But he saw most of Pericles, and furnished him most especially
with a weight and grandeur of sense, superior to all arts of
popularity, and in general gave him his elevation and sublimity of
purpose and of character, was Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; whom the
men of those times called by the name of Nous, that is mind, or
intelligence, whether in admiration of the great and extraordinary
gift he displayed for the science of nature, or because he was the
first of the philosophers who did not refer the first ordering of
the world to fortune or chance, nor to necessity or compulsion,
but to a pure, unadulterated intelligence, which in all other
existing mixed and compound things acts as a principle of
discrimination, and of combination of like with like.
For this man, Pericles entertained an extraordinary esteem and
admiration, and, filling himself with this lofty and, as they call
it, up-in-the-air sort of thought, derived hence not merely, as
was natural, elevation of purpose and dignity of language, raised
far above the base and dishonest buffooneries of mob-eloquence,
but, besides this, a composure of countenance, and a serenity and
calmness in all his movements, which no occurrence whilst he was
speaking could disturb, a sustained and even tone of voice, and
various other advantages of a similar kind, which produced the
greatest effect on his hearers.
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