From where things have their origin, there their destruction happens as it is ordained [Greek: kata to chreon means "according to the debt"]. For they give justice and compensation to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time.
Everything is generated from apeiron and there its destruction happens. Infinite worlds are generated and they are destructed there again. And he says (Anaximander) why this is apeiron. Because only then genesis and decay will never stop.
The belief that there is something apeiron stems from the idea that only then genesis and decay will never stop, when that from which is taken what is generated is apeiron.
西方思想中某些学说,仍然保留了一些原始思想:“上帝命定所有人都应死”,“死亡是共同的债务”。希腊语adikia (不公正)一词传达了这样的观念,即某人在自己的區域以外进行活动,而没有尊重自己的鄰邦。因此,他犯了傲慢。相对英文单词傲慢(要求为自己没有正当理由;拉丁語:arrogare ),非常接近格言的原意:“沒有過份。”(Nothing in excess)
^C. M. Bowra (1957) The Greek experience. World Publishing Co. Cleveland and New York. pp. 168–169
^L. H. Jeferry (1976) The archaic Greece. The Greek city states 700-500 BC. Ernest Benn Ltd. London & Tonbridge p. 42
^J. P. Vernant (1964) Les origins de la pensee grecque. PUF Paris. p. 128; J. P. Vernant (1982) The origins of Greek thought. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. pp. 118, 128. ISBN0-8014-9293-9
^The Theogony of Hesiod. Transl. H. G. Evelyn White (1914): 116, 736-744 online[永久失效連結]
Anaximander from Miletus, son of Praxiades student and descendant of Thales, said that the origin and the element of things (beings) is apeiron and he is the first who used this name for the origin (arche). He says that the origin is neither water, nor any other of the so-called elements, but something of different nature, unlimited. From it are generated the skies and the worlds which exist between them. Whence things (beings) have their origin, there their destruction happens as it is ordained. For they give justice and compensation to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time, as he said in poetic terms. Obviously noticing the mutual changes between the four elements, he didn't demand to make one of them a subject, but something else except these. He considers that genesis takes place without any decay of this element, but with the generation of the opposites by his own movement.
^C. M. Bowra (1957) The Greek experience. Cleveland and New York. p. 167–168
^C. M. Bowra (1957) The Greek experience. World publishing company. Cleveland and New York. p. 87
^L. H. Jeffery (1976) The archaic Greece. The Greek city states 700–500 BC. Ernest Benn Ltd. London & Tonbridge. p. 42