Chapter III: Herakleitos of Ephesos (2)

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 is just 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 downward path, 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.”

Footnote 379:

This was written in 1890. In his _Herakleitos von Ephesos_ (1901)
Diels takes it as I did, rendering _Glutwind_.

Footnote 380:

Cf. Herod. vii. 42, and Lucretius, vi. 424. Seneca (_Quaest. Nat._ ii.
56) calls it _igneus turbo_. The opinions of early philosophers on
these phenomena are collected in Aetios, iii. 3. The πρηστήρ of
Anaximander (Chap. I. p. 69, _n._ 133) is a different thing
altogether, but it is quite likely that Greek sailors named the
meteorological phenomenon after the familiar bellows of the smith.

Footnote 381:

Aet. iii. 3, 9, πρηστῆρας δὲ κατὰ νεφῶν ἐμπρήσεις καὶ σβέσεις (sc.
Ἡράκλειτος ἀποφαίνεται γίγνεσθαι). Diels (_Herakleitos_, p. v.) seems
to regard the πρηστήρ as the form in which water ascends to heaven.
But the Greeks were well aware that waterspouts burst and come down.

[Sidenote: Measure for measure.]

72. The question now arises, How is it that, in spite of this constant flux, things appear relatively stable? The answer of Herakleitos was that it is owing to the observance of the “measures,” in virtue of which the aggregate bulk of each form of matter in the long run remains the same, though its substance is constantly changing. Certain “measures” of the “ever-living fire” are always being kindled, while like “measures” are always going out (fr. 20); and these measures the sun will not exceed. All things are “exchanged” for fire and fire for all things (fr. 22), and this implies that for everything it takes, fire will give as much. “The sun will not exceed his measures” (fr. 29).

And yet the “measures” are not to be regarded as absolutely fixed. We gather from the passage of Diogenes quoted above that Theophrastos spoke of an alternate preponderance of the bright and dark exhalations, and Aristotle speaks of Herakleitos as explaining all things by evaporation.[382] In particular, the alternation of day and night, summer and winter, were accounted for in this way. Now, in a passage of the pseudo-Hippokratean treatise Περὶ διαίτης which is almost certainly of Herakleitean origin,[383] we read of an “advance of fire and water” in connexion with day and night and the courses of the sun and moon.[384] In fr. 26, again, we read of fire “advancing,” and all these things seem to be intimately connected. We must therefore try to see whether there is anything in the remaining fragments that bears upon the subject.

Footnote 382:

Arist. _de An._ Β, 2. 405 a 26, τὴν ἀναθυμίασιν ἐξ ἧς τἆλλα
συνίστησιν.

Footnote 383:

The presence of Herakleitean matter in this treatise was pointed out
by Gesner, but Bernays was the first to make any considerable use of
it in reconstructing the system. The older literature of the subject
has been in the main superseded by Carl Fredrichs’ _Hippokratische
Untersuchungen_ (1899), where also a satisfactory text of the sections
which concern us is given for the first time. Fredrichs shows that (as
I said already in the first edition) the work belongs to the period of
eclecticism and reaction which I have briefly characterised in § 184,
and he points out that c 3, which was formerly supposed to be mainly
Herakleitean, is really from some work which was strongly influenced
by Empedokles and Anaxagoras. I think, however, that he goes wrong in
attributing the section to a nameless “Physiker” of the school of
Archelaos, or even to Archelaos himself; it is far more like what we
should expect from the eclectic Herakleiteans whom Plato describes in
_Crat._ 413 c (see p. 161, _n._ 374). He is certainly wrong in holding
the doctrine of the balance of fire and water not to be Herakleitean,
and there is no justification for separating the remark quoted in the
text from its context because it happens to agree almost verbally with
the beginning of c. 3. As we shall see, that passage too is of
Herakleitean origin.

Footnote 384:

Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5. I should read thus: ἡμέρη καὶ εὐφρόνη ἐπὶ τὸ
μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον· ἥλιος, σελήνη ἐπὶ τὸ μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον·
πυρὸς ἔφοδος καὶ ὕδατος. In any case, the meaning is the same, and the
sentence occurs between χωρεῖ δὲ πάντα καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα ἄνω καὶ
κάτω ἀμειβόμενα and πάντα ταὐτὰ καὶ οὐ τὰ αὐτά, which are surely
Herakleitean utterances.

[Sidenote: Man]

73. In studying this alternate advance of fire and water, it will be convenient to start with the microcosm. We have more definite information about the two exhalations in man than about the analogous processes in the world at large, and it would seem that Herakleitos himself explained the world by man rather than man by the world. In a well-known passage, Aristotle implies that soul is identical with the dry exhalation,[385] and this is fully confirmed by the fragments. Man is made up of three things, fire, water, and earth. But, just as in the macrocosm fire is identified with the one wisdom, so in the microcosm the fire alone is conscious. When it has left the body, the remainder, the mere earth and water, is altogether worthless (fr. 85). Of course, the fire which animates man is subject to the “upward and downward path,” just as much as the fire of the world. The Περὶ διαίτης has preserved the obviously Herakleitean sentence: “All things are passing, both human and divine, upwards and downwards by exchanges.”[386] We are just as much in perpetual flux as anything else in the world. We are and are not the same for two consecutive instants (fr. 81). The fire in us is perpetually becoming water, and the water earth; but, as the opposite process goes on simultaneously, we appear to remain the same.[387]

Footnote 385:

Arist. _de An._ Α, 2. 405 a 25 (R. P. 38). Diels attributes to
Herakleitos himself the words καὶ ψυχαὶ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμιῶνται,
which are found in Areios Didymos after fr. 42. I can hardly believe,
however, that the _word_ ἀναθυμίασις is Herakleitean. He seems rather
to have called the two exhalations καπνός and ἀήρ (cf. fr. 37).

Footnote 386:

Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5, χωρεῖ δὲ πάντα καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα ἄνω καὶ κάτω
ἀμειβόμενα.

Footnote 387:

We seem to have a clear reference to this in Epicharmos, fr. 2, Diels
(170 b, Kaibel): “Look now at men too. One grows and another passes
away, and all are in change always. What changes in its substance
(κατὰ φύσιν) and never abides in the same spot, will already be
something different from what has passed away. So thou and I were
different yesterday, and are now quite other people, and again we
shall become others and never the same again, and so on in the same
way.” This is put into the mouth of a debtor who does not wish to pay.
See Bernays on the αὐξανόμενος λόγος (_Ges. Abh._ i. pp. 109 sqq.).

[Sidenote: (_a_) Sleeping and waking.]

74. This, however, is not all. Man is subject to a certain oscillation in his “measures” of fire and water, and this gives rise to the alternations of sleeping and waking, life and death. The _locus classicus_ on this subject is a passage of Sextus Empiricus, which reproduces the account of the Herakleitean psychology given by Ainesidemos (Skeptic, _c._ 80-50 B.C.).[388] It is as follows (R. P. 41):—

The natural philosopher is of opinion that what surrounds us[389] is
rational and endowed with consciousness. According to Herakleitos,
when we draw in this divine reason by means of respiration, we become
rational. In sleep we forget, but at our waking we become conscious
once more. For in sleep, when the openings of the senses close, the
mind which is in us is cut off from contact with that which surrounds
us, and only our connexion with it by means of respiration is
preserved as a sort of root (from which the rest may spring again);
and, when it is thus separated, it loses the power of memory that it
had before. When we awake again, however, it looks out through the
openings of the senses, as if through windows, and coming together
with the surrounding mind, it assumes the power of reason. Just, then,
as embers, when they are brought near the the fire, change and become
red-hot, and go out when they are taken away from it again, so does
the portion of the surrounding mind which sojourns in our body become
irrational when it is cut off, and so does it become of like nature to
the whole when contact is established through the greatest number of
openings.

Footnote 388:

Sextus quotes “Ainesidemos according to Herakleitos.” Natorp holds
(_Forschungen_, p. 78) that Ainesidemos really did combine
Herakleiteanism with Skepticism. Diels, on the other hand (_Dox._ pp.
210, 211), insists that Ainesidemos only gave an account of the
theories of Herakleitos. This controversy does not affect the use we
make of the passage.

Footnote 389:

τὸ περιέχον ἡμᾶς, opposed to but parallel with τὸ περιέχον τὸν κόσμον.

In this passage there is obviously a very large admixture of later phraseology and of later ideas. In particular, the identification of “that which surrounds us” with the air cannot be Herakleitean; for Herakleitos can have known nothing of air, which in his day was regarded as a form of water (§ 27). The reference to the pores or openings of the senses is probably foreign to him also; for the theory of pores is due to Alkmaion (§ 96). Lastly, the distinction between mind and body is far too sharply drawn. On the other hand, the important rôle assigned to respiration may very well be Herakleitean; for we have met with it already in Anaximenes. And we can hardly doubt that the striking simile of the embers which glow when they are brought near the fire is genuine (cf. fr. 77). The true Herakleitean doctrine doubtless was, that sleep was produced by the encroachment of moist, dark exhalations from the water in the body, which cause the fire to burn low. In sleep, we lose contact with the fire in the world which is common to all, and retire to a world of our own (fr. 95). In a soul where the fire and water are evenly balanced, the equilibrium is restored in the morning by an equal advance of the bright exhalation.

[Sidenote: (_b_) Life and death.]

75. But in no soul are the fire and water thus evenly balanced for long. One or the other acquires predominance, and the result in either case is death. Let us take each of these cases in turn. It is death, we know, to souls to become water (fr. 68); but that is just what happens to souls which seek after pleasure. For pleasure is a moistening of the soul (fr. 72), as may be seen in the case of the drunken man, who, in pursuit of it, has moistened his soul to such an extent that he does not know where he is going (fr. 73). Even in gentle relaxation over our cups, it is more difficult to hide folly than at other times (fr. 108). That is why it is so necessary for us to quench wantonness (fr. 103); for whatever our heart’s desire insists on it purchases at the price of life, that is, of the fire within us (fr. 105). Take now the other case. The dry soul, that which has least moisture, is the best (fr. 74); but the preponderance of fire causes death as much as that of water. It is a very different death, however, and wins “greater portions” for those who die it (fr. 101). Apparently those who fall in battle share their lot (fr. 102). We have no fragment which tells us directly what it is, but the class of utterances we are about to look at next leaves little doubt on the subject. Those who die the fiery and not the watery death, become, in fact, gods, though in a different sense from that in which the one Wisdom is god. It is probable that the corrupt fragment 123 refers to this unexpected fate (fr. 122) that awaits men when they die.

Further, just as summer and winter are one, and necessarily reproduce one another by their “opposite tension,” so do life and death. They, too, are one, we are told; and so are youth and age (fr. 78). It follows that the soul will be now living and now dead; that it will only turn to fire or water, as the case may be, to recommence once more its unceasing upward and downward path. The soul that has died from excess of moisture sinks down to earth; but from the earth comes water, and from water is once more exhaled a soul (fr. 68). So, too, we are told (fr. 67) that gods and men are really one. They live each others’ life, and die each others’ death. Those mortals that die the fiery death become immortal,[390] they become the guardians of the quick and the dead (fr. 123);[391] and those immortals become mortal in their turn. Everything is really the death of something else (fr. 64). The living and the dead are always changing places (fr. 78), like the pieces on a child’s draught-board (fr. 79), and this applies not only to the souls that have become water, but to those that have become fire and are now guardian spirits. The real weariness is continuance in the same state (fr. 82), and the real rest is change (fr. 83). Rest in any other sense is tantamount to dissolution (fr. 84).[392] So they too are born once more. Herakleitos estimated the duration of the cycle which preserves the balance of life and death as thirty years, the shortest time in which a man may become a grandfather (frs. 87-89).[393]

Footnote 390:

The popular word is used for the sake of its paradoxical effect.
Strictly speaking, they are all mortal from one point of view and
immortal from another.

Footnote 391:

We need not hesitate to ascribe to Herakleitos the view that the dead
become guardian demons of the living; it appears already in Hesiod,
_Works and Days_, 121, and the Orphic communities had popularised it.
Rohde, _Psyche_ (pp. 442 sqq.), refused to admit that Herakleitos
believed the soul survived after death. Strictly speaking, it is no
doubt an inconsistency; but I believe, with Zeller and Diels, that it
is one of a kind we may well admit. Many thinkers have spoken of a
personal immortality, though there was really no room for it in their
systems. It is worthy of note in this connexion that the first
argument which Plato uses to establish the doctrine of immortality in
the _Phaedo_ is just the Herakleitean parallelism of life and death
with sleeping and waking.

Footnote 392:

These fragments are quoted by Plotinos, Iamblichos, and Noumenios in
this very connexion (see R. P. 46 c), and it does not seem to me
possible to hold, with Rohde, that they had no grounds for so
interpreting them. They knew the context and we do not.

Footnote 393:

Plut. _def. orac._ 415 d, ἔτη τριάκοντα ποιοῦσι τὴν γενεὰν καθ’
Ἡράκλειτον, ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ γεννῶντα παρέχει τὸν ἐξ αὑτοῦ γεγεννημένον ὁ
γεννήσας. Philo, fr. Harris, p. 20, δυνατὸν ἐν τριακοστῷ ἔτει αὖ τὸν
ἄνθρωπον πάππον γενέσθαι κ.τ.λ. Censorinus, _de die nat._ 17, 2, “hoc
enim tempus (triaginta annos) _genean_ vocari Heraclitus auctor est,
quia _orbis aetatis_ in eo sit spatio: orbem autem vocat aetatis, dum
natura ab sementi humana ad sementim revertitur.” The words _orbis
aetatis_ seem to mean αἰῶνος κύκλος, “the circle of life.” If so, we
may compare the Orphic κύκλος γενέσεως.

[Sidenote: The day and the year.]

76. Let us turn now to the world. Diogenes tells us that fire was kept up by the bright vapours from land and sea, and moisture by the dark.[394] What are these “dark” vapours which increase the moist element? If we remember the “Air” of Anaximenes, we shall be inclined to regard them as darkness itself. We know that the idea of darkness as privation of light is not natural to the unsophisticated mind. We sometimes hear even now of darkness “thick enough to cut with a knife.” I suppose, then, that Herakleitos believed night and winter to be produced by the rise of darkness from earth and sea—he saw, of course, that the valleys were dark before the hill-tops,—and that this darkness, being moist, so increased the watery element as to put out the sun’s light. This, however, destroys the power of darkness itself. It can no longer rise upwards unless the sun gives it motion, and so it becomes possible for a fresh sun (fr. 32) to be kindled, and to nourish itself at the expense of the moist element for a time. But it can only be for a time. The sun, by burning up the bright vapour, deprives himself of nourishment, and the dark vapour once more gets the upper hand. It is in this sense that “day and night are one” (fr. 35). Each implies the other, and they are therefore to be regarded as merely two sides of the one, in which alone their true ground of explanation is to be found (fr. 36).

Footnote 394:

Diog. ix. 9 (R. P. 39 b).

Summer and winter were easily to be explained in the same way. We know that the “turnings” of the sun were a subject of interest in those days, and it was natural for Herakleitos to see in its retreat further to the south the gradual advance of the moist element, caused by the heat of the sun itself. This, however, diminishes the power of the sun to cause evaporation, and so it must return to the north once more that it may supply itself with nourishment. Such was, at any rate, the Stoic doctrine on the subject,[395] and that it comes from Herakleitos seems to be proved by its occurrence in the Περὶ διαίτης. It seems impossible to refer the following sentence to any other source:—

And in turn each (fire and water) prevails and is prevailed over to
the greatest and least degree that is possible. For neither can
prevail altogether for the following reasons. If fire advances towards
the utmost limit of the water, its nourishment fails it. It retires,
then, to a place where it can get nourishment. And if water advances
towards the utmost limit of the fire, movement fails it. At that
point, then, it stands still; and, when it has come to a stand, it has
no longer power to resist, but is consumed as nourishment for the fire
that falls upon it. For these reasons neither can prevail altogether.
But if at any time either should be in any way overcome, then none of
the things that exist would be as they are now. So long as things are
as they are, fire and water will always be too, and neither will ever
fail.[396]

Footnote 395:

See Kleanthes, fr. 29, Pearson, ὠκεανὸς δ’ ἐστὶ <καὶ γῆ> ἧς τὴν
ἀναθυμίασιν ἐπινέμεται (ὁ ἥλιος). Cf. Cic. _N.D._ iii. 37: “Quid enim?
non eisdem vobis placet omnem ignem pastus indigere nec permanere ullo
modo posse, nisi alitur: ali autem solem, lunam, reliqua astra aquis,
alia dulcibus (from the earth), alia marinis? eamque causam Cleanthes
adfert cur se sol referat nec longius progrediatur solstitiali orbi
itemque brumali, ne longius discedat a cibo.”

Footnote 396:

For the Greek text of this passage, see below, p. 183, _n._ 413.
Fredrichs allows that it is from the same source as that quoted above
(p. 169), and, as that comes from Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3, he denies the
Herakleitean origin of this too. He has not taken account of the fact
that it gives the Stoic doctrine, which raises a presumption in favour
of that being Herakleitean. If I could agree with Fredrichs’ theory, I
should still say that the present passage was a Herakleitean
interpolation in the _Physiker_ rather than that the other was an
interpolation from the _Physiker_ in the Herakleitean section. As it
is, I find no difficulty in believing that both passages give the
Herakleitean doctrine, though it becomes mixed up with other theories
in the sequel. See p. 167, _n._ 383.

[Sidenote: The Great Year.]

77. Herakleitos spoke also of a longer period, which is identified with the “Great Year,” and is variously described as lasting 18,000 and 10,800 years.[397] We have no definite statement, however, of what process Herakleitos supposed to take place in the Great Year. We have seen that the period of 36,000 years was, in all probability, Babylonian, and was that of the revolution which produces the precession of the equinoxes.[398] Now 18,000 years is just half that period, a fact which may be connected with Herakleitos’s way of dividing all cycles into an “upward and downward path” It is not at all likely, however, that Herakleitos, who held with Xenophanes that the sun was “new every day,” would trouble himself about the precession of the equinoxes, and we seem forced to assume that he gave some new application to the traditional period. The Stoics, or some of them, held that the Great Year was the period between one world-conflagration and the next. They were careful, however, to make it a good deal longer than Herakleitos did, and, in any case, we are not entitled without more ado to credit him with the theory of a general conflagration.[399] We must try first, if possible, to interpret the Great Year on the analogy of the shorter periods discussed already.

Footnote 397:

Aet. ii. 32, 3, Ἡράκλειτος ἐκ μυρίων ὀκτακισχιλίων ἐνιαυτῶν ἡλιακῶν
(τὸν μέγαν ἐνιαυτὸν εἶναι). Censorinus, _de die nat._ 11, Heraclitus
et Linus, XDCCC.

Footnote 398:

See Introd. § XII. p. 25, _n._ 39.

Footnote 399:

For the Stoic doctrine, cf. Nemesios, _de nat. hom._ 38 (R. P. 503).
Mr. Adam allowed that no destruction of the world or conflagration
marked the end of Plato’s year, but he declined to draw what seems to
me the natural inference that the connexion between the two things
belongs to a later age, and should not, therefore, be ascribed to
Herakleitos in the absence of any evidence that he did so connect
them. Nevertheless, his treatment of these questions in the second
volume of his edition of the _Republic_, pp. 302 sqq., must form the
basis of all further discussion on the subject. It has certainly
helped me to put the view which he rejects (p. 303, n. 9) in what I
hope will be found a more convincing form.

Now we have seen that a generation is the shortest time in which a man can become a grandfather, it is the period of the upward or downward path of the soul, and the most natural interpretation of the longer period would surely be that it represents the time taken by a “measure” of the fire in the world to travel on the downward path to earth or return to fire once more by the upward path. Plato certainly implies that such a parallelism between the periods of man and the world was recognised,[400] and this receives a curious confirmation from a passage in Aristotle, which is usually supposed to refer to the doctrine of a periodic conflagration. He is discussing the question whether the “heavens,” that is to say, what he calls the “first heaven,” is eternal or not, and he naturally enough, from his own point of view, identifies this with the Fire of Herakleitos. He quotes him along with Empedokles as holding that the “heavens” are alternately as they are now and in some other state, one of passing away; and he goes on to point out that this is not really to say they pass away, any more than it would be to say that a man ceases to be, if we said that he turned from boy to man and then from man to boy again.[401] It is surely clear that this is a reference to the parallel between the generation and the Great Year, and, if so, the ordinary interpretation of the passage must be wrong. It is true that it is not quite consistent with the theory to suppose that a “measure” of Fire could preserve its identity throughout the whole of its upward and downward path; but it is exactly the same inconsistency that we have felt bound to recognise with regard to the continuance of individual souls, a fact which is really in favour of our interpretation. It should be added that, while 18,000 is half 36,000, 10,800 is 360 × 30, which would make each generation a day in the Great Year.[402]

Footnote 400:

This is certainly the general sense of the parallelism between the
periods of the ἀνθρώπειον and the θεῖον γεννητόν, however we may
understand the details. See Adam, _Republic_, vol. ii. pp. 288 sqq.

Footnote 401:

Arist. _de Caelo_, Α, 10. 279 b 14, οἱ δ’ ἐναλλὰξ ὁτὲ μὲν οὕτως ὁτὲ δὲ
ἄλλως ἔχειν φθειρόμενον, ... ὥσπερ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ὀ Ἀκραγαντῖνος καὶ
Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος. Aristotle points out that this really amounts
only to saying that it is eternal and changes its form, ὥσπερ εἴ τις
ἐκ παιδὸς ἄνδρα γιγνόμενον καὶ ἐξ ἀνδρὸς παῖδα ὁτὲ μὲν φθείρεσθαι, ὁτὲ
δ’ εἶναι οἴοιτο (280 a 14). The point of the reference to Empedokles
will appear from _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 334 a 1 sqq. What Aristotle
finds fault with in both theories is that they do not regard the
substance of the heavens as something outside the upward and downward
motion of the elements.

Footnote 402:

This is practically Lassalle’s view of the Great Year, except that he
commits the anachronism of speaking of “atoms” of fire instead of
“measures.”

[Sidenote: Did Herakleitos teach a general conflagration?]

78. Most modern writers, however, ascribe to Herakleitos the doctrine of a periodical conflagration or ἐκπύρωσις, to use the Stoic term.[403] That this is inconsistent with the theory, as we have interpreted it, is obvious, and is indeed admitted by Zeller. To his paraphrase of the statement of Plato quoted above (p. 159) he adds the words: “Herakleitos did not intend to retract this principle in the doctrine of a periodic change in the constitution of the world; if the two doctrines are not compatible, it is a contradiction which he has not observed.” Now, it is in itself quite likely that there were contradictions in the discourse of Herakleitos, but it is very unlikely that there was this particular one. In the first place, it is a contradiction of the central idea of his system, the thought that possessed his whole mind (§ 67), and we can only admit the possibility of that, if the evidence for it should prove irresistible. In the second place, such an interpretation destroys the whole point of Plato’s contrast between Herakleitos and Empedokles (§ 68), which is just that, while Herakleitos said the One was always many, and the Many always one, Empedokles said the All was many and one by turns. Zeller’s interpretation obliges us, then, to suppose that Herakleitos flatly contradicted his own discovery without noticing it, and that Plato, in discussing this very discovery, was also blind to the contradiction.[404]

Footnote 403:

Schleiermacher and Lassalle are notable exceptions. Zeller, Diels, and
Gomperz are all positive that Herakleitos believed in the ἐκπύρωσις.

Footnote 404:

In his fifth edition (p. 699) Zeller seems to feel this last
difficulty; for he now says: “It is a contradiction which he, _and
which probably Plato too_ (_und den wahrscheinlich auch Plato_) has
not observed.” This seems to me still less arguable. Plato may or may
not be mistaken; but he makes the perfectly definite statement that
Herakleitos says ἀεί, while Empedokles says ἐν μέρει. The Ionian Muses
are called συντονώτεραι and the Sicilian μαλακώτεραι just because the
latter “lowered the pitch” (ἐχάλασαν) of the doctrine that this is
always so (τὸ ἀεὶ ταῦτα οὕτως ἔχειν).

Nor is there anything in Aristotle to set against Plato’s emphatic statement. We have seen that the passage in which he speaks of him along with Empedokles as holding that the heavens were alternately in one condition and in another refers not to the world in general, but to fire, which Aristotle identified with the substance of his own “first heaven.”[405] It is also quite consistent with our interpretation when he says that all things at one time or another become fire. This does not necessarily mean that they all become fire at the same time, but is merely a statement of the undoubted Herakleitean doctrine of the upward and downward path.[406]

Footnote 405:

See above, p. 177, _n._ 401.

Footnote 406:

_Phys._ Γ 5, 205 a 3 (_Met._ Κ, 10. 1067 a 4), ὥσπερ Ἡράκλειτός φησιν
ἅπαντα γίνεσθαί ποτε πῦρ. Even in his fifth edition (p. 691) Zeller
translates this _es werde alles dereinst zu Feuer werden_; but that
would require γενήσεσθαι. Nor is there anything in his suggestion that
ἅπαντα (“not merely πάντα”) implies that all things become fire at
once. In Aristotle’s day, there was no distinction of meaning between
πᾶς and ἅπας. Even if he had said σύμπαντα, we could not press it.
What is really noticeable is the present infinitive γίνεσθαι which
surely suggests a continuous process, not a series of conflagrations.

The only clear statements to the effect that Herakleitos taught the doctrine of a general conflagration are posterior to the rise of Stoicism. It is unnecessary to enumerate them, as there is no doubt about their meaning. The Christian apologists too were interested in the idea of a final conflagration, and reproduce the Stoic view. The curious thing, however, is that there was a difference of opinion on the subject even among the Stoics. In one place, Marcus Aurelius says: “So that all these things are taken up into the Reason of the universe, whether by a periodical conflagration or a renovation effected by external exchanges.”[407] Indeed, there were some who said there was no general conflagration at all in Herakleitos. “I hear all that,” Plutarch makes one of his personages say, “from many people, and I see the Stoic conflagration spreading over the poems of Hesiod, just as it does over the writings of Herakleitos and the verses of Orpheus.”[408] We see from this that the question was debated, and we should therefore expect that any statement of Herakleitos which could settle it would be quoted over and over again. It is highly significant that not a single quotation of the kind can be produced.

Footnote 407:

Marcus Aurelius, x. 7, ὥστε καὶ ταῦτα ἀναληφθῆναι εἰς τὸν τοῦ ὅλου
λόγον, εἴτε κατὰ περίοδον ἐκπυρουμένου, εἴτε ἀιδίοις ἀμοιβαῖς
ἀνανεουμένου. The ἀμοιβαί are specifically Herakleitean, and the
statement is the more remarkable as Marcus elsewhere follows the usual
Stoic interpretation.

Footnote 408:

Plut. _de def. orac._ 415 f, καὶ ὁ Κλεόμβροτος, Ἀκούω ταῦτ’, ἔφη,
πολλῶν καὶ ὁρῶ τὴν Στωικὴν ἐκπύρωσιν ὥσπερ τὰ Ἡρακλείτου καὶ Ὀρφέως
ἐπινεμομένην ἔπη οὕτω καὶ τὰ Ἡσιόδου καὶ συνεξάπτουσαν. As Zeller
admits (p. 693 n.), this proves that some opponents of the Stoic
ἐκπύρωσις tried to withdraw the support of Herakleitos from it. Could
they have done so if Herakleitos had said anything about it, or would
not some one have produced a decisive quotation? We may be sure that,
if any one had, it would have been reiterated _ad nauseam_, for the
indestructibility of the world was one of the great questions of the
day.

On the contrary, the absence of anything to show that Herakleitos spoke of a general conflagration only becomes more patent when we turn to the few fragments which are supposed to prove it. The favourite is fr. 24, where we are told that Herakleitos said Fire was Want and Surfeit. That is just in his manner, and it has a perfectly intelligible meaning on our interpretation, which is further confirmed by fr. 36. On the other hand, it seems distinctly artificial to understand the Surfeit as referring to the fact that fire has burnt everything else up, and still more so to interpret Want as meaning that fire, or most of it, has turned into a world. The next is fr. 26, where we read that fire in its advance will judge and convict all things. There is nothing in this, however, to suggest that fire will judge all things at once rather than in turn, and, indeed, the phraseology reminds us of the advance of fire and water which we have seen reason for attributing to Herakleitos, but which is expressly said to be limited to a certain maximum.[409] These appear to be the only passages which the Stoics and the Christian apologists could discover, and, whether our interpretation of them is right or wrong, it is surely obvious that they cannot bear the weight of their conclusion, and that there was certainly nothing more definite to be found.

Footnote 409:

Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3, ἐν μέρει δὲ ἑκάτερον κρατεῖ καὶ κρατεῖται ἐς τὸ
μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον ὡς ἀνυστόν.

It is much easier to find fragments which are on the face of them inconsistent with a general conflagration. The “measures” of fr. 20 and fr. 29 must be the same thing, and they must surely be interpreted in the light of fr. 23. If this be so, fr. 20, and more especially fr. 29, directly contradict the idea of a general conflagration. “The sun will not overstep his measures.”[410] Secondly, the metaphor of “exchange,” which is applied to the transformations of fire in fr. 22, points in the same direction. When gold is given in exchange for wares and wares for gold, the sum or “measure” of each remains constant, though they change owners. All the wares and gold do not come into the same hands. In the same way, when anything becomes fire, something of equal amount must cease to be fire, if the “exchange” is to be a just one; and that it will be just, we are assured by the watchfulness of the Erinyes (fr. 29), who see to it that the sun does not take more than he gives. Of course there is, as we have seen, a certain variation; but this is strictly confined within limits, and is compensated in the long run by a variation in the other direction. Thirdly, fr. 43, in which Herakleitos blames Homer for desiring the cessation of strife, is very conclusive. The cessation of strife would mean that all things should take the upward or downward path at the same time, and cease to “run in opposite directions.” If they all took the upward path, we should have a general conflagration. Now, if Herakleitos had himself held that this was the appointment of fate, would he have been likely to upbraid Homer for desiring so necessary a consummation?[411] Fourthly, we note that in fr. 20 it is _this_ world,[412] and not merely the “ever-living fire,” which is said to be eternal; and it appears also that its eternity depends upon the fact that it is always kindling and always going out in the same “measures,” or that an encroachment in one direction is compensated by a subsequent encroachment in the other. Lastly, Lassalle’s argument from the concluding sentence of the passage from the Περὶ διαίτης, quoted above, is really untouched by Zeller’s objection, that it cannot be Herakleitean because it implies that all things are fire and water. It does not imply this, but only that _man_, like the heavenly bodies, oscillates between fire and water; and that is just what Herakleitos taught. It does not appear either that the measures of earth varied at all. Now, in this passage we read that neither fire nor water can prevail completely, and a very good reason is given for this, a reason too which is in striking agreement with the other views of Herakleitos.[413] And, indeed, it is not easy to see how, in accordance with these views, the world could ever recover from a general conflagration if such a thing were to take place. The whole process depends, so far as we can see, on the fact that Surfeit is also Want, or, in other words, that an advance of fire increases the moist exhalation, while an advance of water deprives the fire of the power to cause evaporation. The conflagration, though it lasted but for a moment,[414] would destroy the opposite tension on which the rise of a new world depends, and then motion would become impossible.

Footnote 410:

If any one doubts that this is really the meaning of the “measures,”
let him compare the use of the word by Diogenes of Apollonia, fr. 3.

Footnote 411:

This is just the argument which Plato uses in the _Phaedo_ (72 c) to
prove the necessity of ἀνταπόδοσις, and the whole series of arguments
in that passage is distinctly Herakleitean in character.

Footnote 412:

However we understand the term κόσμος here, the meaning is the same.
Indeed, if we suppose with Bernays that it means “order,” the argument
in the text will be all the stronger. In no sense of the word could a
κόσμος survive the ἐκπύρωσις, and the Stoics accordingly said the
κόσμος was φθαρτός.

Footnote 413:

Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3 (see above, p. 167, _n._ 383, οὐδέτερον γὰρ
κρατῆσαι παντελῶς δύναται διὰ τάδε· τό <τε> πῦρ ἐπεξιὸν ἐπὶ τὸ ἔσχατον
τοῦ ὕδατος ἐπιλείπει ἡ τροφή· ἀποτρέπεται οὖν ὅθεν μέλλει τρέφεσθαι·
τὸ ὕδωρ τε ἐπεξιὸν τοῦ πυρὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ἔσχατον, ἐπιλείπει ἡ κίνησις·
ἵσταται οὖν ἐν τούτῳ, ὅταν δὲ στῇ, οὐκέτι ἐγκρατές ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἤδη τῷ
ἐμπίπτοντι πυρὶ ἐς τῆν τροφὴν καταναλίσκεται· οὐδέτερον δὲ διὰ ταῦτα
δύναται κρατῆσαι παντελῶς, εἰ δέ ποτε κρατηθείη καὶ ὁπότερον, οὐδὲν ἂν
εἴη τῶν νῦν ἐόντων ὥσπερ ἔχει νῦν· οὕτω δὲ ἐχόντων ἀεὶ ἔσται τὰ αὐτὰ
καὶ οὐδέτερον οὐδαμὰ ἐπιλείψει.

Footnote 414:

In his note on fr. 66 (= 26 Byw.), Diels seeks to minimise the
difficulty of the ἐκπύρωσις by saying that it is only a little one,
and can last but a moment; but the contradiction noted above remains
all the same. Diels holds that Herakleitos was “dark only in form,”
and that “he himself was perfectly clear as to the sense and scope of
his ideas” (_Herakleitos_, p. i.). To which I would add that he was
probably called “the Dark” just because the Stoics sometimes found it
hard to read their own ideas into his words.

[Sidenote: Strife and “harmony.”]

79. We are now in a position to understand more clearly the law of strife or opposition which manifests itself in the “upward and downward path.” At any given moment, each of the three forms of matter, Fire, Water, and Earth, is made up of two equal portions,—subject, of course, to the oscillation described above,—one of which is taking the upward and the other the downward path. Now, it is just the fact that the two halves of everything are being “drawn in opposite directions,” this “opposite tension,” that “keeps things together,” and maintains them in an equilibrium which can only be disturbed temporarily and within certain limits. It thus forms the “hidden attunement” of the universe (fr. 47), though, in another aspect of it, it is Strife. Bernays has pointed out that the word ἁρμονία meant originally “structure,” and the illustration of the bow and the lyre shows that this idea was present. On the other hand, that taken from the concord of high and low notes shows that the musical sense of the word, namely, an octave, was not wholly absent. As to the “bow and the lyre” (fr. 45), I think that Professor Campbell has best brought out the point of the simile. “As the arrow leaves the string,” he says, “the hands are pulling opposite ways to each other, and to the different parts of the bow (cf. Plato, _Rep._ 4. 439); and the sweet note of the lyre is due to a similar tension and retention. The secret of the universe is the same.”[415] War, then, is the father and king of all things, in the world as in human society (fr. 44); and Homer’s wish that strife might cease was really a prayer for the destruction of the world (fr. 43).

Footnote 415:

Campbell’s _Theaetetus_ (2nd ed.), p. 244. See above, p. 150, _n._
347. Bernays explained the phrase as referring to the _shape_ of the
bow and lyre, but this is much less likely. Wilamowitz’s
interpretation is substantially the same as Campbell’s. “Es ist mit
der Welt wie mit dem Bogen, den man auseinanderzieht, damit er
zusammenschnellt, wie mit der Saite, die man ihrer Spannung
entgegenziehen muss, damit sie klingt” (_Lesebuch_, ii. p. 129).

We know from Philo that Herakleitos supported his theory of the attainment of harmony through strife by a multitude of examples; and, as it happens, some of these can be recovered. There is a remarkable agreement between a passage of this kind in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, entitled _The Kosmos_, and the Hippokratean work to which we have already referred. That the authors of both drew from the same source, namely, Herakleitos, is probable in itself, and is made practically certain by the fact that this agreement extends in part to the _Letters of Herakleitos_, which, though spurious, were certainly composed by some one who had access to the original work. The argument was that men themselves act just in the same way as Nature, and it is therefore surprising that they do not recognise the laws by which she works. The painter produces his harmonious effects by the contrast of colours, the musician by that of high and low notes. “If one were to make all things alike, there would be no delight in them.” There are many similar examples in the Hippokratean tract, some of which must certainly come from Herakleitos; but it is not easy to separate them from the later additions.[416]

Footnote 416:

See on all this Patin’s _Quellenstudien zu Heraklit_ (1881). The
sentence (Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5): καὶ τὰ μὲν πρήσσουσιν οὐκ οἴδασιν, ἃ δὲ
οὐ πρήσσουσι δοκέουσιν εἰδέναι· καὶ τὰ μὲν ὁρέουσιν οὐ γινώσκουσιν,
ἀλλ’ ὅμως αὐτοῖσι πάντα γίνεται ... καὶ ἃ βούλονται καὶ ἃ μὴ
βούλονται, has the true Herakleitean ring. This, too, can hardly have
had another author: “They trust to their eyes rather than to their
understanding, though their eyes are not fit to judge even of the
things that are seen. But I speak these things from understanding.”
These words are positively grotesque in the mouth of the medical
compiler; but we are accustomed to hear such things from the Ephesian.
Other examples which may be Herakleitean are the image of the two men
sawing wood—“one pushes, the other pulls”—and the illustration from
the art of writing.

[Sidenote: Correlation of opposites.]

80. There are a number of Herakleitean fragments which form a class by themselves, and are among the most striking of all the utterances that have come down to us. Their common characteristic is, that they assert in the most downright way the identity of various things which are usually regarded as opposites. The clue to their meaning is to be found in the account already given of the assertion that day and night are one. We have seen that Herakleitos meant to say, not that day was night or that night was day, but that they were two sides of the same process, namely, the oscillation of the “measures” of fire and water, and that neither would be possible without the other. Any explanation that can be given of night will also be an explanation of day, and _vice versa_; for it will be an account of that which is common to both, and manifests itself now as one and now as the other. Moreover, it is just because it has manifested itself in the one form that it must next appear in the other; for this is required by the law of compensation or Justice.

This is only a particular application of the universal principle that the primary fire is one even in its division. It itself is, even in its unity, both surfeit and want, war and peace (fr. 36). In other words, the “satiety” which makes fire pass into other forms, which makes it seek “rest in change” (frs. 82, 83), and “hide itself” (fr. 10) in the “hidden attunement” of opposition, is only one side of the process. The other is the “want” which leads it to consume the bright vapour as fuel. The upward path is nothing without the downward (fr. 69). If either were to cease, the other would cease too, and the world would disappear; for it takes both to make an apparently stable reality.

All other utterances of the kind are to be explained in the same way. If there were no cold, there would be no heat; for a thing can only grow warm if, and in so far as, it is already cold. And the same thing applies to the opposition of wet and dry (fr. 39). These, it will be observed, are just the two primary oppositions of Anaximander, and Herakleitos is showing that the war between them is really peace, for it is the common element in them (fr. 62) which appears as strife, and that very strife is justice, and not, as Anaximander had taught, an injustice which they commit one against the other, and which must be expiated by a reabsorption of both in their common ground.[417] The strife itself is the common ground (fr. 62), and is eternal.

Footnote 417:

Chap. I. § 16.

The most startling of these sayings is that which affirms that good and evil are the same (fr. 57). This does not mean in the least, however, that good is evil or that evil is good, but simply that they are the two inseparable halves of one and the same thing. A thing can become good only in so far as it is already evil, and evil only in so far as it is already good, and everything depends on the contrast. The illustration given in fr. 58 shows this clearly. Torture, one would say, was an evil, and yet it is made a good by the presence of another evil, namely, disease; as is shown by the fact that surgeons expect a fee for inflicting it upon their patients. Justice, on the other hand, which is a good, would be altogether unknown were it not for the existence of injustice, which is an evil (fr. 60). And that is why it is not good for men to get everything they wish (fr. 104). Just as the cessation of strife in the world would mean its destruction, so the disappearance of hunger, disease, and weariness would mean the disappearance of satisfaction, health, and rest.

This leads to a theory of relativity which prepares the way for the doctrine of Protagoras, that “Man is the measure of all things.”[418] Sea-water is good for fish and bad for men (fr. 52), and so with many other things. At the same time, Herakleitos is not a believer in absolute relativity. The process of the world is not merely a circle, but an “upward and downward path.” At the upper end, where the two paths meet, we have the pure fire, in which, as there is no separation, there is no relativity. We are told expressly that, while to man some things are evil and some things are good, all things are good to God (fr. 61). Now by God there is no doubt that Herakleitos meant Fire. He also calls it the “one wise,” and perhaps said that it “knows all things.” There can hardly be any question that what he meant to say was that in it the opposition and relativity which are universal in the world disappear. It is doubtless to this that frs. 96, 97, and 98 refer.

Footnote 418:

Plato’s exposition of the relativity of knowledge in the _Theaetetus_
(152 d sqq.) can hardly go back to Herakleitos himself, but is meant
to show how Herakleiteanism might naturally give rise to such a
doctrine. If the soul is a stream and things are a stream, then of
course knowledge is relative. Very possibly the later Herakleiteans
had worked out the theory in this direction, but in the days of
Herakleitos himself the problem of knowledge had not yet arisen.

[Sidenote: The Wise.]

81. Herakleitos speaks of “wisdom” or the “wise” in two senses. We have seen already that he said wisdom was “something apart from everything else” (fr. 18), meaning by it the perception of the unity of the many; and he also applies the term to that unity itself regarded as the “thought that directs the course of all things.” This is synonymous with the pure fire which is not differentiated into two parts, one taking the upward and the other the downward path. That alone has wisdom; the partial things we see have not. We ourselves are only wise in so far as we are fiery (fr. 74).

[Sidenote: Theology.]

82. With certain reservations, Herakleitos was prepared to call the one Wisdom by the name of Zeus. Such, at least, appears to be the meaning of fr. 65. What these reservations were, it is easy to guess. It is not, of course, to be pictured in the form of a man. In saying this, Herakleitos would only have been repeating what had already been laid down by Anaximander and Xenophanes. He agrees further with Xenophanes in holding that this “god,” if it is to be called so, is one; but his polemic against popular religion was directed rather against the rites and ceremonies themselves than their mere mythological outgrowth. He gives a list (fr. 124) of some of the most characteristic religious figures of his time, and the context in which the fragment is quoted shows that he in some way threatened them with the wrath to come. He comments upon the absurdity of praying to images (fr. 126), and the strange idea that blood-guiltiness can be washed out by the shedding of blood (fr. 130). He seems also to have said that it was absurd to celebrate the worship of Dionysos by cheerful and licentious ceremonies, while Hades was propitiated by gloomy rites (fr. 127). According to the mystic doctrine itself, the two were really one; and the one Wisdom ought to be worshipped in its integrity.