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THE JAINA PHILOSOPHY
If there was such a fundamental substance at all, it was natural to think it to be of water as out of this all others are formed
Anaximander, second philosopher of the Milesiana school and a pupil of Thales did not accept water or any other known substance as the fundamental substance According to him the primary substance was infinite, eternal and ageless and it encompassed the whole world This primary substance according to him, was transformed into the various substances with which we are familiar and these were transformable into each other
Anaximenes, the last of the Milesian triad (500 BC) taught that AIR was the primary substance "The soul is air fire is rarefied air when condensed, air becomes first water then earth and finally stone” Thus he introduced the idea that the process of condensation and rarefication caused the change in the primary substance The condensation of water vapour into clouds was an obvious example and of course the difference between water vapour and air was not known at that time
The Milesian school of thought is important not for what it achieved, but for what it attempted The speculation of Thales Anaximander and Anaximenes are to be regarded as scientific hypothesis The next stage in Greek philosophy is more religious but less scientific
Heraclitus (500 BC) was a mystic of a peculiar kind He regarded FIRE as the basic element Everything like the flame in a fire is born by the death of something He taught that the world is at once one and many There is unity in the world but it is not unity forming the combination of the oppo. sites The strife of the opposites is really a kind of
