of nature.

empedocles affirms 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 each

do part: this nature is in mortal speech.

anaxagoras is of the same opinion, that nature is coalition and separation, that is, generation and corruption.