Chapter 23

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 and5flowery 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 pierced10by 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 and5forsworn 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 toilsomepath 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 he10flings 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.5R. 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 the5ground 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 their5mother, 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.5R. P. 181 c.(148)... Earth that envelops the man.

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 and5flowery 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 pierced10by 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 and5forsworn 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 toilsomepath 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 he10flings 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.5R. 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 the5ground 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 their5mother, 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.5R. P. 181 c.

(148)

... Earth that envelops the man.

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 tosay 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 “whatis” (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 immovableplenum, 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 immovableplenum? 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 “thatis” 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 beexplained 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 “whatis” is uncreated and indestructible (fr.17).

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 theklepsydra, 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 exactlywhat 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.

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.

Empedokles regarded the “roots of all things” as eternal. Nothing can come from nothing or pass away into nothing (fr.12); what isis, 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]

The “four roots” are given as an exhaustive enumeration of the elements (fr.23sub 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 founderidentified 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 thingis.

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.

Strife and Love.

108. The Eleatic criticism had made it necessary forsubsequent 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.17,22sqq.). 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.

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 Theophrastosexpressed 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).

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 ofunlikes.

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 theLaws,[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.

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 thevoid? 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.

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.

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 hehimself 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.

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 thefirst 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.

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 PlutarcheanStromateishave 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 byevaporation. 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).

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).

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]

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 thisway, 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.

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 PlutarcheanStromateis[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.”

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 centuryB.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]

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]

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.

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 upwardcourse 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.

At the beginning of the pseudo-AristotelianTreatise 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.

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