Metaphysics (1.4.1-1.4.5)

It might be inferred that the first person to consider this question was Hesiod, or indeed anyone else who assumed Love or Desire as a first principle in things; e.g. Parmenides. For he says, where he is describing the creation of the universe,

Love she[*] created first of all the gods . . .

First of all things was Chaos made, and then/Broad-bosomed Earth . . ./And Love, the foremost of immortal beings,

The question of arranging these thinkers in order of priority may be decided later. Now since it was apparent that nature also contains the opposite of what is good, i.e. not only order and beauty, but disorder and ugliness;

because if one follows up and appreciates the statements of Empedocles with a view to his real meaning and not to his obscure language, it will be found that Love is the cause of good, and Strife of evil. Thus it would perhaps be correct to say that Empedocles in a sense spoke of evil and good as first principles, and was the first to do so—that is, if the cause of all good things is absolute good.

These thinkers then, as I say, down to the time of Empedocles, seem to have grasped two of the causes which we have defined in the Physics[*]: the material cause and the source of motion; but only vaguely and indefinitely. They are like untrained soldiers in a battle, who rush about and often strike good blows, but without science; in the same way these thinkers do not seem to understand their own statements, since it is clear that upon the whole they seldom or never apply them.

Anaxagoras avails himself of Mind as an artificial device for producing order, and drags it in whenever he is at a loss to explain