| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 22745 | Pherecydes said the first principle and element is earth [Pherecydes, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 1497 | For Anaximenes nature is air, which takes different forms by rarefaction and condensation [Anaximenes, by Simplicius] |
| 614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| 550 | Anaxagoras said that the number of principles was infinite [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| 21383 | The ultimate constituents of reality are the homoeomeries [Anaxagoras, by Vlastos] |
| 484 | Everything is ultimately a variation of one underlying thing [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| 488 | Air is divine, because it is in and around everything, and arranges everything [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| 13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
| 17177 | In nature there is just one infinite substance [Spinoza] |
| 6421 | Newton's four fundamentals are: space, time, matter and force [Newton, by Russell] |