CHAPTER IIIHERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS
Life of Herakleitos.
63. Herakleitos of Ephesos, son of Blyson, is said to have “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504/3-501/0B.C.);[319]that is to say, just in the middle of the reign of Dareios, with whom several traditions connected him.[320]We shall see that Parmenides was assigned to the same Olympiad, though for another reason (§ 84). It is more important, however, for our purpose to notice that, while Herakleitos refers to Pythagoras and Xenophanes by name and in the past tense (fr.16), he is in turn referred to by Parmenides (fr. 6). These references are sufficient to mark his proper place in the history of philosophy. Zeller holds, indeed, that he cannot have published his work till after 478B.C., on the ground that the expulsion of his friend Hermodoros, alluded to in fr.114, could not have taken place before the downfall of Persian rule. If that were so, it might be hard to see how Parmenides could have known the views of Herakleitos; but there is surely no difficulty in supposing that the Ephesians may have sent one of their foremost citizens into banishment at a time when they were still payingtribute to the Great King. The Persians never took their internal self-government from the Ionian cities, and the spuriousLettersof Herakleitos show the accepted view was that the expulsion of Hermodoros took place during the reign of Dareios.[321]
Sotion said that Herakleitos was a disciple of Xenophanes,[322]which is not probable; for Xenophanes seems to have left Ionia for ever before Herakleitos was born. More likely he was not a disciple of any one; but it is clear, at the same time, that he was acquainted both with the Milesian cosmology and with the poems of Xenophanes. He also knew something of the theories taught by Pythagoras (fr.17).
Of the life of Herakleitos we really know nothing, except, perhaps, that he belonged to the ancient royal house and resigned the nominal position of Basileus in favour of his brother.[323]The origin of the other statements bearing on it is quite transparent.[324]
His book.
64. We do not know the title of the work of Herakleitos[325]—if, indeed, it had one at all—and itis not very easy to form a clear idea of its contents. We are told that it was divided into three discourses: one dealing with the universe, one political, and one theological.[326]It is not likely that this division is due to Herakleitos himself; all we can infer from the statement is that the work fell naturally into these three parts when the Stoic commentators took their editions of it in hand.
The style of Herakleitos is proverbially obscure, and, at a later date, got him the nickname of “the Dark.”[327]Now the fragments about the Delphic god and the Sibyl (frs.11and12) seem to show that he was quite conscious of writing an oracular style, and we have to ask why he did so. In the first place, it was the manner of the time.[328]The stirring events of the age, and the influence of the religious revival, gave something of a prophetic tone to all the leaders of thought. Pindar and Aischylos have it too. They all feel that they are in some measure inspired. It is also the age of great individualities, who are apt to be solitary and disdainful. Herakleitos at least was so. If men cared to dig for the gold they might find it (fr.8); if not, they must be content with straw (fr.51). This seems to have been the view taken by Theophrastos, who said that the headstrong temperament of Herakleitos sometimes led him into incompleteness and inconsistencies of statement.[329]But that isa very different thing from studied obscurity and thedisciplina arcanisometimes attributed to him; if Herakleitos does not go out of his way to make his meaning clear, neither does he hide it (fr.11).
The fragments.
65. I give a version of the fragments according to the arrangement of Mr. Bywater’s exemplary edition.[330]
(1) It is wise to hearken, not to me, but to my Word, and to confess that all things are one.[331]R. P. 40.(2) Though this Word[332]is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep. R. P. 32.(3) Fools when they do hear are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present. R. P. 31 a.(4) Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have souls that understand not their language. R. P. 42.(5) The many do not take heed of such things as those they meet with, nor do they mark them when they are taught, though they think they do.(6) Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak.(7) If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.[333](8) Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a little. R. P. 44 b.(10) Nature loves to hide. R. P. 34 f.(11) The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor hides his meaning, but shows it by a sign. R. P. 30 a.(12) And the Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her. R. P. 30 a.(13) The things that can be seen, heard, and learned are what I prize the most. R. P. 42.(14) ... bringing untrustworthy witnesses in support of disputed points.(15) The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.[334]R. P. 42 c.(16) The learning of many things teacheth not understanding, else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hekataios. R. P. 31.(17) Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, practised inquiry beyond all other men, and choosing out these writings, claimed for his own wisdom what was but a knowledge of many things and an art of mischief.[335]R. P. 31 a.(18) Of all whose discourses I have heard, there is not one who attains to understanding that wisdom is apart from all. R. P. 32 b.(19) Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things. R. P. 40.(20) This world,[336]which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling, and measures going out. R. P. 35.[337](21) The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea; and half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind.[338]... R. P. 35 b.(22) All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares. R. P. 35.(23) It becomes liquid sea, and is measured by the same tale as before it became earth.[339]R. P. 39.(24) Fire is want and surfeit. R. P. 36 a.(25) Fire lives the death of air,[340]and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water. R. P. 37.(26) Fire in its advance will judge and convict[341]all things. R. P. 36 a.(27) How can one hide from that which never sets?(28) It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things. R. P. 35 b.(29) The sun will not overstep his measures; if he does, the Erinyes, the handmaids of Justice, will find him out. R. P. 39.(30) The limit of East and West is the Bear; and opposite the Bear is the boundary of bright Zeus.[342](31) If there were no sun it would be night, for all the other stars could do.[343](32) The sun is new every day.(33) See above, Chap. I. p. 41,n.62.(34) ... the seasons that bring all things.(35) Hesiod is most men’s teacher. Men think he knew very many things, a man who did not know day or night! They are one.[344]R. P. 39 b.(36) God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire,[345]when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each. R. P. 39 b.(37) If all things were turned to smoke, the nostrils would distinguish them.(38) Souls smell in Hades. R. P. 46 d.(39) Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moisted.(40) It scatters and it gathers; it advances and retires.(41, 42) You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. R. P. 33.(43) Homer was wrong in saying: “Would that strife might perish from among gods and men!” He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.[346]... R. P. 34 d.(44) War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free. R. P. 34.(45) Men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions,[347]like that of the bow and the lyre. R. P. 34.(46) It is the opposite which is good for us.[348](47) The hidden attunement is better than the open. R. P. 34.(48) Let us not conjecture at random about the greatest things.(49) Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.(50) The straight and the crooked path of the fuller’s comb is one and the same.(51) Asses would rather have straw than gold. R. P. 31 a.(51a) Oxen are happy when they find bitter vetches to eat.[349]R. P. 48 b.(52) The sea is the purest and the impurest water. Fish can drink it, and it is good for them; to men it is undrinkable and destructive. R. P. 47 c.(53) Swine wash in the mire, and barnyard fowls in dust.(54) ... to delight in the mire.(55) Every beast is driven to pasture with blows.[350](56) Same as 45.(57) Good and ill are one. R. P. 47 c.(58) Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the sick, demand a fee for it which they do not deserve to get. R. P. 47 c.[351](59) Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.[352](60) Men would not have known the name of justice if these things were not.[353](61) To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. R. P. 45.(62) We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away (?) through strife.(64) All the things we see when awake are death, even as all we see in slumber are sleep. R. P. 42 c.[354](65) The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. R. P. 40.(66) The bow (βιός) is called life (βίος), but its work is death. R. P. 49 a.(67) Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life. R. P. 46.(68) For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and from water, soul. R. P. 38.(69) The way up and the way down is one and the same. R. P. 36 d.(70) In the circumference of a circle the beginning and end are common.(71) You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it.[355]R. P. 41 d.(72) It is pleasure to souls to become moist. R. P. 46 c.(73) A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist. R. P. 42.(74-76) The dry soul is the wisest and best.[356]R. P. 42.(77) Man is kindled and put out like a light in the night-time.(78) And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted[357]andbecome the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former. R. P. 47.(79) Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is a child’s. R. P. 40 a.(80) I have sought for myself. R. P. 48.(81) We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not. R. P. 33 a.(82) It is a weariness to labour for the same masters and be ruled by them.(83) It rests by changing.(84) Even the posset separates if it is not stirred.(85) Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung.(86) When they are born, they wish to live and to meet with their dooms—or rather to rest—and they leave children behind them to meet with their dooms in turn.(87-89) A man may be a grandfather in thirty years.(90) Those who are asleep are fellow-workers....(91a) Thought is common to all.(91b) Those who speak with understanding must hold fast to what is common to all as a city holds fast to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are fed by the one divine law. It prevails as much as it will, and suffices for all things with something to spare. R. P. 43.(92) So we must follow the common,[358]yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. R. P. 44.(93) They are estranged from that with which they have most constant intercourse.[359]R. P. 32 b.(94) It is not meet to act and speak like men asleep.(95) The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.(96) The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has. R. P. 45.(97) Man is called a baby by God, even as a child by a man. R. P. 45.(98, 99) The wisest man is an ape compared to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man.(100) The people must fight for its law as for its walls. R. P. 43 b.(101) Greater deaths win greater portions. R. P. 49 a.(102) Gods and men honour those who are slain in battle. R. P. 49 a.(103) Wantonness needs putting out, even more than a house on fire. R. P. 49 a.(104) It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. It is sickness that makes health pleasant; evil,[360]good; hunger, plenty; weariness, rest. R. P. 48 b.(105-107) It is hard to fight with one’s heart’s desire.[361]Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul. R. P. 49 a.(108, 109) It is best to hide folly; but it is hard in times of relaxation, over our cups.(110) And it is law, too, to obey the counsel of one. R. P. 49 a.(111) For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the poets and take the crowd as their teacher, knowing not that there are many bad and few good. For even the best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals, while most of them are glutted like beasts.[362]R. P. 31 a.(112) In Priene lived Bias, son of Teutamas, who is of more account than the rest. (He said, “Most men are bad.”)(113) One is ten thousand to me, if he be the best. R. P. 31 a.(114) The Ephesians would do well to hang themselves,every grown man of them, and leave the city to beardless lads; for they have cast out Hermodoros, the best man among them, saying, “We will have none who is best among us; if there be any such, let him be so elsewhere and among others.” R. P. 29 b.(115) Dogs bark at every one they do not know. R. P. 31 a.(116) ... (The wise man) is not known because of men’s want of belief.(117) The fool is fluttered at every word. R. P. 44 b.(118) The most esteemed of them knows but fancies;[363]yet of a truth justice shall overtake the artificers of lies and the false witnesses.(119) Homer should be turned out of the lists and whipped, and Archilochos likewise. R. P. 31.(120) One day is like any other.(121) Man’s character is his fate.[364](122) There awaits men when they die such things as they look not for nor dream of. R. P. 46 d.(123) ...[365]that they rise up and become the wakeful guardians of the quick and dead. R. P. 46 d.(124) Night-walkers, Magians, priests of Bakchos and priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers....(125) The mysteries practised among men are unholy mysteries. R. P. 48.(126) And they pray to these images, as if one were to talk with a man’s house, knowing not what gods or heroes are. R. P. 49 a.(127) For if it were not to Dionysos that they made a procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysosin whose honour they go mad and keep the feast of the wine-vat. R. P. 49.(129, 130) They vainly purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, just as if one who had stepped into the mud were to wash his feet in mud. Any man who marked him doing thus, would deem him mad. R. P. 49 a.
(1) It is wise to hearken, not to me, but to my Word, and to confess that all things are one.[331]R. P. 40.
(2) Though this Word[332]is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep. R. P. 32.
(3) Fools when they do hear are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present. R. P. 31 a.
(4) Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have souls that understand not their language. R. P. 42.
(5) The many do not take heed of such things as those they meet with, nor do they mark them when they are taught, though they think they do.
(6) Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak.
(7) If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.[333]
(8) Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a little. R. P. 44 b.
(10) Nature loves to hide. R. P. 34 f.
(11) The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor hides his meaning, but shows it by a sign. R. P. 30 a.
(12) And the Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her. R. P. 30 a.
(13) The things that can be seen, heard, and learned are what I prize the most. R. P. 42.
(14) ... bringing untrustworthy witnesses in support of disputed points.
(15) The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.[334]R. P. 42 c.
(16) The learning of many things teacheth not understanding, else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hekataios. R. P. 31.
(17) Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchos, practised inquiry beyond all other men, and choosing out these writings, claimed for his own wisdom what was but a knowledge of many things and an art of mischief.[335]R. P. 31 a.
(18) Of all whose discourses I have heard, there is not one who attains to understanding that wisdom is apart from all. R. P. 32 b.
(19) Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things. R. P. 40.
(20) This world,[336]which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling, and measures going out. R. P. 35.[337]
(21) The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea; and half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind.[338]... R. P. 35 b.
(22) All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares. R. P. 35.
(23) It becomes liquid sea, and is measured by the same tale as before it became earth.[339]R. P. 39.
(24) Fire is want and surfeit. R. P. 36 a.
(25) Fire lives the death of air,[340]and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water. R. P. 37.
(26) Fire in its advance will judge and convict[341]all things. R. P. 36 a.
(27) How can one hide from that which never sets?
(28) It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things. R. P. 35 b.
(29) The sun will not overstep his measures; if he does, the Erinyes, the handmaids of Justice, will find him out. R. P. 39.
(30) The limit of East and West is the Bear; and opposite the Bear is the boundary of bright Zeus.[342]
(31) If there were no sun it would be night, for all the other stars could do.[343]
(32) The sun is new every day.
(33) See above, Chap. I. p. 41,n.62.
(34) ... the seasons that bring all things.
(35) Hesiod is most men’s teacher. Men think he knew very many things, a man who did not know day or night! They are one.[344]R. P. 39 b.
(36) God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire,[345]when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each. R. P. 39 b.
(37) If all things were turned to smoke, the nostrils would distinguish them.
(38) Souls smell in Hades. R. P. 46 d.
(39) Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moisted.
(40) It scatters and it gathers; it advances and retires.
(41, 42) You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. R. P. 33.
(43) Homer was wrong in saying: “Would that strife might perish from among gods and men!” He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.[346]... R. P. 34 d.
(44) War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free. R. P. 34.
(45) Men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions,[347]like that of the bow and the lyre. R. P. 34.
(46) It is the opposite which is good for us.[348]
(47) The hidden attunement is better than the open. R. P. 34.
(48) Let us not conjecture at random about the greatest things.
(49) Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.
(50) The straight and the crooked path of the fuller’s comb is one and the same.
(51) Asses would rather have straw than gold. R. P. 31 a.
(51a) Oxen are happy when they find bitter vetches to eat.[349]R. P. 48 b.
(52) The sea is the purest and the impurest water. Fish can drink it, and it is good for them; to men it is undrinkable and destructive. R. P. 47 c.
(53) Swine wash in the mire, and barnyard fowls in dust.
(54) ... to delight in the mire.
(55) Every beast is driven to pasture with blows.[350]
(56) Same as 45.
(57) Good and ill are one. R. P. 47 c.
(58) Physicians who cut, burn, stab, and rack the sick, demand a fee for it which they do not deserve to get. R. P. 47 c.[351]
(59) Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.[352]
(60) Men would not have known the name of justice if these things were not.[353]
(61) To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. R. P. 45.
(62) We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away (?) through strife.
(64) All the things we see when awake are death, even as all we see in slumber are sleep. R. P. 42 c.[354]
(65) The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. R. P. 40.
(66) The bow (βιός) is called life (βίος), but its work is death. R. P. 49 a.
(67) Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life. R. P. 46.
(68) For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and from water, soul. R. P. 38.
(69) The way up and the way down is one and the same. R. P. 36 d.
(70) In the circumference of a circle the beginning and end are common.
(71) You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it.[355]R. P. 41 d.
(72) It is pleasure to souls to become moist. R. P. 46 c.
(73) A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist. R. P. 42.
(74-76) The dry soul is the wisest and best.[356]R. P. 42.
(77) Man is kindled and put out like a light in the night-time.
(78) And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted[357]andbecome the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former. R. P. 47.
(79) Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is a child’s. R. P. 40 a.
(80) I have sought for myself. R. P. 48.
(81) We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not. R. P. 33 a.
(82) It is a weariness to labour for the same masters and be ruled by them.
(83) It rests by changing.
(84) Even the posset separates if it is not stirred.
(85) Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung.
(86) When they are born, they wish to live and to meet with their dooms—or rather to rest—and they leave children behind them to meet with their dooms in turn.
(87-89) A man may be a grandfather in thirty years.
(90) Those who are asleep are fellow-workers....
(91a) Thought is common to all.
(91b) Those who speak with understanding must hold fast to what is common to all as a city holds fast to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are fed by the one divine law. It prevails as much as it will, and suffices for all things with something to spare. R. P. 43.
(92) So we must follow the common,[358]yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. R. P. 44.
(93) They are estranged from that with which they have most constant intercourse.[359]R. P. 32 b.
(94) It is not meet to act and speak like men asleep.
(95) The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.
(96) The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has. R. P. 45.
(97) Man is called a baby by God, even as a child by a man. R. P. 45.
(98, 99) The wisest man is an ape compared to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man.
(100) The people must fight for its law as for its walls. R. P. 43 b.
(101) Greater deaths win greater portions. R. P. 49 a.
(102) Gods and men honour those who are slain in battle. R. P. 49 a.
(103) Wantonness needs putting out, even more than a house on fire. R. P. 49 a.
(104) It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. It is sickness that makes health pleasant; evil,[360]good; hunger, plenty; weariness, rest. R. P. 48 b.
(105-107) It is hard to fight with one’s heart’s desire.[361]Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul. R. P. 49 a.
(108, 109) It is best to hide folly; but it is hard in times of relaxation, over our cups.
(110) And it is law, too, to obey the counsel of one. R. P. 49 a.
(111) For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the poets and take the crowd as their teacher, knowing not that there are many bad and few good. For even the best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals, while most of them are glutted like beasts.[362]R. P. 31 a.
(112) In Priene lived Bias, son of Teutamas, who is of more account than the rest. (He said, “Most men are bad.”)
(113) One is ten thousand to me, if he be the best. R. P. 31 a.
(114) The Ephesians would do well to hang themselves,every grown man of them, and leave the city to beardless lads; for they have cast out Hermodoros, the best man among them, saying, “We will have none who is best among us; if there be any such, let him be so elsewhere and among others.” R. P. 29 b.
(115) Dogs bark at every one they do not know. R. P. 31 a.
(116) ... (The wise man) is not known because of men’s want of belief.
(117) The fool is fluttered at every word. R. P. 44 b.
(118) The most esteemed of them knows but fancies;[363]yet of a truth justice shall overtake the artificers of lies and the false witnesses.
(119) Homer should be turned out of the lists and whipped, and Archilochos likewise. R. P. 31.
(120) One day is like any other.
(121) Man’s character is his fate.[364]
(122) There awaits men when they die such things as they look not for nor dream of. R. P. 46 d.
(123) ...[365]that they rise up and become the wakeful guardians of the quick and dead. R. P. 46 d.
(124) Night-walkers, Magians, priests of Bakchos and priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers....
(125) The mysteries practised among men are unholy mysteries. R. P. 48.
(126) And they pray to these images, as if one were to talk with a man’s house, knowing not what gods or heroes are. R. P. 49 a.
(127) For if it were not to Dionysos that they made a procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysosin whose honour they go mad and keep the feast of the wine-vat. R. P. 49.
(129, 130) They vainly purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, just as if one who had stepped into the mud were to wash his feet in mud. Any man who marked him doing thus, would deem him mad. R. P. 49 a.
The doxographical tradition.
66. It will be seen that some of these fragments are far from clear, and there are probably not a few of which the meaning will never be recovered. We naturally turn, then, to the doxographers for a clue; but, as ill-luck will have it, they are far less instructive with regard to Herakleitos than we have found them in other cases. We have, in fact, two great difficulties to contend with. The first is the unusual weakness of the doxographical tradition itself. Hippolytos, upon whom we can generally rely for a fairly accurate account of what Theophrastos really said, derived the material for his first four chapters, which treat of Thales, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, and Empedokles, not from the excellent epitome which he afterwards used, but from a biographical compendium,[366]which consisted for the most part of apocryphal anecdotes and apophthegms. It was based, further, on some writer ofSuccessionswho regarded Herakleitos and Empedokles as Pythagoreans. They are therefore placed side by side, and their doctrines are hopelessly mixed up together. The link between Herakleitos and the Pythagoreans was Hippasos of Metapontion, in whose system, as we know, fire played an important part.Theophrastos, following Aristotle, had spoken of the two in the same sentence, and this was enough to put the writers ofSuccessionsoff the track.[367]We are forced, then, to look to the more detailed of the two accounts of the opinions of Herakleitos given in Diogenes,[368]which goes back to theVetusta Placita, and is, fortunately, pretty full and accurate. All our other sources are more or less tainted.
The second difficulty which we have to face is even more serious. Most of the commentators on Herakleitos mentioned in Diogenes were Stoics,[369]and it is certain that their paraphrases were sometimes taken for the original. Now, the Stoics held the Ephesian in peculiar veneration, and sought to interpret him as far as possible in accordance with their own system. Further, they were fond of “accommodating”[370]the views of earlier thinkers to their own, and this has had serious consequences. In particular, the Stoic theories of the λόγος and the ἐκπύρωσις are constantly ascribed to Herakleitos by our authorities, and the very fragments are adulterated with scraps of Stoic terminology.
The discovery of Herakleitos.
67. Herakleitos looks down not only on the mass of men, but on all previous inquirers into nature.This must mean that he believed himself to have attained insight into some truth which had not hitherto been recognised, though it was, as it were, staring men in the face (fr.93). Clearly, then, if we wish to get at the central thing in his teaching, we must try to find out what he was thinking of when he launched into those denunciations of human dulness and ignorance.[371]The answer seems to be given in two fragments,18and45. From them we gather that the truth hitherto ignored is that the many apparently independent and conflicting things we know are really one, and that, on the other hand, this one is also many. The “strife of opposites” is really an “attunement” (ἁρμονία). From this it follows that wisdom is not a knowledge of many things, but the perception of the underlying unity of the warring opposites. That this really was the fundamental thought of Herakleitos is stated by Philo. He says: “For that which is made up of both the opposites is one; and, when the one is divided, the opposites are disclosed. Is not this just what the Greeks say their great and much belauded Herakleitos put in the forefront of his philosophy as summing it all up, and boasted of as a new discovery?”[372]We shall take the elements of this theory one by one, and see how they are to be understood.
The One and the Many.
68. Anaximander had taught already that the opposites were separated out from the Boundless, but passed away into it once more, so paying the penalty for their unjust encroachments on one another. It ishere implied that there is something wrong in the war of opposites, and that the existence of the Many is a breach in the unity of the One. The truth which Herakleitos proclaimed was that there is no One without the Many, and no Many without the One. The world is at once one and many, and it is just the “opposite tension” of the Many that constitutes the unity of the One.
The credit of having been the first to see this is expressly assigned to Herakleitos by Plato. In theSophist(242 d), the Eleatic stranger, after explaining how the Eleatics maintained that what we call many is really one, proceeds:—
But certain Ionian and (at a later date) certain Sicilian Muses remarked that it was safest to unite these two things, and to say that reality is both many and one, and is kept together by Hate and Love. “For,” say the more severe Muses, “in its division it is always being brought together” (cf. fr.59); while the softer Muses relaxed the requirement that this should always be so, and said that the All was alternately one and at peace through the power of Aphrodite, and many and at war with itself because of something they called Strife.
But certain Ionian and (at a later date) certain Sicilian Muses remarked that it was safest to unite these two things, and to say that reality is both many and one, and is kept together by Hate and Love. “For,” say the more severe Muses, “in its division it is always being brought together” (cf. fr.59); while the softer Muses relaxed the requirement that this should always be so, and said that the All was alternately one and at peace through the power of Aphrodite, and many and at war with itself because of something they called Strife.
In this passage the Ionian Muses stand, of course, for Herakleitos, and the Sicilian for Empedokles. We remark also that the differentiation of the one into many, and the integration of the many into one, are both eternal and simultaneous, and that this is the ground upon which the system of Herakleitos is contrasted with that of Empedokles. We shall come back to that point again. Meanwhile we confine ourselves to this, that, according to Plato, Herakleitos taught that reality was at once many and one.
We must be careful, however, not to imagine thatwhat Herakleitos thus discovered was a logical principle. This was the mistake of Lassalle’s book.[373]The identity in and through difference which he proclaimed was purely physical; logic did not yet exist, and as the principle of identity had not been formulated, it would have been impossible to protest against an abstract application of it. The identity which he explains as consisting in difference is simply that of the primary substance in all its manifestations. This identity had been realised already by the Milesians, but they had found a difficulty in the difference. Anaximander had treated the strife of opposites as an “injustice,” and what Herakleitos set himself to show was that, on the contrary, it was the highest justice (fr.62).
Fire.
69. All this made it necessary for him to seek out a new primary substance. He wanted not merely something out of which the diversified world we know mightconceivably be made, or from which opposites could be “separated out,” but something which of its own nature would pass into everything else, while everything else would pass in turn into it. This he found in Fire, and it is easy to see why, if we consider the phenomenon of combustion, even as it appears to the plain man. The quantity of fire in a flame burning steadily appears to remain the same, the flame seems to be what we call a “thing.” And yet the substance of it is continually changing. It is always passing away in smoke, and its place is always being taken by fresh matter from the fuel that feeds it. This is just what we want. If we regard the world as an “ever-living fire” (fr.20), we can understand how it is always becoming all things, while all things are always returning to it.[374]
Flux.
70. This necessarily brings with it a certain way oflooking at the change and movement of the world. Fire burns continuously and without interruption. It is therefore always consuming fuel and always liberating smoke. Everything is either mounting upwards to serve as fuel, or sinking downwards after having nourished the flame. It follows that the whole of reality is like an ever-flowing stream, and that nothing is ever at rest for a moment. The substance of the things we see is in constant change. Even as we look at them, some of the matter of which they are composed has already passed into something else, while fresh matter has come into them from another source. This theory is usually summed up, appropriately enough, in the phrase “All things are flowing” (πάντα ῥεῖ), though, as it happens, it cannot be proved that this is a quotation from Herakleitos. Plato, however, expresses the idea quite clearly. “Nothing ever is, everything is becoming”; “All things are in motion like streams”; “All things are passing, and nothing abides”; “Herakleitos says somewhere that all things pass and naught abides; and, comparing things to the current of a river, he says that you cannot step twice into the same stream” (cf. fr.41)—these are the terms in which he describes the system. And Aristotle says the same thing, “All things are in motion,” “nothing steadfastly is.”[375]Herakleitos held, in fact, that any given thing, however stable in appearance, was merely a section in the stream, and that the matter composing it was never the same in any two consecutive moments of time. We shall see presently how he conceived this process to operate; meanwhile we remark that the idea wasnot altogether novel, and that it is hardly the central point in the system of Herakleitos. The Milesians held a similar view. The flux of Herakleitos was at most more unceasing and universal.
The Upward and Downward path.
71. Herakleitos appears to have worked out the details of the perpetual flux with reference to the theories of Anaximenes.[376]It is unlikely, however, that he explained the transformations of matter by means of rarefaction and condensation.[377]Theophrastos, it appears, suggested that he did; but he allowed it was by no means clear. The passage from Diogenes which we are about to quote has faithfully preserved this touch.[378]In the fragments, at any rate, we find nothing about rarefaction and condensation. The expression used is “exchange” (fr.22); and this is certainly a very good name for what happens when fire gives out smoke and takes in fuel instead.
It has been pointed out that, in default of Hippolytos, our best account of the Theophrastean doxography of Herakleitos is the fuller of the two accounts given in Laertios Diogenes. It is as follows:—
His opinions on particular points are these:—He held that Fire was the element, and that all things were an exchange for fire, produced by condensation and rarefaction. But he explains nothing clearly. All things were produced in opposition, and all things were in flux like a river.The all is finite and the world is one. It arises from fire, and is consumed again by fire alternately through all eternity in certain cycles. This happens according to fate. That which leads to the becoming of the opposites is called War and Strife; that which leads to the final conflagration is Concord and Peace.He called change the upward and the downward path, and held that the world comes into being in virtue of this. When fire is condensed it becomes moist, and when compressed it turns to water; water being congealed turns to earth, and this he calls the downward path. And, again, the earth is in turn liquefied, and from it water arises, and from that everything else; for he refers almost everything to the evaporation from the sea. This is the path upwards. R. P. 36.He held, too, that exhalations arose both from the sea and the land; some bright and pure, others dark. Fire was nourished by the bright ones, and moisture by the others.He does not make it clear what is the nature of that which surrounds the world. He held, however, that there were bowls in it with the concave sides turned towards us, in which the bright exhalations were collected and produced flames. These were the heavenly bodies.The flame of the sun was the brightest and warmest; for the other heavenly bodies were more distant from the earth; and for that reason gave less light and heat. The moon, on the other hand, was nearer the earth; but it moved through an impure region. The sun moved in a bright and unmixed region, and at the same time was at just the right distance from us. That is why it gives more heat and light. The eclipses of the sun and moon were due to the turning of the bowls upwards, while the monthly phases of the moon were produced by a gradual turning of its bowl.Day and night, months and seasons and years, rains and winds, and things like these, were due to the different exhalations. The bright exhalation, when ignited in the circle of the sun, produced day, and the preponderance of the opposite exhalations produced night. The increase of warmth proceeding from the bright exhalation produced summer, and the preponderance of moisture from the dark exhalation produced winter. He assigns the causes of other things in conformity with this.As to the earth, he makes no clear statement about its nature, any more than he does about that of the bowls.These, then, were his opinions. R. P. 39 b.
His opinions on particular points are these:—
He held that Fire was the element, and that all things were an exchange for fire, produced by condensation and rarefaction. But he explains nothing clearly. All things were produced in opposition, and all things were in flux like a river.
The all is finite and the world is one. It arises from fire, and is consumed again by fire alternately through all eternity in certain cycles. This happens according to fate. That which leads to the becoming of the opposites is called War and Strife; that which leads to the final conflagration is Concord and Peace.
He called change the upward and the downward path, and held that the world comes into being in virtue of this. When fire is condensed it becomes moist, and when compressed it turns to water; water being congealed turns to earth, and this he calls the downward path. And, again, the earth is in turn liquefied, and from it water arises, and from that everything else; for he refers almost everything to the evaporation from the sea. This is the path upwards. R. P. 36.
He held, too, that exhalations arose both from the sea and the land; some bright and pure, others dark. Fire was nourished by the bright ones, and moisture by the others.
He does not make it clear what is the nature of that which surrounds the world. He held, however, that there were bowls in it with the concave sides turned towards us, in which the bright exhalations were collected and produced flames. These were the heavenly bodies.
The flame of the sun was the brightest and warmest; for the other heavenly bodies were more distant from the earth; and for that reason gave less light and heat. The moon, on the other hand, was nearer the earth; but it moved through an impure region. The sun moved in a bright and unmixed region, and at the same time was at just the right distance from us. That is why it gives more heat and light. The eclipses of the sun and moon were due to the turning of the bowls upwards, while the monthly phases of the moon were produced by a gradual turning of its bowl.
Day and night, months and seasons and years, rains and winds, and things like these, were due to the different exhalations. The bright exhalation, when ignited in the circle of the sun, produced day, and the preponderance of the opposite exhalations produced night. The increase of warmth proceeding from the bright exhalation produced summer, and the preponderance of moisture from the dark exhalation produced winter. He assigns the causes of other things in conformity with this.
As to the earth, he makes no clear statement about its nature, any more than he does about that of the bowls.
These, then, were his opinions. R. P. 39 b.
It is obvious that, if we can trust this passage, it is of the greatest possible value; and that, upon the whole, we can trust it is shown by the fact that it follows the exact order of topics to which all the doxographies derived from the great work of Theophrastos adhere. First we have the primary substance, then the world, then the heavenly bodies, and lastly, meteorological phenomena. We conclude, then, that it may be accepted with the exceptions, firstly, of the probably erroneous conjecture of Theophrastos as to rarefaction and condensation mentioned above; and secondly, of some pieces of Stoical interpretation which come from theVetusta Placita.
Let us look at the details of the theory. The pure fire, we are told, is to be found chiefly in the sun. This, like the other heavenly bodies, is a trough or bowl, or perhaps a sort of boat, with the concave side turned towards us, in which the bright exhalations from the sea collect and burn. How does the fire of the sun pass into other forms? If we look at the fragments which deal with the downward path, we find that the first transformation that it undergoes is into sea, and we are further told that half of the sea is earth and half of it πρηστήρ (fr.21). The full meaning of this we shall see presently, but we must settle at once what πρηστήρ is. Many theories have been advanced upon the subject; but, so far as I know, no one[379]has yet proposed to take the word in the sense which it always bears elsewhere, that, namely, of hurricane accompanied by a fiery waterspout.[380]Yet surely this isjust what is wanted. It is amply attested that Herakleitos explained the rise of the sea to fire by means of the bright evaporations; and we want a similar meteorological explanation of the passing of the fire back into sea. We want, in fact, something which will stand equally for the smoke produced by the burning of the sun and for the immediate stage between fire and water. What could serve the turn better than a fiery waterspout? It sufficiently resembles smoke to be accounted for as the product of the sun’s combustion, and it certainly comes down in the form of water. And this interpretation becomes practically certain when taken in connexion with the report of Aetios as to the Herakleitean theory of πρηστῆρες. They were due, we are told, “to the kindling and extinction of clouds.”[381]In other words, the bright vapour, after kindling in the bowl of the sun and going out again, reappears as the dark fiery storm-cloud, and so passes once more into sea. At the next stage we find water continually passing into earth. We are already familiar with this idea (§ 10), and no more need be said about it. Turning to the “upward path,” we find that the earth is liquefied in the same proportion as the sea becomes earth, so that the sea is still “measured by the same tale” (fr.23). Half of it is earth and half of it is πρηστήρ (fr.21). This must mean that, at any given moment, half of the sea is taking the downwardpath, and has just been fiery storm-cloud, while half of it is going up, and has just been earth. In proportion as the sea is increased by rain, water passes into earth; in proportion as the sea is diminished by evaporation, it is fed by the earth. Lastly, the ignition of the bright vapour from the sea in the bowl of the sun completes the circle of the “upward and downward path.”