Kitap 1
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PLATO says, that it is an accidental cause and a casual consequence in things which proceed from the election and counsel of men. Aristotle, that it is an accidental cause in those things which are done by an impulse to a certain end; and this cause is uncertain and unstable: there is a great deal of difference betwixt that which flows from chance and that which falls out by Fortune; for that which is fortuitous admits also of chance, and belongs to things practical; but what is by chance cannot be also by Fortune, for it belongs to things without action: Fortune, moreover, belongs to rational beings, but chance to rational and irrational beings alike, and even to inanimate things. Epicurus, that it is a cause not always consistent, but various as to persons, times, and manners. Anaxagoras and the Stoics, that it is that cause which human reason cannot comprehend; for there are some things which proceed from necessity, some things from Fate, some from choice and free-will, some from Fortune, some from chance.
Chapter XXX. OF NATURE.
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EMPEDOCLES believes that Nature is nothing else but the mixture and separation of the elements; for thus he writes in the first book of his natural philosophy: Nature gives neither life nor death, Mutation makes us die or breathe. The elements first are mixed, then all Do separate: this mortals Nature call.
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Anaxagoras is of the same opinion, that Nature is coalition and separation, that is, generation and corruption.
