Kitap 2
4.17
His theory is to this effect. Water is melted by heat and produces on the one hand earth in so far as by the action of fire it sinks and coheres, while on the other hand it generates air in so far as it overflows on all sides. Hence the earth is confined by the air, and the air by the circumambient fire. Living things, he holds, are generated from the earth when it is heated and throws off slime of the consistency of milk to serve as a sort of nourishment, and in this same way the earth produced man. He was the first who explained the production of sound as being the concussion of the air, and the formation of the sea in hollow places as due to its filtering through the earth. He declared the sun to be the largest of the heavenly bodies and the universe to be unlimited.
4.17
There have been three other men who bore the name of Archelaus: the topographer who described the countries traversed by Alexander; the author of a treatise on Natural Curiosities; and lastly a rhetorician who wrote a handbook on his art.
Chapter 5. SOCRATES (469-399 B.C.)
