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prThales, the Milesian, one of the seven wise men, taught that water was the original cause of all things. Heraclitus maintained the same of fire: the priests of the magi, of water and fire. Euripides, a disciple of Anaxagoras, called by the Athenians the dramatic philosopher, attributed it to air and earth; and contended that the latter, impregnated by the seed contained in the rain falling from the heavens, had generated mankind and all the animals on the earth; and that all these, when destroyed by time, returned to their origin. Thus, such as spring from the air, also return into air, and not being capable of decay, are only changed by their dissolution, returning to that element whereof they first consisted. But Pythagoras, Empedocles, Epicharmus, and other physiologists, and philosophers, maintained that there were four elements, air, fire, water, and earth; and that their mixture, according to the difference of the species, forms a natural mould of different qualities.
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