a philological reconstruction is not really feasible. However, we might
attempt something rather different, reconstruction in a philosophical
sense. This should not be a total impossibility.

I am well aware of the official dogma concerning the pre-Socratic
philosophers: "Versuche, ihre Systeme auf abstrakt begrifflichem Wege
zu rekonstruieren, sind aussichtslos." ^* And likewise: "The early Greek
period is more a field for fancy than for fact." ^**

But we are hardly compelled to agree.

In principle a philosophic reconstruction is not impossible. It is im-
possible only to the old-fashioned nothing-but-philologist, just as it
would be impossible to the mere philologist to reconstruct a whole from
fragments of an ancient mathematician's work.

Cognition of the like by the like--it is here, if anywhere, that that
old rule applies. Command of the Greek language, though indispensable for
this task, is not enough for grasping, let alone for judging, Greek philo-
sophy. In those olden times all people in Greece spoke Greek, after all. . .

What is to be accomplished by philosophic reconstruction is not to
fit together, like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, stray fragments into a literary
whole; but to construct a philosophic building in such a way that all the
authentic material handed down can be fitted in.

For some thirty years I have been attempting to reconstruct the
genuine system, in all its foundations, branches, and ramifications, of
one of the most gigantic of those pre-Platonic giants: the system of
Anaxagoras.†

This fundamental condition, that all the authentic material must fit
into the reconstruction, has been fulfilled. Thus, if I may venture the
claim, I have finally accomplished my purpose, and this HYPOTHETICAL
reconstruction, not of Anaxagoras' writing but of his philosophical sys-
tem, seems to be fairly well substantiated.

The results achieved are unexpected enough, and this system claiming
to be Anaxagorean appears indeed somewhat surprising. It certainly is
opposed to nearly all the "established facts."

Sometimes, however, established facts turn out to be established, but
not facts. That is to say, they do not stand the test. But then it does
not matter, either, by whom they have been established; be it by Diels
or by Zeller or even by Aristotle. "--magis amica veritas," don't you
know. . .

And sometimes several contrasting "facts" about one and the same

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