The First Principle

הדרך לה' – ההתבוננות בה' כמקור המציאות2 לפי המשמעות האחרונה הזו נקרא ה' יתעלה "צור", כי הוא הראשית והסיבה הפועלת לכל מה שזולתו. ונאמר: "הַצּוּר תָּמִים פָּעֳלוֹ" (דברים לב,ד), "צוּר יְלָדְךָ תֶּשִׁי"

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Doxographic testimonia: Anaximenes is credited with originating gr-arche.

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Most of the earliest philosophers conceived only of material principles as underlying all things. That of which all things consist, from which they first come and into which on their destruction they

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All are not agreed, however, as to the number and character of these principles. Thales, the founder of this school of philosophy, says the permanent entity is water (which is why he also propounded t

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Anaximenes and Diogenes held that air is prior to water, and is of all corporeal elements most truly the first principle. Hippasus of Metapontum and Heraclitus of Ephesus hold this of fire; and Empedo

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From the account just given, and from a consideration of those thinkers who have already debated this question, we have acquired the following information. From the earliest philosophers we have learn

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Some speak of the first principle as material, whether they regard it as one or several, as corporeal or incorporeal: e.g. Plato speaks of the Great and Small; the Italians of the Unlimited; Empedocle

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All these have apprehended this type of cause; and all those too who make their first principle air or water or something denser than fire but rarer than air(for some have so described the primary ele

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Beginning means: (a) That part of a thing from which one may first move; eg., a line or a journey has one beginning here , and another at the opposite extremity. (b) The point from which each thing ma

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(f) Arts are also called beginnings, especially the architectonic arts. (g) Again, beginning means the point from which a thing is first comprehensible, this too is called the beginning of the thing;

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It is a common property, then, of all beginnings to be the first thing from which something either exists or comes into being or becomes known; and some beginnings are originally inherent in things, w

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Doxographic testimonia: Diogenes of Apollonia is credited with originating gr-arche.

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