which appears simple and uniform, such as bread which we owe to
Ceres and water which we drink. Of this very nutriment, our hair,
our veins, our arteries, nerves, bones, and all our other parts are
nourished. These things thus being performed, it must be granted
that the nourishment which is received by us contains all those
things by which these of us are produced. In it there are those
particles which are producers of blood, bones, nerves, and all
other parts; these particles (he thought) reason discovers for us.
For it is not necessary that we should reduce all things under the
objects of sense; for bread and water are fitted to the senses, yet
in them there are those particles latent which are discoverable
only by reason. It being therefore plain that there are particles
in the nourishment similar to what is produced by it, he terms
these homogeneous parts, averring that they are the principles of
beings. Matter is according to him these similar parts, and the
efficient cause is a Mind, which orders all things that have an
existence. Thus he begins his discourse: "All things were confused
one among another; but Mind divided and brought them to order."
In this he is to be commended, that he yokes together matter and an
intellectual agent.

Archelaus the son of Apollodorus, the Athenian, pronounceth, that
the principles of all things have their origin from an infinite air
rarefied or condensed. Air rarefied is fire, condensed is water.

These philosophers, the followers of Thales, succeeding one
another, made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination
of the Ionic.

Pythagoras the Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, from another origin