Kitap 12
2
It must be the matter, then, which admits of both contraries, that changes. And since that which is is twofold, everything changes from that which is potentially to that which is actually; e.g. from potentially white to actually white. The same applies to increase and decrease. Hence not only may there be generation accidentally from that which is not, but also everything is generated from that which is, but is potentially and is not actually.
3
And this is the one of Anaxagoras; for his all things were together,Anaxagoras Fr. 1 (Diels). and the mixture of Empedocles and Anaximander and the doctrine of Democritus would be better expressed as all things were together potentially, but not actually. In this passage I follow Ross’s punctuation and interpretation, which seem to me to be certainly right. Anaxagoras’s undifferentiated infinity of homoeomerous particles (although contrasted with the unifying principle of Mind, cf. Aristot. Met. 1.8.14) can be regarded as in a sense a unity. Again, μῖγμα(as Ross points out) in its Aristotelian sense of complete fusion is a fair description of Anaximander’s indeterminate. The general meaning of the passage is that in each of the systems referred to the material principle in its elemental state should have been described as existing only potentially.
