Thales

Meaning

Thales Millesien is cited for placing water first when considering the matter which receives action. The author counterbalances that view with fire as the active principle: priority can be assigned differently according to whether one attends to agent or recipient. Yet he expressly keeps them together, since neither action nor reception is realized in isolation. Thales therefore serves a carefully limited argumentative position, not the author’s unqualified declaration that water alone produces everything. The adjacent interpretation of Moses’ Spirit of God as fire is likewise Nuysement’s reading, not words to be added to the scriptural quotation.