(b) Passages Relating to Xenophanes in Plato and Aristotle.

Plato, Soph. 242 D. And the Eleatic group of thinkers among us, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier, set forth in tales how what men call all things is really one.

De Coelo, ii. 13; 294 a 21. On this account some assert that there is no limit to the earth underneath us, saying that it is rooted in infinity, as, for instance, Xenophanes of Kolophon; in order that they may not have the trouble of seeking the cause.⁠[46]⁠

De mirac. oscult. 38; 833 a 16. The fire at Lipara, Xenophanes says, ceased once for sixteen years, and came back in the seventeenth. And he says that the lava-stream from Aetna is neither of the nature of fire, nor is it continuous, but it appears at intervals of many years.

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 10. There are some who have expressed the opinion about the All that it is one in its essential nature, but they have not expressed this opinion after the same manner nor in an orderly or natural way. 986 b 23. Xenophanes first taught the unity of these things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either of these things, but looking up into the broad heavens he said: The unity is god. [80]These, as we have said, are to be dismissed from the present investigation, two of them entirely as being rather more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos; but Parmenides seems to speak in some places with greater care.⁠[47]⁠