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Hortatory Address to the Greeks
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Chapter 3: Opinions of Thales' School.
AND IF YOU DECLINE CITING THE POETS BECAUSE YOU SAY IT IS ACCEPTABLE FOR THEM TO CREATE MYTHS AND TO TELL UNTRUE STORIES ABOUT THE GODS: do you think you have other religious teachers, or how do you claim to have learned this religion of yours? For it is impossible to know matters so great and divine without having first learned them from the initiated. You will likely say, “The sages and philosophers.” For you tend to turn to them like a fortified wall when anyone quotes your poets' opinions about the gods.
Therefore, since it is appropriate to start with the ancients and the earliest, I will begin there and present the opinion of each, which is much more ridiculous than the theology of the poets. Thales of Miletus, who led the study of natural philosophy, declared that water was the primary principle of all things; he said that all things come from water and return to water. After him, Anaximander, also from Miletus, claimed that the infinite was the first principle of everything; from this all things are produced, and to this all decay.
Thirdly, Anaximenes, also from Miletus, stated that air is the primary principle of all things; he said that all things are produced from air and dissolve back into it. Heraclitus and Hippasus, from Metapontus, argued that fire is the first principle; from fire all things come, and in fire all things end. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae believed that the homogeneous parts are the first principles of everything. Archelaus, the son of Apollodorus, an Athenian, argued that the infinite air and its density and rarity are the first principle of everything.
All these thinkers, following Thales, pursued what they called physical philosophy.