which is now actually held was suspected by all who studied them
accurately—namely, that if they were soulless, and consequently
devoid of reason, they could never have employed with such
precision calculations so marvellous; and even in those days
there were some who dared to hazard the statementAn allusion to
the saying of Anaxagoras, “All things were together; then Reason
(νοῦς) came and set them in order.” But A. ascribed to Reason
only the initiation of a world-order; in all other respects his
doctrine was materialistic, and he used purely physical causes
and processes in explaining the world, regarding the stars as
fiery masses of matter (“full of earth, stones,” etc.).
Cp.Phaedo 91 B ff. that reason is the orderer of all that is in
the heavens. But the same thinkers, through mistaking the nature
of the soul and conceiving her to be posterior, instead of
prior, to body,