“Winds arise when the finest vapour is set in motion, and lightning when the wind breaks through dense clouds.”
— Anaximander[commonly attributed] Testimony in Aetius 3.3 and Hippolytus 1.6; paraphrase, not verbatim
Commentary
This account, preserved in the Aetius doxography, explains meteorological phenomena as the result of moving vapours and winds, a naturalistic explanation that avoids appeal to divine causes. The description of lightning as wind breaking through cloud is among the earliest such accounts in Greek writing. G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield treat the report as evidence of the Milesian commitment to material explanations of weather, though they stress that the wording reflects the doxographers' own terms. Charles Kahn argues that the meteorology follows from the principle that the opposites separate out from a common source, so that air and vapour are the natural agents of atmospheric change. Jonathan Barnes notes that the report may combine several Presocratic views and that its attribution to Anaximander is uncertain. W. K. C. Guthrie places the account among the early physical explanations of the sky that prepared the way for later meteorology. The sentence is a paraphrase of late testimony and should be labelled as a commonly attributed doctrine.
Commentary
This account, preserved in the Aetius doxography, explains meteorological phenomena as the result of moving vapours and winds, a naturalistic explanation that avoids appeal to divine causes. The description of lightning as wind breaking through cloud is among the earliest such accounts in Greek writing. G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield treat the report as evidence of the Milesian commitment to material explanations of weather, though they stress that the wording reflects the doxographers' own terms. Charles Kahn argues that the meteorology follows from the principle that the opposites separate out from a common source, so that air and vapour are the natural agents of atmospheric change. Jonathan Barnes notes that the report may combine several Presocratic views and that its attribution to Anaximander is uncertain. W. K. C. Guthrie places the account among the early physical explanations of the sky that prepared the way for later meteorology. The sentence is a paraphrase of late testimony and should be labelled as a commonly attributed doctrine.