03488cam a22003253u 450000100060000000300070000600500170001300600020003000700050003200800410003701000130007804000110009104100170010205000060011910000340012524500370015926400510019630000470024733600260029433700260032033800360034650000310038250503120041350801560072552020720088153400820295365300240303585600600305985600430311978670UtSlPG20260610134826.0mcr n260607r20261898utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d  a03031810  aUtSlPG 7aen2iso639-1 4aB1 aFairbanks, Arthur,d1864-194414aThe first philosophers of Greece 1aSalt Lake City, UT :bProject Gutenberg,c2026  a1 online resource :bmultiple file formats  atextbtxt2rdacontent  acomputerbc2rdamedia  aonline resourcebcr2rdacarrier  aRelease date is 2026-05-120 aIonic school: Thales -- Ionic school: Anaximandros -- Ionic school: Anaximenes -- Herakleitos -- Eleatic school: Xenophanes -- Eleatic school: Parmenides -- Eleatic shcool: Zeno -- Eleatic school: Melissos -- Pythagoras and Pythagoreans -- Empedokles -- Anaxagoras -- Appendix: the sources of the fragments.  aThe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)  a"The first philosophers of Greece" by Arthur Fairbanks is a scholarly edition and translation written in the late 19th century. It compiles the surviving fragments of the pre-Socratic philosophers with Greek texts, critical notes, and English translations, alongside key testimonies from Plato, Aristotle, and the doxographers. Aimed at students and general readers of ancient thought, it traces early Greek cosmology and metaphysics from the Ionian natural inquirers through the Eleatics and Pythagoreans, clarifying the background to classical philosophy.

The opening of the volume explains the original dual-language layout, then sets out a preface situating the project within modern scholarship (Zeller, Diels, Burnet), stating the goal of providing reliable Greek texts and accessible translations of fragments and early reports, and outlining editorial choices and sources. A contents list previews sections on the Ionian, Eleatic, and Pythagorean traditions. The first chapters present Thales (water as the arche; earth resting on water; soul as a moving power; “all things full of gods”; early cosmological opinions on stars, zones, and eclipses) through quotations from Plato, Aristotle, and doxographers. Next comes Anaximandros (the apeiron as the first principle; separation of opposites by eternal motion; a famous fragment on “punishment” and “justice”; cosmology of fiery wheels for sun and moon; the sea as the residue of primordial moisture; animals from moisture and humans emerging from fishlike beings; talk of multiple worlds). Then Anaximenes is outlined (air as the determinate, infinite arche; rarefaction and condensation yielding fire, wind, cloud, water, earth, and stone; eternal motion; a broad earth supported by air; explanations of winds, rain, hail, lightning, rainbow, and earthquakes). The section concludes by introducing Herakleitos with brief background and a substantial sequence of Greek fragments on the logos, flux, fire, the unity of opposites, and law and custom. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  pOriginally published:cLondon: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1898  aPhilosophy, Ancient4 uhttps://archive.org/details/b24859072/page/250/mode/2up40uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78670