ga\r ou)/k e)stin e)mbê=nai di\s tô=| au)tô=| kath' Ê(ra/kleiton,
ou)de\ thnêtê=s ou)si/as di\s a(/psasthai kata\ e(/xin; a)ll'
o)xu/têti kai\ tachei metabolês skidnêsi kai\ pa/lin suna/gei,
_ma=llon de\ ou)de\ pa/lin ou)de\ u(/steron, a)ll' a(/ma suni/statai
kai\ a)polei/pei, pro/seisi kai\ a)/peisi. O(/then ou)d' ei)s to\
ei)=nai perai/nei to\ gigno/menon au)tê=s_, tô=| mêde/pote lê/gein
mêd' i(/stasthai tê\n ge/nesin, a)ll' a)po\ spe/rmatos a)ei\
metaba/llousan--ta\s prô/tas phthei/rousan gene/seis kai\ ê(liki/as
tai=s e)pigignome/nais].
Clemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711. [Greek: Ko/smon to\n au)to\n
a(pa/ntôn ou)/te tis theô=n ou)/t' a)nthrô/pôn e)poi/êsen; a)ll' ê=n
a)ei\ kai\ e)/stai pu=r a)ei/zôon, a(pto/menon me/tra kai\
a)posbennu/menon me/tra]. Compare also Eusebius, Præpar. Evang. xiv.
3, 8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.]
[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist. p. 242 E. [Greek: Diaphero/menon ga\r
a)ei\ xumphe/retai].
Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106. [Greek: Po/te ga\r
e)n ê(mi=n au)toi=s ou)k e)/stin o( tha/natos? kai\ ê(=| phêsin
Ê(ra/kleitos, tau)to/ t' e)/ni zô=n kai\ tethnêko/s, kai\ to\
e)grêgoro\s kai\ to\ katheu=don, kai\ ne/on kai\ gêraio/n; ta/de ga\r
metapeso/nta e)kei=na e)sti, ka)kei=na pa/lin metapeso/nta tau=ta].
Pseudo-Origenes, Refut. Hær. ix. 10, [Greek: O( theo\s ê(me/rê,
eu)phro/nê--chei/môn, the/ros--po/lemos, ei)rê/nê--ko/ros, li/mos],
&c.]
[Side-note: Nothing permanent except the law of process and
implication of contraries--the transmutative force. Fixity of
particulars is an illusion for most part, so far as it exists, it is a
sin against the order of Nature.]
The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to
Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and
destruction, this alternation of contraries. To carry out such law
fully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass
away instantaneously--to have no duration of its own, but to be
supplanted by its contrary at once. And this happens to a great
degree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river
appears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago
has flowed away:[85] we and all around us are in rapid movement,
though we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus
a delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his
absolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in
respect to all particulars. Some positive and particular
manifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of
fixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were
destroyed. There was a difference between one particular and another,
in this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable,
another less.[86] But according to the universal law or destiny, each
particular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted
and re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the
scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching
on the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative
agency of the universal. Hence arises an antithesis or hostility
between the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence
of particular states on the other. The universal law or process is
generative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but
the particular realities in which it manifests itself are all
positive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to
maintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of
the universal process. Each particular reality represented rest and
fixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of
the cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating.
Herakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate
stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the
universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.
[Footnote 85: Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30; Physic. viii.
3, p. 253, b. 9. [Greek: Phasi/ tines kinei=sthai tô=n o)/ntôn ou) ta\
me\n ta\ d' ou)/, a)lla\ pa/nta kai\ a)ei\, a)lla\ lantha/nein tou=to
tê\n ê(mete/ran ai)/sthêsin]--which words doubtless refer to
Herakleitus. See Preller, Hist. Phil. Græc. Rom. s. 47.]
[Footnote 86: Lassalle, Philosophie des Herakleitos, vol. i. pp. 54,
55. "Andrerseits bieten die sinnlichen Existenzen _graduelle_ oder
_Mass-Unterschiede_ dar, je nachdem in ihnen das Moment des festen
Seins über die Unruhe des Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und diese
Graduation wird also zugleich den Leitfaden zur Classification der
verschiedenen Existenz-formen bilden."]
[Side-note: Illustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his
perpetual force, destroying and generating.]
The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or
Ens, either material or immaterial--no category either of substance or
quality--but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change,
generation and destruction, position and negation, immediately
succeeding, or coinciding with each other.[87] It is this principle or
everlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative
phrases--"the common ([Greek: to\ xuno\n]), the universal, the
all-comprehensive ([Greek: to\ perie/chon]), the governing, the divine,
the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or
war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding," &c.
The most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as
embodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of
the dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this
paradoxical tenor.[88] Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow,
change, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which
latter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since
change was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other.[89]
In the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into
action: destruction and generation always take effect together: there
is no negative without a positive, nor positive without a
negative.[90]
[Footnote 87: Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30. [Greek: Oi(
de\ ta\ me\n a)/lla pa/nta gi/nesthai/ te/ phasi kai\ rhei=n, ei)=nai
de\ pagi/ôs ou)de/n, e(\n de/ ti mo/non u(pome/nein, e)x ou(= tau=ta
pa/nta metaschêmati/zesthai pe/phuken; o(/per e)oi/kasin bou/lesthai
le/gein a)/lloi te polloi\ kai\ Ê(ra/kleitos o( E)phe/sios]. See the
explanation given of this passage by Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 21, 39, 40,
founded on the comment of Simplikius. He explains it as an universal
law or ideal force--die reine Idee des Werdens selbst (p. 24), and
"eine unsinnliche Potenz" (p. 25). Yet, in i. p. 55 of his elaborate
exposition, he does indeed say, about the theory of Herakleitus, "Hier
sind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Bestimmtheiten zu bloss
verschiedenen und absolut in einander übergehenden Formen eines
identischen, ihnen zu Grunde liegenden, _Substrats_ herabgesetzt".
But this last expression appears to me to contradict the whole tenor
and peculiarity of Lassalle's own explanation of the Herakleitean
theory. He insists almost in every page (compare ii. p. 156) that "das
Allgemeine" of Herakleitus is "reines Werden; reiner, steter,
erzeugender, Prozess". This process cannot with any propriety be
called a _substratum_, and Herakleitus admitted no other. In thus
rejecting any substratum he stood alone. Lassalle has been careful in
showing that Fire was not understood by Herakleitus as a substratum
(as water by Thales), but as a symbol for the universal force or law.
In the theory of Herakleitus no substratum was recognised--no [Greek:
to/de ti] or [Greek: ou)si/a]--in the same way as Aristotle observes
about [Greek: to\ a)/peiron] (Physic. iii. 6, a. 22-31) [Greek: ô(/ste
to\ a)/peiron ou) dei= lamba/nein ô(s to/de ti, oi(=on a)/nthrôpon ê)\
oi)ki/an, a)ll' ô(s ê( ê(me/ra le/getai kai\ o( a)gô\n, oi(=s to\
ei)=nai _ou)ch' ô(s ou)si/a tis ge/gonen, a)ll' a)ei\ e)n gene/sei ê(\
phthora=|_, ei) kai\ peperasme/non, _a)ll' a)ei/ ge e(/teron kai\
e(/teron_.]]
[Footnote 88: Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, c. 5, p. 396,
b. 20. [Greek: Tau)to\ de\ tou=to ê)=n kai\ to\ para\ tô=| skoteinô=|
lego/menon Ê(rakleitô=|: "suna/pseias ou)=la kai\ ou)chi\ ou)=la,
sumphero/menon kai\ diaphero/menon, suna=|don kai\ dia=|don, kai\ e)k
pa/ntôn e(\n kai\ e)x e(no\s pa/nta."] Heraclid. Allegor. ap.
Schleiermacher (Herakleitos, p. 529), [Greek: potamoi=s toi=s au)toi=s
e)mbai/nome/n te kai\ ou)k e)mbai/nomen, ei)me/n te kai\ ou)k
ei)me/n]: Plato, Sophist, p. 242, E., [Greek: diaphero/menon a)ei\
xumphe/retai]: Aristotle, Metaphys. iii. 7, p. 1012, b. 24, [Greek:
e)/oike d' o( me\n Ê(raklei/tou lo/gos, le/gôn pa/nta ei)=nai kai\ mê\
ei)=nai, a(/panta a)lêthê= poei=n]: Aristot. Topic. viii. 5, p. 155,
b., [Greek: oi(=on a)gatho\n kai\ kako\n ei)=nai tau)to\n, katha/per
Ê(ra/kleito/s phêsin]: also Aristot. Physic. i. 2, p. 185, b. Compare
the various Herakleitean phrases cited in Pseudo-Origen. Refut. Hæres.
Fragm. ix. 10; also Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten
Philosophie, vol. i. p. 370-468.
Bernays and Lassalle (vol. i. p. 81) contend, on reasonable grounds
(though in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the following verses in
the Fragments of Parmenides refer to Herakleitus:
[Greek: oi(=s to\ pe/lein te kai\ ou)k ei)=nai tau)to\n neno/mistai
kou) tau)to\n, pa/ntôn de\ pali/ntropo/s e)sti ke/leuthos].
The commentary of Alexander Aphrodis. on the Metaphysica says,
"Heraclitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem esse et non esse et opposita
simul consistere, contradictionem veram simul esse statuebat, et omnia
dicebat esse vera" (Lassalle, p. 83).
One of the metaphors by which Herakleitus illustrated his theory of
opposite and co-existent forces, was the pulling and pushing of two
sawyers with the same saw. See Bernays, Heraclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn,
1848.]
[Footnote 89: Aristot. Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 30, [Greek: ei)s
tou)nanti/on ga\r ê( a)lloi/ôsis]: also iii. 5, p. 205, a. 6, [Greek:
pa/nta ga\r metaba/llei e)x e)nanti/ou ei)s e)nanti/on, oi(=on e)k
thermou= ei)s psuchro/n.]]
[Footnote 90: Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. i. p. 323.]
[Side-note: Water--intermediate between Fire (Air) and Earth.]
Such was the metaphysical or logical foundation of the philosophy of
Herakleitus: the idea of an eternal process of change, manifesting
itself in the perpetual destruction and renovation of particular
realities, but having itself no reality apart from these
particulars, and existing only in them as an immanent principle or
condition. This principle, from the want of appropriate abstract
terms, he expressed in a variety of symbolical and metaphorical
phrases, among which Fire stood prominent.[91] But though Fire was
thus often used to denote the principle or ideal process itself, the
same word was also employed to denote that one of the elements which
formed the most immediate manifestation of the principle. In this
latter sense, Fire was the first stage of incipient reality: the
second stage was water, the third earth. This progression, fire,
water, earth, was in Herakleitean language "the road downwards," which
was the same as "the road upwards," from earth to water and again to
fire. The death of fire was its transition into water: that of water
was its transition partly into earth, partly into flame. As fire was
the type of extreme mobility, perpetual generation and destruction--so
earth was the type of fixed and stationary existence, resisting
movement or change as much as possible.[92] Water was intermediate
between the two.
[Footnote 91: See a striking passage cited from Gregory of Nyssa by
Lassalle (vol. i. p. 287), illustrating this characteristic of fire;
the flame of a lamp appears to continue the same, but it is only a
succession of flaming particles, each of which takes fire and is
extinguished in the same instant: [Greek: ô(/sper to\ e)pi\ tê=s
thrualli/dos pu=r tô=| me\n dokei=n a)ei\ to\ au)to\ phai/netai--to\
ga\r suneche\s a)ei\ tê=s kinê/seôs a)dia/spaston au)to\ kai\
ê(nôme/non pro\s e(auto\ dei/knusi--tê=| de\ a)lêthei/a| pa/ntote
au)to\ e(auto\ diadecho/menon, ou)de/pote to\ au)to\ me/nei--ê( ga\r
e)xelkusthei=sa dia\ tê=s thermo/têtos i)kma\s _o(mou= te
e)xephlogô/thê kai\ ei)s lignu\n e)kkauthei=sa metapoiê/thê_], &c.]
[Footnote 92: Diogen. Laert. ix. 9; Clemens Alexand. Strom. v. 14, p.
599, vi. 2, p. 624. [Greek: Puro\s tropai\ prô=ton tha/lassa,
thala/ttês de\ to\ me\n ê(/misu gê=, to\ d' ê(/misu prêstê/r]. A full
explanation of the curious expression [Greek: prêstê/r] is given by
Lassalle (Herakl. vol. ii. p. 87-90). See Brandis (Handbuch der Gr.
Philos. sect, xliii. p. 164), and Plutarch (De Primo Frigido, c. 17,
p. 952, F.).
The distinction made by Herakleitus, but not clearly marked out or
preserved, between the _ideal fire_ or universal process, and the
_elementary fire_ or first stage towards realisation, is brought out
by Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol. ii. p. 25-29).]
[Side-note: Sun and stars--not solid bodies but meteoric aggregations
dissipated and renewed--Eclipses--[Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], or
destructions of the Kosmos by fire.]
Herakleitus conceived the sun and stars, not as solid bodies, but as
meteoric aggregations perpetually dissipated and perpetually renewed
or fed, by exhalation upward from the water and earth. The sun became
extinguished and rekindled in suitable measure and proportion, under
the watch of the Erinnyes, the satellites of Justice. These celestial
lights were contained in troughs, the open side of which was turned
towards our vision. In case of eclipses the trough was for the time
reversed, so that the dark side was turned towards us; and the
different phases of the moon were occasioned by the gradual turning
round of the trough in which her light was contained. Of the phenomena
of thunder and lightning also, Herakleitus offered some explanation,
referring them to aggregations and conflagrations of the clouds, and
violent currents of winds.[93] Another hypothesis was often ascribed
to Herakleitus, and was really embraced by several of the Stoics in
later times--that there would come a time when all existing things
would be destroyed by fire ([Greek: e)kpu/rôsis]), and afterwards
again brought into reality in a fresh series of changes. But this
hypothesis appears to have been conceived by him metaphysically rather
than physically. Fire was not intended to designate the physical
process of combustion, but was a symbolical phrase for the universal
process; the perpetual agency of conjoint destruction and renovation,
manifesting itself in the putting forth and re-absorption of
particulars, and having no other reality except as immanent in these
particulars.[94] The determinate Kosmos of the present moment is
perpetually destroyed, passing into fire or the indeterminate: it is
perpetually renovated or passes out of fire into water, earth--out of
the indeterminate, into the various determinate modifications. At the
same time, though Herakleitus seems to have mainly employed these
symbols for the purpose of signifying or typifying a metaphysical
conception, yet there was no clear apprehension, even in his own mind,
of this generality, apart from all symbols: so that the illustration
came to count as a physical fact by itself, and has been so understood
by many.[95] The line between what he meant as the ideal or
metaphysical process, and the elementary or physical process, is not
easy to draw, in the fragments which now remain.
[Footnote 93: Aristot. Meteorol. ii. e. p. 355, a. Plato, Republ. vi.
p. 498, c. 11; Plutarch, De Exilio, c. 11, p. 604 A.; Plutarch. De
Isid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 370, E.; Diogen. L. ix. 10; Plutarch,
Placit. Philos. ii. 17-22-24-28, p. 889-891; Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. i.
p. 594.
About the doctrine of the Stoics, built in part upon this of
Herakleitus, see Cicero, Natur. Deor. ii. 46; Seneca, Quæst. Natur.
ii. 5, vi. 16.]
[Footnote 94: Aristot. or Pseudo-Aristot., De Mundo, [Greek: e)k
pa/ntôn e(\n kai\ e)x e(no\s pa/nta].]
[Footnote 95: See Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. ii. s. 26-27,
p. 182-258.
Compare about the obscure and debated meaning of the Herakleitean
[Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 103; Zeller,
Philos. der Griech. vol. i. p. 477-479.
The word [Greek: diako/smêsis] stands as the antithesis (in the
language of Herakleitus) to [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis]. A passage from Philo
Judæus is cited by Lassalle illustrating the Herakleitean movement
from ideal unity into totality of sensible particulars, forwards and
backwards--[Greek: o( de\ gonorrhuê\s (lo/gos) e)k ko/smou pa/nta kai\
ei)s ko/smon a)na/gôn, u(po\ theou= de\ mêde\n oi)o/menos,
Ê(rakleitei/ou do/xês e(tai=ros, ko/ron kai\ chrêsmosu/nên, kai\ e(\n
to\ pa=n kai\ pa/nta a)moibê=| ei)sa/gôn]--where [Greek: ko/ros] and
[Greek: chrêsmosu/nê] are used to illustrate the same ideal antithesis
as [Greek: diako/smêsis] and [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis] (Lassalle, vol. i.
p. 232).]
[Side-note: His doctrines respecting the human soul and human
knowledge. All wisdom resided in the Universal Wisdom--individual
Reason is worthless.]
The like blending of metaphysics and physics--of the abstract and the
concrete and sensible--is to be found in the statements remaining from
Herakleitus respecting the human soul and human knowledge. The human
soul, according to him, was an effluence or outlying portion of the
Universal[96]--the fire--the perpetual movement or life of things. As
such, its nature was to be ever in movement: but it was imprisoned and
obstructed by the body, which represented the stationary, the fixed,
the particular--that which resisted the universal force of change. So
long as a man lived, his soul or mind, though thus confined,
participated more or less in the universal movement: but when he died,
his body ceased to participate in it, and became therefore vile, "fit
only to be cast out like dung". Every man, individually considered,
was irrational;[97] reason belonged only to the universal or the
whole, with which the mind of each living man was in conjunction,
renewing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or inhalation,
vaporous transition, impressions through the senses and the pores, &c.
During sleep, since all the media of communication, except only those
through respiration, were suspended, the mind became stupefied and
destitute of memory. Like coals when the fire is withdrawn, it lost
its heat and tended towards extinction.[98] On waking, it recovered
its full communication with the great source of intelligence
without--the universal all-comprehensive process of life and movement.
Still, though this was the one and only source of intelligence open to all
waking men, the greater number of men could neither discern it for
themselves, nor understand it without difficulty even when pointed out
to them. Though awake, they were not less unconscious or forgetful of
the process going on around them, than if they had been asleep.[99]
The eyes and ears of men with barbarous or stupid souls, gave them
false information.[100] They went wrong by following their own
individual impression or judgment: they lived as if reason or
intelligence belonged to each man individually. But the only way to
attain truth was, to abjure all separate reason, and to follow the
common or universal reason. Each man's mind must become identified and
familiar with that common process which directed and transformed the
whole: in so far as he did this, he attained truth: whenever he
followed any private or separate judgment of his own, he fell into
error.[101] The highest pitch of this severance of the individual
judgment was seen during sleep, at which time each man left the common
world to retire into a world of his own.[102]
[Footnote 96: Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. vii. 130. [Greek: ê(
e)pixenôthei=sa toi=s ê(mete/rois sô/masin a)po\ tou= perie/chontos
moi=ra].
Plutarch, Sympos., p. 644. [Greek: neku/es kopri/ôn e)kblêto/teroi].
Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i. 23, p. 884. [Greek: Ê(ra/kleitos
ê)remi/an kai\ sta/sin e)k tô=n o(/lôn a)nê/|rei; e)sti\ ga\r tou=to
tô=n nekrô=n.]]
[Footnote 97: See Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 522; Sext. Empir.
adv. Mathem. viii. 286.]
[Footnote 98: The passage of Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii.
127-134) is curious and instructive about Herakleitus.
[Greek: A)re/skei ga\r tô=| phusikô=|] (Herakleitus) [Greek: to
perie/chon ê(ma=s logiko/n te o)\n kai\ phrenê=res--tou=ton dê\ to\n
thei=on lo/gon, kath' Ê(ra/kleiton, di' a)napnoê=s spa/santes noeroi\
gino/metha, kai\ e)n me\n u(/pnois lêthai=oi, kata\ de\ e)/gersin
pa/lin e)/mphrones. e)n ga\r toi=s u(/pnois musa/ntôn tô=n
ai)sthêtikô=n po/rôn chôri/zetai tê=s pro\s to\ perie/chon sumphui+/as
o( e)n ê(mi=n nou=s, monê=s tê=s kata\ a)napnoê\n prosphu/seôs
sôzome/nês oi(onei/ tinos rhi/zês, chôristhei/s te a)poba/llei ê)\n
pro/teron ei)=che mnêmonikê\n du/namin. e)n de\ e)grêgoro/si pa/lin
dia\ tô=n ai)sthêtikô=n po/rôn ô(/sper dia\ tinô=n thuri/dôn
proku/psas kai\ tô=| perie/chonti sumba/llôn logikê\n e)ndu/etai
du/namin.] Then follows the simile about coals brought near to, or
removed away from, the fire.
The Stoic version of this Herakleitean doctrine, is to be seen in
Marcus Antoninus, viii. 54. [Greek: Mêke/ti mo/non _sumpnei=n tô=|
perie/chonti a)e/ri, a)ll' ê)/dê kai\ sumphronei=n tô=| perie/chonti
pa/nta noerô=|_. Ou) ga\r ê(=tton ê( noera\ du/namis pa/ntê ke/chutai
kai\ diapephoi/têke tô=| spa=sai boulome/nô|, ê(/per ê( a)erô/dês tô=|
a)napneu=sai duname/nô|].
The Stoics, who took up the doctrine of Herakleitus with farther
abstraction and analysis, distinguished and named separately matters
which he conceived in one and named together--the physical inhalation
of air--the metaphysical supposed influx of
intelligence--_inspiration_ in its literal and metaphorical senses. The
word [Greek: to\ perie/chon], as he conceives it, seems to denote, not any
distinct or fixed local region, but the rotatory movement or circulation
of the elements, fire, water, earth, reverting back into each other.
Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 119-120; which transition also is denoted by the
word [Greek: a)nathumi/asis] in the Herakleitean sense--cited from
Herakleitus by Aristotle. De Animâ, i. 2, 16.]
[Footnote 99: Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. vii. 132) here cites the
first words of the treatise of Herakleitus (compare also Aristotle,
Rhet. iii. 5). [Greek: lo/gou tou=de e)o/ntos a)xu/netoi gi/gnontai
a)/nthrôpoi kai\ pro/sthen ê)\ a)kou=sai kai\ a)kou/santes to\
prô=ton;--tou\s de\ a)/llous a)nthrô/pous lantha/nei o(ko/sa
e)gerthe/ntes poiou=sin o(/kôsper o(ko/sa eu(/dontes
e)pilantha/nontai.]]
[Footnote 100: Sext. Empiric. ib. vii. 126, a citation from
Herakleitus.]
[Footnote 101: Sext. Emp. ib. vii. 133 (the words of Herakleitus)
[Greek: dio\ dei= _e(/pesthai tô=| xunô=|_;--tou= lo/gou de\ e)o/ntos
xunou=, zô/ousin oi( polloi\ ô(s i)di/an e)/chontes phro/nêsin; ê( d'
e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti _a)ll' e)xê/gêsis tou= tro/pou tê=s tou=
pa/ntos dioikê/seôs_; dio\ kath' o(/ ti a)\n au)tou= tê=s mnê/mês
koinônê/sômen, a)lêtheu/omen, a(\ de\ a)\n i)dia/sômen,
pseudo/metha.]]
[Footnote 102: Plutarch, De Superstit. c. 3, p. 166, C. See also the
passage in Clemens Alexandr. Strom. iv. 22, about the comparison of
sleep to death by Herakleitus.]
[Side-note: By Universal Reason he did not mean the Reason of most men
as it is, but as it ought to be.]
By this denunciation of the mischief of private judgment, Herakleitus
did not mean to say that a man ought to think like his neighbours or
like the public. In his view the public were wrong, collectively as
well as individually. The universal reason to which he made appeal,
was not the reason of most men as it actually is but that which, in
his theory, ought to be their reason:[103] that which formed the
perpetual and governing process throughout all nature, though most men
neither recognised nor attended to it, but turned away from it in
different directions equally wrong. No man was truly possessed of
reason, unless his individual mind understood the general scheme of
the universe, and moved in full sympathy with its perpetual movement
and alternation or unity of contraries.[104] The universal process
contained in itself a sum-total of particular contraries which were
successively produced and destroyed: to know the universal was to know
these contraries in one, and to recognise them as transient, but
correlative and inseparable, manifestations, each implying the
other--not as having each a separate reality and each excluding its
contrary.[105] In so far as a man's mind maintained its kindred nature
and perpetual conjoint movement with the universal, he acquired true
knowledge; but the individualising influences arising from the body
usually overpowered this kindred with the universal, and obstructed
the continuity of this movement, so that most persons became plunged
in error and illusion.
[Footnote 103: Sextus Empiricus misinterprets the Herakleitean theory
when he represents it (vii. 134) as laying down--[Greek: ta\ koinê=|
phaino/mena, pista\, ô(s a)\n tô=| koinô=| krino/mena lo/gô|, ta\ de\
kat' i)di/an e(ka/stô|, pseudê=]. Herakleitus denounces mankind
generally as in error. Origen. Philosophum. i. 4; Diog. Laert. ix. 1.]
[Footnote 104: The analogy and sympathy between the individual mind
and the Kosmical process--between the knowing and the known--was
reproduced in many forms among the ancient philosophers. It appears in
the Platonic Timæus, c. 20, p. 47 C.
[Greek: To\ kinou/menon tô=| kinoume/nô| gignô/skesthai] was the
doctrine of several philosophers. Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2. Plato,
Kratylus, p. 412 A: [Greek: kai\ mê\n ê)/ ge e)pistê/mê mênu/ei ô(s
pherome/nois toi=s pra/gmasin e)pome/nês tê=s psuchê=s tê=s a)xi/as
lo/gou, kai\ ou)/te a)poleipome/nês ou)/te protheou/sês]. A remarkable
passage from the comment of Philoponus (on the treatise of Aristotle
De Animâ) is cited by Lassalle, ii. p. 339, describing the Herakleitean
doctrine, [Greek: dia\ tou=to e)k tê=s a)nathumia/seôs au)tê\n
e)/legen] (Herakleitus); [Greek: tô=n ga\r pragma/tôn e)n kinê/sei
o)/ntôn dei=n kai\ to\ gi/nôskon ta\ pra/gmata e)n kinê/sei ei)=nai,
i(/na _sumpara/theon au)toi=s e)pha/ptêtai kai\ e)pharmo/zê|_
au)toi=s]. Also Simplikius ap. Lassalle, p. 341: [Greek: e)n
metabolê=| ga\r sunechei= ta\ o)/nta u(potithe/menos o( Ê(ra/kleitos,
kai\ to\ gnôso/menon au)ta\ tê=| e)paphê=| gi/nôskon, sune/pesthai
e)bou/leto ô(s a)ei\ ei)=nai kata\ to\ gnôstiko\n e)n kinê/sei.]]
[Footnote 105: Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. p. 58; and the passage of Philo
Judæus, cited by Schleiermacher, p. 437; as well as more fully by
Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 265-267 (Quis rerum divinar. hæres, p. 503,
Mangey): [Greek: e(\n ga\r to\ e)x a)mphoi=n tô=n e)nanti/ôn, ou(=
tmêthe/ntos gnô/rima ta\ e)nanti/a. Ou) tou=t' e)sti\n o(/ phasin
E(/llênes to\n me/gan kai\ a)oi/dimon par' au)toi=s Ê(ra/kleiton,
kephalai=on tê=s au)tou= prostêsa/menon philosophi/as, au)chei=n ô(s
eu(re/sei kainê=|? palaio\n ga\r eu(/rêma Môu/seô/s e)stin.]]
[Side-note: Herakleitus at the opposite pole from Parmenides]
The absolute of Herakleitus stands thus at the opposite pole as
compared with that of Parmenides: it is absolute movement, change,
generation and destruction--negation of all substance and
stability,[106] temporary and unbecoming resistance of each successive
particular to the destroying and renewing current of the universal.
The Real, on this theory, was a generalisation, not of substances, but
of facts, events, changes, revolutions, destructions, generations,
&c., determined by a law of justice or necessity which endured, and
which alone endured, for ever. Herakleitus had many followers, who
adopted his doctrine wholly or partially, and who gave to it
developments which he had not adverted to, perhaps might not have
acknowledged.[107] It was found an apt theme by those who, taking a
religious or poetical view of the universe, dwelt upon the transitory
and contemptible value of particular existences, and extolled the
grandeur or power of the universal. It suggested many doubts and
debates respecting the foundations of logical evidence, and the
distinction of truth from falsehood; which debates will come to be
noticed hereafter, when we deal with the dialectical age of Plato and
Aristotle.
[Footnote 106: The great principle of Herakleitus, which Aristotle
states in order to reject (Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 10, [Greek:
phasi/ tines kinei=sthai tô=n o)/ntôn ou) ta\ me\n ta\ d' ou), a)lla\
pa/nta kai\ a)ei\; a)lla\ lantha/nein tou=to tê\n ê(mete/ran
ai)/sthêsin]) now stands averred in modern physical philosophy. Mr.
Grove observes, in his instructive Treatise on the Correlation of
Physical Forces, p. 22:
"Of absolute rest, Nature gives us no evidence. All matter, as far as
we can discern, is ever in movement: not merely in masses, as in the
planetary spheres, but also molecularly, or throughout its intimate
structure. Thus every alteration of temperature produces a molecular
change throughout the whole substance heated or cooled: slow chemical
or electrical forces, actions of light or invisible radiant forces,
are always at play; so that, as a fact, we cannot predicate of any
portion of matter, that it is absolutely at rest."]
[Footnote 107: Many references to Herakleitus are found in the
recently published books of the Refutatio Hæresium by Pseudo-Origen or
Hippolytus--especially Book ix. p. 279-283, ed. Miller. To judge by
various specimens there given, it would appear that his
juxta-positions of contradictory predicates, with the same subject,
would be recognised as paradoxes merely in appearance, and not in
reality, if we had his own explanation. Thus he says (p. 282) "the pure
and the corrupt, the drinkable and the undrinkable, are one and the
same." Which is explained as follows: "The sea is most pure and most
corrupt: to fish, it is drinkable and nutritive; to men, it is
undrinkable and destructive." This explanation appears to have been
given by Herakleitus himself, [Greek: tha/lassa, _phêsi\n_], &c.
These are only paradoxes in appearance--the relative predicate being
affirmed without mention of its correlate. When you supply the
correlate to each predicate, there remains no contradiction at all.]
[Side-note: Empedokles--his doctrine of the four elements, and two
moving or restraining forces.]
After Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with Parmenides, we
arrive at Empedokles (about 500-430 B. C.) and his memorable doctrine
of the Four Elements. This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum, and
a distinguished as well as popular-minded citizen, expounded his views
in poems, of which Lucretius[108] speaks with high admiration, but of
which few fragments are preserved. He agreed with Parmenides, and
dissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in rejecting
all real generation and destruction.[109] That which existed had not
been generated and could not be destroyed. Empedokles explained what
that was, which men mistook for generation and destruction. There
existed four distinct elements--Earth, Water, Air, and Fire--eternal,
inexhaustible, simple, homogeneous, equal, and co-ordinate with each
other. Besides these four substances, there also existed two moving
forces, one contrary to the other--Love or Friendship, which brought
the elements into conjunction--Enmity or Contest, which separated
them. Here were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing
together different portions of the elements to form a new product, or
breaking up the product thus formed and separating the constituent
elements. Sometimes the Many were combined into One; sometimes the One
was decomposed into Many. Generation was simply this combination of
elements already existing separately--not the calling into existence
of anything new: destruction was in like manner the dissolution of
some compound, not the termination of any existent simple substance.
The four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles sometimes
calls by names of the popular Deities--Zeus, Hêrê, Aidoneus, &c.),
were the roots or foundations of everything.[110]
[Footnote 108: Lucretius, i. 731.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus
Vociferantur, et exponunt præclara reperta:
Ut vix humanâ videatur stirpe creatus.]
[Footnote 109: Empedokles, Frag. v. 77-83, ed. Karsten, p. 96:
[Greek: phu/sis ou)deno/s e)stin a(pa/ntôn
thnêtô=n, ou)de/ tis ou)lome/nou thanatoi=o teleutê\,
a)lla\ mo/non mi/xis te dia/llaxi/s te mige/ntôn
e)sti, phu/sis d' e)pi\ toi=s o)noma/zetai a)nthrô/poisin. . . . ]
[Greek: Phu/sis] here is remarkable, in its primary sense, as
derivative from [Greek: phu/omai], equivalent to [Greek: ge/nesis].
Compare Plutarch adv. Koloten, p. 1111, 1112.]
[Footnote 110: Emp. Fr. v. 55. [Greek: Te/ssara tô=n pa/ntôn
rhizô/mata].]
[Side-note: Construction of the Kosmos from these elements and
forces--action and counter action of love and enmity. The Kosmos
alternately made and unmade.]
From the four elements--acted upon by these two forces, abstractions
or mythical personifications--Empedokles showed how the Kosmos was
constructed. He supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but
not always with equal efficacy: sometimes the one was predominant,
sometimes the other, sometimes there was equilibrium between them.
Things accordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed cycle.
The complete preponderance of Love brings alternately all the elements
into close and compact unity, Enmity being for the time eliminated.
Presently the action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in
which Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative; until at length
Enmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the time
dissolved. But this condition of things does not last. Love again
becomes active, so that partial and increasing combination of the
elements is produced, and another period commences--the simultaneous
action of the two forces, which ends in renewed empire of Love,
compact union of the elements, and temporary exclusion of Enmity.[111]
[Footnote 111: Zeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i. p. 525-528, ed.
2nd.]
[Side-note: Empedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire
of Love--Sphærus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the
elements--astronomy and meteorology.]
This is the Empedoklean cycle of things,[112] divine or predestined,
without beginning or end: perpetual substitution of new for old
compounds--constancy only in the general principle of combination and
dissolution. The Kosmos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes
its commencement from the period of complete empire of Love, or
compact and undisturbed union of all the elements. This he conceives
and divinises under the name of Sphærus--as One sphere, harmonious,
uniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting no parts or
separate existences within it, exhibiting no one of the four elements
distinctly, "instabilis tellus, innabilis unda"--a sort of chaos.[113]
At the time prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity
recommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of Sphærus,
"agitating the members of the God one after another,"[114] disjoining
the parts from each other, and distending the compact ball into a vast
porous mass. This mass, under the simultaneous and conflicting
influences of Love and Enmity, became distributed partly into
homogeneous portions, where each of the four elements was accumulated
by itself--partly into compounds or individual substances, where two
or more elements were found in conjunction. Like had an appetite for
Like--Air for Air, Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther
extension of this appetite brought about the mixture of different
elements in harmonious compounds. First, the Air disengaged itself,
and occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and
Water: next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself externally
to the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost crystalline
sphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which formed the wall
encompassing the Kosmos. A remnant of Fire and Air still remained
embodied in the Earth, but the great mass of both so distributed
themselves, that the former occupied most part of one hemisphere, the
latter most part of the other.[115] The rapid and uniform rotation of
the Kosmos, caused by the exterior Fire, compressed the interior
elements, squeezed the water out of the earth like perspiration from
the living body, and thus formed the sea. The same rotation caused the
earth to remain unmoved, by counterbalancing and resisting its
downward pressure or gravity.[116] In the course of the rotation, the
light hemisphere of Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of
Air, alternately came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day
and night. Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be
not self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which
collected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire. He
regarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline
sphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving free
and detached from any sphere.[117] He supposed the alternations of
winter and summer to arise from a change in the proportions of Air and
Fire in the atmospheric regions: winter was caused by an increase of
the Air, both in volume and density, so as to drive back the exterior
Fire to a greater distance from the Earth, and thus to produce a
diminution of heat and light: summer was restored when the Fire, in
its turn increasing, extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer
to the Earth, and imparted to the latter more heat and light.[118]
Empedokles farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and
Diogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and flat at
top and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its surface had been
originally horizontal, in reference to the rotation of the Kosmos
around it, but that it had afterwards tilted down to the south and
upward towards the north, so as to lie aslant instead of horizontal.
Hence he explained the fact that the north pole of the heavens now
appeared obliquely elevated above the horizon.[119]
[Footnote 112: Emp. Frag. v. 96, Karst., p. 98:
[Greek: Ou(/tôs ê)=| me\n e(\n e)k pleo/nôn mema/thêke phu/esthai,
ê)de\ pa/lin diaphunto\s e(no\s ple/on e)ktele/thousi,
tê=| me\n gi/gnontai/ te kai\ ou)/ sphisin e)/mpedos ai)ô/n;
ê(=| de\ ta/d' a)lla/ssonta diampere\s ou)dama\ lê/gei,
tau/tê| d' ai)e\n e)/asin a)ki/nêta kata\ ku/klon.]
Also:--
[Greek: kai\ ga\r kai\ paro\s ê(=n te kai\ e)/ssetai ou)de/ pot',
oi)/ô,
tou/tôn a)mphote/rôn] (Love and Discord) [Greek: keinô/setai a)/spetos
ai)ô/n].
These are new Empedoklean verses, derived from the recently published
fragments of Hippolytus (Hær. Refut.) printed by Stein, v. 110, in his
collection of the Fragments of Empedokles, p. 43. Compare another
passage in the same treatise of Hippolytus, p. 251.]
[Footnote 113: Emped. Fr. v. 59, Karsten:
[Greek: Ou(/tôs a(rmoni/ês pukinô=| kruphô=| e)stê/riktai
sphai/ros kuklote/rês, moniê=| periêge/i+ gai/ôn].
Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunæ, c. 12.
About the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sphærus, see Aristot.
Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. [Greek: a(/panta ga\r e)k tou/tou
(nei/kous) ta)/lla/ e)sti plê\n o( theo/s] (i.e. Sphærus).--[Greek:
Ei) ga\r mê\ ê)=n to\ nei=kos e)n toi=s pra/gmasi, e(\n a)\n ê)=n
a(/panta, ô(s phêsi/n] (Empedokles). See Preller, Hist. Philos. ex
Font. Loc. Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3.
The condition of things which Empedokles calls Sphærus may be
illustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern
phraseology of _attraction_ and _repulsion_) from an eminent modern
work on Physics:--"Were there only atoms and attraction, as now
explained, the whole material of creation would rush into close
contact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness
and death. There is heat or caloric, however, which directly
counteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results. It has
been described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as
water does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among
the atoms. The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause
of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can
study and classify the phenomena of both most accurately." (Dr.
Arnott, Elements of Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)]
[Footnote 114: Emp. Fr. v. 66-70, Karsten:
[Greek: pa/nta ga\r e)xei/ês pelemi/zeto gui=a theoi=o.]]
[Footnote 115: Plutarch ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. 8, 10; Plutarch,
Placit. Philos. ii. 6, p. 887; Aristot. Ethic. Nic. viii. 2.]
[Footnote 116: Emped. Fr. 185, Karsten. [Greek: ai)thê\r sphi/ggôn
peri\ ku/klon a(/panta]. Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 13, 14; iii. 2, 2.
[Greek: tê\n gê=n u(po\ tê=s di/nês ê)remei=n], &c. Empedokles called
the sea [Greek: i(/drôta tê=s gê=s]. Emp. Fr. 451, Karsten; Aristot.
Meteor. ii. 3.]
[Footnote 117: Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 20, p. 890.]
[Footnote 118: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 532-535, 2nd ed.:
Karsten--De Emped. Philos. p. 424-431.
The very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and
meteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by
these two authors.]
[Footnote 119: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; Schaubach, Anaxag.
Fragm. p. 175. Compare the remarks of Gruppe (Ueber die Kosmischen**
Systeme der Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-Gebäude of
Empedokles.]
[Side-note: Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and
plants.]
From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles[120] proceeded to describe
the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first
produced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being
thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its
earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been
sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being
as yet incompetent to produce animals.[121] After a certain time she
gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and
piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next,
discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as
creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to
each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which
continued and propagated.[122] Among these productions were not only
plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the "long-lived Gods".[123]
All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in
different proportions, more or less harmonious.[124] These elements
remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But
the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and
the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure
of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate
did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of
one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent
ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,[125]
could not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely
assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to
enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and
blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of
bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth,
one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the
general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for
generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to
determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without
ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission
in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.
[Footnote 120: Hippokrates--[Greek: Peri\ a)rchai/ês i)êtrikê=s]--c.
20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littré. [Greek: katha/per E)mpedoklê=s ê)\
a)/lloi oi(\ peri\ phu/sios gegra/phasin e)x a)rchê=s o(/ ti/ e)stin
a)/nthrôpos, kai\ o(/pôs e)geneto prô/ton, kai\ o(/pôs xunepa/gê].
This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently
printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.]
[Footnote 121: Emp. Fr. v. 253, Kar. [Greek: tou\s me\n pu=r a)nepemp'
e)/thelon pro\s o(/moion i(ke/sthai], &c.
Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. [Greek: ei)=pe pa/lin
o( E)mpedoklê=s, o(/ti ta\ phuta\ e)/chousi ge/nesin e)n ko/smô|
ê)lattôme/nô|, kai\ ou) telei/ô| kata\ tê\n sumplê/rôsin au)tou=;
tau/tês de\ sumplêroume/nês] (while it is in course of being
completed), [Greek: ou) genna=tai zô=on.]]
[Footnote 122: Emp. Frag. v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed. Karst. Ver. 238:--
[Greek: polla\ me\n a)mphipro/sôpa kai\ a)mphi/stern' e)phu/onto,
bougenê= a)ndro/prôra], &c. Ver. 251:--
[Greek: Ou)lophuei=s me\n prô=ta tu/poi chthono\s e(xane/tellon], &c.
Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20;
Physic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Coelo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29;
with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.]
[Footnote 123: Emp. Frag. v. 135, Kar.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Menon. p. 76 A.; Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p.
324, b. 30 seq.]
[Footnote 125: [Greek: E)mpedoklê=s e)x a)metablê/tôn tô=n tetta/rôn
stoichei/ôn ê(gei=to gi/gnesthai tê\n tô=n sunthe/tôn sôma/tôn
phu/sin, ou(/tôs a)namemigme/nôn a)llê/lois tô=n prô/tôn, ô(s ei)/ tis
leiô/sas a)kribô=s kai\ chnoô/dê poiê/sas i)o\n kai\ chalki=tin kai\
kadmei/an kai\ mi/su mi/xeien, ô(s mêde\n e)x au)tou=
metacheiri/sasthai chôri\s e(te/rou].
Galen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De Homin. Nat. t. iii. p. 101. See Karsten,
De Emped. Phil. p. 407, and Emp. Fr. v. 155.
Galen says, however (after Aristot. Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 334, a.
30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture
properly speaking, but merely close proximity. Hippokrates (he says)
was the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture. But
Empedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the
structure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles.
Oil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no
such symmetry between them--[Greek: o(/lôs ga\r poiei=] (Empedokles)
[Greek: tê\n mi/xin tê=| summetri/a| tô=n po/rôn; dio/per e)/laion
me\n kai\ u(/dôr ou) mi/gnusthai, ta\ de\ a)/lla u(gra\ kai\ peri\
o(/sôn dê\ katarithmei=tai ta\s i)di/as kra/seis] (Theophrastus, De
Sensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol. i. p. 651, ed. Schneider).]
[Side-note: Physiology of
Empedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the blood.]
Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology. He
dwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details
respecting gestation and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it
was that determined the birth of male or female offspring. About
respiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories:
his explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments. He
supposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs,
but partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores
wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with
those pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the blood
vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately
filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the
centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre. Such was the movement
which Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood:
alternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession
backwards towards the centre. When the blood thus receded, the
extremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without
entered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had
thus entered was expelled.[126] Empedokles conceived this outward tide
of blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape
and join its analogous element without.[127]
[Footnote 126: Emp. Fr. v. 275, seqq. Karst.
The comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly
pertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not
what Empedokles had in view (Aristot. De Respirat. c. 3).]
[Footnote 127: Karsten, De Emp. Philosoph. p. 480.
Emp. Fr. v. 307--[Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion
pu=r--pu=r d' e)/xô diathrô=skon], &c.
Empedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by
the klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a
broad bottom pierced with many small holes. When the neck was kept
closed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into
water, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the
bottom, because of the resistance of the air within. As soon as the
neck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape,
the water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.
This illustration is interesting. It shows that Empedokles was
distinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the
ascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as
allowing such movement. Vers. 286:--
[Greek: ou)de/ t' e)s a)/ggos d' o)/mbros e)se/rchetai, a)lla/ min
ei)/rgei
a)e/ros o)/gkos e)/sôthe pesô\n e)pi\ trê/mata pukna/], &c.
This dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite
amusement with children.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of
perceptions--Intercommunication of the elements with the sentient
subject--like acting upon like.]
The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an
item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain
sensation. He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had
advanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that
sensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before
him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike
acting upon unlike. Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried)
to apply his doctrine to the various senses separately.[128] Man was
composed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and
since like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements
within himself, he perceived and knew the like element without.
Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a
suitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by
water, and so forth.[129] Empedokles, assuming perception and
knowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four
elements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other
substances besides, perceived and knew in the same way. Everything
possessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than
man, who was a more compound structure.[130] Perception and knowledge
was more developed in different animals in proportion as their
elementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood, as the
most compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of
intelligence.[131]
[Footnote 128: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 2, p. 647, Schneid.]
[Footnote 129: Emp. Frag. Karst. v. 267, seq.
[Greek: gnô=th', o(/ti pa/ntôn ei)si\n a)por)r(oai\ o(/ss' e)ge/nonto],
&c.
ib. v. 321:
[Greek: gai/ê| me\n ga\r gai=an o)pô/pamen, u(/dati d' u(/dôr,
ai)the/ri d' ai)the/ra di=on, a)ta\r puri\ pu=r a)i+\dêlon,
storgê=| de\ storgê/n, nei=kos de/ te nei/kei+ lugrô=|].
Theophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.
Aristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a [Greek:
psuchê\] (_soul_, _vital principle_) by itself. Sextus Empiricus
treats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a [Greek:
kritê/rion a)lêthei/as] (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Emp. adv.
Mathem. vii. 116).]
[Footnote 130: Emp. Fr. v. 313, Karst. ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem.
viii. 286; also apud Diogen. L. viii. 77.
[Greek: pa/nta ga\r i)/sth' phro/nêsin e)/chein kai\ nô/matos
ai)=san].
Stein gives (Emp. Fr. v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding
this from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.
Parmenides had held the same opinion before--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs pa=n
to\ o)\n e)/chein tina\ gnô=sin]--ap. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 4.
Theophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as
one of his grounds of objection--That Empedokles, in maintaining
sensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into
pores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances
(Theophr. De Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts this as if it were an
inconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so
considered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have
accepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference,
except one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.]
[Footnote 131: Emp. Frag. 316, Karst. [Greek: ai(=ma ga\r a)nthrô/pois
perika/rdio/n e)sti no/êma.] Comp. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 11.]
[Side-note: Sense of vision.]
In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly
by the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light
without. The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior
coat was a thin layer of earth and air. Colours were brought to the
eye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by
passing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white
colour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black
colour with those of water.[132] Some animals had the proportions of
fire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently
located, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on
the outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others,
water was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the animals
which saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light
being required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former
class of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little
light without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed--or
left more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to
them.[133]
[Footnote 132: Emp. Frag. v. 301-310, Karst. [Greek: to/ t' e)n
mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r], &c. Theophr. De Sensu, s. 7, 8;
Aristot. De Sensu, c. 3; Aristot. De Gen. et Corrupt. i. 8.]
[Footnote 133: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.]
[Side-note: Senses of hearing, smell, taste.]
In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or
trumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the
solid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and
caused the sensation of sound within.[134] Smell was, in his view, an
adjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those
who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many
bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin. Respecting
taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general
doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such
interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate
and actual contact. Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid
it down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not
merely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or
ducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious
with them in respect to elementary mixture.[135]
[Footnote 134: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9-21.
Empedokles described the ear under the metaphor of [Greek: sa/rkinon
o)/zon], "the fleshy branch."]
[Footnote 135: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9, 10. The criticisms of
Theophrastus upon this theory of Empedokles are extremely interesting,
as illustrating the change in the Grecian physiological point of view
during a century and a half, but I reserve them until I come to the
Aristotelian age. I may remark, however, that Theophrastus, disputing
the doctrine of sensory effluvia generally, disputes the existence of
the olfactory effluvia not less than the rest (s. 20).]
[Side-note: Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the
killing of anything that had life. His belief in the metempsychosis.
Sufferings of life are an expiation for wrong done during an
antecedent life. Pretensions to magic power.]
Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and
the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries--especially that of the
metempsychosis. He represented himself as having passed through prior
states of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He
proclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not
to kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the
sacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the
soul of a deceased friend or brother.[136] His religious faith,
however, and his opinions about Gods, Dæmons, and the human soul,
stood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on
kosmology and physiology. In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid
great stress on the existence of Dæmons (of intermediate order and
power between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the
Gods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long
period of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals. He
laments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others,
condemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they
could regain the society of the Gods.[137] In one of his remaining
fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and
professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured
pupil the most wonderful gifts--powers to excite or abate the winds,
to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead.[138]
He was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor
of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer.
Gorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical
ceremonies.[139]
[Footnote 136: Emp. Frag. v. 380-410, Karsten; Plutarch, De Esu
Carnium, p. 997-8.
Aristot. Rhetoric. i. 13, 2: [Greek: e)sti\ ga\r, o(\ manteu/ontai/ ti
pa/ntes, phu/sei koino\n di/kaion kai\ a)/dikon, ka)\n mêdemi/a
koinôni/a pro\s a)llê/lous ê)=|, mêde\ sunthê/kê--ô(s E)mpedoklê=s
le/gei peri\ tou= mê\ ktei/nein to\ e)/mpsuchon; tou=to ga\r ou) tisi\
me\n di/kaion, tisi\ d' ou) di/kaion,
A)lla\ to\ me\n pa/ntôn no/mimon dia/ t' eu)rume/dontos
Ai)the/ros ê)neke/ôs te/tatai dia/ t' a)ple/tou au)gê=s].
Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix. 127.]
[Footnote 137: Emp. Frag. v. 5-18, Karst.; compare Herod. ii. 123;
Plato, Phædrus, 55, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 26.
Plutarch observes in another place on the large proportion of
religious mysticism blended with the philosophy of Empedokles--[Greek:
Sôkra/tês, phasma/tôn kai\ deisidaimoni/as a)naple/ô philosophi/an
a)po\ Puthago/rou kai\ E)mpedokle/ous dexa/menos, eu)= ma/la
bebakcheume/nên], &c. (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 580, C.)
See Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 151.]
[Footnote 138: Emp. Fr. v. 390-425, Karst.]
[Footnote 139: Diog. Laert. viii. 59.]
[Side-note: Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding
out truth.]
None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than
a few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great
or comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings
of our short life. Every man took a different road, confiding only in
his own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man
could obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.[140]
[Footnote 140: Emp. Fr. v. 34, ed. Karst., p. 88.
[Greek: pau=ron de\ zô/ês a)bi/ou me/ros a)thlê/santes
ô)ku/moroi, ka/pnoio di/kên a)rthe/ntes, a)pe/ptan,
au)to\ mo/non peisthe/ntes o(/tô| prose/kursen e(/kastos,
pa/ntos' e)launo/menoi; to\ de\ ou)=lon e)peu/chetai eu(rei=n
au)/tôs. ou)/t' e)piderkta\ ta/d' a)ndra/sin ou)/t' e)pakousta\
ou)/te no/ô| perilêpta/.]]
[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras--denied generation and
destruction--recognises only mixture and severance of pre-existing
kinds of matter.]
Anaxagoras of Klazomenæ, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and
contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less
ambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry,
without any of those mystical pretentions common among the
Pythagoreans. His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic
dialect.[141] His theory, like all those of his age, was
all-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning,
and shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come
into those appearances which were exhibited to sense. He agreed with
Empedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other
Ionic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which,
by various transformations, other sensible things were generated--and
into which, when destroyed, they were again resolved. Like Empedokles,
and like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation,
understood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no
existing thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or
could undergo real transformation into any other thing different from
what it was.[142] Existing things were what they were, possessing
their several inherent properties: there could be no generation except
the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any
destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any
transformation except the substitution of one compound for another.
[Footnote 141: Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. i. 4, 5; Diogen. Laert. ii.
10.]
[Footnote 142: Anaxagor. Fr. 22, p. 135, ed. Schaubach. [Greek: to\
de\ gi/nesthai kai\ a)po/llusthai ou)k o)rthô=s nomi/zousin oi(
E(/llênes. Ou)de\n ga\r chrê=ma gi/netai, ou)de\ a)po/llutai, a)ll'
a)p' e)o/ntôn chrêma/tôn summi/sgetai/ te kai\ diakri/netai; kai\
ou(/tôs a)\n o)rthô=s kaloi=en to/ te gi/nesthai summi/sgesthai kai\
to\ a)po/llusthai diakri/nesthai.]]
[Side-note: Homoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter,
all mixed together.]
But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum
total of first substances. He reckoned all the different sorts of
matter as original and primæval existences: he supposed them all to
lie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no
greatest and no least.[143] Particles of the same sort he called
Homoeomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts;
wherein the parts were like each other and like the whole. Flesh,
bone, blood, fire,[144] earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of
particles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh,
bone, and blood, than the whole mass.
[Footnote 143: Anaxag. Fr. 5, ed. Schaub, p. 94.
[Greek: Ta\ o(moiomerê=] are the primordial particles themselves:
[Greek: o(moiome/reia] is the abstract word formed from this
concrete--existence in the form or condition of [Greek: o(moiomerê=].
Each distinct substance has its own [Greek: o(moiomerê=], little
particles like each other, and each possessing the characteristics of
the substance. But the state called [Greek: o(moiome/reia] pervades all
substances (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53,
note 3.)]
[Footnote 144: Lucretius, i. 830:
Nunc et Anaxagoræ scrutemur Homoeomerian,
Quam Grai memorant, nec nostrâ dicere linguâ
Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.
Lucretius calls this theory Homoeomeria, and it appears to me that
this name must have been bestowed upon it by its author. Zeller and
several others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first
from Aristotle and his physiological classification. But what other
name was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?]
But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homoeomeries[145] was a
special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them
unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one
of them could have an existence apart from the rest. Everything was
mixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one
of them could be obtained pure and unmixed. This was true of any
portion however small. The visible and tangible bodies around us
affected our senses, and received their denominations according to
that one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided
preponderance and prominence. But each of them included in itself all
the other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.[146]
[Footnote 145: Anaxag. Fr. 8; Schaub. p. 101; compare p. 113. [Greek:
e(/teron de\ ou)de/n e)stin o(/moion ou)deni\ a)/llô|. A)ll' o(/teô|
plei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n.]]
[Footnote 146: Lucretius, i. 876:
Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes
Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud
Apparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,**
Et magis in promptu primâque in fronte** locata.
Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, 3. [Greek: Dio/ phasi pa=n e)n panti\
memi=chthai, dio/ti pa=n e)k panto\s e(ô/rôn gigno/menon; phai/nesthai
de\ diaphe/ronta kai/ prosagoreu/esthai e(/tera a)llê/lôn, e)k tou=
ma/lista u(pere/chontos, dia\ to\ plê=thos e)n tê=| mi/xei tô=n
a)pei/rôn; ei)likrinô=s me\n ga\r o(/lon leuko\n ê)\ me/lan ê)\ sa/rka
ê)\ o)stou=n, ou)k ei)=nai; o(/tou de\ plei=ston e(/kaston e)/chei,
tou=to dokei=n ei)=nai tê\n phu/sin tou= pra/gmatos.] Also Aristot. De
Coelo, iii. 3; Gen. et Corr. i. 1.]
[Side-note: First condition of things--all the primordial varieties of
matter were huddled together in confusion. Nous, or Reason, distinct
from all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass,
setting the constituent particles in movement.]
In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter)
were together, in one mass or mixture. Infinitely numerous and
infinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded
together that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite
figure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself. Nothing
was distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and Æther (Fire),
which surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together.[147] Thus all
things continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity.
The fundamental contraries--wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense,
rare,--in their intimate contact neutralised each other.[148] Upon
this inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind. The
characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely
distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus
marked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with
each other. Having no communion of nature with other things, it was
noway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and
was of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and purest of
all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things.
It was like to itself throughout--the greater manifestations of mind
similar to the less.[149]
[Footnote 147: Anaxag. Frag. 1; Schaub. p. 65; [Greek: O(mou= pa/nta
chrê/mata ê)=n, a)/peira kai\ plê=thos kai\ smikro/têta. Kai\ ga\r to\
smikro\n a)/peiron ê)=n. Kai\ pa/ntôn o(mou= e)o/ntôn ou)de\n
eu)/dêlon ê)=n u(po\ smikro/têtos. Pa/nta ga\r a)ê/r te kai\ ai)thê\r
katei=chen, a)mpho/tera a)/peira e)o/nta. Tau=ta ga\r me/gista
e)/nestin e)n toi=s sumpa=si kai\ plê/thei kai\ mege/thei].
The first three words--[Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata]--were the
commencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected
and cited than any other words in it. See Fragm. 16, 17, Schaubach,
and p. 66-68. Aristotle calls this primeval chaos [Greek: to\ mi/gma].]
[Footnote 148: Anax. Frag. 6, Schaub. p. 97; Aristotel. Physic. i. 4,
p. 187, a, with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Scholia, p. 335;
Brandis also, iii. 203, a. 25; and De Coelo, iii. 301, a. 12, [Greek:
e)x a)kinê/tôn ga\r a)/rchetai] (Anaxagoras) [Greek: kosmopoiei=n.]]
[Footnote 149: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Schaub. [Greek: Ta\ me\n a)/lla
panto\s moi=ran e)/chei, nou=s de/ e)stin a)/peiron kai\ au)tokrate\s
kai\ me/miktai ou)deni\ chrê/mati, a)lla\ mo/nos au)to\s e)ph'
e(ôu+tou= e)stin. Ei) mê\ ga\r e)ph' e(ôu+tou= ê)=n, a)lla/ teô|
e)me/mikto a)/llô|, metei=chen a)\n a(pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn ei)/
e)me/mikto teô| . . . . Kai\ a)nekô/luen au)to\n ta\ summemigme/na,
ô(/ste mêdeno\s chrê/matos kratei=n o(moi/ôs, ô(s kai\ mo/non e)o/nta
e)ph' e(ôu+tou=. E)sti\ ga\r lepto/tato/n te pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn kai\
katharô/taton, kai\ gnô/mên ge peri\ panto\s pa=san i)/schei, kai\
i)schu/ei me/giston.]
Compare Plato, Kratylus, c. 65, p. 413, c. [Greek: nou=n au)tokra/tora
kai\ ou)deni\ memigme/non (o(\ le/gei A)naxago/ras).]]
[Side-note: Movement of rotation in the mass initiated by Nous on a
small scale, but gradually extending itself. Like particles congregate
together--distinguishable aggregates are formed.]
But though other things could not act upon mind, mind could act upon
them. It first originated movement in the quiescent mass. The movement
impressed was that of rotation, which first began on a small scale,
then gradually extended itself around, becoming more efficacious as it
extended, and still continuing to extend itself around more and more.
Through the prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was
effected of those things which had been hitherto undistinguishably
huddled together.[150] Dense was detached from rare, cold from hot,
dark from light, dry from wet.[151] The Homoeomeric particles
congregated together, each to its like; so that bodies were
formed--definite and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a
preponderance of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear
manifestation.[152] But while the decomposition of the multifarious
mass was thus carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of
them specialised, knowable, and regular--still the separation can
never be complete, nor can any one thing be "cut away as with a
hatchet" from the rest. Each thing, great or small, must always
contain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not manifest, of
everything else.[153] Nothing except mind can be thoroughly pure and
unmixed.
[Footnote 150: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Sch. [Greek: kai\ tê=s
perichôrê/sios tê=s sumpa/sês nou=s e)kra/têsen, ô(/ste perichôrê=sai
tê\n a)rchê/n. Kai\ prô=ton a)po\ tou= smikrou= ê)/rxato
perichôrê=sai, e)/peiten plei=on perichôre/ei, kai\ perichôrê/sei
e)pi\ ple/on. Kai\ ta\ summisgo/mena/ te kai\ a)pokrino/mena kai\
diakrino/mena, pa/nta e)/gnô nou=s]. Also Fr. 18, p. 129; Fr. 21, p.
134, Schau.]
[Footnote 151: Anaxag. Fr. 8-19, Schaubach.]
[Footnote 152: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 101, Schaub. [Greek: o(/teô| plei=sta
e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(/n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n].
Pseudo-Origen. Philosophumen. 8. [Greek: kinê/seôs de mete/chein ta\
pa/nta u(po\ tou= nou= kinou/mena, sunelthei=n te ta\ o(/moia], &c.
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 188, a. 13 (p. 337, Schol.
Brandis).]
[Footnote 153: Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, 5, p. 203, a. 23, [Greek:
o(tiou=n tô=n mori/ôn ei)=nai mi=gma o(moi/ôs tô=| pa/nti], &c. Anaxag.
Fr. 16, p. 126, Schaub.
Anaxag. Fr. 11, p. 119, Schaub. [Greek: ou) kechô/ristai ta\ e(n e(ni\
ko/smô|, ou)de\ _a)poke/koptai pele/kei_], &c. Frag. 12, p. 122.
[Greek: e)n panti\ pa/nta, ou)de\ chôri\s e)/stin ei)=nai].--Frag. 15,
p. 125.]
[Side-note: Nothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or
unmixed, but other things may be comparatively pure. Flesh, Bone, &c.
are purer than Air or Earth.]
Nevertheless other things approximate in different degrees to purity,
according as they possess a more or less decided preponderance of some
few ingredients over the remaining multitude. Thus flesh, bone, and
other similar portions of the animal organism, were (according to
Anaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one constituent more thoroughly
preponderant and all other coexistent natures more thoroughly
subordinate and latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air, Fire,
Earth, &c.; which were compounds wherein many of the numerous
ingredients present were equally effective, so that the manifestations
were more confused and complicated. In this way the four Empedoklean
elements formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct
developments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within
it. Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while flesh
and bone did not.[154] Amidst all these changes, however, the infinite
total mass remained the same, neither increased nor diminished.[155]
[Footnote 154: Aristotle, in two places (De Coelo, iii. 3, p. 302, a.
28, and Gen. et Corr. i. 1, p. 314, a. 18) appears to state that
Anaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as simple and elementary: air,
fire, and earth, as compounds from these and other Homoeomeries. So
Zeller (Philos. d. Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed. 2), with Ritter, and
others, understand him. Schaubach (Anax. Fr. p. 81, 82) dissents from
this opinion, but does not give a clear explanation. Another passage
of Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 3, p. 984, a. 11) appears to contradict the
above two passages, and to put fire and water, in the Anaxagorean
theory, in the same general category as flesh and bone: the
explanatory note of Bonitz, who tries to show that the passage in the
Metaphysica is in harmony with the other two above named passages,
seems to me not satisfactory.
Lucretius (i. 835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh,
bone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homoeomeries; and I
cannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with
Empedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have
been used by the latter. [Greek: E)nanti/ôs de\ phai/nontai le/gontes
oi( peri\ A)naxago/ran toi=s peri\ E)mpedokle/a. O( me\n ga/r] (Emp.)
[Greek: phêsi pu=r kai\ u(/dôr kai\ a)e/ra kai\ gê=n stoichei=a
te/ssara kai\ a(pla= ei)=nai, ma=llon ê)\ sa/rka kai\ o)stou=n kai\
ta\ toiau=ta tô=n o(moiomerô=n. Oi( de\] (Anaxag.) [Greek: tau=ta me\n
a(pla= kai\ stoichei=a, gê=n de\ kai\ pu=r kai\ a)e/ra su/ntheta;
panspermi/an ga\r ei)=nai tou/tôn.] (Gen. et Corr. i. 1.) The last
words ([Greek: panspermi/an]) are fully illustrated by a portion of
the other passage, De Coelo, iii. 3, [Greek: a)e/ra de\ kai\ pu=r
mi=gma tou/tôn] (the Homoeomeries, such as flesh and blood) [Greek:
kai\ tô=n a)/llôn sperma/tôn pa/ntôn; ei)=nai ga\r e(ka/teron au)tô=n
e)x a)ora/tôn o(moiomerô=n pa/ntôn ê)throisme/nôn; dio\ kai\
gi/gnesthai pa/nta e)k tou/tôn].
Now it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies
as simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set
of bodies as such. Anaxagoras expressly denied _all simple bodies_. In
his theory, all bodies were compound: _Nous_ alone formed an
exception. Everything existed in everything. But they were compounds
in which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had
come together into such positive and marked action, as practically to
nullify the remainder. The generation of the Homoeomeric aggregate was
by disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which
their agency had before lain buried ([Greek: ge/nesis, e)/kphansis
mo/non kai\ e)/kkrisis tou= pri\n kruptome/nou]. Simplikius ap.
Schaub. Anax. Fr. p. 115). The Homoeomeric aggregates or bodies were
infinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined
in countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive
and definite manifestations. Considered in reference to the
Homoeomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense
be called elements.]
[Footnote 155: Anaxag. Fr. 14, p. 125, Schaub.]
[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras compared with that of Empedokles.]
In comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empedokles, we
perceive that both of them denied not only the generation of new
matter out of nothing (in which denial all the ancient physical
philosophers concurred), but also the transformation of one form of
matter into others, which had been affirmed by Thales and others. Both
of them laid down as a basis the existence of matter in a variety of
primordial forms. They maintained that what others called generation
or transformation, was only a combination or separation of these
pre-existing materials, in great diversity of ratios. Of such primordial
forms of matter Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called
Elements; each simple and radically distinct from the others, and
capable of existing apart from them, though capable also of being
combined with them. Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter
in indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of
particles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous) capable of
being entirely severed from the remainder. In the constitution of
every individual body in nature, particles of all the different forms
were combined; but some one or a few forms were preponderant and
manifest, all the others overlaid and latent. Herein consisted the
difference between one body and another. The Homoeomeric body was one
in which a confluence of like particles had taken place so numerous
and powerful, as to submerge all the coexistent particles of other
sorts. The majority thus passed for the whole, the various minorities
not being allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason
ceasing to exist: a type of human society as usually constituted,
wherein some one vein of sentiment, ethical, æsthetical, religious,
political, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on
dissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot
proclaim themselves without ruin.
[Side-note: Suggested partly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.]
The hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still real
and recoverable, appears to have been suggested to Anaxagoras mainly
by the phenomena of animal nutrition.[156] The bread and meat on which
we feed nourishes all the different parts of our body--blood, flesh,
bones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment must contain
in itself different matters homogeneous with all these tissues and
organs; though we cannot see such matters, our reason tells us that
they must be there. This physiological divination is interesting from
its general approximation towards the results of modern analysis.
[Footnote 156: See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph. i. 3.]
[Side-note: Chaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving
agency, different in one from the other theory.]
Both Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive process from a
state of stagnation and confusion both tantamount to Chaos; which is
not so much active discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity
arising from the equilibrium of opposite forces. The chaos is in fact
almost a reproduction of the Infinite of Anaximander.[157] But
Anaxagoras as well as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by
introducing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary to
Anaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting positive
movement and development out of the negative and stationary Chaos. The
Nous or Mind is the Agency selected for this purpose by Anaxagoras:
Love and Enmity by Empedokles. Both the one and the other initiate the
rotatory cosmical motion; upon which follows as well the partial
disgregation of the chaotic mass, as the congregation of like
particles of it towards each other.
[Footnote 157: This is a just comparison of Theophrastus. See the
passage from his [Greek: phusikê\ i(stori/a], referred to by
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 187, a. 21 (p. 335, Schol.
Brand.).]
[Side-note: Nous, or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by
later writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself.]
The Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as a God;[158]
but there is nothing in the fragments now remaining to justify the
belief that the author himself conceived it in that manner--or that he
proposed it (according to Aristotle's expression[159]) as the cause of
all that was good in the world, assigning other agencies as the causes
of all evil. It is not characterised by him as a person--not so much
as the Love and Enmity of Empedokles. It is not one but multitudinous,
and all its separate manifestations are alike, differing only as
greater or less. It is in fact identical with the soul, the vital
principle, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and to all
plants also.[160] It is one substance, or form of matter among the
rest, but thinner than all of them (thinner than even fire or air),
and distinguished by the peculiar characteristic of being absolutely
unmixed. It has moving power and knowledge, like the air of Diogenes
the Apolloniate: it initiates movement; and it knows about all the
things which either pass into or pass out of combination. It disposes
or puts in order all things that were, are, or will be; but it effects
this only by acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled
mass, and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale,
then gradually increasing. Rotation having once begun, and the mass
having been as it were unpacked and liberated the component
Homoeomeries are represented as coming together by their own inherent
attraction.[161] The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order and symmetry
into Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory motion in the inert mass,
so as to release the Homoeomeries from prison. It originates and
maintains the great cosmical fact of rotatory motion; which variety of
motion, from its perfect regularity and sameness, is declared by Plato
also to be the one most consonant to Reason and Intelligence.[162]
Such rotation being once set on foot, the other phenomena of the
universe are supposed to be determined by its influence, and by their
own tendencies and properties besides: but there is no farther agency
of Nous, which only _knows_ these phenomena as and when they occur.
Anaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could; not by reference
to final causes, nor by assuming good purposes of Nous which each
combination was intended to answer--but by physical analogies, well or
ill chosen, and especially by the working of the grand cosmical
rotation.[163]
[Footnote 158: Cicero, Academ. iv. 37; Sext. Empiric. adv.
Mathematicos, ix. 6, [Greek: to\n me\n nou=n, o(/s e)sti kat' au)to\n
theo\s], &c.
Compare Schaubach, Anax. Frag. p. 153.]