Anaxagoras comes at the beginning of what is seen as the great golden age of Athens under the rule of Pericles. Anaxagoras was probably brought to Athens by Pericles in order to educate and civilise the Athenians. The Athenians didn't always take kindly to being educated (as Socrates was later to discover) and when Pericles was growing old his opponents attacked Anaxagoras and prosecuted him for irreligious teachings such as that 'the sun was a red hot stone and the moon was earth'.
Anaxagoras thought that everything was infinitely divisible. He believed that all things contained some of each element, but that they had the appearance of that which they contained most of. Like Empedocles, he thought that there was no void, arguing that an inflated skin shows that there is air where there seems to be nothing.
He had particular ideas about the mind as a substance in living things which distinguishes them from inanimate matter. He thought that mind was the source of all motion and that it caused a rotation that was spreading throughout the world.
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