Chapter V: Empedokles of Akragas (2)

That the reference is to dreams, we learn from Simpl. _de An._ p. 202,
30.

PURIFICATIONS

(112)

Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the yellow rock
of Akragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works, harbours of
honour for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness, all hail. I go
about among you an immortal god, no mortal now, honoured among all as
is meet, crowned with fillets and <<5>> flowery garlands. Straightway,
whenever I enter with these in my train, both men and women, into the
flourishing towns, is reverence done me; they go after me in countless
throngs, asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles,
while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced <<10>> by the
grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear from me the word
of healing. R. P. 162 f.

(113)

But why do I harp on these things, as if it were any great matter that
I should surpass mortal, perishable men?

(114)

Friends, I know indeed that truth is in the words I shall utter, but
it is hard for men, and jealous are they of the assault of belief on
their souls.

(115)

There is an oracle of Necessity,[569] an ancient ordinance of the
gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that whenever one of the
dæmons, whose portion is length of days, has sinfully polluted his
hands with blood,[570] or followed strife and <<5>> forsworn himself,
he must wander thrice ten thousand years from the abodes of the
blessed, being born throughout the time in all manners of mortal
forms, changing one toilsome path of life for another. For the mighty
Air drives him into the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth on the dry
Earth; Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he
<<10>> flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from the
other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an exile and a
wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust in insensate strife.
R. P. 181.

(116)

Charis loathes intolerable Necessity.

(117)

For I have been ere now a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a dumb
fish in the sea. R. P. 182.

(118)

I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land. R. P. 182.

(119)

From what honour, from what a height of bliss have I fallen to go
about among mortals here on earth.

(120)

We have come under this roofed-in cave.[571]

(121)

... the joyless land, where are Death and Wrath and troops of Dooms
besides; and parching Plagues and Rottennesses and Floods roam in
darkness over the meadow of Ate.

(122, 123)

There were[572] Chthonie and far-sighted Heliope, bloody Discord and
gentle-visaged Harmony, Kallisto and Aischre, Speed and Tarrying,
lovely Truth and dark-haired Uncertainty, Birth and Decay, Sleep and
Waking, Movement and Immobility, crowned Majesty and Meanness, Silence
and Voice. <<5>> R. P. 182 a.

(124)

Alas, O wretched race of mortals, twice unblessed: such are the
strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!

(125)

From living creatures he made them dead, changing their forms.

(126)

(The goddess) clothing them with a strange garment of flesh.[573]

(127)

Among beasts they[574] become lions that make their lair on the hills
and their couch on the ground; and laurels among trees with goodly
foliage. R. P. 181 b.

(128)

Nor had they[575] any Ares for a god nor Kydoimos, no nor King Zeus
nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Kypris the Queen.... Her did they
propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures[576] and perfumes of
cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling
frankincense, casting on the <<5>> ground libations of brown honey.
And the altar did not reek with pure bull’s blood, but this was held
in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after
tearing out the life. R. P. 184.

(129)

And there was among them a man of rare knowledge, most skilled in all
manner of wise works, a man who had won the utmost wealth of wisdom;
for whensoever he strained with all his mind, he easily saw everything
of all the things that are, in ten, yea, twenty lifetimes of men.[577]
<<5>>

(130)

For all things were tame and gentle to man, both beasts and birds, and
friendly feelings were kindled everywhere. R. P. 184 a.

(131)

If ever, as regards the things of a day, immortal Muse, thou didst
deign to take thought for my endeavour, then stand by me once more as
I pray to thee, O Kalliopeia, as I utter a pure discourse concerning
the blessed gods. R. P. 179.

(132)

Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine wisdom;
wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in his heart. R. P. 179.

(133)

It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to lay hold
of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of persuasion that
leads into the heart of man.

(134)

For he is not furnished with a human head on his body, two branches do
not sprout from his shoulders, he has no feet, no swift knees, nor
hairy parts; but he is only a sacred and unutterable mind flashing
through the whole world with rapid thoughts. R. P. 180.

(135)

This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others; but the law for
all extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the infinite
light of heaven. R. P. 183.

(136)

Will ye not cease from this ill-sounding slaughter? See ye not that ye
are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your hearts? R. P.
184 b.

(137)

And the father lifts up his own son in a changed form and slays him
with a prayer. Infatuated fool! And they run up to the sacrifices,
begging mercy, while he, deaf to their cries, slaughters them in his
halls and gets ready the evil feast. In like manner does the son seize
his father, and children their <<5>> mother, tear out their life and
eat the kindred flesh. R. P. 184 b.

(138)

Draining their life with bronze.

(139)

Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy me ere
ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips! R. P. 184 b.

(140)

Abstain wholly from laurel leaves.

(141)

Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!

(142)

Him will the roofed palace of aigis-bearing Zeus never rejoice, nor
yet the house of....

(143)

Wash your hands, cutting the water from the five springs in the
unyielding bronze.[578] R. P. 184 c.

(144)

Fast from wickedness! R. P. 184 c.

(145)

Therefore are ye distraught by grievous wickednesses, and will not
unburden your souls of wretched sorrows.

(146, 147)

But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets,
song-writers, physicians, and princes; and thence they rise up as gods
exalted in honour, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same
table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt.
<<5>> R. P. 181 c.

(148)

... Earth that envelops the man.

Footnote 569:

Bernays conjectured ῥῆμα, “decree,” for χρῆμα, but this is not
necessary. Necessity is an Orphic personage, and Gorgias, the disciple
of Empedokles, says θεῶν βουλεύμασιν καὶ ἀνάγκης ψηφίσμασιν (_Hel._
6).

Footnote 570:

I retain φόνῳ in v. 3 (so too Diels). The first word of v. 4 has been
lost. Diels suggests Νείκεϊ, which may well be right, and takes
ἁμαρτήσας as equivalent to ὁμαρτήσας. I have translated accordingly.

Footnote 571:

According to Porphyry, who quotes this line (_de Antro Nymph._ 8),
these words were spoken by the “powers” who conduct the soul into the
world (ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις). The “cave” is not originally Platonic but
Orphic.

Footnote 572:

This passage is closely modelled on the Catalogue of Nymphs in _Iliad_
xviii. 39 sqq. Chthonie is found already in Pherekydes (Diog. i. 119).

Footnote 573:

I have retained ἀλλόγνωτι as nearer the MSS., though a little hard to
interpret. On the subsequent history of the Orphic _chiton_ in gnostic
imagery see Bernays, _Theophr. Schr._ n. 9. It was identified with the
coat of skins made by God for Adam.

Footnote 574:

This is the best μετοίκησις (Ael. _Nat. an._ xii. 7).

Footnote 575:

The dwellers in the Golden Age.

Footnote 576:

The MSS. of Porphyry have γραπτοῖς τε ζώοισι, which is accepted by
Zeller and Diels. The emendation of Bernays (adopted in R. P.) does
not convince me. I venture to suggest μακτοῖς, on the strength of the
story related by Favorinus (_ap._ Diog. viii. 53) as to the bloodless
sacrifice offered by Empedokles at Olympia.

Footnote 577:

These lines were already referred to Pythagoras by Timaios (Diog.
viii. 54). As we are told (Diog. _ib._) that some referred the verses
to Parmenides, it is clear that no name was given.

Footnote 578:

On frs. 138 and 143 see Vahlen on Arist. _Poet._ 21. 1547 b 13, and
Diels in _Hermes_, xv. p. 173.

[Sidenote: Empedokles and Parmenides.]

106. At the very outset of his poem, Empedokles is careful to mark the difference between himself and previous inquirers. He speaks angrily of those who, though their experience was only partial, professed to have found the whole (fr. 2); he even calls this “madness” (fr. 4). No doubt he is thinking of Parmenides. His own position is not, however, sceptical. He only deprecates the attempt to construct a theory of the universe off-hand instead of trying to understand each thing we come across “in the way in which it is clear” (fr. 4). And this means that we must not, like Parmenides, reject the assistance of the senses. Weak though they are (fr. 2), they are the only channels through which knowledge can enter our minds at all. We soon discover, however, that Empedokles is not very mindful of his own warnings. He too sets up a system which is to explain everything, though that system is no longer a monistic one.

It is often said that this system was an attempt to mediate between Parmenides and Herakleitos. It is not easy, however, to find any trace of specially Herakleitean doctrine in it, and it would be truer to say that it aimed at mediating between Eleaticism and the senses. He repeats, almost in the same words, the Eleatic argument for the sole reality and indestructibility of “what _is_” (frs. 11-15); and his idea of the “Sphere” seems to be derived from the Parmenidean description of the universe as it truly is.[579] Parmenides had held that the reality which underlies the illusory world presented to us by the senses was a corporeal, spherical, continuous, eternal, and immovable _plenum_, and it is from this that Empedokles starts. Given the sphere of Parmenides, he seems to have said, How are we to get from it to the world we know? How are we to introduce motion into the immovable _plenum_? Now Parmenides need not have denied the possibility of motion within the Sphere, though he was bound to deny all motion of the Sphere itself; but such an admission on his part, had he made it, would not have served to explain anything. If any part of the Sphere were to move, the room of the displaced matter must at once be taken by other matter, for there is no empty space. This, however, would be of precisely the same kind as the matter it had displaced; for all “that _is_” is one. The result of the motion would be precisely the same as that of rest; it could account for no change. But, Empedokles must have asked, is this assumption of perfect homogeneity in the Sphere really necessary? Evidently not; it is simply the old unreasoned feeling that existence must be one. If, instead of this, we were to assume a number of existent things, it would be quite possible to apply all that Parmenides says of reality to each of them, and the forms of existence we know might be explained by the mingling and separation of those realities. The conception of “elements” (στοιχεῖα), to use a later term,[580] was found, and the required formula follows at once. So far as concerns particular things, it is true, as our senses tell us, that they come into being and pass away; but, if we have regard to the ultimate elements of which they are composed, we shall say with Parmenides that “what _is_” is uncreated and indestructible (fr. 17).

Footnote 579:

Cf. Emp. frs. 27, 28, with Parm. fr. 8.

Footnote 580:

For the history of the term στοιχεῖον see Diels, _Elementum_. Eudemos
said (_ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p. 7, 13) that Plato was the first to use
it, and this is confirmed by the way the word is introduced in _Tht._
201 e. The original term was μορφή or ἰδέα.

[Sidenote: The “four roots.”]

107. The “four roots” of all things (fr. 6) which Empedokles assumed were those that have become traditional—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. It is to be noticed, however, that he does not call Air ἀήρ, but αἰθήρ, and this must be because he wished to avoid any confusion with what had hitherto been meant by the former word. He had, in fact, made the great discovery that atmospheric air is a distinct corporeal substance, and is not to be identified with empty space on the one hand or rarefied mist on the other. Water is not liquid air, but something quite different.[581] This truth Empedokles demonstrated by means of the apparatus known as the _klepsydra_, and we still possess the verses in which he applied his discovery to the explanation of respiration and the motion of the blood (fr. 100). Aristotle laughs at those who try to show there is no empty space by shutting up air in water-clocks and torturing wineskins. They only prove, he says, that air is a thing.[582] That, however, is exactly what Empedokles intended to prove, and it was one of the most important discoveries in the early history of science. It will be convenient for us to translate the αἰθήρ of Empedokles by “air”; but we must be careful in that case not to render the word ἀήρ in the same way. Anaxagoras seems to have been the first to use it of atmospheric air.

Footnote 581:

Cf. Chap. I. § 27.

Footnote 582:

Arist. _Phys._ Δ, 6, 213 a 22 (R. P. 159). Aristotle only mentions
Anaxagoras by name in this passage; but he speaks in the plural, and
we know from fr. 100 that the _klepsydra_ experiment was used by
Empedokles.

Empedokles also called the “four roots” by the names of certain divinities—“shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis” (fr. 6)—though there is some doubt as to how these names are to be apportioned among the elements. Nestis is said to have been a Sicilian water-goddess, and the description of her shows that she stands for Water; but there is a conflict of opinion as to the other three. This, however, need not detain us.[583] We are already prepared to find that Empedokles called the elements gods; for all the early thinkers had spoken in this way of whatever they regarded as the primary substance. We must only remember that the word is not used in its religious sense. Empedokles did not pray or sacrifice to the elements, and the use of divine names is in the main an accident of the poetical form in which he cast his system.

Footnote 583:

In antiquity the Homeric Allegorists made Hera Earth and Aidoneus Air,
a view which has found its way into Aetios from Poseidonios. It arose
as follows. The Homeric Allegorists were not interested in the science
of Empedokles, and did not see that his αἰθήρ was quite a different
thing from Homer’s ἀήρ. Now this is the dark element, and night is a
form of it, so it would naturally be identified with Aidoneus. Again,
Empedokles calls Hera φερέσβιος, and that is an old epithet of Earth
in Homer. Another view current in antiquity identified Hera with Air,
which is the theory of Plato’s _Cratylus_, and Aidoneus with Earth.
The Homeric Allegorists further identified Zeus with Fire, a view to
which they were doubtless led by the use of the word αἰθήρ. Now αἰθήρ
certainly means Fire in Anaxagoras, as we shall see, but there is no
doubt that in Empedokles it meant Air. It seems likely, then, that
Knatz is right (“Empedoclea” in _Schedae Philologicae Hermanno Usenero
oblatae_, 1891, pp. 1 sqq.) in holding that the bright Air of
Empedokles was Zeus. This leaves Aidoneus to stand for Fire; and
nothing could have been more natural for a Sicilian poet, with the
volcanoes and hot springs of his native island in mind, than this
identification. He refers to the fires that burn beneath the Earth
himself (fr. 52). If that is so, we shall have to agree with the
Homeric Allegorists that Hera is Earth; and there is certainly no
improbability in that.

Empedokles regarded the “roots of all things” as eternal. Nothing can come from nothing or pass away into nothing (fr. 12); what is _is_, and there is no room for coming into being and passing away (fr. 8). Further, Aristotle tells us, he taught that they were unchangeable.[584] This Empedokles expressed by saying that “they are what they are” (frs. 17, 34; 21, 13), and are “always alike.” Again, they are all “equal,” a statement which seemed strange to Aristotle,[585] but was quite intelligible in the days of Empedokles. Above all, the elements are ultimate. All other bodies, as Aristotle puts it, might be divided till you came to the elements; but Empedokles could give no further account of these without saying (as he did not) that there is an element of which Fire and the rest are in turn composed.[586]

Footnote 584:

Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 1. 329 b 1.

Footnote 585:

_Ibid._ Β, 6. 333 a 16.

Footnote 586:

_Ibid._ Α, 8. 325 b 19 (R. P. 164 e). This was so completely
misunderstood by later writers that they actually attribute to
Empedokles the doctrine of στοιχεῖα πρὸ τῶν στοιχείων (Aet. 1. 13, 1;
17, 3). The criticism of the Pythagoreans and Plato had made the
hypothesis of elements almost unintelligible to Aristotle, and _a
fortiori_ to his successors. As Plato put it (_Tim._ 48 b 8), they
were “not even syllables,” let alone “letters” (στοιχεῖα). That is why
Aristotle, who derived them from something more primary, calls them τὰ
καλούμενα στοιχεῖα (Diels, _Elementum_, p. 25).

The “four roots” are given as an exhaustive enumeration of the elements (fr. 23 _sub fin._); for they account for all the qualities presented by the world to the senses. When we find, as we do, that the school of medicine which regarded Empedokles as its founder identified the four elements with the “opposites,” the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, which formed the theoretical foundation of its system, we see at once how the theory is related to previous views of reality.[587] To put it shortly, what Empedokles did was to take the opposites of Anaximander and to declare that they were “things,” each of which was real in the Parmenidean sense. We must remember that the conception of quality had not yet been formed. Anaximander had no doubt regarded his “opposites” as things; though, before the time of Parmenides, no one had fully realised how much was implied in saying that anything is a thing. That is the stage we have now reached. There is still no conception of quality, but there is a clear apprehension of what is involved in saying that a thing _is_.

Footnote 587:

We know from Menon that Philistion put the matter in this way. See p.
235, _n._ 527.

Aristotle twice[588] makes the statement that, though Empedokles assumes four elements, he treats them as two, opposing Fire to all the rest. This, he says, we can see for ourselves from his poem. So far as the general theory of the elements goes, it is impossible to see anything of the sort; but, when we come to the origin of the world (§ 112), we shall find that Fire certainly plays a leading part, and this may be what Aristotle meant. It is also true that in the biology (§ 114–116) Fire fulfils a unique function, while the other three act more or less in the same way. But we must remember that it has no pre-eminence over the rest: all are equal.

Footnote 588:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 4. 985 a 31; _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 3. 330 b 19 (R. P.
164 e).

[Sidenote: Strife and Love.]

108. The Eleatic criticism had made it necessary for subsequent thinkers to explain motion.[589] Empedokles starts, as we have seen, from an original state of the “four roots,” which only differs from the Sphere of Parmenides in so far as it is a mixture, not a homogeneous and continuous mass. The fact that it is a mixture makes change and motion possible; but, were there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter in, like the Pythagorean “Air,” to separate the four elements, nothing could ever arise from it. Empedokles accordingly assumed the existence of such a substance, and he gave it the name of Strife. But the effect of this would be to separate all the elements in the Sphere completely, and then nothing more could possibly happen; something else was needed to bring the elements together again. This Empedokles found in Love, which he regarded as the same impulse to union that is implanted in human bodies (fr. 17, 22 sqq.). He looks at it, in fact, from a purely physiological point of view, as was natural for the founder of a medical school. No mortal had yet marked, he says, that the very same Love which men know in their bodies had a place among the elements.

Footnote 589:

Cf. Introd. § VIII.

It is important to observe that the Love and Strife of Empedokles are no incorporeal forces, but corporeal elements like the other four. At the time, this was inevitable; nothing incorporeal had yet been dreamt of. Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of what he regarded as efficient causes. “The Love of Empedokles,” he says[590] “is both an efficient cause, for it brings things together, and a material cause, for it is a part of the mixture.” And Theophrastos expressed the same idea by saying[591] that Empedokles sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife, and sometimes put them on a level with the other four. The verses of Empedokles himself leave no room for doubt that the two were thought of as spatial and corporeal. All the six are called “equal.” Love is said to be “equal in length and breadth” to the others, and Strife is described as equal to each of them in weight (fr. 17).

Footnote 590:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 10. 1075 b 3.

Footnote 591:

Theophr. _Phys. Op._ fr. 3 (_Dox._ p. 477); _ap._ Simpl. _Phys._ p.
25, 21 (R. P. 166 b).

The function of Love is to produce union; that of Strife, to break it up again. Aristotle, however, rightly points out that in another sense it is Love that divides and Strife that unites. When the Sphere is broken up by Strife, the result is that all the Fire, for instance, which was contained in it comes together and becomes one; and again, when the elements are brought together once more by Love, the mass of each is divided. In another place, he says that, while Strife is assumed as the cause of destruction, and does, in fact, destroy the Sphere, it really gives birth to everything else in so doing.[592] It follows that we must carefully distinguish between the Love of Empedokles and that “attraction of like for like” to which he also attributed an important part in the formation of the world. The latter is not an element distinct from the others; it depends, we shall see, on the proper nature of each element, and is only able to take effect when Strife divides the Sphere. Love, on the contrary, is something that comes from outside and produces an attraction of _unlikes_.

Footnote 592:

Arist. _Met._ Α, 4. 985 a 21; Γ, 4. 1000 a 24; b 9 (R. P. 166 i).

[Sidenote: Mixture and separation.]

109. But, when Strife has once separated the elements, what is it that determines the direction of their motion? Empedokles seems to have given no further explanation than that each was “running” in a certain direction (fr. 53). Plato severely condemns this in the _Laws_,[593] on the ground that no room is thus left for design. Aristotle also blames him for giving no account of the Chance to which he ascribed so much importance. Nor is the Necessity, of which he also spoke, further explained.[594] Strife enters into the Sphere at a certain time in virtue of Necessity, or “the mighty oath” (fr. 30); but we are left in the dark as to the origin of this.

Footnote 593:

Plato, _Laws_, x. 889 b. The reference is not to Empedokles
exclusively, but the language shows that Plato is thinking mainly of
him.

Footnote 594:

Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 334 a 1; _Phys._ Θ, 1. 252 a 5 (R. P. 166
k).

The expression used by Empedokles to describe the movement of the elements is that they “run through each other” (fr. 17, 34). Aristotle tells us[595] that he explained mixture in general by “the symmetry of pores.” And this is the true explanation of the “attraction of like for like.” The “pores” of like bodies are, of course, much the same size, and these bodies can therefore mingle easily. On the other hand, a finer body will “run through” a coarse one without becoming mixed, and a coarse body will not be able to enter into the pores of a finer one at all. It will be observed that, as Aristotle says, this really implies something like the atomic theory; but there is no evidence that Empedokles himself was conscious of that. Another question raised by Aristotle is even more instructive. Are the pores, he asks, empty or full? If empty, what becomes of the denial of the void? If full, why need we assume pores at all?[596] These questions Empedokles would have found it hard to answer. They point to a real want of thoroughness in his system, and mark it as a mere stage in the transition from Monism to Atomism.

Footnote 595:

_Ibid._ Α, 8. 324 b 34 (R. P. 166 h).

Footnote 596:

Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ 326 b 6.

[Sidenote: The four periods.]

110. It will be clear from all this that we must distinguish four periods in the cycle. First we have the Sphere, in which all the elements are mixed together by Love. Secondly, there is the period when Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when, therefore, the elements are partially separated and partially combined. Thirdly, comes the complete separation of the elements, when Love is outside the world, and Strife has given free play to the attraction of like for like. Lastly, we have the period when Love is bringing the elements together again, and Strife is passing out. This brings us back in time to the Sphere, and the cycle begins afresh. Now a world such as ours can exist only in the second and fourth of these periods; and it is clear that, if we are to understand Empedokles, we must discover in which of these we now are. It seems to be generally supposed that we are in the fourth period;[597] I hope to show that we are really in the second, that when Strife is gaining the upper hand.

Footnote 597:

This is the view of Zeller (pp. 785 sqq.), but he admits that the
external testimony, especially that of Aristotle, is wholly in favour
of the other. His difficulty is with the fragments, and if it can be
shown that these can be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle’s
statements, the question is settled. Aristotle was specially
interested in Empedokles, and was not likely to misrepresent him on
such a point.

[Sidenote: Our world the work of Strife.]

111. That a world of perishable things arises both in the second and fourth period is distinctly stated by Empedokles (fr. 17), and it is inconceivable that he himself had not made up his mind which of these worlds is ours. Aristotle is clearly of opinion that it is the world which arises when Strife is increasing. In one place, he says that Empedokles “holds that the world is in a similar condition now in the period of Strife as formerly in that of Love.”[598] In another, he tell us that Empedokles omits the generation of things in the period of Love, just because it is unnatural to represent this world, in which the elements are separate, as arising from things in a state of separation.[599] This remark can only mean that the scientific theories contained in the poem of Empedokles assumed the increase of Strife, or, in other words, that they represented the course of evolution as the disintegration of the Sphere, not as the gradual coming together of things from a state of separation.[600] That is only what we should expect, if we are right in supposing that the problem he set himself to solve was the origin of this world from the Sphere of Parmenides, and it is also in harmony with the universal tendency of such speculations to represent the world as getting worse rather than better. We have only to consider, then, whether the details of the system bear out this general view.

Footnote 598:

Arist _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 334 a 6: τὸν κόσμον ὁμοίως ἔχειν φησίν ἐπί
τε τοῦ νείκους νῦν καὶ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς φιλίας.

Footnote 599:

Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 2. 301 a 14: ἐκ διεστώτων δὲ καὶ κινουμένων οὐκ
εὔλογον ποιεῖν τὴν γένεσιν. διὸ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς παραλείπει τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς
φιλότητος· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἠδύνατο συστῆσαι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκ κεχωρισμένων μὲν
κατασκευάζων, σύγκρισιν δὲ ποιῶν διὰ τὴν φιλότητα· ἐκ διακεκριμένων
γὰρ συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος τῶν στοιχείων (“our world consists of the
elements in a state of separation”), ὥστ’ ἀναγκαῖον γενέσθαι ἐξ ἑνὸς
καὶ συγκεκριμένου.

Footnote 600:

It need not mean that Empedokles said nothing about the world of Love
at all; for he obviously says something of both worlds in fr. 17. It
is enough to suppose that, having described both in general terms, he
went on to treat the world of Strife in detail.

[Sidenote: Formation of the world by Strife.]

112. To begin with the Sphere, in which the “four roots of all things” are mixed together, we note in the first place that it is called a god in the fragments just as the elements are, and that Aristotle more than once refers to it in the same way.[601] We must remember that Love itself is a part of this mixture,[602] while Strife surrounds or encompasses it on every side just as the Boundless encompasses the world in earlier systems. Strife, however, is not boundless, but equal in bulk to each of the four roots and to Love.

Footnote 601:

Arist. _de Gen. Corr._ Β, 6. 333 b 21 (R. P. 168 e); _Met._ Β, 4. 1000
a 29 (R. P. 166 i). Cf. Simpl. _Phys._ p. 1124, 1 (R. P. 167 b). In
other places Aristotle speaks of it as “the One.” Cf. _de Gen. Corr._
Α, 1. 315 a 7 (R. P. 168 e); _Met._ Β, 4. 1000 a 29 (R. P. 166 i); Α,
4. 985 a 28 (R. P. _ib._). This, however, involves a slight
Aristotelian “development.” It is not quite the same thing to say, as
Empedokles does, that all things come together “into one,” and to say
that they come together “into the One.” The latter expression suggests
that they lose their distinct and proper character in the Sphere, and
thus become something like Aristotle’s own “matter.” As has been
pointed out (p. 265, _n._ 586), it is hard for Aristotle to grasp the
conception of irreducible elements; but there can be no doubt that in
the Sphere, as in their separation, the elements remain “what they
are” for Empedokles. As Aristotle also knows quite well, the Sphere is
a mixture. Compare the difficulties about the “One” of Anaximander
discussed in Chap. I. § 15.

Footnote 602:

This accounts for Aristotle’s statement, which he makes once
positively (_Met._ Β, 1. 996 a 7) and once very doubtfully (_Met._ Γ,
4. 1001 a 12), that Love was the substratum of the One in just the
same sense as the Fire of Herakleitos, the Air of Anaximenes, or the
Water of Thales. He thinks that all the elements become merged in
Love, and so lose their identity. In this case, it is in Love he
recognises his own “matter.”

At the appointed time, Strife begins to enter into the Sphere and Love to go out of it (frs. 30, 31). The fragments by themselves throw little light on this; but Aetios and the Plutarchean _Stromateis_ have between them preserved a very fair tradition of what Theophrastos said on the point.

Empedokles held that Air was first separated out and secondly Fire.
Next came Earth, from which, highly compressed as it was by the
impetus of its revolution, Water gushed forth. From the water Mist was
produced by evaporation. The heavens were formed out of the Air and
the sun out of the Fire, while terrestrial things were condensed from
the other elements. Aet. ii. 6. 3 (_Dox._ p. 334; R. P. 170).

Empedokles held that the Air when separated off from the original
mixture of the elements was spread round in a circle. After the Air,
Fire running outwards, and not finding any other place, ran up under
the solid that surrounded the Air.[603] There were two hemispheres
revolving round the earth, the one altogether composed of fire, the
other of a mixture of air and a little fire. The latter he supposed to
be the Night. The origin of their motion he derived from the fact of
fire preponderating in one hemisphere owing to its accumulation there.
Ps.-Plut. _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582; R. P. 170 a).

Footnote 603:

For the phrase τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἀέρα πάγου cf. Περὶ διαίτης, i. 10, 1,
πρὸς τὸν περιέχοντα πάγον. _Et. M. s.v._ βηλὸς ... τὸν ἀνωτάτω πάγον
καὶ περιέχοντα τὸν πάντα ἀέρα. This probably comes ultimately from
Anaximenes. Cf. Chap. I. p. 82, _n._ 162.

The first of the elements to be separated out by Strife, then, was Air, which took the outermost position surrounding the world (cf. fr. 38). We must not, however, take the statement that it surrounded the world “in a circle” too strictly. It appears that Empedokles regarded the heavens as shaped like an egg.[604] Here, probably, we have a trace of Orphic ideas. At any rate, the outer circle of the Air became solidified or frozen, and we thus get a crystalline vault as the boundary of the world. We note that it was Fire which solidified the Air and turned it to ice. Fire in general had a solidifying power.[605]

Footnote 604:

Aet. ii. 31, 4 (_Dox._ p. 363).

Footnote 605:

Aet. ii. 11, 2 (R. P. 170 c).

In its upward rush Fire displaced a portion of the Air in the upper half of the concave sphere formed by the frozen sky. This air then sunk downwards, carrying with it a small portion of the fire. In this way, two hemispheres were produced: one, consisting entirely of fire, the diurnal hemisphere; the other, the nocturnal, consisting of air with a little fire.

The accumulation of Fire in the upper hemisphere disturbs the equilibrium of the heavens and causes them to revolve; and this revolution not only produces the alternation of day and night, but by its rapidity keeps the heavens and the earth in their places. This was illustrated, Aristotle tells us, by the simile of a cup of water whirled round at the end of a string.[606] The verses which contained this remarkable account of so-called “centrifugal force” have been lost; but the experimental illustration is in the manner of Empedokles.

[Sidenote: The sun, moon, stars, and earth.]

113. It will be observed that day and night have been explained without reference to the sun. Day is produced by the light of the fiery diurnal hemisphere, while night is the shadow thrown by the earth when the fiery hemisphere is on the other side of it (fr. 48). What, then, is the sun? The Plutarchean _Stromateis_[607] again give us the answer: “The sun is not fire in substance, but a reflexion of fire like that which comes from water.” Plutarch himself makes one of his personages say: “You laugh at Empedokles for saying that the sun is a product of the earth, arising from the reflexion of the light of heaven, and once more ‘flashes back to Olympos with untroubled countenance.’”[608] Aetios says:[609] “Empedokles held that there were two suns: one, the archetype, the fire in one hemisphere of the world, filling the whole hemisphere always stationed opposite its own reflexion; the other, the visible sun, its reflexion in the other hemisphere, that which is filled with air mingled with fire, produced by the reflexion of the earth, which is round, on the crystalline sun, and carried round by the motion of the fiery hemisphere. Or, to sum it up shortly, the sun is a reflexion of the terrestrial fire.”

Footnote 606:

Arist. _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 295 a 16 (R. P. 170 b). The experiment with
τὸ ἐν τοῖς κυάθοις ὕδωρ, which κύκλῳ τοῦ κυάθου φερομένου πολλάκις
κάτω τοῦ χαλκοῦ γινόμενον ὅμως οὐ φέρεται κάτω, reminds us of the
experiment with the _klepsydra_ in fr. 100.

Footnote 607:

[Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582, 11; R. P. 170 c).

Footnote 608:

Plut. _de Pyth. Or._ 400 b (R. P. 170 c). We must keep the MS. reading
περὶ γῆν with Bernardakis and Diels. The reading περιαυγῆ in R. P. is
a conjecture of Wyttenbach’s; but cf. Aet. ii. 20, 13, quoted in the
next note.

Footnote 609:

Aet. ii. 20, 13 (_Dox._ p. 350), Ἐμπεδοκλῆς δύο ἡλίους· τὸν μὲν
ἀρχέτυπον, πῦρ ὂν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τοῦ κόσμου, πεπληρωκὸς τὸ
ἡμισφαίριον, αἰεὶ κατ’ ἀντικρὺ τῇ ἀνταυγείᾳ ἑαυτοῦ τεταγμένον· τὸν δὲ
φαινόμενον, ἀνταύγειαν ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ ἡμισφαιρίῳ τῷ τοῦ ἀέρος τοῦ
θερμομιγοῦς πεπληρωμένῳ, ἀπὸ κυκλοτεροῦς τῆς γῆς κατ’ ἀνάκλασιν
γιγνομένην εἰς τὸν ἥλιον τὸν κρυσταλλοειδῆ, συμπεριελκομένην δὲ τῇ
κινήσει τοῦ πυρίνου. ὡς δὲ βραχέως εἰρῆσθαι συντεμόντα, ἀνταύγειαν
εἶναι τοῦ περὶ τὴν γὴν πυρὸς τὸν ἥλιον.

These passages, and especially the last, are by no means clear. The reflexion which we call the sun cannot be in the hemisphere opposite to the fiery one; for that is the nocturnal hemisphere. We must say rather that the light of the fiery hemisphere is reflected by the earth on to the fiery hemisphere itself in one concentrated flash. From this it follows that the appearance which we call the sun is the same size as the earth. We may explain the origin of this view as follows. It had just been discovered that the moon shone by reflected light, and there is always a tendency to give any novel theory a wider application than it really admits of. In the early part of the fifth century B.C., men saw reflected light everywhere; the Pythagoreans held a very similar view, and when we come to them, we shall see why Aetios, or rather his source, expresses it by speaking of “two suns.”

It was probably in this connexion that Empedokles announced that light takes some time to travel, though its speed is so great as to escape our perception.[610]

“The moon,” we are told, “was composed of air cut off by the fire; it was frozen just like hail, and had its light from the sun.” It is, in other words, a disc of frozen air, of the same substance as the solid sky which surrounds the heavens. Diogenes says that Empedokles taught it was smaller than the sun, and Aetios tells us it was only half as distant from the earth.[611]

Empedokles did not attempt to explain the fixed stars by reflected light, nor even the planets. They were fiery, made out of the fire which the air carried with it when forced beneath the earth by the upward rush of fire at the first separation, as we saw above. The fixed stars were attached to the frozen air; the planets moved freely.[612]

Empedokles was acquainted (fr. 42) with the true theory of solar eclipses, which, along with that of the moon’s light, was the great discovery of this period. He also knew (fr. 48) that night is the conical shadow of the earth, and not a sort of exhalation.

Wind was explained from the opposite motions of the fiery and airy hemispheres. Rain was caused by the compression of the Air, which forced any water there might be in it out of its pores in the form of drops. Lightning was fire forced out from the clouds in much the same way.[613]

Footnote 610:

Arist. _de Sensu_, 6. 446 a 28; _de An._ Β, 7. 418 b 20.

Footnote 611:

[Plut.] _Strom._ fr. 10 (_Dox._ p. 582, 12; R. P. 170 c); Diog. viii.
77; Aet. ii. 31, 1 (cf. _Dox._ p. 63).

Footnote 612:

Aet. ii. 13, 2 and 11 (_Dox._ pp. 341 sqq.).

Footnote 613:

Aet. iii. 3, 7; Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 9. 369 b 12, with Alexander’s
commentary.

The earth was at first mixed with water, but the increasing compression caused by the velocity of the world’s revolution made the water gush forth, so that the sea is called “the sweat of the earth,” a phrase to which Aristotle objects as a mere poetical metaphor. The saltness of the sea was explained by the help of this analogy.[614]

Footnote 614:

Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 3. 357 a 24; Aet. iii. 16, 3 (R. P. 170 b). Cf.
the clear reference in Arist. _Meteor._ Β, 1. 353 b 11.

[Sidenote: Organic combinations.]

114. Empedokles went on to show how the four elements, mingled in different proportions, gave rise to perishable things, such as bones, flesh, and the like. These, of course, are the work of Love; but this in no way contradicts the view taken above as to the period of evolution to which this world belongs. Love is by no means banished from the world yet, though one day it will be. At present, it is still able to form combinations of elements; but, just because Strife is ever increasing, they are all perishable.

The possibility of organic combinations depends upon the fact that there is still water in the earth, and even fire (fr. 52). The warm springs of Sicily were a proof of this, not to speak of Etna. These springs Empedokles appears to have explained by one of his characteristic images, drawn this time from the heating of warm baths.[615] It will be noted that his similes are nearly all drawn from human inventions and manufactures.

Footnote 615:

Seneca, _Q. Nat._ iii. 24: “facere solemus dracones et miliaria et
complures formas in quibus aere tenui fistulas struimus per declive
circumdatas, ut saepe eundem ignem ambiens aqua per tantum fluat
spatii quantum efficiendo calori sat est. frigida itaque intrat,
effluit calida. idem sub terra Empedocles existimat fieri.”

[Sidenote: Plants.]

115. Plants and animals were formed from the four elements under the influence of Love and Strife. The fragments which deal with trees and plants are 77-81; and these, taken along with certain Aristotelian statements and the doxographical tradition, enable us to make out pretty fully what the theory was. The text of Aetios is very corrupt here; but it may, perhaps, be rendered as follows:—

Empedokles says that trees were the first living creatures to grow up
out of the earth, before the sun was spread out, and before day and
night were distinguished; that, from the symmetry of their mixture,
they contain the proportion of male and female; that they grow, rising
up owing to the heat which is in the earth, so that they are parts of
the earth just as embryos are parts of the uterus; that fruits are
excretions of the water and fire in plants, and that those which have
a deficiency of moisture shed their leaves when that is evaporated by
the summer heat, while those which have more moisture remain
evergreen, as in the case of the laurel, the olive, and the palm; that
the differences in taste are due to variations in the particles
contained in the earth and to the plants drawing different particles
from it, as in the case of vines; for it is not the difference of the
vines that makes wine good, but that of the soil which nourishes them.
Aet. v. 26, 4 (R. P. 172).

Aristotle finds fault with Empedokles for explaining the double growth of plants, upwards and downwards, by the opposite natural motions of the earth and fire contained in them.[616] For “natural motions” we must, of course, substitute the attraction of like for like (§ 109). Theophrastos says much the same thing.[617] The growth of plants, then, is to be regarded as an incident in that separation of the elements which Strife is bringing about. Some of the fire which is still beneath the earth (fr. 52) meeting in its upward course with earth, still moist with water and “running” down so as to “reach its own kind,” unites with it, under the influence of the Love still left in the world, to form a temporary combination, which we call a tree or a plant.

Footnote 616:

Arist. _de An._ Β, 4. 415 b 28.

Footnote 617:

Theophr. _de causis plantarum_, i. 12, 5.

At the beginning of the pseudo-Aristotelian _Treatise on Plants_,[618] we are told that Empedokles attributed desire, sensation, and the capacity for pleasure and pain to plants, and he rightly saw that the two sexes are combined in them. This is mentioned by Aetios, and discussed in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. If we may so far trust that Byzantine translation from a Latin version of the Arabic,[619] we get a most valuable hint as to the reason. Plants, we are there told, came into being “in an imperfect state of the world,”[620] in fact, at a time when Strife had not so far prevailed as to differentiate the sexes. We shall see that the same thing applies to the original race of animals in this world. It is strange that Empedokles never observed the actual process of generation in plants, but confined himself to the statement that they spontaneously “bore eggs” (fr. 79), that is to say, fruit.

Footnote 618:

[Arist.] _de plantis_, Α, 1. 815 a 15.

Footnote 619:

Alfred the Englishman translated the Arabic version into Latin in the
reign of Henry III. It was retranslated from this version into Greek
at the Renaissance by a Greek resident in Italy.

Footnote 620:

Α, 2. 817 b 35, “mundo ... diminuto et non perfecto in complemento
suo” (Alfred).

[Sidenote: Evolution of animals.]

116. The fragments which deal with the evolution of animals (57-62) must be understood in the light of the statement (fr. 17) that there is a double coming into being and a double passing away of mortal things. Empedokles describes two processes of evolution, which take exactly opposite courses, one of them belonging to the period of Love and the other to that of Strife. The four stages of this double evolution are accurately distinguished in a passage of Aetios,[621] and we shall see that there is evidence for referring two of them to the second period of the world’s history and two to the fourth.

Footnote 621:

Aet. v. 19, 5 (R. P. 173). Plato has made use of the idea of reversed
evolution in the _Politicus_ myth.

The first stage is that in which the various parts of animals arise separately. It is that of heads without necks, arms without shoulders, and eyes without foreheads (fr. 57). It is clear that this must be the first stage in what we have called the fourth period of the world’s history, that in which Love is coming in and Strife passing out. Aristotle distinctly refers it to the period of Love, by which, as we have seen, he means the period when Love is increasing.[622] It is in accordance with this that he also says these scattered members were subsequently put together by Love.[623]

Footnote 622:

Arist. _de Caelo_, Γ, 2. 300 b 29 (R. P. 173 a). Cf. _de Gen. An._ Α,
17. 722 b 17, where fr. 57 is introduced by the words καθάπερ
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς γεννᾷ ἐπὶ τῆς Φιλότητος. Simplicius, _de Caelo_, p. 587,
18, expresses the same thing by saying μουνομελῆ ἔτι τὰ γυῖα ἀπὸ τῆς
τοῦ Νείκους διακρίσεως ὄντα ἐπλανᾶτο.

Footnote 623:

Arist. _de An._ Γ, 6. 430 a 30 (R. P. 173 a).

The second stage is that in which the scattered limbs are united. At first, they were combined in all possible ways (fr. 59). There were oxen with human heads, creatures with double faces and double breasts, and all manner of monsters (fr. 61). Those of them that were fitted to survive did so, while the rest perished. That is how the evolution of animals took place in the period of Love.[624]

Footnote 624:

This is well put by Simplicius, _de Caelo_, p. 587, 20. It is ὅτε τοῦ
Νείκους ἐπεκράτει λοιπὸν ἡ Φιλότης ... ἐπὶ τῆς Φιλότητος οὖν ὁ
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐκεῖνα εἶπεν, οὐχ ὡς ἐπικρατούσης ἤδη τῆς Φιλότητος, ἀλλ’
ὡς μελλούσης ἐπικρατεῖν. In _Phys._ p. 371, 33, he says the oxen with
human heads were κατὰ τῆν τῆς Φιλίας ἀρχήν.

The third stage belongs to the period when the unity of the Sphere is being destroyed by Strife. It is, therefore, the first stage in the evolution of our present world. It begins with “whole-natured forms” in which there is not as yet any distinction of sex or species.[625] They are composed of earth and water, and are produced by the upward motion of fire which is seeking to reach its like.

Footnote 625:

Cf. Plato, _Symp._ 189 e.

In the fourth stage, the sexes and species have been separated, and new animals no longer arise from the elements, but are produced by generation. We shall see presently how Empedokles conceived this to operate.

In both these processes of evolution, Empedokles was guided by the idea of the survival of the fittest. Aristotle severely criticises this. “We may suppose,” he says, “that all things have fallen out accidentally just as they would have done if they had been produced for some end. Certain things have been preserved because they had spontaneously acquired a fitting structure, while those which were not so put together have perished and are perishing, as Empedokles says of the oxen with human faces.”[626] This, according to Aristotle, leaves too much to chance. One curious instance has been preserved. Vertebration was explained by saying that an early invertebrate animal tried to turn round and broke its back in so doing. This was a favourable variation and so survived.[627] It should be noted that it clearly belongs to the period of Strife, and not, like the oxen with human heads, to that of Love. The survival of the fittest was the law of both processes of evolution.

Footnote 626:

Arist. _Phys._ Β, 8. 198 b 29 (R. P. 173 a).

Footnote 627:

Arist. _de Part. An._ Α, 1. 640 a 19.

117. The distinction of the sexes was an important result of the gradual differentiation brought about by the entrance of Strife into the world. Empedokles differed from the theory given by Parmenides in his Second Part (§ 95) in holding that the warm element preponderated in the male sex, and that males were conceived in the warmer part of the uterus (fr. 65). The fœtus was formed partly from the male and partly from the female semen (fr. 63); and it was just the fact that the substance of a new being’s body was divided between the male and the female that produced desire when the two were brought together by sight (fr. 64). A certain symmetry of the pores in the male and female semen is, of course, necessary for procreation, and from its absence Empedokles explained the sterility of mules. The children most resemble that parent who contributed most to their formation. The influence of statues and pictures was also noted, however, as modifying the appearance of the offspring. Twins and triplets were due to a superabundance and division of the semen.[628]

Footnote 628:

Aet. v. 10, 1; 11, 1; 12, 2; 14, 2. Cf. Fredrich, _Hippokratische
Untersuchungen_, pp. 126 sqq.

As to the growth of the fœtus in the uterus, Empedokles held that it was enveloped in a membrane, and that its formation began on the thirty-sixth day and was completed on the forty-ninth. The heart was formed first, the nails and such things last. Respiration did not begin till the time of birth, when the fluids round the fœtus were withdrawn. Birth took place in the ninth or seventh month, because the day had been originally nine months long, and afterwards seven. Milk arises on the tenth day of the eighth month (fr. 68).[629]