). Motion is thus conceived by Aristotle as linked with entelecheia, which means fulfilment or completion. Motion is therefore purposeful, representing a transition from potentiality to actuality.98 Aristotle enumerates six kinds of motion: generation and destruction (or coming to be and passing away), increase and diminution, alteration, and change of place or locomotion. The opposite of motion, broadly speaking, is rest (Cat, 14 & 15a–b). Moreover, and contrary to the modernist view of Aristotle as an anti-Platonist, it is affirmed in the Metaphysics that the good and the beautiful are the beginning (or cause) of the knowledge and of the motion of many things (V.1013a). Indeed, Plato could not have stated it better himself.

The factors involved in motion are listed by Aristotle as (a) that which directly causes motion, (b) that which is in motion, and (c) that in which motion takes place, namely time. Moreover, every motion proceeds from something and to something. For instance, ‘perishing’ entails change from being to non-being, whereas ‘becoming’ entails change from non-being to being (Phys, V.224a–b). In summary, it could be stated that three types of being are distinguished by Aristotle in terms of motion: that which is moved but does not move (primary matter); that which is moved and moves (all natural things); and that which causes motion without moving, namely God.99 A kind of kinetic hierarchy is thus established with God at the summit, primary matter at the bottom, and the world of natural things in between.

Aristotle’s discussion of motion culminates in his celebrated notion of the Prime Mover. Since motion is continuous, Aristotle reasons, there must be an ultimate first cause of all motion in the cosmos. As stated in the Physics, “Since there must always be motion without intermission, there must necessarily be something, one thing or it may be a plurality, that first imparts motion, and this first movent must be unmoved” (VIII.258b). The Prime Mover is then described as the unmoved mover which is one and eternal (VIII.259a).

In Book 12 of the Metaphysics, the Prime Mover is associated with God, with Aristotle writing as follows: “We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God”; and also, “The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the whole of nature” (XII.1072b). Thus, Aristotle recognizes the dependence of the cosmos on an extraneous first principle, the Prime Mover. And since the latter is the ultimate cause of all motion in the cosmos, we contend that the Prime Mover is the equivalent of the divine Intellect, or Mind, of Anaxagoras and Diogenes.

By combining the Aristotelian theory of motion with Neoplatonic metaphysical principles in his work Elements of Physics, Proclus arrives at the following hierarchy of motion, arranged from higher to lower levels of reality: (i) The unmoved movers (the Forms); (ii) the primary self-movers (souls) and the secondary self-movers (en-souled bodies); (iii) things moved by another and moving others (en-mattered forms); and (iv) things moved by another but not moving others (physical bodies). The third category, en-mattered forms, is sometimes equated by Proclus with Nature.100 This category is therefore the realm in which the Forms act upon matter to produce physical objects, in turn representing the fourth and lowest category of motion.

The colossal importance of motion is illustrated by its role as cosmic link between space and time. In the traditional Indo-European understanding, time is the complement of space, just as energy is the complement of matter.101 However, time can only be measured indirectly by means of relating it to space through the intermediary of movement. In other words, motion provides the link between space and time as far as measurement is concerned. In its turn, space constitutes the ‘field’ (Sanskrit, kshetra) within which bodily manifestation occurs. This ‘space-time’ interaction is depicted in physical and mathematical theories that treat of ‘space-time’ as a single and indivisible whole. As a matter of fact, time is only comparable to a fourth dimension in equations of movement, where time acts as a fourth co-ordinate added to the three dimensions of space.102 The physical model of ‘space-time’ as a four-dimensional continuum, as postulated in the Theory of Special Relativity, is therefore also metaphysically valid, at least in terms of motion.

Furthermore, since time is the measurement of the changing positions of objects in space, it implies that before the beginning of the cosmos there was no time, just as in the beginning there were no objects in space. Therefore, Jonathan Black reasons, in the absence of matter, space, and time, the original cosmic event must have been a mental event. In theistic terms, this primal mental event was God reflecting on Himself, and in that reflection, He saw beings like Himself, possessing freedom, creativity, love, and intelligence. Therefore, matter emerged from the mind of God—it was created to provide the conditions in which the human mind (housed as it is in a physical body) would be possible. And since the human mind ultimately derives from the universal Mind, it is feasible that matter is moved by the human mind in a similar way, albeit certainly not to the same extent, in which it is moved by the mind of God.103

Scientific Relevance

The famous paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, formulated by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, is noteworthy in this regard. In terms of this ‘thought experiment’ (as he called it), a cat in a sealed box containing a radio-active source could be either alive or dead, which can only be confirmed by an observer opening the box. This ‘observer effect’ was already implicit in the equally celebrated Uncertainty Principle, as formulated by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927. It states that the more precisely the position of a sub-atomic particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa. Finally, after decades of disputation and contention, the observer effect was empirically verified by means of the double-slit experiment, as reported in 1998. This was conducted by scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, revealing how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of observation. It thereby confirms a basic premise of quantum theory, namely that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality.104

According to the Western tradition of philosophical Idealism, from Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C. to Rudolf Steiner in the twentieth century, reality has been conceived as a series of thoughts emanating from the universal Mind. Jonathan Black explains that these thought-emanations occur in the following sequence: from pure mind to energy, to ethereal matter, to gas, to liquid, and to solids. In other words, the various states of matter are none other than energy becoming increasingly dense.105 This process whereby physical reality emanates from the metaphysical realm has been described in detail by the Neoplatonists. We have already noted some of their contributions to cosmology and metaphysics, and more of their insights will follow in the chapters ahead.

A fascinating application of the notion of universal Mind is found in the biological work of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), the British naturalist and founder of the science of biogeography. Having done extensive fieldwork in Amazonia and Malaysia, Wallace conceived a theory of evolution by means of natural selection independently of Charles Darwin and at the same time as his more famous colleague. However, in due course Wallace moved from a reliance on natural selection to a kind of natural theology that incorporated organic evolution. In 1869, Wallace wrote a review of the tenth edition of his friend Charles Lyell’s famed Principles of Geology, in which he argued that human intelligence is too great to have been facilitated by natural selection. As a matter of fact, since natural selection is guided by the principle of utility, it would be an effective barrier to the development of such an order of intelligence. Therefore, Wallace concluded, another cause must be involved, which he called an Overruling Intelligence.106 We suggest that this is none other than the Universal Mind of Anaxagoras and the divine Intellect of the Neoplatonists.

79. LSJ, 467; Wheeler, Latin, 527.

80. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 86.

81. McKirahan, Philosophy, 210.

82. Curd, “Presocratic Philosophy.”

83. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 26.

84. McKirahan, Philosophy, 219–220.

85. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 8–9, 29.

86. Wikipedia: Idealism.

87. Gerson, Aristotle, 33.

88. Northbourne, Progress, 94.

89. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 78–79.

90. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 78, 87.

91. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 91.

92. McKirahan, Philosophy, 221.

93. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 30.

94. Schuon, Unity, xxix–xxx; Taylor, Introduction, 104, 108.

95. McKirahan, Philosophy, 220.

96. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 17, 88.

97. McKirahan, Philosophy, 346.

98. Dreyer, Wysbegeerte, 135.

99. Dreyer, Wysbegeerte, 136.

100. Martijn, Review of Physics, 44.

101. Schuon, Divine, 64.

102. Guénon, Reign of Quantity, 35, 40, 192, 193.

103. Black, Secret History, 29, 32, 34.

104. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

105. Black, Secret History, 37, 39.

106. Flannery, Intelligent Evolution, 16–17.