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Greek philosopher Anaximander (c. 610-c.540) assumed an original stuff that is 'unbounded' (or 'undefined', apeiron), because it is qualitatively indeterminate. It does not itself have the characteristics of ordinary things (rocks, rivers, and so on) or even of their constituents (earth, water, and so on), but it has the basis of all these in it. To give a rough and partial illustration, we might say that the coal in the earth is neither gas nor coke nor soap nor tar, but it is the basis of them all. Anaximander 'Unbounded' stands in this relation to familiar observable things and stuffs. The ceaseless movement of the Unbounded produces a 'generative source', which is separated from the Unbounded, and in turn produces the four basic opposites--hot and cold, dry and wet--that constitute the different things in the world and underlie all observable processes and changes.

Eventually the opposites perish again and return to the Unbounded, which has existed all along, being 'everlasting and ageless'. In the present state of the world Anaximander sees mutual destruction of the opposites: water chills and dampens, while heat warms and dries; hence rivers silt up, while coastlines erode, so that in one place the dry encroaches on the wet, and in another the wet advances on the dry. If one or other of these processes continued too long, it would destroy the world we know. The Unbounded, however, 'seems to be the original principle of the other things, and seems to surround and govern all things . . .  and this is the divine, since it is immortal and indestructible, as Anaximander and most of the naturalists say.' The Unbounded maintains the order of the opposites, so that they 'pay the just penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice, in accordance with the order of time (as he says in somewhat poetical words)'. The Unbounded exacts the just penalty for encroachment, and so maintains the stability of the present world order, for the finite time that the present order lasts.

The Unbounded has neither beginning nor end, because Anaximander rejects coming to be from nothing and destruction into nothing as violations of basic laws governing coming to be and perishing; neither of them is explicable unless both of them are from something and into something. Unless there is something ungenerated and never destroyed, being would have come to an end in the past, or would do so in the future. The Unbounded is needed 'because only in this way would coming to be and perishing not fail--if the source from which the things coming to be are removed is unbounded'.

These claims about the Unbounded show that Anaximander is concerned with law and regularity in the universe. He does not want to say that the world order began for no reason at some particular time. He fails to say, however, what caused the separation of the generative source at some particular time; presumably the cause must have been some previous change in the Unbounded, and he seems unable to explain that change. Nor does he explain why the opposites return to the Unbounded. At both points he seems to appeal to uncaused change. If so, he must leave an element of the randomness he wants to escape. Anaximander's main principles and general scheme express clearly the aims of naturalism; his imperfect execution of these aims suggests that a rigorous naturalist must go further.

Heracleitus (c. 500) presents a new form of naturalism that both extends and criticizes Anaximander. He states his naturalist aims clearly and self-consciously:

This world order [kosmos], the same for all, was made by no god: or man, but always was and is and will be an ever-living fire, being kindled in measures and quenched in measures.

In saying that the cosmos never came into being Heracleitus disagrees with Anaximander; he recognizes no generation of an ordered world out of the Unbounded, and no destruction into the Unbounded. He probably sees that Anaximander's belief in a beginning of the ordered world requires uncaused changes; and so he believes that a more consistent application of Anaximander's naturalist principles requires an ingenerable and everlasting ordered world. The world is kindled and quenched 'in measures', in so far as every change within the world order is 'measured', that is, determined by some regularity and natural law. Heracleitus does not believe in the usual sort of basic subject or matter. We speak of a basic subject as something persisting through change (e.g. Socrates becoming pale). But a bonfire is made of wood, grass, paper, leaves, etc. in the right proportions, and it keeps burning as long as more of the right stuff is added, and the same physical laws are observed. There seems to be no continuing subject at all, since none of the wood, leaves, and so on survives; but there is a continuous process, since the fire still burns. The continuity of the process and the discontinuity of the subjects suggest to Heracleitus that the world order is suitably compared to a fire. The process replaces Anaximander's continuing subject, the Unbounded. Heracleitus thinks we must admit that the world as a whole and the allegedly stable, persistent things in it are really not continuing subjects any more than fires are. His argument is this:

1.  The fire yesterday and the fire today are not the same subject, because they are composed of different stuff. 

2.  In general, if x at time t1 and y at time t2 are composed of different stuff, they are not the same thing. 

3.  But even allegedly stable things are composed of different stuffs at different times. 

4.  Hence they do not really persist.

The compositional principle of identity stated in (2) is illustrated in the particular case of fire in (1). Once we see that we already presuppose the principle, we must apply it equally to rivers: their water is always flowing away and being replaced, and since loss of constituents means destruction, they are always being destroyed and replaced by other rivers. Heracleitus infers that we cannot step into the same river twice; there is no continuous subject that is the same river on two days, any more than there is a continuous subject that is the same fire: in both cases there is simply a continuous process.

He uses fires and rivers to defend a general claim about reality and persistence. As Plato says:

Heracleitus says somewhere that everything passes away and nothing remains, and in likening beings to the flow of a river says that you could not step into the same river twice.

Each apparently stable thing grows and decays and interacts with others; it is being transformed all the time, and so passing out of existence to be replaced by something else. If the compositional principle of persistence is true, this conclusion is true. The naive belief in persisting subjects with opposite properties at different times turns out to be confused. For though we accept this view, we also accept the compositional principle, and therefore have to admit that ordinary things are not stable after all. Heracleitus dissolves things into processes.

Heracleitus' rejection of a continuing subject also explains his belief in the 'unity of opposites'. The road up and the road down, he says, are one and the same. The same water is both good (for fish) and bad (for human beings). The strung bow is held together in being pulled apart. God is both day and night, summer and winter, war and peace, satiety and hunger. 'War is the father and king of all', because everything depends on a ceaseless struggle between opposites.

Heracleitus does not mean that the opposites are indistinguishable--we can distinguish the crooked from the straight parts of a line of handwriting. But he thinks there is no subject beyond the pair of opposites. Since there are no persistent subjects, there is nothing beyond the opposites. In the simpleminded view that is challenged by the compositional principle of identity, the opposites are properties of a single persistent subject; but we have found no reason to believe in any such subject.

Instability, however, is not Heracleitus' main concern. The stable features of the universe, in his view, are not the rocks, trees, and other ordinary objects that appear to common sense--for these objects undergo ceaseless change--but the processes of change that these ordinary objects undergo. Ceaseless changes may seem to imply instability in the universe; but in fact they are stable because, contrary to the belief of common sense and Homer, changes conform to regular and stable laws of nature. Heracleitus recognizes no conflict or disruption upsetting the usual and proper order. 'War is common, justice conflict, and all comes to be according to conflict and how things must be.' For Heracleitus, 'the hidden order is stronger than the apparent'; there may be apparent disorder, since there are no stable objects, but there is hidden order, since they conform to regular and exceptionless laws. The whole cosmic process is regular and orderly, with no gaps. . .

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