EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS
[Sidenote: Pluralism.]
97. The belief that all things are one was common to the philosophers we
have hitherto studied; but now Parmenides has shown that, if this one
thing really _is_, we must give up the idea that it can take different
forms. The senses, which present to us a world of change and
multiplicity, are deceitful. From this there was no escape; the time was
still to come when men would seek the unity of the world in something
which, from its very nature, the senses could never perceive.
We find, accordingly, that from the time of Parmenides to that of Plato,
all thinkers in whose hands philosophy made real progress abandoned the
monistic hypothesis. Those who still held by it adopted a critical
attitude, and confined themselves to a defence of the theory of
Parmenides against the new views. Others taught the doctrine of
Herakleitos in an exaggerated form; some continued to expound the
systems of the early Milesians. This, of course, showed want of insight;
but even those thinkers who saw that Parmenides could not be left
unanswered, were by no means equal to their predecessors in power and
thoroughness. The corporealist hypothesis had proved itself unable to
bear the weight of a monistic structure; but a thorough-going pluralism
such as the atomic theory might have some value, if not as a final
explanation of the world, yet at least as an intelligible view of a part
of it. Any pluralism, on the other hand, which, like that of Empedokles
and Anaxagoras, stops short of the atoms, will achieve no permanent
result, however many may be the brilliant _aperçus_ which it embodies.
It will remain an attempt to reconcile two things that cannot be
reconciled, and may always, therefore, be developed into contradictions
and paradoxes.
[Sidenote: Date of Empedokles.]
98. Empedokles was a citizen of Akragas in Sicily, and his father’s
name, according to the best accounts, was Meton.[501] His grandfather,
also called Empedokles, had won a victory in the horse-race at Olympia
in Ol. LXXI. (496-95 B.C.),[502] and Apollodoros fixed the _floruit_ of
Empedokles himself in Ol. LXXXIV. 1 (444-43 B.C.). This is the date of
the foundation of Thourioi; and it appears from the quotation in
Diogenes that the almost contemporary biographer, Glaukos of
Rhegion,[503] said Empedokles visited the new city shortly after its
foundation. But we are in no way bound to believe that he was just forty
years old at the time of the event in his life which can most easily be
dated. That is the assumption made by Apollodoros; but there are reasons
for thinking that his date is too late by some eight or ten years.[504]
It is, indeed, most likely that Empedokles did not go to Thourioi till
after his banishment from Akragas, and he may well have been more than
forty years old when that happened. All, therefore, we can be said to
know of his date is, that his grandfather was still alive in 496 B.C.;
that he himself was active at Akragas after 472, the date of Theron’s
death; and that he died later than 444.
Footnote 501:
Aet. i. 3, 20 (R. P. 164), Apollodoros _ap._ Diog. viii. 52 (R. P.
162). The details of the life of Empedokles are discussed, with a
careful criticism of the sources, by Bidez, _La biographie
d’Empédocle_ (Gand, 1894).
Footnote 502:
For this we have the authority of Apollodoros (Diog. viii. 51, 52; R.
P. 162), who follows the _Olympic Victors_ of Eratosthenes, who in
turn appealed to Aristotle. Herakleides of Pontos, in his Περὶ νόσων
(see below, p. 233, _n._ 520), spoke of the elder Empedokles as a
“breeder of horses” (R. P. 162 a); and Timaios mentioned him as a
distinguished man in his Fifteenth Book.
Footnote 503:
Glaukos wrote Περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων ποιητῶν καὶ μουσικῶν, and is said to
have been contemporary with Demokritos (Diog. ix. 38). Apollodoros
adds (R. P. 162) that, according to Aristotle and Herakleides,
Empedokles died at the age of sixty. It is to be observed, however,
that the words ἔτι δ’ Ἡρακλείδης are Sturz’s conjecture, the MSS.
having ἔτι δ’ Ἡράκλειτον, and Diogenes certainly said (ix. 3) that
Herakleitos lived sixty years. On the other hand, if the statement of
Aristotle comes from the Περὶ ποιητῶν, it is not obvious why he should
mention Herakleitos at all; and Herakleides was one of the chief
sources for the biography of Empedokles.
Footnote 504:
See Diels, “Empedokles und Gorgias,” 2 (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1884).
Theophrastos said that Empedokles was born “not long after Anaxagoras”
(_Dox._ p. 477, 17); and Alkidamas made him the fellow-pupil of Zeno
under Parmenides, and the teacher of Gorgias (see below, p. 231, n.
5). Now Gorgias was a little older than Antiphon (_b._ Ol. LXX.), so
it is clear we must go back _at least_ to 490 B.C. for the birth of
Empedokles.
Even these indications are enough to show that he must have been a boy
in the reign of Theron, the tyrant who co-operated with Gelon of
Syracuse in the repulse of the Carthaginians from Himera. His son and
successor, Thrasydaios, was a man of another stamp. Before his accession
to the throne of Akragas, he had ruled in his father’s name at Himera,
and completely estranged the affections of its inhabitants. Theron died
in 472 B.C., and Thrasydaios at once displayed all the vices and follies
usual in the second holder of a usurped dominion. After a disastrous war
with Hieron of Syracuse, he was driven out; and Akragas enjoyed a free
government till it fell before the Carthaginians more than half a
century later.[505]
Footnote 505:
E. Meyer, _Gesch. des Alterth._ ii. p. 508.
[Sidenote: Empedokles as a politician.]
99. In the political events of the next few years, Empedokles certainly
played an important part; but our information on the subject is of a
very curious kind. The Sicilian historian Timaios told one or two
stories about him, which are obviously genuine traditions picked up
about a hundred and fifty years afterwards; but, like all popular
traditions, they are a little confused. The picturesque incidents are
remembered, but the essential parts of the story are dropped. Still, we
may be thankful that the “collector of old wives’ tales,”[506] as
sneering critics called him, has enabled us to measure the historical
importance of Empedokles for ourselves by showing us how he was pictured
by the great-grandchildren of his contemporaries.
Footnote 506:
He is called γραοσυλλέκτρια in Souidas, _s.v._ The view taken in the
text as to the value of his evidence is that of Holm.
We read, then,[507] that once he was invited to sup with one of the
“rulers.” Tradition delights in such vague titles. “Supper was well
advanced, but no wine was brought in. The rest of the company said
nothing, but Empedokles was righteously indignant, and insisted on wine
being served. The host, however, said he was waiting for the serjeant of
the Council. When that official arrived, he was appointed ruler of the
feast. The host, of course, appointed him. Thereupon he began to give
hints of an incipient tyranny. He ordered the company either to drink or
have the wine poured over their heads. At the time, Empedokles said
nothing; but next day he led both of them before the court, and had them
condemned and put to death—both the man who asked him to supper, and the
ruler of the feast.[508] This was the beginning of his political
career.” The next tale is that Empedokles prevented the Council from
granting his friend Akron a piece of land for a family sepulchre on the
ground of his eminence in medicine, and supported his objection by a
punning epigram.[509] Lastly, he broke up the assembly of the
Thousand—perhaps some oligarchical association or club.[510] It may have
been for this that he was offered the kingship, which Aristotle tells us
he refused.[511] At any rate, we see that Empedokles was the great
democratic leader at Akragas in those days, though we have no clear
knowledge of what he did.
Footnote 507:
Timaios _ap._ Diog. viii. 64 (_F.H.G._ i. p. 214, fr. 88 a).
Footnote 508:
In the first edition, I suggested the analogy of accusations for
_incivisme_. Bidez says (p. 127), “J’imagine qu’un Jacobin aurait
mieux jugé l’histoire” (than Karsten and Holm); “sous la Terreur, on
était suspect pour de moindres vétilles.”
Footnote 509:
Diog. viii. 65. The epigram runs thus:
ἄκρον ἰητρὸν Ἄκρων’ Ἀκραγαντῖνον πατρὸς Ἄκρου
κρύπτει κρημνὸς ἄκρος πατρίδος ἀκροτάτης.
On Akron, see M. Wellmann, _op. cit._ p. 235, n. 1.
Footnote 510:
Diog. viii. 66, ὕστερον δ’ ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς καὶ τὸ τῶν χιλίων ἄθροισμα
κατέλυσε συνεστὼς ἐπὶ ἔτη τρία. The word ἄθροισμα hardly suggests a
legal council, and συνίστασθαι suggests a conspiracy.
Footnote 511:
Diog. viii. 63. Aristotle probably mentioned this in his _Sophist._
Cf. Diog. viii. 57.
[Sidenote: Empedokles as a religious teacher.]
100. But there is another side to his public character which Timaios
found it hard to reconcile with his political views. He claimed to be a
god, and to receive the homage of his fellow-citizens in that capacity.
The truth is, Empedokles was not a mere statesman; he had a good deal of
the “medicine-man” about him. According to Satyros,[512] Gorgias
affirmed that he had been present when his master was performing
sorceries. We can see what this means from the fragments of the
_Purifications_. Empedokles was a preacher of the new religion which
sought to secure release from the “wheel of birth” by purity and
abstinence; but it is not quite certain to which form of it he adhered.
On the one hand, Orphicism seems to have been strong at Akragas in the
days of Theron, and there are even some verbal coincidences between the
poems of Empedokles and the Orphicising Odes which Pindar addressed to
that prince.[513] There are also some points of similarity between the
_Rhapsodic Theogony_, as we know it from Damaskios, and certain
fragments of Empedokles, though the importance of these has been
exaggerated.[514] On the other hand, there is no reason to doubt the
statement of Ammonios that fr. 134 refers to Apollo;[515] and, if that
is so, it would point to his having been an adherent of the Ionic form
of the mystic doctrine, as we have seen (§ 39) that Pythagoras was.
Further, Timaios already knew the story that he had been expelled from
the Pythagorean Order for “stealing discourses,”[516] and it is probable
on the whole that fr. 129 refers to Pythagoras.[517] It would be very
hazardous to dogmatise on this subject; but it seems most likely that
Empedokles had been influenced by Orphic ideas in his youth, and that,
in later life, he preached a form of Pythagoreanism which was not
considered orthodox by the heads of the Society. In any case, it seems
far more probable that his political and scientific activity belong to
the same period of his life, and that he only became a wandering prophet
after his banishment, than that his scientific work belonged to his
later days when he was a solitary exile.[518]
Footnote 512:
Diog. viii. 59 (R. P. 162). Satyros probably followed Alkidamas. Diels
suggests (_Emp. u. Gorg._ p. 358) that the φυσικός of Alkidamas was a
dialogue in which Gorgias was the chief speaker. In that case, the
statement would have little historical value.
Footnote 513:
See Bidez, p. 115, n. 1.
Footnote 514:
O. Kern, “Empedokles und die Orphiker” (_Arch._ i. pp. 489 sqq.). For
the _Rhapsodic Theogony_, see Introd. p. 9, _n._ 10.
Footnote 515:
See below, note _in loc._
Footnote 516:
Diog. viii. 54 (R. P. 162).
Footnote 517:
See below, note _in loc._
Footnote 518:
The latter view is that of Bidez (pp. 161 sqq.); but Diels has shown
(_Berl. Sitzb._, 1898, pp. 406 sqq.) that the former is
psychologically more probable.
We hear of a number of marvels performed by Empedokles, which are for
the most part nothing but inferences from his writings. Timaios told how
he weakened the force of the etesian winds by hanging bags of asses’
skins on the trees to catch them. He had certainly said, in his
exaggerated way, that the knowledge of science as taught by him would
enable his disciples to control the winds (fr. 111); and this, along
with the fabled windbags of Aiolos, is enough to account for the
tale.[519] We are also told how he brought back to life a woman who had
been breathless and pulseless for thirty days. The verse where he
asserts that his teaching will enable Pausanias to bring the dead back
from Hades (fr. 111) shows how this story may have arisen.[520] Again,
we hear that he sweetened the pestilent marsh between Selinous and the
sea by diverting the rivers Hypsas and Selinos into it. We know from
coins that this purification of the marshes actually took place, but we
may doubt whether it was attributed to Empedokles till a later
time.[521]
Footnote 519:
I follow the wilder form of the story given by Diog. viii. 60, and not
the rationalised version of Plutarch (_adv. Col._ 1126 b). The
epithets ἀλεξανέμας and κωλυσανέμας were perhaps bestowed by some
sillographer in mockery; cf. ἀνεμοκοίτης.
Footnote 520:
The Περὶ νόσων of Herakleides, from which it is derived, seems to have
been a sort of medico-philosophical romance. The words are (Diog.
viii. 60): Ἡρακλείδης τε ἐν τῷ Περὶ νόσων φησὶ καὶ Παυσανίᾳ
ὑφηγήσασθαι αὐτὸν τὰ περὶ τὴν ἄπνουν. It was a case of hysterical
suffocation.
Footnote 521:
For these coins see Head, _Historia Numorum_, pp. 147 sqq.
[Sidenote: Rhetoric and medicine.]
101. Aristotle said that Empedokles was the inventor of Rhetoric;[522]
and Galen made him the founder of the Italian school of Medicine, which
he puts on a level with those of Kos and Knidos.[523] Both these
statements must be considered in connexion with his political and
scientific activity. It seems to be certain that Gorgias was his
disciple in physics and medicine, and some of the peculiarities which
marked his style are to be found in the poems of Empedokles.[524] It is
not to be supposed, of course, that Empedokles wrote a formal treatise
on Rhetoric; but it is in every way probable, and in accordance with his
character, that the speeches, of which he must have made many, were
marked by that euphuism which Gorgias introduced to Athens at a later
date, and which gave rise to the idea of an artistic prose. The
influence of Empedokles on the development of medicine was, however, far
more important, as it affected not only medicine itself, but through it,
the whole tendency of scientific and philosophical thinking. It has been
said that Empedokles had no successors,[525] and the remark is true if
we confine ourselves strictly to philosophy. On the other hand, the
medical school which he founded was still living in the days of Plato,
and it had considerable influence on him, and still more on
Aristotle.[526] Its fundamental doctrine was the identification of the
four elements with the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry. It also
held that we breathe through all the pores of the body, and that the act
of respiration is closely connected with the motion of the blood. The
heart, not the brain, was regarded as the organ of consciousness.[527] A
more external characteristic of the medicine taught by the followers of
Empedokles is that they still clung to ideas of a magical nature. A
protest against this by a member of the Koan school has been preserved.
He refers to them as “magicians and purifiers and charlatans and quacks,
who profess to be very religious.”[528] Though there is some truth in
this, it hardly does justice to the great advances in physiology that
were due to the Sicilian school.
Footnote 522:
Diog. viii. 57 (R. P. 162 g).
Footnote 523:
Galen, x. 5, ἤριζον δ’ αὐτοῖς (the schools of Kos and Knidos) ... καὶ
οἱ ἐκ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἰατροί, Φιλιστίων τε καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς καὶ Παυσανίας
καὶ οἱ τούτων ἑταῖροι κ.τ.λ. Philistion was the contemporary and
friend of Plato; Pausanias is the disciple to whom Empedokles
addressed his poem.
Footnote 524:
See Diels, “Empedokles und Gorgias” (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1884, pp. 343
sqq.). The oldest authority for saying that Gorgias was a disciple of
Empedokles is Satyros _ap._ Diog. viii. 58 (R. P. 162); but he seems
to have derived his information from Alkidamas, who was the disciple
of Gorgias himself. In Plato’s _Meno_ (76 c 4-8) the Empedoklean
theory of effluvia and pores is ascribed to Gorgias.
Footnote 525:
Diels (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1884, p. 343).
Footnote 526:
See M. Wellmann, _Fragmentsammlung der griechischen Ärtzte_, vol. i.
(Berlin, 1901). According to Wellmann, both Plato (in the _Timaeus_)
and Diokles of Karystos depend upon Philistion. It is impossible to
understand the history of philosophy from this point onwards without
keeping the history of medicine constantly in view.
Footnote 527:
For the four elements, cf. Anon. Lond. xx. 25 (Menon’s _Iatrika_),
Φιλιστίων δ’ οἴεται ἐκ δʹ ἰδεῶν συνεστάναι ἡμᾶς, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἐκ δʹ
στοιχείων· πυρός, ἀέρος, ὕδατος, γῆς. εἶναι δὲ καὶ ἑκάστου δυνάμεις,
τοῦ μὲν πυρὸς τὸ θερμόν, τοῦ δὲ ἀέρος τὸ ψυχρόν, τοῦ δὲ ὕδατος τὸ
ὑγρόν, τῆς δὲ γῆς τὸ ξηρόν. For the theory of respiration, see
Wellmann, pp. 82 sqq.; and for the heart as the seat of consciousness,
_ib._ pp. 15 sqq.
Footnote 528:
Hippokr. Περὶ ἰερῆς νόσου, c 1, μάγοι τε καὶ καθάρται καὶ ἀγύρται καὶ
ἀλαζόνες. The whole passage should be read. Cf. Wellmann, p. 29 n.
[Sidenote: Relation to predecessors.]
102. In the biography of Empedokles, we hear very little of his theory
of nature. The only hints we get are some statements about his teachers.
Alkidamas, who had good opportunities of knowing, made him a
fellow-student of Zeno under Parmenides. That is both possible and
likely. Theophrastos too made him a follower and imitator of Parmenides.
But the further statement that he had “heard” Pythagoras cannot be
right. Probably Alkidamas said “Pythagoreans.”[529]
Footnote 529:
Diog. viii. 54-56 (R. P. 162).
Some writers hold that certain parts of the system of Empedokles, in
particular the theory of pores and effluvia (§ 118), which do not seem
to follow very naturally from his own principles, were due to the
influence of Leukippos.[530] This, however, is not necessarily the case.
We know that Alkmaion (§ 96) spoke of “pores” in connexion with
sensation, and it may equally well be from him that Empedokles got the
theory. It may be added that this is more in accordance with the history
of certain other physiological views which are common to Alkmaion and
the later Ionian philosophers. We can generally see that those reached
Ionia through the medical school which Empedokles founded.[531]
Footnote 530:
Diels, _Verhandl. d. 35 Philologenversamml._ pp. 104 sqq., Zeller, p.
767. It would be fatal to the main thesis of the next few chapters if
it could be proved that Empedokles was influenced by Leukippos. I hope
to show that Leukippos was influenced by the later Pythagorean
doctrine (Chap. IX. § 171), which was in turn affected by Empedokles
(Chap. VII. § 147).
Footnote 531:
For πόροι in Alkmaion, cf. Arist. _de Gen. An._ Β, 6. 744 a 8;
Theophr. _de sens._ 26; and for the way in which his embryological and
other views were transmitted through Empedokles to the Ionian
physicists, cf. Fredrich, _Hippokratische Untersuchungen_, pp. 126
sqq.
[Sidenote: Death.]
103. We are told that Empedokles leapt into the crater of Etna that he
might be deemed a god. This appears to be a malicious version[532] of a
tale set on foot by his adherents that he had been snatched up to heaven
in the night.[533] Both stories would easily get accepted; for there was
no local tradition. Empedokles did not die in Sicily, but in the
Peloponnese, or, perhaps, at Thourioi. He had gone to Olympia to have
his religious poem recited to the Hellenes; his enemies were able to
prevent his return, and he was seen in Sicily no more.[534]
Footnote 532:
R. P. 162 h. The story is always told with a hostile purpose.
Footnote 533:
R. P. _ib._ This was the story told by Herakleides of Pontos, at the
end of his romance about the ἄπνους.
Footnote 534:
Timaios took the trouble to refute the common stories at some length
(Diog. viii. 71 sqq.; R. P. _ib._). He was quite positive that
Empedokles never returned to Sicily. Nothing can be more likely than
that, when wandering as an exile in the Peloponnese, he should have
seized the opportunity of joining the colony at Thourioi, which was a
harbour for many of the “sophists” of this time.
[Sidenote: Writings.]
104. Empedokles was the second philosopher to expound his system in
verse, if we leave the satirist Xenophanes out of account. He was also
the last among the Greeks; for the forged Pythagorean poems may be
neglected.[535] Lucretius imitates Empedokles in this, just as
Empedokles imitated Parmenides. Of course, the poetical imagery creates
a difficulty for the interpreter; but it would be wrong to make too much
of it. It cannot be said that it is harder to extract the philosophical
kernel from the verses of Empedokles than from the prose of Herakleitos.
Footnote 535:
See Chap. IV. § 85.
There is some divergence of opinion as to the poetical merit of
Empedokles. The panegyric of Lucretius is well known.[536] Aristotle
says in one place that Empedokles and Homer have nothing in common but
the metre; in another, that Empedokles was “most Homeric.”[537] To my
mind, there can be no question that he was a genuine poet, far more so
than Parmenides. No one doubts nowadays that Lucretius was one, and
Empedokles really resembles him very closely.
Footnote 536:
Lucr. i. 716 sqq.
Footnote 537:
_Poet._ 1. 1447 b 18; cf. Diog. viii. 57 (R. P. 162 i).
[Sidenote: The remains.]
105. We have more abundant remains of Empedokles than of any other early
Greek philosopher. If we may trust our manuscripts of Diogenes and of
Souidas, the librarians of Alexandria estimated the _Poem on Nature_ and
the _Purifications_ together as 5000 verses, of which about 2000
belonged to the former work.[538] Diels gives about 350 verses and parts
of verses from the cosmological poem, or not a fifth of the whole. It is
important to remember that, even in this favourable instance, so much
has been lost. Besides the two poems, the Alexandrian scholars possessed
a prose work of 600 lines on medicine ascribed to Empedokles. The
tragedies and other poems which were sometimes attributed to him seem
really to belong to a younger writer of the same name, who is said by
Souidas to have been his grandson.[539]
Footnote 538:
Diog. viii. 77 (R. P. 162); Souidas _s.v._ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς· καὶ ἔγραψε δι’
ἐπῶν Περὶ φύσεως τῶν ὄντων βιβλία βʹ, καὶ ἔστιν ἔπη ὡς δισχίλια. It
hardly seems likely, however, that the Καθαρμοί extended to 3000
verses, so Diels proposes to read πάντα τρισχίλια for πεντακισχίλια in
Diogenes. It is to be observed that there is no better authority than
Tzetzes for dividing the Περὶ φύσεως into three books. See Diels,
“Über die Gedichte des Empedokles” (_Berl. Sitzb._, 1898, pp. 396
sqq.).
Footnote 539:
Hieronymos of Rhodes declared (Diog. viii. 58) that he had met with
forty-three of these tragedies; but see Stein, pp. 5 sqq. The poem on
the Persian Wars, which Hieronymos also refers to (Diog. viii. 57),
seems to have arisen from an old corruption in the text of Arist.
_Probl._ 929 b 16, where Bekker still reads ἐν τοῖς Περσικοῖς. The
same passage, however, is said to occur ἐν τοῖς φυσικοῖς, in _Meteor._
Δ, 4. 382 a 1, though there too E reads Περσικοῖς.
I give the remains as they are arranged by Diels:—
(1)
And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitos the wise!
(2)
For straitened are the powers that are spread over their bodily parts,
and many are the woes that burst in on them and blunt the edge of
their careful thoughts! They behold but a brief span of a life that is
no life,[540] and, doomed to swift death, are borne up and fly off
like smoke. Each is convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon
as he is <<5>> hurried to and fro, and idly boasts he has found the
whole. So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the
ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind! Thou,[541] then, since
thou hast found thy way hither, shalt learn no more than mortal mind
hath power. R. P. 163.
(3)
... to keep within thy dumb heart.
(4)
But, O ye gods, turn aside from my tongue the madness of those
men.[542] Hallow my lips and make a pure stream flow from them! And
thee, much-wooed, white-armed Virgin Muse, do I beseech that I may
hear what is lawful for the children of a day! Speed me on my way from
the abode of <<5>> Holiness and drive my willing car! Thee shall no
garlands of glory and honour at the hands of mortals constrain to lift
them from the ground, on condition of speaking in thy pride beyond
that which is lawful and right, and so to gain a seat upon the heights
of wisdom.
Go to now, consider with all thy powers in what way each thing is
clear. Hold not thy sight in greater credit as <<10>> compared with
thy hearing, nor value thy resounding ear above the clear
instructions of thy tongue;[543] and do not withhold thy confidence
in any of thy other bodily parts by which there is an opening for
understanding,[544] but consider everything in the way it is clear.
R. P. 163.
(5)
But it is ever the way of low minds to disbelieve their betters. Do
thou learn as the sure testimonies of my Muse bid thee, dividing the
argument in thy heart.[545]
(6)
Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing
Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis whose tear-drops are a well-spring to
mortals. R. P. 164.[546]
(7)
... uncreated.
(8)
And I shall tell thee another thing. There is no coming into being of
aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful death; but only
mingling and change of what has been mingled. Coming into being is but
a name given to these by men. R. P. 165.
(9)
But, when the elements have been mingled in the fashion of a man and
come to the light of day, or in the fashion of the race of wild beasts
or plants or birds, then men say that these come into being; and when
they are separated, they call that woeful death. They call it not
aright; but I too follow <<5>> the custom, and call it so myself.
(10)
Avenging death.
(11, 12)
Fools!—for they have no far-reaching thoughts—who deem that what
before was not comes into being, or that aught can perish and be
utterly destroyed. For it cannot be that aught can arise from what in
no way is, and it is impossible and unheard of that what _is_ should
perish; for it <<5>> will always _be_, wherever one may keep putting
it. R. P. 165 a.
(13)
And in the All there is naught empty and naught too full.
(14)
In the All there is naught empty. Whence, then, could aught come to
increase it?
(15)
A man who is wise in such matters would never surmise in his heart
that as long as mortals live what they call their life, so long they
are, and suffer good and ill; while before they were formed and after
they have been dissolved they are just nothing at all. R. P. 165 a.
(16)
For of a truth they (Strife and Love) were aforetime and shall be; nor
ever, methinks, will boundless time be emptied of that pair. R. P. 166
c.
(17)
I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At one time it grew to be one only
out of many; at another, it divided up to be many instead of one.
There is a double becoming of perishable things and a double passing
away. The coming together of all things brings one generation into
being and destroys it; the other grows up and is scattered as things
become <<5>> divided. And these things never cease continually
changing places, at one time all uniting in one through Love, at
another each borne in different directions by the repulsion of Strife.
Thus, as far as it is their nature to grow into one out of many, and
to become many once more when the one is parted <<10>> asunder, so far
they come into being and their life abides not. But, inasmuch as they
never cease changing their places continually, so far they are ever
immovable as they go round the circle of existence.
* * * * *
But come, hearken to my words, for it is learning that increaseth
wisdom. As I said before, when I declared the <<15>> heads of my
discourse, I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At one time it grew
together to be one only out of many, at another it parted asunder so
as to be many instead of one;—Fire and Water and Earth and the mighty
height of Air; dread Strife, too, apart from these, of equal weight to
each, and Love among them, equal in length and breadth. <<20>> Her do
thou contemplate with thy mind, nor sit with dazed eyes. It is she
that is known as being implanted in the frame of mortals. It is she
that makes them have thoughts of love and work the works of peace.
They call her by the names of Joy and Aphrodite. Her has no mortal yet
marked moving <<25>> round among them,[547] but do thou attend to the
undeceitful ordering of my discourse.
For all these are equal and alike in age, yet each has a different
prerogative and its own peculiar nature. And nothing <<30>> comes into
being besides these, nor do they pass away; for, if they had been
passing away continually, they would not be now, and what could
increase this All and whence could it come? How, too, could it perish,
since no place is empty of these things? They are what they are; but,
running through one another, they become now this, now that,[548] and
like things <<35>> evermore. R. P. 166.
(18)
Love.
(19)
Clinging Love.
(20)
This (the contest of Love and Strife) is manifest in the mass of
mortal limbs. At one time all the limbs that are the body’s portion
are brought together by Love in blooming life’s high season; at
another, severed by cruel Strife, they wander <<5>> each alone by the
breakers of life’s sea. It is the same with plants and the fish that
make their homes in the waters, with the beasts that have their lairs
on the hills and the seabirds that sail on wings. R. P. 173 d.
(21)
Come now, look at the things that bear witness to my earlier
discourse, if so be that there was any shortcoming as to their form in
the earlier list. Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm, and all
the immortal things that are bathed in heat and bright radiance.[549]
Behold the rain, everywhere dark <<5>> and cold; and from the earth
issue forth things close-pressed and solid. When they are in strife
all these are different in form and separated; but they come together
in love, and are desired by one another.
For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall
be—trees and men and women, beasts and birds <<10>> and the fishes
that dwell in the waters, yea, and the gods that live long lives and
are exalted in honour. R. P. 166 i.
For these things are what they are; but, running through one another,
they take different shapes—so much does mixture change them. R. P. 166
g.
(22)
For all of these—sun, earth, sky, and sea—are at one with all their
parts that are cast far and wide from them in mortal things. And even
so all things that are more adapted for mixture are like to one
another and united in love by Aphrodite. Those things, again, that
differ most in origin, <<5>> mixture and the forms imprinted on each,
are most hostile, being altogether unaccustomed to unite and very
sorry by the bidding of Strife, since it hath wrought their birth.
(23)
Just as when painters are elaborating temple-offerings, men whom
wisdom hath well taught their art,—they, when they have taken pigments
of many colours with their hands, mix them in due proportion, more of
some and less of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all
things, making trees <<5>> and men and women, beasts and birds and
fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and gods, that live long lives,
and are exalted in honour,—so let not the error prevail over thy
mind,[550] that there is any other source of all the perishable
creatures that appear in countless numbers. Know this for sure, for
thou <<10>> hast heard the tale from a goddess.[551]
(24)
Stepping from summit to summit, not to travel only one path to the
end....
(25)
What is right may well be said even twice.
(26)
For they prevail in turn as the circle comes round, and pass into one
another, and grow great in their appointed turn. R. P. 166 c.
They are what they are; but, running through one another, they become
men and the tribes of beasts. At one time they are all brought
together into one order by Love; at another, <<5>> they are carried
each in different directions by the repulsion of Strife, till they
grow once more into one and are wholly subdued. Thus in so far as they
are wont to grow into one out of many, and again divided become more
than one, so far they come into being, and their life is not lasting;
but in <<10>> so far as they never cease changing continually, so far
are they evermore, immovable in the circle.
(27)
There are distinguished neither the swift limbs of the sun, no, nor
the shaggy earth in its might, nor the sea,—so fast was the god bound
in the close covering of Harmony, spherical and round, rejoicing in
his circular solitude.[552] R. P. 167.
(27_a_)
There is no discord and no unseemly strife in his limbs.
(28)
But he was equal on every side and quite without end, spherical and
round, rejoicing in his circular solitude.
(29)
Two branches do not spring from his back, he has no feet, no swift
knees, no fruitful parts; but he was spherical and equal on every
side.
(30, 31)
But, when Strife was grown great in the limbs of the god and sprang
forth to claim his prerogatives, in the fulness of the alternate time
set for them by the mighty oath, ... for all the limbs of the god in
turn quaked. R. P. 167.
(32)
The joint binds two things.
(33)
Even as when fig juice rivets and binds white milk....
(34)
Cementing[553] meal with water....
(35, 36)
But now I shall retrace my steps over the paths of song that I have
travelled before, drawing from my saying a new saying. When Strife was
fallen to the lowest depth of the vortex, and Love had reached to the
centre of the whirl, in it do all things come together so as to be one
only; not all at once, <<5>> but coming together at their will each
from different quarters; and, as they mingled, countless tribes of
mortal creatures were scattered abroad. Yet many things remained
unmixed, alternating with the things that were being mixed, namely,
all that Strife not fallen yet retained; for it had not yet altogether
retired <<10>> perfectly from them to the outermost boundaries of the
circle. Some of it still remained within, and some had passed out from
the limbs of the All. But in proportion as it kept rushing out, a
soft, immortal stream of blameless Love kept running in, and
straightway those things became mortal which had been immortal before,
those things were mixed that had been <<15>> unmixed, each changing
its path. And, as they mingled, countless tribes of mortal creatures
were scattered abroad endowed with all manner of forms, a wonder to
behold. R. P. 169.
* * * * *
(37)
Earth increases its own mass, and Air swells the bulk of Air.
(38)
Come, I shall now tell thee first of all the beginning of the
sun,[554] and the sources from which have sprung all the things we now
behold, the earth and the billowy sea, the damp vapour and the Titan
air that binds his circle fast round all things. R. P. 170 a.
(39)
If the depths of the earth and the vast air were infinite, a foolish
saying which has been vainly dropped from the lips of many mortals,
though they have seen but a little of the All....[555] R. P. 103 b.
(40)
The sharp-darting sun and the gentle moon.
(41)
But (the sunlight) is gathered together and circles round the mighty
heavens.
(42)
And she cuts off his rays as he goes above her, and casts a shadow on
as much of the earth as is the breadth of the pale-faced moon.[556]
(43)
Even so the sunbeam, having struck the broad and mighty circle of the
moon, returns at once, running so as to reach the sky.
(44)
It flashes back to Olympos with untroubled countenance. R. P. 170 c.
(45, 46)
There circles round the earth a round borrowed light, as the nave of
the wheel circles round the furthest (goal).
(47)
For she gazes at the sacred circle of the lordly sun opposite.
(48)
It is the earth that makes night by coming before the lights.
(49)
... of solitary, blind-eyed night.
(50)
And Iris bringeth wind or mighty rain from the sea.
(51)
(Fire) swiftly rushing upwards....
(52)
And many fires burn beneath the earth. R. P. 171 a.
(53)
For so as it ran, it met them at that time, though often otherwise. R.
P. 171 a.
(54)
But the air sank down upon the earth with its long roots. R. P. 171 a.
(55)
Sea the sweat of the earth. R. P. 170 b.
(56)
Salt was solidified by the impact of the sun’s beams.
(57)
On it (the earth) many heads sprung up without necks and arms wandered
bare and bereft of shoulders. Eyes strayed up and down in want of
foreheads. R. P. 173 a.
(58)
Solitary limbs wandered seeking for union.
(59)
But, as divinity was mingled still further with divinity, these things
joined together as each might chance, and many other things besides
them continually arose.
(60)
Shambling creatures with countless hands.
(61)
Many creatures with faces and breasts looking in different directions
were born; some, offspring of oxen with faces of men, while others,
again, arose as offspring of men with the heads of oxen, and creatures
in whom the nature of women and men was mingled, furnished with
sterile[557] parts. <<5>> R. P. 173 b.
(62)
Come now, hear how the Fire as it was separated caused the night-born
shoots of men and tearful women to arise; for my tale is not off the
point nor uninformed. Whole-natured forms first arose from the earth,
having a portion both of water and fire.[558] These did the fire,
desirous of <<5>> reaching its like, send up, showing as yet neither
the charming form of women’s limbs, nor yet the voice and parts that
are proper to men. R. P. 173 c.
(63)
... But the substance of (the child’s) limbs is divided between them,
part of it in men’s and part in women’s (body).
(64)
And upon him came desire reminding him through sight.
(65)
... And it was poured out in the pure parts; and when it met with cold
women arose from it.
(66)
The divided meadows of Aphrodite.
(67)
For in its warmer part the womb brings forth males, and that is why
men are dark and more manly and shaggy.
(68)
On the tenth day of the eighth month the white putrefaction
arises.[559]
(69)
Double bearing.[560]
(70)
Sheepskin.[561]
(71)
But if thy assurance of these things was in any way deficient as to
how, out of Water and Earth and Air and Fire mingled together, arose
the forms and colours of all those mortal things that have been fitted
together by Aphrodite, and so are now come into being.... <<5>>
(72)
How tall trees and the fishes in the sea....
(73)
And even as at that time Kypris, preparing warmth,[562] after she had
moistened the Earth in water, gave it to swift fire to harden it....
R. P. 171.
(74)
Leading the songless tribe of fertile fish.
(75)
All of those which are dense within and rare without, having received
a moisture of this kind at the hands of Kypris....
(76)
This thou mayest see in the heavy-backed shell-fish that dwell in the
sea, in sea-snails and the stony-skinned turtles. In them thou mayest
see that the earthy part dwells on the uppermost surface.
(77-78)
It is the air that makes evergreen trees flourish with abundance of
fruit the whole year round.
(79)
And so first of all tall olive trees bear eggs....
(80)
Wherefore pomegranates are late-born and apples succulent.
(81)
Wine is the water from the bark, putrefied in the wood.
(82)
Hair and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, and the scales that grow
on mighty limbs, are the same thing.
(83)
But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles on their
backs.
(84)
And even as when a man thinking to sally forth through a stormy night,
gets him ready a lantern, a flame of blazing fire, fastening to it
horn plates to keep out all manner of winds, and they scatter the
blast of the winds that blow, but the light leaping out through them,
shines across the threshold <<5>> with unfailing beams, as much of it
as is finer;[563] even so did she (Love) then entrap the elemental
fire, the round pupil, confined within membranes and delicate tissues,
which are pierced through and through with wondrous passages. They
keep out the deep water that surrounds the pupil, but they <<10>> let
through the fire, as much of it as is finer. R. P. 177 b.
(85)
But the gentle flame (of the eye) has but a scanty portion of earth.
(86)
Out of these divine Aphrodite fashioned unwearying eyes.
(87)
Aphrodite fitting these together with rivets of love.
(88)
One vision is produced by both the eyes.
(89)
Know that effluences flow from all things that have come into being.
R. P. 166 h.
(90)
So sweet lays hold of sweet, and bitter rushes to bitter; acid comes
to acid, and warm couples with warm.
(91)
Water fits better into wine, but it will not (mingle) with oil. R. P.
166 h.
(92)
Brass mixed with tin.
(93)
The berry of the blue elder is mingled with scarlet.
(94)
And the black colour at the bottom of a river arises from the shadow.
The same is seen in hollow caves.
(95)
Since they (the eyes) first grew together in the hands of Kypris.
(96)
The kindly earth received in its broad funnels two parts of gleaming
Nestis out of the eight, and four of Hephaistos. So arose white bones
divinely fitted together by the cement of proportion. R. P. 175.
(97)
The spine (was broken).
(98)
And the earth, anchoring in the perfect harbours of Aphrodite, meets
with these in nearly equal proportions, with Hephaistos and Water and
gleaming Air—either a little more of it, or less of them and more of
it. From these did blood arise and the manifold forms of flesh. R. P.
175 c.
(99)
The bell ... the fleshy sprout (of the ear).[564]
(100)
Thus[565] do all things draw breath and breathe it out again. All have
bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies;
and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is
perforated all over with pores closely packed together, so as to keep
in the blood while a free <<5>> passage is cut for the air to pass
through. Then, when the thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling
air rushes in with an impetuous surge; and when the blood runs back it
is breathed out again. Just as when a girl, playing with a water-clock
of shining brass, puts the orifice of the pipe upon <<10>> her comely
hand, and dips the water-clock into the yielding mass of silvery
water,—the stream does not then flow into the vessel, but the bulk of
the air inside, pressing upon the close-packed perforations, keeps it
out till she uncovers the compressed stream; but then air escapes and
an equal volume <<15>> of water runs in,—just in the same way, when
water occupies the depths of the brazen vessel and the opening and
passage is stopped up by the human hand, the air outside, striving to
get in, holds the water back at the gates of the ill-sounding neck,
pressing upon its surface, till she lets go with her hand. <<20>>
Then, on the contrary, just in the opposite way to what happened
before, the wind rushes in and an equal volume of water runs out to
make room.[566] Even so, when the thin blood that surges through the
limbs rushes backwards to the interior, straightway the stream of air
comes in with a rushing swell; <<25>> but when the blood returns the
air breathes out again in equal quantity.
(101)
(The dog) with its nostrils tracking out the fragments of the beast’s
limbs, and the breath from their feet that they leave in the soft
grass.[567]
(102)
Thus all things have their share of breath and smell.
(103, 104)
Thus have all things thought by fortune’s will.... And inasmuch as the
rarest things came together in their fall.
(105)
(The heart), dwelling in the sea of blood that runs in opposite
directions, where chiefly is what men call thought; for the blood
round the heart is the thought of men. R. P. 178 a.
(106)
For the wisdom of men grows according to what is before them. R. P.
177.
(107)
For out of these are all things formed and fitted together, and by
these do men think and feel pleasure and pain. R. P. 178.
(108)
And just so far as they grow to be different, so far do different
thoughts ever present themselves to their minds (in dreams).[568] R.
P. 177 a.
(109)
For it is with earth that we see Earth, and Water with water; by air
we see bright Air, by fire destroying Fire. By love do we see Love,
and Hate by grievous hate. R. P. 176.
(110)
For if, supported on thy steadfast mind, thou wilt contemplate these
things with good intent and faultless care, then shalt thou have all
these things in abundance throughout thy life, and thou shalt gain
many others from them. For these things grow of themselves into thy
heart, where is each <<5>> man’s true nature. But if thou strivest
after things of another kind, as is the way with men, ten thousand
woes await thee to blunt thy careful thoughts. Soon will these things
desert thee when the time comes round; for they long to return once
more to their own kind; for know that all things have <<10>> wisdom
and a share of thought.
(111)
And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defence against ills and
old age; since for thee alone will I accomplish all this. Thou shalt
arrest the violence of the weariless winds that arise and sweep the
earth; and again, when thou so desirest, thou shalt bring back their
blasts with a rush. Thou <<5>> shalt cause for men a seasonable
drought after the dark rains, and again thou shalt change the summer
drought for streams that feed the trees as they pour down from the
sky. Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man.
Footnote 540:
The MSS. of Sextus have ζωῆσι βίου. Diels reads ζωῆς ἰδίου. I still
prefer Scaliger’s ζωῆς ἀβίου. Cf. fr. 15, τὸ δὴ βίοτον καλέουσι.
Footnote 541:
The person here addressed is still Pausanias, and the speaker
Empedokles. Cf. fr. 111.
Footnote 542:
No doubt mainly Parmenides.
Footnote 543:
The sense of taste, not speech.
Footnote 544:
Zeller in his earlier editions retained the full stop after νοῆσαι,
thus getting almost the opposite sense: “Withhold all confidence in
thy bodily senses”; but he admits in his fifth edition (p. 804, n. 2)
that the context is in favour of Stein, who put only a comma at νοῆσαι
and took ἄλλων closely with γυίων. So too Diels. The paraphrase given
by Sextus (R. P. _ib._) is substantially right.
Footnote 545:
There is no difficulty in the MS. διατμηθέντος if we take λόγοιο as
“discourse,” “argument” (cf. διαιρεῖν). Diels conjectures
διασσηθέντος, rendering “when their words have passed through the
sieve of thy mind.” Nor does it seem to me necessary to read χαρτά for
κάρτα in the first line.
Footnote 546:
The four elements are introduced under mythological names, for which
see below, p. 264, _n._ 583. Diels is clearly right in removing the
comma after τέγγει, and rendering _Nestis quae lacrimis suis laticem
fundit mortalibus destinatum_.
Footnote 547:
Reading μετὰ τοῖσιν. I still think, however, that Knatz’s
palaeographically admirable conjuncture μετὰ θεοῖσιν (_i.e._ among the
elements) deserves consideration.
Footnote 548:
Keeping ἄλλοτε with Diels.
Footnote 549:
Reading ἄμβροτα δ’ ὅσσ’ ἴδει with Diels. For the word ἶδος, cf. frs.
62, 5; 73, 2. The reference is to the moon, etc., which are made of
solidified Air, and receive their light from the fiery hemisphere. See
below, § 113.
Footnote 550:
Reading with Blass (_Jahrb. f. kl. Phil._, 1883, p. 19):
οὕτω μή σ’ ἀπάτη φρένα καινύτω κ.τ.λ.
Cf. Hesychios: καινύτω· νικάτω. This is practically what the MSS. of
Simplicius give, and Hesychios has many Empedoklean glosses.
Footnote 551:
The “goddess” is, of course, the Muse. Cf. fr. 5.
Footnote 552:
The word μονίῃ, if it is right, cannot mean “rest,” but only solitude.
There is no reason for altering περιηγέι, though Simplicius has
περιγηθέι.
Footnote 553:
The masculine καλλήσας shows that the subject cannot have been
Φιλότης; and Karsten was doubtless right in believing that Empedokles
introduced the simile of a baker here. It is in his manner to take
illustrations from human arts.
Footnote 554:
The MSS. of Clement have ἥλιον ἀρχήν and the reading ἡλίου ἀρχήν is a
mere makeshift. Diels reads ἥλικά τ’ ἀρχήν, “the first (elements)
equal in age.”
Footnote 555:
The lines are referred to Xenophanes by Aristotle, who quotes them _de
Caelo_, Β, 13. 294 a 21. See above, Chap. II. p. 137.
Footnote 556:
I have translated Diels’s conjecture ἀπεστέγασεν δέ οἱ αὐγάς, | ἔστ’
ἂν ἴῃ καθύπερθεν. The MSS. have ἀπεσκεύασεν and ἔστε αἶαν.
Footnote 557:
Reading στείροις with Diels, _Hermes_, xv. _loc. cit._
Footnote 558:
Retaining εἴδεος (_i.e._ ἴδεος), which is read in the MSS. of
Simplicius. Cf. above, p. 243, _n._ 549.
Footnote 559:
That Empedokles regarded milk as putrefied blood is stated by
Aristotle (_de Gen. An._ Δ, 8. 777 a 7). The word πύον means _pus_.
There may be a punning allusion to πυός, “beestings,” but that has its
vowel long.
Footnote 560:
Said of women in reference to births in the seventh and ninth months.
Footnote 561:
Of the membrane round the fœtus.
Footnote 562:
Reading ἴδεα ποιπνύουσα with Diels.
Footnote 563:
See Beare, p. 16, n. 1, where Plato, _Tim._ 45 b 4 (τοῦ πυρὸς ὅσον τὸ
μὲν κάειν οὐκ ἔσχεν, τὸ δὲ παρέχειν φῶς ἥμερον), is aptly quoted.
Alexander _ad loc._ understands κατὰ βηλόν to mean κατ’ οὐρανόν, which
seems improbable.
Footnote 564:
On fr. 99, see Beare, p. 96, n. 1.
Footnote 565:
This passage is quoted by Aristotle (_de Respir_, 473 b 9), who makes
the curious mistake of taking ῥινῶν for the genitive of ῥίς instead of
ῥινός. The _locus classicus_ on the subject of the klepsydra is
_Probl._ 914 b 9 sqq. (where read αὐλοῦ for ἄλλου, b 12). The
klepsydra was a metal vessel with a narrow neck (αὐλός) at the top and
with a sort of strainer (ἠθμός) pierced with holes (τρήματα,
τρυπήματα) at the bottom. The passage in the _Problems_ just referred
to attributes this theory of the phenomenon to Anaxagoras, and we
shall see later that he also made use of a similar experiment (§ 131).
Footnote 566:
This seems to be the experiment described in _Probl._ 914 b 26, ἐὰν
γάρ τις αὐτῆς (τῆς κλεψύδρας) αὐτὴν τὴν κωδίαν ἐμπλήσας ὕδατος,
ἐπιλαβὼν τὸν αὐλόν, καταστρέψῃ ἐπὶ τὸν αὐλόν, οὐ φέρεται τὸ ὕδωρ διὰ
τοῦ αὐλοῦ ἐπὶ στόμα. ἀνοιχθέντος δὲ τοῦ στόματος, οὐκ εὐθὺς ἐκρεῖ κατὰ
τὸν αὐλόν, ἀλλὰ μικροτέρῳ ὕστερον, ὡς οὐκ ὂν ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι τοῦ αὐλοῦ,
ἀλλ’ ὕστερον διὰ τούτου φερόμενον ἀνοιχθέντος. The epithet δυσηχέος
applied to ἰσθμοῖο is best explained as a reference to the ἐρυγμός or
“belching” referred to at 915 a 7 as accompanying the discharge of
water through the αὐλός. Any one can produce this effect with a
water-bottle. If it were not for this epithet, it would be tempting to
read ἠθμοῖο for ἰσθμοῖο. Sturz conjectured this, and it is actually
the reading of a few MSS.
Footnote 567:
On fr. 101, see Beare, p. 135, n. 2.
Footnote 568:
That the reference is to dreams, we learn from Simpl. _de An._ p. 202,
30.
PURIFICATIONS
(112)
Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the yellow rock
of Akragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works, harbours of
honour for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness, all hail. I go
about among you an immortal god, no mortal now, honoured among all as
is meet, crowned with fillets and <<5>> flowery garlands. Straightway,
whenever I enter with these in my train, both men and women, into the
flourishing towns, is reverence done me; they go after me in countless
throngs, asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles,
while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced <<10>> by the
grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear from me the word
of healing. R. P. 162 f.
(113)
But why do I harp on these things, as if it were any great matter that
I should surpass mortal, perishable men?
(114)
Friends, I know indeed that truth is in the words I shall utter, but
it is hard for men, and jealous are they of the assault of belief on
their souls.
(115)
There is an oracle of Necessity,[569] an ancient ordinance of the
gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that whenever one of the
dæmons, whose portion is length of days, has sinfully polluted his
hands with blood,[570] or followed strife and <<5>> forsworn himself,
he must wander thrice ten thousand years from the abodes of the
blessed, being born throughout the time in all manners of mortal
forms, changing one toilsome path of life for another. For the mighty
Air drives him into the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth on the dry
Earth; Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he
<<10>> flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from the
other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an exile and a
wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust in insensate strife.
R. P. 181.
(116)
Charis loathes intolerable Necessity.
(117)
For I have been ere now a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a dumb
fish in the sea. R. P. 182.
(118)
I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land. R. P. 182.
(119)
From what honour, from what a height of bliss have I fallen to go
about among mortals here on earth.
(120)
We have come under this roofed-in cave.[571]
(121)
... the joyless land, where are Death and Wrath and troops of Dooms
besides; and parching Plagues and Rottennesses and Floods roam in
darkness over the meadow of Ate.
(122, 123)
There were[572] Chthonie and far-sighted Heliope, bloody Discord and
gentle-visaged Harmony, Kallisto and Aischre, Speed and Tarrying,
lovely Truth and dark-haired Uncertainty, Birth and Decay, Sleep and
Waking, Movement and Immobility, crowned Majesty and Meanness, Silence
and Voice. <<5>> R. P. 182 a.
(124)
Alas, O wretched race of mortals, twice unblessed: such are the
strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!
(125)
From living creatures he made them dead, changing their forms.
(126)
(The goddess) clothing them with a strange garment of flesh.[573]
(127)
Among beasts they[574] become lions that make their lair on the hills
and their couch on the ground; and laurels among trees with goodly
foliage. R. P. 181 b.
(128)
Nor had they[575] any Ares for a god nor Kydoimos, no nor King Zeus
nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen.... Her did they
propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures[576] and perfumes of
cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling
frankincense, casting on the <<5>> ground libations of brown honey.
And the altar did not reek with pure bull’s blood, but this was held
in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after
tearing out the life. R. P. 184.
(129)
And there was among them a man of rare knowledge, most skilled in all
manner of wise works, a man who had won the utmost wealth of wisdom;
for whensoever he strained with all his mind, he easily saw everything
of all the things that are, in ten, yea, twenty lifetimes of men.[577]
<<5>>
(130)
For all things were tame and gentle to man, both beasts and birds, and
friendly feelings were kindled everywhere. R. P. 184 a.
(131)
If ever, as regards the things of a day, immortal Muse, thou didst
deign to take thought for my endeavour, then stand by me once more as
I pray to thee, O Kalliopeia, as I utter a pure discourse concerning
the blessed gods. R. P. 179.
(132)
Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine wisdom;
wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in his heart. R. P. 179.
(133)
It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to lay hold
of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of persuasion that
leads into the heart of man.
(134)
For he is not furnished with a human head on his body, two branches do
not sprout from his shoulders, he has no feet, no swift knees, nor
hairy parts; but he is only a sacred and unutterable mind flashing
through the whole world with rapid thoughts. R. P. 180.
(135)
This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others; but the law for
all extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the infinite
light of heaven. R. P. 183.
(136)
Will ye not cease from this ill-sounding slaughter? See ye not that ye
are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your hearts? R. P.
184 b.
(137)
And the father lifts up his own son in a changed form and slays him
with a prayer. Infatuated fool! And they run up to the sacrifices,
begging mercy, while he, deaf to their cries, slaughters them in his
halls and gets ready the evil feast. In like manner does the son seize
his father, and children their <<5>> mother, tear out their life and
eat the kindred flesh. R. P. 184 b.
(138)
Draining their life with bronze.
(139)
Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy me ere
ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips! R. P. 184 b.
(140)
Abstain wholly from laurel leaves.
(141)
Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!
(142)
Him will the roofed palace of aigis-bearing Zeus never rejoice, nor
yet the house of....
(143)
Wash your hands, cutting the water from the five springs in the
unyielding bronze.[578] R. P. 184 c.
(144)
Fast from wickedness! R. P. 184 c.
(145)
Therefore are ye distraught by grievous wickednesses, and will not
unburden your souls of wretched sorrows.
(146, 147)
But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets,
song-writers, physicians, and princes; and thence they rise up as gods
exalted in honour, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same
table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt.
<<5>> R. P. 181 c.
(148)
... Earth that envelops the man.
Footnote 569:
Bernays conjectured ῥῆμα, “decree,” for χρῆμα, but this is not
necessary. Necessity is an Orphic personage, and Gorgias, the disciple
of Empedokles, says θεῶν βουλεύμασιν καὶ ἀνάγκης ψηφίσμασιν (_Hel._
6).
Footnote 570:
I retain φόνῳ in v. 3 (so too Diels). The first word of v. 4 has been
lost. Diels suggests Νείκεϊ, which may well be right, and takes
ἁμαρτήσας as equivalent to ὁμαρτήσας. I have translated accordingly.
Footnote 571:
According to Porphyry, who quotes this line (_de Antro Nymph._ 8),
these words were spoken by the “powers” who conduct the soul into the
world (ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις). The “cave” is not originally Platonic but
Orphic.
Footnote 572:
This passage is closely modelled on the Catalogue of Nymphs in _Iliad_
xviii. 39 sqq. Chthonie is found already in Pherekydes (Diog. i. 119).
Footnote 573:
I have retained ἀλλόγνωτι as nearer the MSS., though a little hard to
interpret. On the subsequent history of the Orphic _chiton_ in gnostic
imagery see Bernays, _Theophr. Schr._ n. 9. It was identified with the
coat of skins made by God for Adam.
Footnote 574:
This is the best μετοίκησις (Ael. _Nat. an._ xii. 7).
Footnote 575:
The dwellers in the Golden Age.
Footnote 576:
The MSS. of Porphyry have γραπτοῖς τε ζώοισι, which is accepted by
Zeller and Diels. The emendation of Bernays (adopted in R. P.) does
not convince me. I venture to suggest μακτοῖς, on the strength of the
story related by Favorinus (_ap._ Diog. viii. 53) as to the bloodless
sacrifice offered by Empedokles at Olympia.
Footnote 577:
These lines were already referred to Pythagoras by Timaios (Diog.
viii. 54). As we are told (Diog. _ib._) that some referred the verses
to Parmenides, it is clear that no name was given.
Footnote 578:
On frs. 138 and 143 see Vahlen on Arist. _Poet._ 21. 1547 b 13, and
Diels in _Hermes_, xv. p. 173.
[Sidenote: Empedokles and Parmenides.]
106. At the very outset of his poem, Empedokles is careful to mark the
difference between himself and previous inquirers. He speaks angrily of
those who, though their experience was only partial, professed to have
found the whole (fr. 2); he even calls this “madness” (fr. 4). No doubt
he is thinking of Parmenides. His own position is not, however,
sceptical. He only deprecates the attempt to construct a theory of the
universe off-hand instead of trying to understand each thing we come
across “in the way in which it is clear” (fr. 4). And this means that we
must not, like Parmenides, reject the assistance of the senses. Weak
though they are (fr. 2), they are the only channels through which
knowledge can enter our minds at all. We soon discover, however, that
Empedokles is not very mindful of his own warnings. He too sets up a
system which is to explain everything, though that system is no longer a
monistic one.
It is often said that this system was an attempt to mediate between
Parmenides and Herakleitos. It is not easy, however, to find any trace
of specially Herakleitean doctrine in it, and it would be truer to say
that it aimed at mediating between Eleaticism and the senses. He
repeats, almost in the same words, the Eleatic argument for the sole
reality and indestructibility of “what _is_” (frs. 11-15); and his idea
of the “Sphere” seems to be derived from the Parmenidean description of
the universe as it truly is.[579] Parmenides had held that the reality
which underlies the illusory world presented to us by the senses was a
corporeal, spherical, continuous, eternal, and immovable _plenum_, and
it is from this that Empedokles starts. Given the sphere of Parmenides,
he seems to have said, How are we to get from it to the world we know?
How are we to introduce motion into the immovable _plenum_? Now
Parmenides need not have denied the possibility of motion within the
Sphere, though he was bound to deny all motion of the Sphere itself; but
such an admission on his part, had he made it, would not have served to
explain anything. If any part of the Sphere were to move, the room of
the displaced matter must at once be taken by other matter, for there is
no empty space. This, however, would be of precisely the same kind as
the matter it had displaced; for all “that _is_” is one. The result of
the motion would be precisely the same as that of rest; it could account
for no change. But, Empedokles must have asked, is this assumption of
perfect homogeneity in the Sphere really necessary? Evidently not; it is
simply the old unreasoned feeling that existence must be one. If,
instead of this, we were to assume a number of existent things, it would
be quite possible to apply all that Parmenides says of reality to each
of them, and the forms of existence we know might be explained by the
mingling and separation of those realities. The conception of “elements”
(στοιχεῖα), to use a later term,[580] was found, and the required
formula follows at once. So far as concerns particular things, it is
true, as our senses tell us, that they come into being and pass away;
but, if we have regard to the ultimate elements of which they are
composed, we shall say with Parmenides that “what _is_” is uncreated and
indestructible (fr. 17).
Footnote 579:
Cf. Emp. frs. 27, 28, with Parm. fr. 8.
Footnote 580:
For the history of the term στοιχεῖον see Diels, _Elementum_. Eudemos
said (_ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p. 7, 13) that Plato was the first to use
it, and this is confirmed by the way the word is introduced in _Tht._
201 e. The original term was μορφή or ἰδέα.
[Sidenote: The “four roots.”]
107. The “four roots” of all things (fr. 6) which Empedokles assumed
were those that have become traditional—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. It
is to be noticed, however, that he does not call Air ἀήρ, but αἰθήρ, and
this must be because he wished to avoid any confusion with what had
hitherto been meant by the former word. He had, in fact, made the great
discovery that atmospheric air is a distinct corporeal substance, and is
not to be identified with empty space on the one hand or rarefied mist
on the other. Water is not liquid air, but something quite
different.[581] This truth Empedokles demonstrated by means of the
apparatus known as the _klepsydra_, and we still possess the verses in
which he applied his discovery to the explanation of respiration and the
motion of the blood (fr. 100). Aristotle laughs at those who try to show
there is no empty space by shutting up air in water-clocks and torturing
wineskins. They only prove, he says, that air is a thing.[582] That,
however, is exactly what Empedokles intended to prove, and it was one of
the most important discoveries in the early history of science. It will
be convenient for us to translate the αἰθήρ of Empedokles by “air”; but
we must be careful in that case not to render the word ἀήρ in the same
way. Anaxagoras seems to have been the first to use it of atmospheric
air.
Footnote 581:
Cf. Chap. I. § 27.
Footnote 582:
Arist. _Phys._ Δ, 6, 213 a 22 (R. P. 159). Aristotle only mentions
Anaxagoras by name in this passage; but he speaks in the plural, and
we know from fr. 100 that the _klepsydra_ experiment was used by
Empedokles.
Empedokles also called the “four roots” by the names of certain
divinities—“shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis” (fr.
6)—though there is some doubt as to how these names are to be
apportioned among the elements. Nestis is said to have been a Sicilian
water-goddess, and the description of her shows that she stands for
Water; but there is a conflict of opinion as to the other three. This,
however, need not detain us.[583] We are already prepared to find that
Empedokles called the elements gods; for all the early thinkers had
spoken in this way of whatever they regarded as the primary substance.
We must only remember that the word is not used in its religious sense.
Empedokles did not pray or sacrifice to the elements, and the use of
divine names is in the main an accident of the poetical form in which he
cast his system.
Footnote 583:
In antiquity the Homeric Allegorists made Hera Earth and Aidoneus Air,
a view which has found its way into Aetios from Poseidonios. It arose
as follows. The Homeric Allegorists were not interested in the science
of Empedokles, and did not see that his αἰθήρ was quite a different
thing from Homer’s ἀήρ. Now this is the dark element, and night is a
form of it, so it would naturally be identified with Aidoneus. Again,
Empedokles calls Hera φερέσβιος, and that is an old epithet of Earth
in Homer. Another view current in antiquity identified Hera with Air,
which is the theory of Plato’s _Cratylus_, and Aidoneus with Earth.
The Homeric Allegorists further identified Zeus with Fire, a view to
which they were doubtless led by the use of the word αἰθήρ. Now αἰθήρ
certainly means Fire in Anaxagoras, as we shall see, but there is no
doubt that in Empedokles it meant Air. It seems likely, then, that
Knatz is right (“Empedoclea” in _Schedae Philologicae Hermanno Usenero
oblatae_, 1891, pp. 1 sqq.) in holding that the bright Air of
Empedokles was Zeus. This leaves Aidoneus to stand for Fire; and
nothing could have been more natural for a Sicilian poet, with the
volcanoes and hot springs of his native island in mind, than this
identification. He refers to the fires that burn beneath the Earth
himself (fr. 52). If that is so, we shall have to agree with the
Homeric Allegorists that Hera is Earth; and there is certainly no
improbability in that.
Empedokles regarded the “roots of all things” as eternal. Nothing can
come from nothing or pass away into nothing (fr. 12); what is _is_, and
there is no room for coming into being and passing away (fr. 8).
Further, Aristotle tells us, he taught that they were unchangeable.[584]
This Empedokles expressed by saying that “they are what they are” (frs.
17, 34; 21, 13), and are “always alike.” Again, they are all “equal,” a
statement which seemed strange to Aristotle,[585] but was quite
intelligible in the days of Empedokles. Above all, the elements are
ultimate. All other bodies, as Aristotle puts it, might be divided till
you came to the elements; but Empedokles could give no further account
of these without saying (as he did not) that there is an element of
which Fire and the rest are in turn composed.[586]
Footnote 584:
Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 1. 329 b 1.
Footnote 585:
_Ibid._ Β, 6. 333 a 16.
Footnote 586:
_Ibid._ Α, 8. 325 b 19 (R. P. 164 e). This was so completely
misunderstood by later writers that they actually attribute to
Empedokles the doctrine of στοιχεῖα πρὸ τῶν στοιχείων (Aet. 1. 13, 1;
17, 3). The criticism of the Pythagoreans and Plato had made the
hypothesis of elements almost unintelligible to Aristotle, and _a
fortiori_ to his successors. As Plato put it (_Tim._ 48 b 8), they
were “not even syllables,” let alone “letters” (στοιχεῖα). That is why
Aristotle, who derived them from something more primary, calls them τὰ
καλούμενα στοιχεῖα (Diels, _Elementum_, p. 25).
The “four roots” are given as an exhaustive enumeration of the elements
(fr. 23 _sub fin._); for they account for all the qualities presented by
the world to the senses. When we find, as we do, that the school of
medicine which regarded Empedokles as its founder identified the four
elements with the “opposites,” the hot and the cold, the moist and the
dry, which formed the theoretical foundation of its system, we see at
once how the theory is related to previous views of reality.[587] To put
it shortly, what Empedokles did was to take the opposites of Anaximander
and to declare that they were “things,” each of which was real in the
Parmenidean sense. We must remember that the conception of quality had
not yet been formed. Anaximander had no doubt regarded his “opposites”
as things; though, before the time of Parmenides, no one had fully
realised how much was implied in saying that anything is a thing. That
is the stage we have now reached. There is still no conception of
quality, but there is a clear apprehension of what is involved in saying
that a thing _is_.
Footnote 587:
We know from Menon that Philistion put the matter in this way. See p.
235, _n._ 527.
Aristotle twice[588] makes the statement that, though Empedokles assumes
four elements, he treats them as two, opposing Fire to all the rest.
This, he says, we can see for ourselves from his poem. So far as the
general theory of the elements goes, it is impossible to see anything of
the sort; but, when we come to the origin of the world (§ 112), we shall
find that Fire certainly plays a leading part, and this may be what
Aristotle meant. It is also true that in the biology (§ 114–116) Fire
fulfils a unique function, while the other three act more or less in the
same way. But we must remember that it has no pre-eminence over the
rest: all are equal.
Footnote 588:
Arist. _Met._ Α, 4. 985 a 31; _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 3. 330 b 19 (R. P.
164 e).
[Sidenote: Strife and Love.]
108. The Eleatic criticism had made it necessary for subsequent thinkers
to explain motion.[589] Empedokles starts, as we have seen, from an
original state of the “four roots,” which only differs from the Sphere
of Parmenides in so far as it is a mixture, not a homogeneous and
continuous mass. The fact that it is a mixture makes change and motion
possible; but, were there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter
in, like the Pythagorean “Air,” to separate the four elements, nothing
could ever arise from it. Empedokles accordingly assumed the existence
of such a substance, and he gave it the name of Strife. But the effect
of this would be to separate all the elements in the Sphere completely,
and then nothing more could possibly happen; something else was needed
to bring the elements together again. This Empedokles found in Love,
which he regarded as the same impulse to union that is implanted in
human bodies (fr. 17, 22 sqq.). He looks at it, in fact, from a purely
physiological point of view, as was natural for the founder of a medical
school. No mortal had yet marked, he says, that the very same Love which
men know in their bodies had a place among the elements.
Footnote 589:
Cf. Introd. § VIII.
It is important to observe that the Love and Strife of Empedokles are no
incorporeal forces, but corporeal elements like the other four. At the
time, this was inevitable; nothing incorporeal had yet been dreamt of.
Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of what he
regarded as efficient causes. “The Love of Empedokles,” he says[590] “is
both an efficient cause, for it brings things together, and a material
cause, for it is a part of the mixture.” And Theophrastos expressed the
same idea by saying[591] that Empedokles sometimes gave an efficient
power to Love and Strife, and sometimes put them on a level with the
other four. The verses of Empedokles himself leave no room for doubt
that the two were thought of as spatial and corporeal. All the six are
called “equal.” Love is said to be “equal in length and breadth” to the
others, and Strife is described as equal to each of them in weight (fr.
17).
Footnote 590:
Arist. _Met._ Α, 10. 1075 b 3.
Footnote 591:
Theophr. _Phys. Op._ fr. 3 (_Dox._ p. 477); _ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p.
25, 21 (R. P. 166 b).
The function of Love is to produce union; that of Strife, to break it up
again. Aristotle, however, rightly points out that in another sense it
is Love that divides and Strife that unites. When the Sphere is broken
up by Strife, the result is that all the Fire, for instance, which was
contained in it comes together and becomes one; and again, when the
elements are brought together once more by Love, the mass of each is
divided. In another place, he says that, while Strife is assumed as the
cause of destruction, and does, in fact, destroy the Sphere, it really
gives birth to everything else in so doing.[592] It follows that we must
carefully distinguish between the Love of Empedokles and that
“attraction of like for like” to which he also attributed an important
part in the formation of the world. The latter is not an element
distinct from the others; it depends, we shall see, on the proper nature
of each element, and is only able to take effect when Strife divides the
Sphere. Love, on the contrary, is something that comes from outside and
produces an attraction of _unlikes_.
Footnote 592:
Arist. _Met._ Α, 4. 985 a 21; Γ, 4. 1000 a 24; b 9 (R. P. 166 i).
[Sidenote: Mixture and separation.]
109. But, when Strife has once separated the elements, what is it that
determines the direction of their motion? Empedokles seems to have given
no further explanation than that each was “running” in a certain
direction (fr. 53). Plato severely condemns this in the _Laws_,[593] on
the ground that no room is thus left for design. Aristotle also blames
him for giving no account of the Chance to which he ascribed so much
importance. Nor is the Necessity, of which he also spoke, further
explained.[594] Strife enters into the Sphere at a certain time in
virtue of Necessity, or “the mighty oath” (fr. 30); but we are left in
the dark as to the origin of this.
Footnote 593:
Plato, _Laws_, x. 889 b. The reference is not to Empedokles
exclusively, but the language shows that Plato is thinking mainly of
him.
Footnote 594:
Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 334 a 1; _Phys._ Θ, 1. 252 a 5 (R. P. 166
k).
The expression used by Empedokles to describe the movement of the
elements is that they “run through each other” (fr. 17, 34). Aristotle
tells us[595] that he explained mixture in general by “the symmetry of
pores.” And this is the true explanation of the “attraction of like for
like.” The “pores” of like bodies are, of course, much the same size,
and these bodies can therefore mingle easily. On the other hand, a finer
body will “run through” a coarse one without becoming mixed, and a
coarse body will not be able to enter into the pores of a finer one at
all. It will be observed that, as Aristotle says, this really implies
something like the atomic theory; but there is no evidence that
Empedokles himself was conscious of that. Another question raised by
Aristotle is even more instructive. Are the pores, he asks, empty or
full? If empty, what becomes of the denial of the void? If full, why
need we assume pores at all?[596] These questions Empedokles would have
found it hard to answer. They point to a real want of thoroughness in
his system, and mark it as a mere stage in the transition from Monism to
Atomism.
Footnote 595:
_Ibid._ Α, 8. 324 b 34 (R. P. 166 h).
Footnote 596:
Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ 326 b 6.
[Sidenote: The four periods.]
110. It will be clear from all this that we must distinguish four
periods in the cycle. First we have the Sphere, in which all the
elements are mixed together by Love. Secondly, there is the period when
Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when, therefore, the elements
are partially separated and partially combined. Thirdly, comes the
complete separation of the elements, when Love is outside the world, and
Strife has given free play to the attraction of like for like. Lastly,
we have the period when Love is bringing the elements together again,
and Strife is passing out. This brings us back in time to the Sphere,
and the cycle begins afresh. Now a world such as ours can exist only in
the second and fourth of these periods; and it is clear that, if we are
to understand Empedokles, we must discover in which of these we now are.
It seems to be generally supposed that we are in the fourth period;[597]
I hope to show that we are really in the second, that when Strife is
gaining the upper hand.
Footnote 597:
This is the view of Zeller (pp. 785 sqq.), but he admits that the
external testimony, especially that of Aristotle, is wholly in favour
of the other. His difficulty is with the fragments, and if it can be
shown that these can be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle’s
statements, the question is settled. Aristotle was specially
interested in Empedokles, and was not likely to misrepresent him on
such a point.
[Sidenote: Our world the work of Strife.]
111. That a world of perishable things arises both in the second and
fourth period is distinctly stated by Empedokles (fr. 17), and it is
inconceivable that he himself had not made up his mind which of these
worlds is ours. Aristotle is clearly of opinion that it is the world
which arises when Strife is increasing. In one place, he says that
Empedokles “holds that the world is in a similar condition now in the
period of Strife as formerly in that of Love.”[598] In another, he tell
us that Empedokles omits the generation of things in the period of Love,
just because it is unnatural to represent this world, in which the
elements are separate, as arising from things in a state of
separation.[599] This remark can only mean that the scientific theories
contained in the poem of Empedokles assumed the increase of Strife, or,
in other words, that they represented the course of evolution as the
disintegration of the Sphere, not as the gradual coming together of
things from a state of separation.[600] That is only what we should
expect, if we are right in supposing that the problem he set himself to
solve was the origin of this world from the Sphere of Parmenides, and it
is also in harmony with the universal tendency of such speculations to
represent the world as getting worse rather than better. We have only to
consider, then, whether the details of the system bear out this general
view.
Footnote 598:
Arist _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 334 a 6: τὸν κόσμον ὁμοίως ἔχειν φησίν ἐπί
τε τοῦ νείκους νῦν καὶ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς φιλίας.
Footnote 599:
Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 2. 301 a 14: ἐκ διεστώτων δὲ καὶ κινουμένων οὐκ
εὔλογον ποιεῖν τὴν γένεσιν. διὸ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς παραλείπει τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς
φιλότητος· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἠδύνατο συστῆσαι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκ κεχωρισμένων μὲν
κατασκευάζων, σύγκρισιν δὲ ποιῶν διὰ τὴν φιλότητα· ἐκ διακεκριμένων
γὰρ συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος τῶν στοιχείων (“our world consists of the
elements in a state of separation”), ὥστ’ ἀναγκαῖον γενέσθαι ἐξ ἑνὸς
καὶ συγκεκριμένου.
Footnote 600:
It need not mean that Empedokles said nothing about the world of Love
at all; for he obviously says something of both worlds in fr. 17. It
is enough to suppose that, having described both in general terms, he
went on to treat the world of Strife in detail.
[Sidenote: Formation of the world by Strife.]
112. To begin with the Sphere, in which the “four roots of all things”
are mixed together, we note in the first place that it is called a god
in the fragments just as the elements are, and that Aristotle more than
once refers to it in the same way.[601] We must remember that Love
itself is a part of this mixture,[602] while Strife surrounds or
encompasses it on every side just as the Boundless encompasses the world
in earlier systems. Strife, however, is not boundless, but equal in bulk
to each of the four roots and to Love.
Footnote 601:
Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 333 b 21 (R. P. 168 e); _Met._ Β, 4. 1000
a 29 (R. P. 166 i). Cf. Simpl. _Phys._ p. 1124, 1 (R. P. 167 b). In
other places Aristotle speaks of it as “the One.” Cf. _de Gen. Corr._
Α, 1. 315 a 7 (R. P. 168 e); _Met._ Β, 4. 1000 a 29 (R. P. 166 i); Α,
4. 985 a 28 (R. P. _ib._). This, however, involves a slight
Aristotelian “development.” It is not quite the same thing to say, as
Empedokles does, that all things come together “into one,” and to say
that they come together “into the One.” The latter expression suggests
that they lose their distinct and proper character in the Sphere, and
thus become something like Aristotle’s own “matter.” As has been
pointed out (p. 265, _n._ 586), it is hard for Aristotle to grasp the
conception of irreducible elements; but there can be no doubt that in
the Sphere, as in their separation, the elements remain “what they
are” for Empedokles. As Aristotle also knows quite well, the Sphere is
a mixture. Compare the difficulties about the “One” of Anaximander
discussed in Chap. I. § 15.
Footnote 602:
This accounts for Aristotle’s statement, which he makes once
positively (_Met._ Β, 1. 996 a 7) and once very doubtfully (_Met._ Γ,
4. 1001 a 12), that Love was the substratum of the One in just the
same sense as the Fire of Herakleitos, the Air of Anaximenes, or the
Water of Thales. He thinks that all the elements become merged in
Love, and so lose their identity. In this case, it is in Love he
recognises his own “matter.”
At the appointed time, Strife begins to enter into the Sphere and Love
to go out of it (frs. 30, 31). The fragments by themselves throw little
light on this; but Aetios and the Plutarchean _Stromateis_ have between
them preserved a very fair tradition of what Theophrastos said on the
point.
Empedokles held that Air was first separated out and secondly Fire.
Next came Earth, from which, highly compressed as it was by the
impetus of its revolution, Water gushed forth. From the water Mist was
produced by evaporation. The heavens were formed out of the Air and
the sun out of the Fire, while terrestrial things were condensed from
the other elements. Aet. ii. 6. 3 (_Dox._ p. 334; R. P. 170).
Empedokles held that the Air when separated off from the original
mixture of the elements was spread round in a circle. After the Air,
Fire running outwards, and not finding any other place, ran up under
the solid that surrounded the Air.[603] There were two hemispheres
revolving round the earth, the one altogether composed of fire, the
other of a mixture of air and a little fire. The latter he supposed to
be the Night. The origin of their motion he derived from the fact of
fire preponderating in one hemisphere owing to its accumulation there.
Ps.-Plut. _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582; R. P. 170 a).
Footnote 603:
For the phrase τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἀέρα πάγου cf. Περὶ διαίτης, i. 10, 1,
πρὸς τὸν περιέχοντα πάγον. _Et. M. s.v._ βηλὸς ... τὸν ἀνωτάτω πάγον
καὶ περιέχοντα τὸν πάντα ἀέρα. This probably comes ultimately from
Anaximenes. Cf. Chap. I. p. 82, _n._ 162.
The first of the elements to be separated out by Strife, then, was Air,
which took the outermost position surrounding the world (cf. fr. 38). We
must not, however, take the statement that it surrounded the world “in a
circle” too strictly. It appears that Empedokles regarded the heavens as
shaped like an egg.[604] Here, probably, we have a trace of Orphic
ideas. At any rate, the outer circle of the Air became solidified or
frozen, and we thus get a crystalline vault as the boundary of the
world. We note that it was Fire which solidified the Air and turned it
to ice. Fire in general had a solidifying power.[605]
Footnote 604:
Aet. ii. 31, 4 (_Dox._ p. 363).
Footnote 605:
Aet. ii. 11, 2 (R. P. 170 c).
In its upward rush Fire displaced a portion of the Air in the upper half
of the concave sphere formed by the frozen sky. This air then sunk
downwards, carrying with it a small portion of the fire. In this way,
two hemispheres were produced: one, consisting entirely of fire, the
diurnal hemisphere; the other, the nocturnal, consisting of air with a
little fire.
The accumulation of Fire in the upper hemisphere disturbs the
equilibrium of the heavens and causes them to revolve; and this
revolution not only produces the alternation of day and night, but by
its rapidity keeps the heavens and the earth in their places. This was
illustrated, Aristotle tells us, by the simile of a cup of water whirled
round at the end of a string.[606] The verses which contained this
remarkable account of so-called “centrifugal force” have been lost; but
the experimental illustration is in the manner of Empedokles.
[Sidenote: The sun, moon, stars, and earth.]
113. It will be observed that day and night have been explained without
reference to the sun. Day is produced by the light of the fiery diurnal
hemisphere, while night is the shadow thrown by the earth when the fiery
hemisphere is on the other side of it (fr. 48). What, then, is the sun?
The Plutarchean _Stromateis_[607] again give us the answer: “The sun is
not fire in substance, but a reflexion of fire like that which comes
from water.” Plutarch himself makes one of his personages say: “You
laugh at Empedokles for saying that the sun is a product of the earth,
arising from the reflexion of the light of heaven, and once more
‘flashes back to Olympos with untroubled countenance.’”[608] Aetios
says:[609] “Empedokles held that there were two suns: one, the
archetype, the fire in one hemisphere of the world, filling the whole
hemisphere always stationed opposite its own reflexion; the other, the
visible sun, its reflexion in the other hemisphere, that which is filled
with air mingled with fire, produced by the reflexion of the earth,
which is round, on the crystalline sun, and carried round by the motion
of the fiery hemisphere. Or, to sum it up shortly, the sun is a
reflexion of the terrestrial fire.”
Footnote 606:
Arist. _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 295 a 16 (R. P. 170 b). The experiment with
τὸ ἐν τοῖς κυάθοις ὕδωρ, which κύκλῳ τοῦ κυάθου φερομένου πολλάκις
κάτω τοῦ χαλκοῦ γινόμενον ὅμως οὐ φέρεται κάτω, reminds us of the
experiment with the _klepsydra_ in fr. 100.
Footnote 607:
[Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582, 11; R. P. 170 c).
Footnote 608:
Plut. _de Pyth. Or._ 400 b (R. P. 170 c). We must keep the MS. reading
περὶ γῆν with Bernardakis and Diels. The reading περιαυγῆ in R. P. is
a conjecture of Wyttenbach’s; but cf. Aet. ii. 20, 13, quoted in the
next note.
Footnote 609:
Aet. ii. 20, 13 (_Dox._ p. 350), Ἐμπεδοκλῆς δύο ἡλίους· τὸν μὲν
ἀρχέτυπον, πῦρ ὂν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τοῦ κόσμου, πεπληρωκὸς τὸ
ἡμισφαίριον, αἰεὶ κατ’ ἀντικρὺ τῇ ἀνταυγείᾳ ἑαυτοῦ τεταγμένον· τὸν δὲ
φαινόμενον, ἀνταύγειαν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τῷ τοῦ ἀέρος τοῦ
θερμομιγοῦς πεπληρωμένῳ, ἀπὸ κυκλοτεροῦς τῆς γῆς κατ’ ἀνάκλασιν
γιγνομένην εἰς τὸν ἥλιον τὸν κρυσταλλοειδῆ, συμπεριελκομένην δὲ τῇ
κινήσει τοῦ πυρίνου. ὡς δὲ βραχέως εἰρῆσθαι συντεμόντα, ἀνταύγειαν
εἶναι τοῦ περὶ τὴν γὴν πυρὸς τὸν ἥλιον.
These passages, and especially the last, are by no means clear. The
reflexion which we call the sun cannot be in the hemisphere opposite to
the fiery one; for that is the nocturnal hemisphere. We must say rather
that the light of the fiery hemisphere is reflected by the earth on to
the fiery hemisphere itself in one concentrated flash. From this it
follows that the appearance which we call the sun is the same size as
the earth. We may explain the origin of this view as follows. It had
just been discovered that the moon shone by reflected light, and there
is always a tendency to give any novel theory a wider application than
it really admits of. In the early part of the fifth century B.C., men
saw reflected light everywhere; the Pythagoreans held a very similar
view, and when we come to them, we shall see why Aetios, or rather his
source, expresses it by speaking of “two suns.”
It was probably in this connexion that Empedokles announced that light
takes some time to travel, though its speed is so great as to escape our
perception.[610]
“The moon,” we are told, “was composed of air cut off by the fire; it
was frozen just like hail, and had its light from the sun.” It is, in
other words, a disc of frozen air, of the same substance as the solid
sky which surrounds the heavens. Diogenes says that Empedokles taught it
was smaller than the sun, and Aetios tells us it was only half as
distant from the earth.[611]
Empedokles did not attempt to explain the fixed stars by reflected
light, nor even the planets. They were fiery, made out of the fire which
the air carried with it when forced beneath the earth by the upward rush
of fire at the first separation, as we saw above. The fixed stars were
attached to the frozen air; the planets moved freely.[612]
Empedokles was acquainted (fr. 42) with the true theory of solar
eclipses, which, along with that of the moon’s light, was the great
discovery of this period. He also knew (fr. 48) that night is the
conical shadow of the earth, and not a sort of exhalation.
Wind was explained from the opposite motions of the fiery and airy
hemispheres. Rain was caused by the compression of the Air, which forced
any water there might be in it out of its pores in the form of drops.
Lightning was fire forced out from the clouds in much the same way.[613]
Footnote 610:
Arist. _de Sensu_, 6. 446 a 28; _de An._ Β, 7. 418 b 20.
Footnote 611:
[Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582, 12; R. P. 170 c); Diog. viii.
77; Aet. ii. 31, 1 (cf. _Dox._ p. 63).
Footnote 612:
Aet. ii. 13, 2 and 11 (_Dox._ pp. 341 sqq.).
Footnote 613:
Aet. iii. 3, 7; Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 9. 369 b 12, with Alexander’s
commentary.
The earth was at first mixed with water, but the increasing compression
caused by the velocity of the world’s revolution made the water gush
forth, so that the sea is called “the sweat of the earth,” a phrase to
which Aristotle objects as a mere poetical metaphor. The saltness of the
sea was explained by the help of this analogy.[614]
Footnote 614:
Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 3. 357 a 24; Aet. iii. 16, 3 (R. P. 170 b). Cf.
the clear reference in Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 1. 353 b 11.
[Sidenote: Organic combinations.]
114. Empedokles went on to show how the four elements, mingled in
different proportions, gave rise to perishable things, such as bones,
flesh, and the like. These, of course, are the work of Love; but this in
no way contradicts the view taken above as to the period of evolution to
which this world belongs. Love is by no means banished from the world
yet, though one day it will be. At present, it is still able to form
combinations of elements; but, just because Strife is ever increasing,
they are all perishable.
The possibility of organic combinations depends upon the fact that there
is still water in the earth, and even fire (fr. 52). The warm springs of
Sicily were a proof of this, not to speak of Etna. These springs
Empedokles appears to have explained by one of his characteristic
images, drawn this time from the heating of warm baths.[615] It will be
noted that his similes are nearly all drawn from human inventions and
manufactures.
Footnote 615:
Seneca, _Q. Nat._ iii. 24: “facere solemus dracones et miliaria et
complures formas in quibus aere tenui fistulas struimus per declive
circumdatas, ut saepe eundem ignem ambiens aqua per tantum fluat
spatii quantum efficiendo calori sat est. frigida itaque intrat,
effluit calida. idem sub terra Empedocles existimat fieri.”
[Sidenote: Plants.]
115. Plants and animals were formed from the four elements under the
influence of Love and Strife. The fragments which deal with trees and
plants are 77-81; and these, taken along with certain Aristotelian
statements and the doxographical tradition, enable us to make out pretty
fully what the theory was. The text of Aetios is very corrupt here; but
it may, perhaps, be rendered as follows:—
Empedokles says that trees were the first living creatures to grow up
out of the earth, before the sun was spread out, and before day and
night were distinguished; that, from the symmetry of their mixture,
they contain the proportion of male and female; that they grow, rising
up owing to the heat which is in the earth, so that they are parts of
the earth just as embryos are parts of the uterus; that fruits are
excretions of the water and fire in plants, and that those which have
a deficiency of moisture shed their leaves when that is evaporated by
the summer heat, while those which have more moisture remain
evergreen, as in the case of the laurel, the olive, and the palm; that
the differences in taste are due to variations in the particles
contained in the earth and to the plants drawing different particles
from it, as in the case of vines; for it is not the difference of the
vines that makes wine good, but that of the soil which nourishes them.
Aet. v. 26, 4 (R. P. 172).
Aristotle finds fault with Empedokles for explaining the double growth
of plants, upwards and downwards, by the opposite natural motions of the
earth and fire contained in them.[616] For “natural motions” we must, of
course, substitute the attraction of like for like (§ 109). Theophrastos
says much the same thing.[617] The growth of plants, then, is to be
regarded as an incident in that separation of the elements which Strife
is bringing about. Some of the fire which is still beneath the earth
(fr. 52) meeting in its upward course with earth, still moist with water
and “running” down so as to “reach its own kind,” unites with it, under
the influence of the Love still left in the world, to form a temporary
combination, which we call a tree or a plant.
Footnote 616:
Arist. _de An._ Β, 4. 415 b 28.
Footnote 617:
Theophr. _de causis plantarum_, i. 12, 5.
At the beginning of the pseudo-Aristotelian _Treatise on Plants_,[618]
we are told that Empedokles attributed desire, sensation, and the
capacity for pleasure and pain to plants, and he rightly saw that the
two sexes are combined in them. This is mentioned by Aetios, and
discussed in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. If we may so far trust
that Byzantine translation from a Latin version of the Arabic,[619] we
get a most valuable hint as to the reason. Plants, we are there told,
came into being “in an imperfect state of the world,”[620] in fact, at a
time when Strife had not so far prevailed as to differentiate the sexes.
We shall see that the same thing applies to the original race of animals
in this world. It is strange that Empedokles never observed the actual
process of generation in plants, but confined himself to the statement
that they spontaneously “bore eggs” (fr. 79), that is to say, fruit.
Footnote 618:
[Arist.] _de plantis_, Α, 1. 815 a 15.
Footnote 619:
Alfred the Englishman translated the Arabic version into Latin in the
reign of Henry III. It was retranslated from this version into Greek
at the Renaissance by a Greek resident in Italy.
Footnote 620:
Α, 2. 817 b 35, “mundo ... diminuto et non perfecto in complemento
suo” (Alfred).
[Sidenote: Evolution of animals.]
116. The fragments which deal with the evolution of animals (57-62) must
be understood in the light of the statement (fr. 17) that there is a
double coming into being and a double passing away of mortal things.
Empedokles describes two processes of evolution, which take exactly
opposite courses, one of them belonging to the period of Love and the
other to that of Strife. The four stages of this double evolution are
accurately distinguished in a passage of Aetios,[621] and we shall see
that there is evidence for referring two of them to the second period of
the world’s history and two to the fourth.
Footnote 621:
Aet. v. 19, 5 (R. P. 173). Plato has made use of the idea of reversed
evolution in the _Politicus_ myth.
The first stage is that in which the various parts of animals arise
separately. It is that of heads without necks, arms without shoulders,
and eyes without foreheads (fr. 57). It is clear that this must be the
first stage in what we have called the fourth period of the world’s
history, that in which Love is coming in and Strife passing out.
Aristotle distinctly refers it to the period of Love, by which, as we
have seen, he means the period when Love is increasing.[622] It is in
accordance with this that he also says these scattered members were
subsequently put together by Love.[623]
Footnote 622:
Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 2. 300 b 29 (R. P. 173 a). Cf. _de Gen. An._ Α,
17. 722 b 17, where fr. 57 is introduced by the words καθάπερ
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς γεννᾷ ἐπὶ τῆς Φιλότητος. Simplicius, _de Caelo_, p. 587,
18, expresses the same thing by saying μουνομελῆ ἔτι τὰ γυῖα ἀπὸ τῆς
τοῦ Νείκους διακρίσεως ὄντα ἐπλανᾶτο.
Footnote 623:
Arist. _de An._ Γ, 6. 430 a 30 (R. P. 173 a).
The second stage is that in which the scattered limbs are united. At
first, they were combined in all possible ways (fr. 59). There were oxen
with human heads, creatures with double faces and double breasts, and
all manner of monsters (fr. 61). Those of them that were fitted to
survive did so, while the rest perished. That is how the evolution of
animals took place in the period of Love.[624]
Footnote 624:
This is well put by Simplicius, _de Caelo_, p. 587, 20. It is ὅτε τοῦ
Νείκους ἐπεκράτει λοιπὸν ἡ Φιλότης ... ἐπὶ τῆς Φιλότητος οὖν ὁ
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐκεῖνα εἶπεν, οὐχ ὡς ἐπικρατούσης ἤδη τῆς Φιλότητος, ἀλλ’
ὡς μελλούσης ἐπικρατεῖν. In _Phys._ p. 371, 33, he says the oxen with
human heads were κατὰ τῆν τῆς Φιλίας ἀρχήν.
The third stage belongs to the period when the unity of the Sphere is
being destroyed by Strife. It is, therefore, the first stage in the
evolution of our present world. It begins with “whole-natured forms” in
which there is not as yet any distinction of sex or species.[625] They
are composed of earth and water, and are produced by the upward motion
of fire which is seeking to reach its like.
Footnote 625:
Cf. Plato, _Symp._ 189 e.
In the fourth stage, the sexes and species have been separated, and new
animals no longer arise from the elements, but are produced by
generation. We shall see presently how Empedokles conceived this to
operate.
In both these processes of evolution, Empedokles was guided by the idea
of the survival of the fittest. Aristotle severely criticises this. “We
may suppose,” he says, “that all things have fallen out accidentally
just as they would have done if they had been produced for some end.
Certain things have been preserved because they had spontaneously
acquired a fitting structure, while those which were not so put together
have perished and are perishing, as Empedokles says of the oxen with
human faces.”[626] This, according to Aristotle, leaves too much to
chance. One curious instance has been preserved. Vertebration was
explained by saying that an early invertebrate animal tried to turn
round and broke its back in so doing. This was a favourable variation
and so survived.[627] It should be noted that it clearly belongs to the
period of Strife, and not, like the oxen with human heads, to that of
Love. The survival of the fittest was the law of both processes of
evolution.
Footnote 626:
Arist. _Phys._ Β, 8. 198 b 29 (R. P. 173 a).
Footnote 627:
Arist. _de Part. An._ Α, 1. 640 a 19.
117. The distinction of the sexes was an important result of the gradual
differentiation brought about by the entrance of Strife into the world.
Empedokles differed from the theory given by Parmenides in his Second
Part (§ 95) in holding that the warm element preponderated in the male
sex, and that males were conceived in the warmer part of the uterus (fr.
65). The fœtus was formed partly from the male and partly from the
female semen (fr. 63); and it was just the fact that the substance of a
new being’s body was divided between the male and the female that
produced desire when the two were brought together by sight (fr. 64). A
certain symmetry of the pores in the male and female semen is, of
course, necessary for procreation, and from its absence Empedokles
explained the sterility of mules. The children most resemble that parent
who contributed most to their formation. The influence of statues and
pictures was also noted, however, as modifying the appearance of the
offspring. Twins and triplets were due to a superabundance and division
of the semen.[628]
Footnote 628:
Aet. v. 10, 1; 11, 1; 12, 2; 14, 2. Cf. Fredrich, _Hippokratische
Untersuchungen_, pp. 126 sqq.
As to the growth of the fœtus in the uterus, Empedokles held that it was
enveloped in a membrane, and that its formation began on the
thirty-sixth day and was completed on the forty-ninth. The heart was
formed first, the nails and such things last. Respiration did not begin
till the time of birth, when the fluids round the fœtus were withdrawn.
Birth took place in the ninth or seventh month, because the day had been
originally nine months long, and afterwards seven. Milk arises on the
tenth day of the eighth month (fr. 68).[629]
Death was the final separation by Strife of the fire and earth in the
body, each of which had all along been striving to “reach its own kind.”
Sleep was a temporary separation to a certain extent of the fiery
element.[630] At death the animal is resolved into its elements, which
perhaps enter into fresh combinations, perhaps become permanently united
with “their own kind.” There can be no question here of an immortal
soul.
Even in life, we may see the attraction of like to like operating in
animals just as it did in the upward and downward growth of plants. Hair
is the same thing as foliage (fr. 82); and, generally speaking, the
fiery part of animals tends upwards and the earthy part downwards,
though there are exceptions, as may be seen in the case of certain
shell-fish (fr. 76), where the earthy part is above. These exceptions
are only possible because there is still a great deal of Love in the
world. We also see the attraction of like for like in the different
habits of the various species of animals. Those that have most fire in
them fly up into the air; those in which earth preponderates take to the
earth, as did the dog which always sat upon a tile.[631] Aquatic animals
are those in which water predominates. This does not, however, apply to
fishes, which are very fiery, and take to the water to cool
themselves.[632]
Footnote 629:
Aet. v. 15, 3; 21, 1 (_Dox._ p. 190).
Footnote 630:
Aet. v. 25, 4 (_Dox._ p. 437).
Footnote 631:
Aet. v. 19, 5 (_Dox._ p. 431). Cf. _Eth. Eud._ Η, 1. 1235 a 11.
Footnote 632:
Arist. _de Respir._ 14. 477 a 32; Theophr. _de causis plant._ i. 21.
Empedokles paid great attention to the subject of respiration, and his
very ingenious explanation of it has been preserved in a continuous form
(fr. 100). We breathe, he held, through all the pores of the skin, not
merely through the organs of respiration. The cause of the alternate
inspiration and expiration of the breath was the movement of the blood
from the heart to the surface of the body and back again, which was
explained by the _klepsydra_.
The nutrition and growth of animals is, of course, to be explained from
the attraction of like to like. Each part of the body has pores into
which the appropriate food will fit. Pleasure and pain were derived from
the absence or presence of like elements, that is, of nourishment which
would fit the pores. Tears and sweat arose from a disturbance which
curdled the blood; they were, so to say, the whey of the blood.[633]
Footnote 633:
Nutrition, Aet. v. 27, 1; pleasure and pain, Aet. iv. 9, 15; v. 28, 1;
tears and sweat, v. 22, 1.
[Sidenote: Perception.]
118. For the theory of perception held by Empedokles we have the
original words of Theophrastos:—
Empedokles speaks in the same way of all the senses, and says that
perception is due to the “effluences” fitting into the passages of
each sense. And that is why one cannot judge the objects of another;
for the passages of some of them are too wide and those of others too
narrow for the sensible object, so that the latter either goes through
without touching or cannot enter at all. R. P. 177 b.
He tries, too, to explain the nature of sight. He says that the
interior of the eye consists of fire, while round about it is earth
and air,[634] through which its rarity enables the fire to pass like
the light in lanterns (fr. 84). The passages of the fire and water are
arranged alternately; through those of the fire we perceive light
objects, through those of the water, dark; each class of objects fits
into each class of passages, and the colours are carried to the sight
by effluence. R. P. _ib._
But eyes are not all composed in the same way; some are composed of
like elements and some of opposite; some have the fire in the centre
and some on the outside. That is why some animals are keen-sighted by
day and others by night. Those which have less fire are keen-sighted
in the daytime, for the fire within is brought up to an equality by
that without; those which have less of the opposite (_i.e._ water), by
night, for then their deficiency is supplemented. But, in the opposite
case, each will behave in the opposite manner. Those eyes in which
fire predominates will be dazzled in the daytime, since the fire being
still further increased will stop up and occupy the pores of the
water. Those in which water predominates will, he says, suffer the
same at night, for the fire will be obstructed by the water. And this
goes on till the water is separated off by the air, for in each case
it is the opposite which is a remedy. The best tempered and the most
excellent vision is one composed of both in equal proportions. This is
practically what he says about sight.
Hearing, he holds, is produced by sound outside, when the air moved by
the voice sounds inside the ear; for the sense of hearing is a sort of
bell sounding inside the ear, which he calls a “fleshy sprout.” When
the air is set in motion it strikes upon the solid parts and produces
a sound.[635] Smell, he holds, arises from respiration, and that is
why those smell most keenly whose breath has the most violent motion,
and why most smell comes from subtle and light bodies.[636] As to
touch and taste, he does not lay down how nor by means of what they
arise, except that he gives us an explanation applicable to all, that
sensation is produced by adaptation to the pores. Pleasure is produced
by what is like in its elements and their mixture; pain, by what is
opposite. R. P. _ib._
And he gives a precisely similar account of thought and ignorance.
Thought arises from what is like and ignorance from what is unlike,
thus implying that thought is the same, or nearly the same, as
perception. For after enumerating how we know each thing by means of
itself, he adds, “for all things are fashioned and fitted together out
of these, and it is by these men think and feel pleasure and pain”
(fr. 107). And for this reason we think chiefly with our blood, for in
it of all parts of the body all the elements are most completely
mingled. R. P. 178.
All, then, in whom the mixture is equal or nearly so, and in whom the
elements are neither at too great intervals nor too small or too
large, are the wisest and have the most exact perceptions; and those
who come next to them are wise in proportion. Those who are in the
opposite condition are the most foolish. Those whose elements are
separated by intervals and rare are dull and laborious; those in whom
they are closely packed and broken into minute particles are
impulsive, they attempt many things and finish few because of the
rapidity with which their blood moves. Those who have a
well-proportioned mixture in some one part of their bodies will be
clever in that respect. That is why some are good orators and some
good artificers. The latter have a good mixture in their hands, and
the former in their tongues, and so with all other special capacities.
R. P. _ib._
Footnote 634:
That is, watery vapour, not the elemental air or αἰθήρ (§ 107). It is
identical with the “water” mentioned below. It is unnecessary,
therefore, to insert καὶ ὕδωρ after πῦρ with Karsten and Diels.
Footnote 635:
Beare, p. 96, n. 1.
Footnote 636:
_Ibid._ p. 133.
Perception, then, is due to the meeting of an element in us with the
same element outside. This takes place when the pores of the organ of
sense are neither too large nor too small for the “effluences” which all
things are constantly giving off (fr. 89). Smell was explained by
respiration. The breath drew in along with it the small particles which
fit into the pores. From Aetios[637] we learn that Empedokles proved
this by the example of people with a cold in their head, who cannot
smell, just because they have a difficulty in breathing. We also see
from fr. 101 that the scent of dogs was referred to in support of the
theory. Empedokles seems to have given no detailed account of smell, and
did not refer to touch at all.[638] Hearing was explained by the motion
of the air which struck upon the cartilage inside the ear and made it
swing and sound like a bell.[639]
Footnote 637:
Aet. iv. 17, 2 (_Dox._ p. 407). Beare, p. 133.
Footnote 638:
Beare, pp. 161-3, 180-81.
Footnote 639:
_Ibid._ pp. 95 sqq.
The theory of vision[640] is more complicated; and, as Plato adopted
most of it, it is of great importance in the history of philosophy. The
eye was conceived, as by Alkmaion (§ 96),[641] to be composed of fire
and water. Just as in a lantern the flame is protected from the wind by
horn (fr. 84), so the fire in the iris is protected from the water which
surrounds it in the pupil by membranes with very fine pores, so that,
while the fire can pass out, the water cannot get in. Sight is produced
by the fire inside the eye going forth to meet the object. This seems
strange to us, because we are accustomed to the idea of images being
impressed upon the retina. But _looking_ at a thing no doubt seemed much
more like an action proceeding from the eye than a mere passive state.
Footnote 640:
_Ibid._ pp. 14 sqq.
Footnote 641:
Theophr. _de sens._ 26.
He was quite aware, too, that “effluences,” as he called them, came from
things to the eyes as well; for he defined colours as “effluences from
forms (or ‘things’) fitting into the pores and perceived.”[642] It is
not quite clear how these two accounts of vision were reconciled, or how
far we are entitled to credit Empedokles with the Platonic theory. The
statements which have been quoted seem to imply something very like
it.[643]
Footnote 642:
The definition is quoted from Gorgias in Plato, _Men._ 76 d 4. All our
MSS. have ἀπορραοὶ σχημάτων, but Ven. T has in the margin γρ.
χρημάτων, which may well be an old tradition. The Ionic for “things”
is χρήματα. See Diels, _Empedokles und Gorgias_, p. 439.
Footnote 643:
See Beare, _Elementary Cognition_, p. 18.
Theophrastos tells us that Empedokles made no distinction between
thought and perception, a remark already made by Aristotle.[644] The
chief seat of perception was the blood, in which the four elements are
most evenly mixed, and especially the blood near the heart (fr.
105).[645] This does not, however, exclude the idea that other parts of
the body may perceive also; indeed, Empedokles held that all things have
their share of thought (fr. 103). But the blood was specially sensitive
because of its finer mixture.[646] From this it naturally follows that
Empedokles adopted the view, already maintained in the Second Part of
the poem of Parmenides (fr. 16), that our knowledge varies with the
varying constitution of our bodies (fr. 106). This consideration became
very important later on as one of the foundations of scepticism; but
Empedokles himself only drew from it the conclusion that we must make
the best use we can of our senses, and check one by the other (fr. 4).
Footnote 644:
Arist. _de An._ Γ, 3. 427 a 21.
Footnote 645:
R. P. 178 a. This was the characteristic doctrine of the Sicilian
school, from whom it passed to Aristotle and the Stoics. Plato and
Hippokrates, on the other hand, adopted the view of Alkmaion (§ 97)
that the brain was the seat of consciousness. Kritias (Arist. _de An._
Α, 2. 405 b 6) probably got the Sicilian doctrine from Gorgias. At a
later date, Philistion of Syracuse, Plato’s friend, substituted the
ψυχικὸν πνεῦμα (“animal spirits”) which circulated along with the
blood.
Footnote 646:
Beare, p. 253.
[Sidenote: Theology and religion.]
119. The theoretical theology of Empedokles reminds us of Xenophanes,
his practical religious teaching of Pythagoras and the Orphics. We are
told in the earlier part of the poem that certain “gods” are composed of
the elements; and that therefore though they “live long lives” they must
pass away (fr. 21). We have seen that the elements and the Sphere are
also called gods, but that is in quite another sense of the word.
If we turn to the religious teaching of the _Purifications_, we find
that everything turns on the doctrine of transmigration. On the general
significance of this enough has been said above (§ 42); the details
given by Empedokles are peculiar. According to a decree of Necessity,
“daemons” who have sinned are forced to wander from their home in heaven
for three times ten thousand seasons (fr. 115). He himself is such an
exiled divinity, and has fallen from his high estate because he put his
trust in raving Strife. The four elements toss him from one to the other
with loathing; and so he has not only been a human being and a plant,
but even a fish. The only way to purify oneself from the taint of
original sin was by the cultivation of ceremonial holiness, by
purifications, and abstinence from animal flesh. For the animals are our
kinsmen (fr. 137), and it is parricide to lay hands on them. In all this
there are, no doubt, certain points of contact with the cosmology. We
have the “mighty oath” (fr. 115; cf. fr. 30), the four elements, Hate as
the source of original sin, and Kypris as queen in the Golden Age (fr.
128). But these points are neither fundamental nor of great importance.
And it cannot be denied that there are really contradictions between the
two poems. That, however, is just what we should expect to find. All
through this period, there seems to have been a gulf between men’s
religious beliefs, if they had any, and their cosmological views. The
few points of contact which we have mentioned may have been sufficient
to hide this from Empedokles himself.