IONIC Sect was the first of the ancient sects of philosophers; the others were the Italic and Eleatic. The founder of this sect was Thales, who being a native of Miletus in Ion, occasioned his followers to assume the appellation of Ion: Thales was succeeded by Anaximander, and he by Anaximenes, both of Miletus: Anaxagoras Clazomeneus succeeded them, and removed his school from Asia to Athens, where Socrates was his scholar. It was the distinguishing tenet of this sect, that water was the principle of all natural things.