Single Idea 488

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances]

Full Idea

Air in itself seems to me to be God and to reach everywhere and to arrange everything and to be in everything.

Gist of Idea

Air is divine, because it is in and around everything, and arranges everything

Source

Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B05), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 152.22-

Book Reference

'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.88


A Reaction

So water and fire and air have been offered as the ultimate explanans, though no one seems to offer earth, which is too grubby and miserable (and was denied a Form by Plato). 'Air is God' could ground a nice modern religious sect.