Chapter XI: The Philosophers (2)

Between what Empedokles the mystic here tells us of the soul that was once living its divine life, but has since been plunged into the world of the elements, though it is not for ever bound to them; and what Empedokles the physiologist teaches of the psychical powers that dwell in the elements and are bound to the body that is composed of the elements and perish with their dissolution, there seems to be a hopeless contradiction. And yet if we are to grasp the whole truth of what Empedokles means, we must neither leave on one side half of what he says,[90\11] nor yet by well-meaning interpretation seek to bring the philosopher into harmony with himself,[91\11] when he clearly speaks with two different voices. The two voices say different things, and yet in the mind of Empedokles, there is no contradiction in what they say, for they are dealing with totally distinct objects. The psychical powers and faculties of feeling and perception which are functions of matter, born in matter, and determined by it, together with the thinking faculty that is no other than the heart's blood of men--these neither make up the character and content of that soul-spirit which dwells in men, beasts, and flowers, nor are they expressions of its activity. They are entirely bound up with the elements and their combination, and in man they are joined to the body and its organs; they are the powers and faculties of this body, and not of a special and invisible entity, the soul. The soul-daimon is not made out of the elements, nor is it for ever chained to them. It enters as a stranger into this world in which the only permanent component parts are[92\11] the four elements, and the two forces of Love and Hate; and it enters it from another world, the world of gods and spirits, to its detriment; the elements cast it about from one to another "and they all hate it" (_fr._ 115, 12, l. 35 M.). This living soul, with its independent existence, that thus enters into foreign and hostile surroundings, only enters into such earthly creatures as already possess senses, feeling and perception, together with reason or the faculty of thinking, the crowning manifestation of their material union. It is, however, as little identical with these psychical faculties as it is with the mixture of elementary matter or, in {383} the case of men, with the heart's blood. It exists, unmixed and incapable of mixture, _alongside_ the body and its faculties which indeed only have life--"what men call life"--(_fr._ 15, 2, l. 117 M.) when united with it. When they are separated from it they fall into dissolution; not so the soul, which continues its journey and visits other dwelling places, and does not share in their dissolution.

This peculiar dualistic doctrine reflects the two sides of Empedokles' own mental activity. He probably intended in this way to unite the views of both the physiologists and the theologians. To the Greeks, such a twofold division of the inner life may have seemed less surprising than it does to us. The conception of a "soul" that as an independent, unique, and self-contained spiritual being dwells within the body, while the body does not receive its intellectual faculties of perceiving, feeling, willing and thinking from the soul, but exercises these by its own power--this conception agrees at bottom with the ideas of popular psychology that are as a rule described or implied in the Homeric poems.[93\11] The only difference is that these ideas of poet and populace are elaborated and defined by the speculations of theologians and philosophers. How deeply impressed upon the Greek mind such conceptions, derived eventually from Homer, actually were, can be measured by the fact that a conception of the twofold origin of psychic activity, its twofold nature and sphere of action, closely related to that of Empedokles, is continually recurring in more advanced stages of philosophy. It occurs not merely in Plato, but even in Aristotle, who in addition to the "soul" that directs and expresses itself in the physico-organic nature of man, recognizes another being of divine descent that enters into man "from without", the "mind" (~nou=s~) which is separable both from the soul and from the body, and is alone destined to survive the death of the man to which it was assigned.[94\11] In the doctrine of Empedokles, too, it is a stranger-guest from the distant land of gods that enters into man to give him a soul. This being is indeed far below the "mind" of Aristotle in philosophic importance; nevertheless, in the introduction of this Stranger into the world composed of the elements and vital faculties, a sense of the absolute uniqueness of spirit, its unlikeness to everything material, its essential distinctness from matter, finds expression, if only in a limited theological fashion.

In the light of such theological considerations, the soul seems also to Empedokles something essentially distinct from its prototype, the Homeric psyche, which after its separation {384} from the body passes to the twilight of a shadowy dream-life. To him, the soul is of divine race, too noble for this world of visibility, and only when it escapes from this world does it seem to him to begin its real and full life. Though confined within the body, it has its separate existence there; it has no concern with the everyday business of perception and sensation--not even with that of thinking, which is nothing else but the heart's blood. But it is active in the "higher" mode of knowledge, in ecstatic inspiration;[95\11] to it alone belongs the profound insight of the philosopher who is enabled to pass beyond the limits of mere experience and sense-perception, and behold the totality of the universe in its true nature.[96\11] To it alone apply all the requirements of ethical and religious systems--duties in this higher sense belong only to the soul; it is something in the nature of a "conscience". Its highest duty is to free itself from the unhallowed union with the body, and the elements of this world; the rules of purification and asceticism refer solely to it.

Between this soul-daimon that yearns after its divine home, and the world of the elements, there exists no inward bond or necessary connexion. And yet, since they have become implicated in each other's existence, a certain parallelism exists between them in character and destiny. In the mechanically moved world, too, the separate and particular phenomena tend back again towards their starting point, the inwardly coherent Unity from which they once took their origin. A day will come when, after all struggle has been done away, "Love" alone will have absolute rule; and this means for the poet--who in his description even of this world of mechanical attraction and repulsion interpolates half-realized ethical concepts[97\11]--a state of absolute goodness and happiness. If there is no longer any world, then, until another one is created, no soul-daimon can be bound any more to the individual organisms of a world. Have they then all returned to the blessed communion of the immortal gods? It appears that not even the gods and daimones (and so not the spirits enclosed in world as "souls") are regarded by Empedokles as having everlasting life. "Long-living" is the name he repeatedly applies to them; he never distinctly ascribes _eternal_ life to them.[98\11] They, too, shall for a period enjoy "the happiness of profoundest peace" until, just as the elements and forces are drawn into the unity of the Sphairos, they, too, come together in the unity of the godlike Universal Mind, thence at a new world-creation to appear once more as individual separate being.[99\11] {385}

§ 7

Empedokles took a fully developed "hylozoic" system (which in itself, with its introduction of the motive forces of Conflict and Love, already betrayed a latent dualism) and attempted to combine with it an extreme form of spiritualist teaching. His attempt illustrates very clearly the observation that a philosophic science of nature in itself could never lead to the establishment of the axiom that the individual "soul" after its separation from the body continues to exist, still less that it is indestructible. Any one who still felt it necessary to assert that axiom could find support for it only by allowing physiology to be either overwhelmed by theological speculation, or else supplemented by it in the manner attempted by Empedokles.

Such an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable can have found few adherents among those who were accessible to scientific ideas, nor was it likely to tempt the physiological philosophy from the path which it had hitherto followed. Soon after Empedokles, and in essentials hardly influenced by him, Anaxagoras and Demokritos developed those doctrinal systems which were the last products of the independent speculation of Ionia. Demokritos was the founder and completer of the atomic doctrine according to which there exist "in reality" only the indivisible, minutest material bodies--which, while qualitatively indistinguishable, yet differ in shape, position, and arrangement in space as well as in bulk and weight--and empty space. He was obliged to seek for the "soul" (which to the _materialist_ may easily present itself as being a separate, substantial, self-existent thing) among those minutest bodies out of which the whole fabric of the world of appearance is built up. The soul is that which confers movement upon the inherently motionless collections of bodies. It is composed of the round and smooth atoms which, in the universal condition of unrest that keeps all the atoms in agitation, are the most easily moved, for they offer least resistance to change of position, and can most easily penetrate others. These atoms compose fire and the soul. It is the soul-atom--one being inserted between every two of the other atoms[100\11]--which gives these their movement; and it is from all the soul-atoms uniformly disposed throughout the whole body that the body gets its movement, whence also (though it must be admitted in an unintelligible manner) comes the power of perception, which equally depends on movement, and the thought arising thence, of this same body. {386} During the life-time of the individual body, the continuance of the soul-atoms is secured by the breathing which continually replaces the smooth soul-particles that are as continually being expelled from the whole atom-complex by the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere. The breathing is always drawing in fresh soul-stuff from the air which is full of floating soul-atoms, and supplies it to the body. A time comes, however, when the breathing refuses this function, and death occurs, which is simply the insufficient supply of these moving and animating atoms.[101\11] With the coming of death, there is an end to the union of the atoms, whose amalgamation had formed the particular living organism. Neither the soul-atoms nor any of the other atoms are destroyed; they do not alter in kind; but from the loose state of aggregation which even in the living body hardly amounted to an absolute unity to which a single common name could be applied--from this they now escape entirely. It is scarcely possible to see how, on this view of what essentially constitutes mental and vital phenomena, as a mere resultant of the separate and individual activities of individual and disconnected bodies, the unity of the living organism and the spiritual entity could ever come into being. It is even more evident that a unified "soul" could not possibly continue to exist after the dissolution which takes place at death of the atoms that in their union made up the organism. And, in fact, the soul-atoms disperse;[102\11] they return whence they came into the restless mass of world-stuff. The human individual, in this view of the case, perishes in death entirely.[103\11] The materials out of which he was shaped and composed are indestructible, and reserved for future construction; but his personality--the invisible personality, the "soul", just as much as the visible--has but a single existence strictly limited to its one appearance in time. The continued existence of the soul after death, an immortality in whatever manner the thing may be conceived, is here for the first time in the history of Greek thought, expressly denied. The Atomist, with the candid precision that distinguishes him, draws the necessary consequences of his premises.

Anaxagoras strikes out a path almost directly opposed to this materialist doctrine. As the first decisive and conscious dualist among Greek philosophers, he takes the material substratum of being, the inexhaustible many of distinctly characterized and distinctly separate "Seeds" of things--which are nevertheless indistinguishably intermingled with each other--and sets over against them a force which he {387} obviously did not mean to derive from them, to which he gives a name usually attached to the faculty of thought in man, and which in any case he thought of as analogous to that faculty.[104\11] This "Mind", simple, unmixed and unchangeable, is given such titles and adjectives that it is impossible to mistake the effort of Anaxagoras to think of it as something distinct from everything material, and in fact, absolutely immaterial and incorporeal.[105\11] It is at once power of thought and force of will; at the creation of the world it gives the first circular impulse to the intrinsically motionless lump of matter; the creation of distinct forms in accordance with a conscious purpose is begun by it--though the carrying out of this purpose is indeed to be completed in accordance with pure mechanical laws without the interference of "Mind". This "Mind" that plans and orders but does not make the world, that with the conscious insight of its omniscient wisdom[106\11] influences matter without being influenced in turn, that moves without being moved;[107\11] set over against the multiplicity of things as an indivisible unity,[108\11] "having nothing in common with anything outside itself"[109\11] but entirely self-contained[110\11]--how shall we conceive of it otherwise than as an almost personified, transcendent divine power confronting the world of matter as something foreign to it, ruling the world from without by magical, not mechanical, means?

But this transcendent is also completely immanent. **Wherever in this world life and independent movement are found, there, too, the mind as the source of life and movement must be active. "Mind rules all that has soul" says Anaxagoras.[111\11] In saying this he has not indeed asserted the presence of "Mind" within the animated being nor yet identity of nature as between soul and mind. But when we hear that Mind "goes through all things,[112\11] that in everything there is a part of all things, except of mind, and in some things of mind also",[113\11] that must imply the penetration of many associations of matter by mind (hardly any longer to be thought of as immaterial) whereby the previously asserted transcendency of mind seems to be given up. At any rate, as such associations in which is "Mind", living and animated beings are regarded. It is in them that "Mind" is present in continual, equal creativeness, though in different degrees;[114\11] indeed, Mind is or constitutes that very thing that we call the "soul" of a living being.[115\11] Among these living beings, which exist upon the moon,[116\11] as well as on earth, are not only men and beasts, but also plants.[117\11] In all these "Mind" is active; without losing any of its purity or unity, it is mixed with them.[118\11] {388} How we are to conceive the omnipotent Mind, whose oneness and self-containedness has been so emphatically asserted, as nevertheless entering simultaneously into the infinity of individual being--that certainly remains obscure. It is clear, however, that having thus derived all animated being from the single World-Mind, Anaxagoras could not speak of the continued existence of individual, self-existent "souls" after the dissolution of the material concretions in which moving and animating "soul-force" had once lived. The view is definitely ascribed to him that separation from the body is also "the soul's death".[119\11] Nothing, indeed, of the component parts that belong to the whole perishes, and no change in its nature takes place. So "Mind", whose manifestations the "souls" were, maintains itself unaltered and undiminished; but after the dissolution of the united, which "the Hellenes" regard as its destruction,[120\11] though the component parts of the individual remain, yet not _that_ particular mixture in which the peculiarity of the individual was inherent--"Mind" remains, but not the soul . . .

Thus, the first distinct separation of the intellectual thinking principle from the material substance with which it was--not fused, much less identified, but--contrasted in sovereignty and independence, did not lead to the recognition of the indestructibility of the individual spirit.

Shall we say that the mental, self-moved, life-giving principle, whether set over against the material and corporeal or indivisibly united with it, is for the physiologist always something universal--that the essentially real is impersonal? For him the individual, the personality conscious of itself and of the outer world, can be nothing but a manifestation of the universal, whether the latter is regarded as fixed and at rest, or as a living process that untiringly develops itself, recruits itself, and reconstructs itself in ever renewed creations. The only permanent, unchanging reality is the universal, the essential and fundamentally real Nature which appears in all individual things, speaks out of their mouth, and, in reality, only works and lives in them. The individual human soul has its indestructibility only in its identity with the universal that represents itself in it. The individual forms of "appearance", having no independence of their own, cannot permanently abide.

The view that imperishable life belongs to the individual soul could only be reached by a line of thought that took as a fact and held fast to it as something given that the individual spirit is a reality. (Its appearance and disappearance in the {389} midst of the one universe was indeed for the physiologists the true miracle, the problem never satisfactorily solved.) Such a belief in individuality, the belief in an independently existent individual substance that had never had a beginning and could therefore never have an end, was the contribution, however fancifully it might be expressed, of the theologians and the mystics. For them immortality, the power of substantive duration unlimited by time, was extended also to include the individual. The individual soul is for them a self-existent, individual, divine being, indestructible because it is divine.

Greek philosophy underwent many changes in the course of its speculations during the following ages; but exactly in proportion as it, to a greater or lesser degree, accepted theological elements or on the other hand rejected such elements, did it give fundamental support to the view of the soul's immortality, or grudgingly admit it, or absolutely reject it.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI

[1\11: ~psuchê/~ = "life," "concept of life," in Homer (though not indeed used to denote psychical powers during lifetime): see above, pp. 30, 31. So, too, occasionally in the remains of the Iambic and Elegiac poets of the earliest period: Archil. 23; Tyrt. 10, 14; 11, 5; Sol. 13, 46; Thgn. 568 f., 730; (Hippon. 43, 1?). ~psuchê/~ = "life" in the proverbial phrase ~peri\ psuchê=s trechei=n~ (see Wessel. and Valck. on Hdt. vii, 57; Jacobs on Ach. Tat., p. 896**). ~psuchê/~ frequently = "life" in the idiom of the Attic orators (see Meuss, _Jahrb. f. Philol._ 1889, p. 803).]

[2\11: See above, pp. 5, 30. Even the Homeric poems in one case show a slight uncertainty of language and of psychological conception when they use ~thumo/s~, the highest and most general of the powers of life dwelling within the visible and living man, in the sense of ~psuchê/~, the double of the man who dwells as a lodger in his body, separate and taking no part in the ordinary business of his life. The ~thumo/s~ (see above, chap. i, n. 57) is active during the man's lifetime, is enclosed in the midriff (~en phresi\ thumo\s~) and when that is overtaken by death is itself overwhelmed (~Ps~ 104): on the arrival of death it leaves the body and perishes--while the ~psuchê/~ flies away intact. The distinction is clearly maintained, e.g. in ~l~ 220 f.: "fire destroys the body" ~epei/ ken prô=ta li/pê| leu/k' oste/a _thumo/s, psuchê\ d'_ êu/t' o/neiros apoptame/nê pepo/têtai~. ~thumo/s~ and ~psuchê/~ therefore leave the body of the slain man simultaneously (~thumou= kai\ psuchê=s kekadô/n~ ~L~ 334, ~ph~ 154); but in very different ways. The relation between them becomes, however, interchangeability in the single case when it is said of the ~thumo/s~ that _it_ in death will enter ~apo\ me/le/ôn do/mon A/idos ei/sô~--~Ê~ 131; in reality this could only be said of that very different being, the ~psuchê/~. (When a fainting-fit has passed over we do indeed hear, not that the ~psuchê/~--though this it was that had left the man: see above, chap. i, n. 8--but that ~es phre/na _thumo\s_ age/rthê~, ~Ch~ 475, ~e~ 458, ~ô~ 349. This, however, is not a case of ~thumo/s~ instead of ~psuchê/~, but ~thumo/s~ is merely an abbreviated form of the whole statement which would be in full: _both_ ~thumo/s~ and ~psuchê/~ have now returned into the man; cf. ~E~ 696. It is a kind of synecdoche.) In the line ~Ê~ 131 we really, then, do have ~thumo/s~ instead of ~psuchê/~ either as the result of a misunderstanding of the real meaning of the two words or merely through an oversight. But never (and this is the most essential point) do we have a case in Homer of the opposite exchange of significance: i.e. of ~psuchê/~ used in the sense ~thumo/s~ (~no/os, me/nos, êtor~, etc.), as meaning the mental power and its activity in the living and waking man. Just this, however, and more than this, the sum and substance of all the mental powers in general, is what the word ~psuchê/~ means in the language of the philosophers (except those affected by religious tendencies). They left out of account altogether that spiritual double of mankind whom the popular psychology called the ~psuchê/~, and were thus free to use the word to express the whole psychical content of the human individual. From the fifth century onwards we find the word ~psuchê/~ used commonly, and even regularly, in this sense in the vocabulary of non-philosophical poets and prose writers. Only theologians and poets, or philosophers of a theological tendency, continued to use the {391} word in its ancient and primitive sense. Indeed, when the separation of a spiritual being from the body of a man in death was being spoken of, ~psuchê/~ always continued to be the proper word for this sense even in popular language. (An extremely rare example of ~thumo/s~ in this sense, comparable with ~Ê~ 131, is [Arist.] _Pepl_. 61 Bgk.; ~_thumo/n_ . . . aithê\r lampro\s e/chei~. In the corresponding epigram, _Epigr. Gr._ 41, we have ~psuchê/n~.)]

[3\11: ~e/nioi~, among them Choirilos of Samos: D.L. i, 24 (from Favorinus): _Vors._^4, i, p. 1, 21.]

[4\11: Arist., _An._ 1, 2, p. 405a, 20 f. "Aristotle and Hippias" ap. D.L. i, 24; _Vors._, p. 2, 1. ~ta\ phuta\ e/mpsucha zô=|a~, _Dox._ 438a, 6, b, 1.]

[5\11: Metaphorical language: ~Thalê=s ô|ê/thê pa/nta plê/rê theô=n ei=nai~, Arist., _An._ 1, 5, p. 411a, 8. ~to\n ko/smon (e/mpsuchon kai\) daimo/nôn plê/rê~, D.L. i, 27; _Dox._ 301b, 2; _Vors._ p. 2, 20. Pl., _Lg._ 899 B, is an allusion to the ~theô=n plê/rê pa/nta~ (as Krische remarks, _Theol. Lehr. d. Gr. Denker_, p. 37). There is perhaps a half-mocking reference to the words in the saying attributed by anecdotal tradition to Herakleitos: ~ei=nai kai\ entau=tha theou/s~ (i.e. in his own hearth) Arist., _PA._ 1, 5, p. 645a, 17 ff. Hence Herakleitos himself was credited with the opinion of Thales in slightly altered form: ~pa/nta psuchô=n ei=nai kai\ daimo/nôn plê/rê~, D.L. ix, 7 (_Vors._, p. 68, 29), in the first (and valueless) of the two lists of the doctrines of Herakl. there given.]

[6\11: Arist., _Phys._ 3, 4, p. 203b, 10-14. _Dox._ 559, 18. _Vors._, p. 17, 35.]

[7\11: Anaximander, _fr._ 2 Mull. _Vors._, p. 15, 26. That Anaximander declared the soul to be "like air" is an erroneous statement of Theodoret.: see Diels, _Dox._ 387b, 10 (_Vors._ 21, 5).]

[8\11: Anaximenes in _Dox._ 278a, 12 ff.; b, 8 ff. _fr._ 2 Diels.]

[9\11: Anaxim. calls ~to\n ae/ra theo/n~, i.e. it has divine power: _Dox._ 302b, 5; 531a, 17, b, 1-2. _Vors._ 24, 18. This at least is to be understood in the same sense in which Anaximander is said to have called ~to\ a/peiron, to\ _thei=on_~ (Arist., _Phys._ 3, 4, p. 203b, 13; _Vors._, p. 17, 35).]

[10\11: ~he\n pa/nta ei=nai~, _fr._ 1 (Byw.); 50 (Diels).]

[11\11: Arist., _An._ 1, 2, p. 405a, 25 ff. _Vors._ 74, 30. Hkl. is also meant in p. 405a, 5. _Dox._ 471, 2 (Arius Didymus); 389a, 3 ff.]

[12\11: Arist., p. 405a. 25 ff. Hkl. _fr._ 68 (36 D.).]

[13\11: S.E., _M._ 7, 127, 129-31. _Vors._ 75, 14 ff.]

[14\11: ~ho theo/s~ is both the Universal Fire, that transforms itself into the world, and at the same time its power (and ~lo/gos~: _frr._ 2 [1], 92 [2]): _fr._ 36 (67). ~to\ pu=r theo\n hupei/lêphen~, Herakl.: Cl. Al., _Prot._ 5, 64, p. 55 P. [_Vors._ n. 8 A 8]. ~pu=r noero\n to\n theo\n (ei=nai ephthe/gxato)~, Hippol., _RH._ i, 4, p. 10, 57 Mill.--"Zeus" as metaphor for this universal fire (hence ~ouk ethe/lei kai\ ethe/lei~), the "only wise one"; _fr._ 65 (32).]

[15\11: ~hê epixenôthei=sa toi=s hêmete/rois sô/masin apo\ tou= perie/chontos moi=ra (perie/ch.~ = the universal Fire) is said of the soul and its reasoning faculty ap. S.E., _M._ vii, 130; _Vors._, p. 75, 19; (cf. ~aporroê\ kai\ moi=ra ek tou= phronou=ntos~, Plu., _Is. et O._ 77, p. 382 B). This is fully Herakleitean in thought if not also in actual form of expression.]

[16\11: That Herakleitos drew the conclusions affecting also the "Soul"--the spiritual man--freely paraphrased in the text, arising necessarily out of his doctrine of the perpetual change in the material substance that excludes all possibility of lasting self-identity in any object (_frr._ 40, 41, 42, 81 = 91, 12, 49 a), is proved especially by the words of Plutarch in the eighteenth chapter of his treatise _de E Delph._ p. 392--a chapter which is entirely based on Herakleitos, who is twice actually cited in it. Not only does ~ho ne/os~ die ~eis to\n akma/zonta ktl.~, but ~ho chthe\s (a/nthrôpos) eis to\n sê/meron te/thnêken, ho de\ sê/meron eis to\n {392} au/rion apothnê/skei. me/nei d' oudei/s, oud' e/stin hei=s, alla gigno/metha polloi\ peri\ he\n pha/ntasma ktl.~; cf. _Cons. ad Apoll._ 10, p. 106 E. Herakl. is also the origin of what is said in Plato, _Smp._ 207 D ff.: each man is only apparently one and the same; in reality, even while he is still alive, "he continually suffers a new and different man to take the place of the old and departing one"--and this applies, just as much to the soul as to the body. (Only from the standpoint of Herakleitean doctrine--here adopted in passing by Plato as suiting his chosen method of argument--is the conclusion he reaches justified; the conclusion is that it is only by the perpetual substitution of a new being like the old one that man has immortality, and not by the eternal preservation of his own proper being; for this advantage belongs peculiarly to the divine. This, of course, cannot possibly be understood as the serious teaching of Plato himself.)--The Herakleitean denial of personal identity in men is alluded to by Epicharmos (or a pseudo-Ep.?) ap. D.L. iii, 11, ll. 13-18; _Vors._, p. 118-19 (cf. Wytt. ad Plu., _Ser. Num. V._ 559 A = vii, p. 397 f. Ox.; Bernays, _Rh. Mus._ viii, 280 ff.); and cf. Sen., _Ep._ 58, 23.--It is instructive to compare with Herakl.'s doctrine of the instability of the psychic complex the very similar theory of the influx and reflux of the elements of the "soul" as described in the Indian doctrine of Jainism. The soul (in the Indian doctrine) continually transforms, re-arranges, and restores itself, just like the body. See Deussen, _System d. Vedânta_, 330.]

[17\11: The apparently contradictory statement ~psuchê=|si te/rpsin, mê\ tha/naton, hugrê=|si gene/sthai~ ap. Porph., _Antr. Nymph._ 10 (72 By., 77 D.), does not represent the words or real opinion of Hkl., but only of Numenios' (_fr._ 35 Thedinga) arbitrary and personal interpretation of Hkl. doctrine (see Gomperz in _Sitzb. d. Wien. Ak._ 113, 1015 ff.).]

[18\11: A doctrine of transmigration of souls is attributed to Hkl. by Schuster, _Heraklit_, p. 174 ff. (1873). The utterances of Herakleitos there quoted to prove this thesis (_frr._ 78, 67, 123 = 88, 62, 63) do not, however, imply anything of the kind and there is not the slightest indication in the whole of Hkl's doctrinal system upon which a theory of the transmigration of the soul might be founded.]

[19\11: To prove that Herakleitos spoke of a continuation of the life of the individual soul after its separation from the body, appeal is made partly to the statements of later philosophers, partly to actual utterances of Herakl. (cf. in particular Zeller, _Greek Phil. to Socr._ ii, 86; Pfleiderer, _Philos. d. Heraklit im Lichte der Mysterienidee_, p. 214 ff.). Platonist philosophers do, of course, attribute to Herakleitos a doctrine of the soul which taught the pre-existence of the individual soul, "its fall in birth," and its departure into a separate life of its own after death (cf. Numenios ap. Porph., _Ant._ 10; Iamb., ap. Stob., _Ecl._ i, 375, 7; 38, 21 ff. W.; Aen. Gaz., _Thphr._, pp. 5, 7 Boiss.). These accounts, however, are plainly but private and arbitrary interpretations of Herakleitean sayings (~metaba/llon anapau/etai, ka/mato/s esti toi=s autoi=s aei\ mochthei=n kai\ a/rchesthai~) in the light of the conceptions current among those philosophers themselves; they are homiletic, fancifully conceived expositions of very short and ambiguous texts, and can so much the less serve as witnesses of Herakleitos' real opinions since Plotinos (4, 8, 1) openly admits that Herakl. in this matter has omitted ~saphê= hêmi=n poiê=sai to\n lo/gon~. Others read into certain Herakleitean utterances the Orphic doctrine of ~sô=ma--sê=ma~, the entombment of the soul in the body (Philo, _Leg. Alleg._ 1, 33, i, p. 65 M.; S.E., _P._ iii, 230), which cannot, however, be seriously supposed to be his teaching. The soul did not for Hkl., any more than for the Pythagoreans or Platonics, {393} come into existence at birth (substantially) out of nothing (which was the popular idea); it rather, as a portion of the universal fire (the universal psyche) is in existence from eternity. But it certainly does not follow, because later writers insisted on finding in him the idea so familiar to themselves, that Hkl. himself accepted the pre-existence of disembodied separate souls possessing complete and absolute individuality. A few enigmatic and highly picturesque expressions--typical of this philosopher's favourite manner of expressing abstract ideas by clothing them in symbolic imagery--might tempt to such an interpretation. ~atha/natoi thnêtoi/, thnêtoi\ atha/natoi, zô=ntes to\n ekei/nôn tha/naton to\n de\ ekei/nôn bi/on tethneô=tes~ (_fr._ 67 = 62)--that certainly does sound as if Hkl. had meant to speak of the entrance into the human life of individual divine beings (and this was simply substituted in inaccurate quotations of the saying: ~theoi\ thnêtoi/, a/nthrôpoi atha/natoi~, etc.; cf. Bernays, _Heraklit. Briefe_, 39 ff.). And yet Herakleitos can only have meant, in conformity with his whole position, that eternal and perishable, divine and human are alike and interchangeable; he has for the moment personified ~to\ thei=on~ (also called ~ho theo/s~ _fr._ 36 = 67; cf. _fr._ 61 = 102) as individual ~atha/natoi~, but he only means what he says in another place: ~tauto\ to\ zô=n kai\ tethnêko/s~ (_fr._ 78 = 88), ~bi/os~ and ~tha/natos~ are the same (_fr._ 66 = 48). It seems to me impossible to extract from these words of this 67th fragment (62nd), or from no. 44 (= 53), a doctrine of the ascent to divinity of special great men (with Gomperz, _Sitzb. Wien. Ak._ 1886, p. 1010, 1041 f.). Nor would anything be asserted by such a doctrine about the immortality of such men. The striking phrase ~anthrô/pous me/nei teleutê/santas ha/ssa ouk e/lpontai~ (_fr._ 122 = 27) is certainly understood by Cl. Al. as referring to the punishment of the soul after death. But the same Cl. Al., _Str._ **v, 9, p. 649 P., is capable of explaining the Herakleitean ~ekpu/rôsis~ (in which Herakl. actually speaks of a ~kri/sis~ by fire: _fr._ 26 = 66) as a ~dia\ puro\s ka/tharsis tô=n _kakô=s bebiôko/tôn_~. In fact, he is giving to statements torn from their context a meaning that accords with his own knowledge and comprehension. The same sentence (_fr._ 122 = 27) is given a quite different and consolatory sense by Plu. ap. Stob., _Fl._ 120, 8 fin.; cf. Schuster, _Heraklit_, p. 190, n. 1. Herakl. himself need have meant nothing more than the perpetual process of change that "awaits men after death".--Other utterances are no more conclusive for a doctrine of immortality in Hkl. (_fr._ 7 = 18 belongs to quite another context). "Those who have fallen in war are honoured both by gods (whose existence was not denied by Hkl. nor was it necessary that he should) and men," _fr._ 102 = 24; that their reward was anything else but fame--for example, blessed immortality--is not suggested even by Cl. Al. (_Str._ iv, 16, p. 571 P.), and is certainly not to be extracted from H.'s words, _fr._ 126 = 5 (the fool) ~hou/ti ginô/skôn theou\s oud' hê/rôas hoi/tine/s eisin~ simply shows that Hkl. did not share the popular ideas about gods and Heroes, but supplies nothing positive.--In _fr._ 38 = 98 we have ~hai psuchai\ osmô=ntai kath' ha/|dên~. Are we really to deduce from this that Herakl. believed in a regular Homeric Hades? ~ha/|dês~ is a metaphorical expression for the opposite of the life on earth (just as it is used metaphorically for the opp. of ~pha/os~ by the Herakleitean [Hippocr.] _de Victu_, 1, 4, p. 632 Kühn = vi, 476 Lit.). For the souls ~ha/|dês~ means the ~ho/dos ka/tô~ and the sense of the dictum is: after disappearing in death the souls when they have travelled on the way downwards through water and earth will at last rise up again through water, and drawing in to themselves pure, dry "fire" will become "souls" again, (~osmô=ntai~ is remarkable {394} but not to be altered. ~hosiou=ntai~ Pfleiderer; but the connexion in which Plu. quotes the saying of Herakl. [_Fac. O. L._ xxviii, p. 943 E] shows that there is no reference to the purification of the souls in Hades, but merely of their nourishment and strengthening by the ~anathumi/asis~ of the fiery aether; cf. also S.E., _M._ ix, 73, following Poseidonios. This ~anathumia=n~--and the becoming "fiery" again--is what Hkl. calls ~osma=sthai~.)--From the hopelessly corrupt _fr._ 123 = 63 nothing intelligible can be extracted.--Nowhere can we find clear and unambiguous statements of Herakleitos witnessing to his belief in the immortality of the individual soul; and it would require such statements to make us attribute to Herakleitos a conception that, as everyone admits, is in hopeless contradiction with the rest of his teaching. He says perfectly plainly that in death the soul becomes water; and that means that it, as the soul = fire, _perishes_. If his belief had been anything like that of the mystics (as the Neoplatonists supposed) he must have regarded death--the liberation of the soul from the fetters of corporeality and the realm of the lower elements--as a complete issue of the soul into its proper element, the fire. Whereas, what he teaches is the opposite of this: the soul perishes, becomes water, then earth, and then water again, and finally soul once more (_fr._ 68 = 36). Only in this sense is it indestructible.]

[20\11: e.g. by Pfleiderer, _Philos. d. Heraklit_, etc., p. 209, and frequently.]

[21\11: The Sibyl _fr._ 12 = 92; the Delphic Oracle 11 = 93; Kathartic practices 130 = 5; Bakchoi, etc., 124 = 14.]

[22\11: ~hôuto\s Ha/idês kai\ Dio/nusos~ _fr._ 127 = 15 (and to that extent--as being reconcilable with the doctrine of Hkl.--may the Dionysiac mysteries be considered valid: this must be the meaning of the sentence). On the other hand, we have disapproval of the ~mustê/ria~ carried out ~anierôsti/~ by men: _fr._ 125 = 14 (for the worshippers do not perceive the real meaning of the ceremonies).]

[23\11: In contrast to the Neoplatonic writers who attributed to Hkl. a doctrine of the soul like the Orphico-Pythagorean, the [Plutarchian] account in the _Placita Philos._ is again much nearer the real meaning of Herakleitos; cf. 4, 7 (where the name of Herakleitos has fallen out, as can be seen from Theodoret; see Diels, _Dox._, p. 392; _Vors._ 76, 1) ~. . . exiou=san (tê\n anthrô/pou psuchê\n) eis tê\n tou= panto\s psuchê\n anachôrei=n pro\s to\ homogene/s~. Even this is not quite correct as expressing what Hkl. really thought as to the fate of the soul but it does at least show once more that the contrary views of the Neoplatonists are also only _interpretations_, not evidence.]

[24\11: ~Hêra/kleitos êremi/an kai\ sta/sin ek tô=n ho/lôn anê/|rei; e/sti ga\r tou=to tô=n nekrô=n~. _Dox._, p. 320; _Vors._ 73, 10. ~sta/sis~ and ~êremi/a~ could never make a real "life"--not even a blessed life far removed from the world--but are signs of what is "dead", i.e. of what is nowhere to be found in this world, in fact, Nothing.]

[25\11: Parmenldes' polemic against Herakleitos: l. 46 ff. Mull.; _fr._ 6, 4 ff. Diels; see Bernays, _Rh. Mus._ vii, 115 (cf. Diels, _Parm._ 68).]

[26\11: Aristotle (acc. to S.E., _M._ x, 46; _Vors._ 142, 33 ff.) ~aphusi/kous autou\s ke/klêken, ho/ti archê\ kinêseô/s estin hê phu/sis, hê\n anei=lon pha/menoi mêde\n kinei=sthai~.]

[27\11: Thphr., _Sens._ § 4; _Vors._ 146, 13 f.]

[28\11: ~gegenê=sthai tê\n tô=n pa/ntôn phu/sin ek thermou= kai\ psuchrou= kai\ xêrou= kai\ hugrou=, lambano/ntôn eis a/llêla tê\n metanolê/n, kai\ psuchê\n kra=ma hupa/rchein ek tô=n proeirême/nôn kata\ mêdeno\s tou/tôn epikra/têsin~, Zeno ap. D.L. ix, 29; _Vors._ 166, 14. The composition out of four elements instead of two as with Parmenides may have been arrived at by Zeno {395} in imitation of the "four roots" of Empedokles, each of which was distinguished by possessing one of the four qualities ~thermo/n ktl.~ The statement that the ~psuchê/~ arises from the _equal_ mixture of the four qualities reminds us of Empedokles' account of ~phronei=n~ (_Vors._ 218, 1 = 220, 23; Thphr., _Sens._ 10, 23). On the other side, Zeno takes over and applies to the ~psuchê/~ what the Pythagorean physician Alkmaion said about ~hugi/eia~ (_Vors._ 136, 1; _Dox._, p. 442; cf. Arist., _An._ 408a, 1): his point of view is almost identical with that of those Pythagoreans who regarded the "soul" as made up out of a ~harmoni/a~ of the Cold, the Warm, etc. (see below). He may have actually got his views from the acquaintance of Pythagorean physiologists (he was regarded as a "Pythagorean": Str. 252).]

[29\11: Simpl. ad Arist., _Ph._, p. 39 D.; _Vors._ 162, 11; cf. Diels, _Parm._ 109 f. (1897).]

[30\11: Parmenides pupil of Diochaites the Pythagorean and of Ameinias, also as it appears a Pythagorean: Sotion ap. D.L. ix, 21; _Vors._ 138. He was counted a Pythagorean by tradition which, however, was very free with its attributions of this kind. Call. _fr._ 100d, 17; Str. 252; _V. Pyth._ ap. Phot., _Bibl._ 249, p. 439a, 37 Bk.; Iamb., _VP._ 267 (with Sch., p. 190 N.). The Pyth. influence on Parmenides may have been essentially of an ethical nature: ~eis hêsuchi/an proetra/pê hupo\ Ameini/ou~, D.L. ix, 21. ~Parmeni/deios kai\ Puthago/reios bi/os~ as equivalent: [Ceb.] _Tab._ 2 fin. Str., p. 252, connects the good government of Elea with the Pythagorean influence of Parmenides (and of Zeno). Parmenides law-giver of Elea: Speus. ~p. philoso/phôn~ ap. D.L. ix, 23.]

[31\11: ~philosophi/an de\ prô=tos ôno/mase Puthago/ras kai\ heauto\n philo/sophon~: D.L., _Proem._ 12 (though the rest is from the fictitious dialogue of Herakl. Pont. see Cic., _TD._ v, 8-9).]

[32\11: Pl., _Rp._ 600 AB.]

[33\11: ~polumathi/ê, histori/ê~ of Pythag.; Herakl. _frr._ 16, 17 = 40, 129. ~pantoi/ôn ta\ ma/lista sophô=n epiê/ranos e/rgôn~ is said of Pythag. by Emped. (429 Mull.) _fr._ 129, 3.--The Pythagorean account of the construction of the world was known to Parmenides at the beginning of the fifth century and imitated by him in several points: Krische, _Theol. Lehren d. gr. D._ 103 ff. (To what extent Parmenides in other respects controverted Pythag. doctrine--as has been recently asserted of him--may be left undecided.) Fanciful speculations about numbers are attributed to Pythag. himself by Aristot., _MM._ 1182a, 11 ff.; _Vors._ 347, 3.]

[34\11: Emped. 427 ff. Mull.; _fr._ 129 Diels. That this _praeconium_ does really refer to Pythag. (as Timaeus and others supposed) and not to Parmenides (as the undefined ~hoi de/~ of D.L. viii, 54, thought) appears to be proved by l. 4 ff., which allude to a remarkable power of ~ana/mnêsis~ which was certainly attributed by legend to Pythag., never to Parmenides.]

[35\11: ~psuchai/~ filling the whole air, not distinguished from ~dai/mones~ and ~hê/rôes~, Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 32; _Vors._^4 i, xliv (who in this section of his account--§§31 ff.--is giving _older_ Pythagorean ideas. Poseidonios expresses the same ideas; but it does not therefore follow that he got them from the Stoics. Poseid. borrowed and elaborated many Pythagorean views). More subtly expressed: the soul is ~atha/natos~ because it is eternally in motion like ~ta\ thei=a pa/nta~, the moon, sun, stars, and heaven; Alkmaion ap. Arist., _An._ 405a, 29 ff.; _Vors._ 133, 40; cf. Krische, 75 f. The perpetual movement of the ~psuchai/~ was one of the older Pythag. beliefs: it is expressed in the old fable (known already to Demokritos) of the motes in the sunbeam, {396} which, in their continual agitation, are, or enclose, swarming souls (see below, n. 40). In Alkmaion's treatment of the doctrine there is the additional idea that the soul of man ~e/oike toi=s athana/tois~. The derivation of its immortality and divinity from its origin in the World-soul (this is often said to be a Pythagorean doctrine: Cic., _ND._ i, 27; _Sen._ 78; D.L. viii, 28; S.E., _M._ ix, 127) does indeed suggest Stoic pantheism in the form of its expression but in substance it may very well go back to the older Pythag. teaching. (The genuineness of the frag. [21 D.] of Philolaos ap. Stob., _Ecl._ i, 20, 2 ff.; _Vors._ 318, 13, remains, however, dubious.) The idea that the soul and ~nou=s~ of man came to him from an impersonal ~thei=on~, an all-pervading ~en tô=| panti\ phro/nêsis~, must have been widespread even in the fifth century. It finds expression in Xen., _M._ 1, 4, 8-17; 4, 3, 14, where it is certainly not an original fancy of Xenophon's, but must have been derived by him from somewhere or other (not from Socrates, however, nor Plato).]

[36\11: ~en phroura=|~, Pl., _Phd._ 62 B. This is traced back to Pythag. belief (though he misinterprets the meaning of the word ~phroura/~) by Cic., _Sen._ 73; cf. the Pythagorean Euxitheos ap. Ath. 157 C; _Vors._ 315, 19. See Böckh, _Philol._ 179 ff. (Philolaos _fr._ 15 [16 Mull.] speaks of the World-soul or God who holds and contains all things ~en phroura=|~ without mentioning the human soul: see Böckh, p. 151.) The comparison of life in the body to a ~phroura/~ may very well be Pythagorean; nor is this **prevented by the fact that it is also Orphic (see above, chap. x, n. 43). This comparison implies the conception of the earthly life as a punishment. ~dia/ tinas timôri/as~ the soul is enclosed in the body: Philolaos _fr._ 14 (23) appealing to ~palaioi\ theolo/goi te kai\ ma/nties~ (cf. Iamb., _VP._ 85, ~agatho\n hoi po/noi . . . epi\ _kola/sei_ ga\r eltho/ntas dei= kolasthê=nai~).--Espinas in _Arch. f. Ges. d. Philos._ viii, 452, interprets the ~en phroura=|~ of Pl., _Phd._ 62, as = "in the cattle-pen" or "sheep-fold"; the idea of God as the Shepherd of man would then be vaguely present even here (cf. _Plt._ 271 E; _Criti._ 109 B). It remains, however, to be proved (to begin with) that ~phroura/~ is ever used in the sense of ~sêko/s~ or ~heirktê/~.]

[37\11: Arist., _An._ 1, 3, p. 407b, 22 ff.]

[38\11: ~hoi en tô=| tarta/rô=|~ terrified by thunder acc. to Pythag. belief: Arist., _An. Po._ 94b, 32 ff.; ~su/nodoi tô=n tethneô/tôn~ in the depths of the earth, Ael., _VH._ iv, 17 (perhaps from Arist. ~p. tô=n Puthagorei/ôn~). Description of the condition of things in Hades given in the Pythagorean ~Kata/basis eis ha/|dou~. As in the case of the Orphics this purgation and punishment in the spirit-world must have belonged to the parts of the ~Puthago/reioi mu=thoi~ that were quite seriously believed.]

[39\11: ~ekriphthei=san~ (out of the body) ~autê\n (tê\n psuchê\n) epi\ gê=s pla/zesthai en tô=| ae/ri homoi/an tô=| sô/mati~ (being a complete ~ei/dôlon~ of the living): Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 31.]

[40\11: Arist., _An._ 1, 2, 4, p. 404a, 16 ff.; _Vors._ 357, 1; many called the ~en tô=| ae/ri xu/smata~ themselves "souls", others ~to\ tau=ta kinou=n~. This may rest on a real popular belief which, however, has already been partially elevated to a philosophical standing: the souls are compared to what is evidently itself in perpetual agitation (Arist., l. 19 f.). This was undoubtedly Pythagorean (and old Ionic) teaching: see Alkmaion ap. Arist., _An._ 405a, 29 ff.; _Vors._ 133, 40. (Statement of _Dox._ 386a, 13 ff., b, 8 ff., is more doubtful.)]

[41\11: D.L. viii, 32; _Vors_^4. i, p. xliv.]

[42\11: That the Pythagoreans believed in the entry of the soul into the bodies of animals also is implied in the satirical verses of Xenophanes {397} (_fr._ 6) ap. D.L. viii, 36. All probability suggests that this was the reason for the injunction to abstain from flesh food among the older Pythagoreans themselves (and with Empedokles). (S.E., _M._ ix, 127 ff., however, drags in the "World-Soul" in a moment of untimely Stoicism. S.E.'s own quotation from Empedokles shows that the latter at any rate derived the ~apochê\ empsu/chôn~ simply from the fact of Metamorphosis, and not at all from the ~psuchê=s pneu=ma~ which rules in all life; though this last is attributed to him by S.E.)]

[43\11: See Appendix x.]

[44\11: According to the Pythagoreans ~to\ di/kaion~ is nothing else than ~to\ antipepontho/s~, i.e. ~ha\ tis epoi/êse tau=t' antipathei=n~: Arist., _EN._ 5, 5, p. 1132b, 21 ff.; _MM._ 1194a, 29 ff. (also given with fanciful numerical expression, _MM._ 1182a, 14; Sch. Arist. 540a, 19 ff.; 541b, 6 Br.; [Iamb.] _Theol. Arith._, p. 28 f. Ast). This definition of justice was simply taken over by the Pythagoreans from popular sayings such as the verse of Rhadamanthys ap. Arist., _EN._ about the ~dra/santi pathei=n~ and similar formulae: see collection in Blomfield's Gloss. in A., _Cho._ 307; Soph. _fr._ 229 P. Compensatory justice of this kind we may suppose was manifested in the rebirths of men (in this respect the P. went beyond the commonplace sense of that ~trige/rôn mu=thos~): we may assume this without further hesitation if we remember the completely analogous application of this conception by the Orphics (above, chap. x, n. 71).]

[45\11: ~Puthago/reios tro/pos tou= bi/ou~, Pl., _Rp._ 600 B.]

[46\11: ~akolouthei=n tô=| theô=|~, Iamb., _VP._ 137 (following Aristoxenos); _Vors._ 362, 32; ~he/pou theô=|~ Pythagoras ap. Stob., _Ecl._ ii, p. 49, 16 W. See Wyttenb. on Plu., _Ser. Num. Vind._ 550 D.]

[47\11: Ancient testimony ascribes to the Pythagoreans: abstinence from flesh-food or at least from the flesh of such animals as are not sacrificed to the Olympians (the ~anthrô/pou psuchê/~ does not enter into the ~thu/sima zô=|a~ in transmigration: Iamb., _VP._ 85; _Vors._ 359, 13); from eating fish, particularly ~tri/glai~ and ~mela/nouroi~, and beans; from using linen clothing (or being buried in it: Hdt. ii, 81); and a few other forms of abstinence and measures assuring ritual purity. The whole apparatus of ritual ~hagnei/a~ is ascribed to the older Pythagoreans by Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 33. This, as a general statement is certainly correct. It is customary to say that it began among the degenerate Pythagoreans after the break up of the Italian society (so esp. Krische, _De Soc. a Pythag. cond. scopo politico_, Gött., 1831). But when Aristoxenos, the contemporary of the later, scientifically-minded Pythagoreans, denies all such superstitious ideas and regulations to the original Pythagoreans, his evidence really applies only to those Pythagorean _scholars_ with whom he was acquainted and who seemed to him to have preserved the real spirit of the older Pythagoreanism much more truly than the ascetic (and in any case degenerate) Pythagoreans of the same period. Everything, however, goes to show that the strength of the surviving community as it had been founded by Pythagoras lay in the religious and mystical elements of its doctrine; and that what was oldest in Pythagoreanism was what it had in common with the faith and religious discipline of the Orphics. To this side belongs what we learn from tradition of the older Pythagorean asceticism. Much, then, that is of early Pythagorean origin (though certainly combined with other and later elements) is to be found in many of the ~akou/smata~ or ~su/mbola~ of the Pythagoreans, esp. in those of them (and they are numerous) that give directions of a ritual or merely superstitious kind. A fresh collection, arrangement and {398} explanation of these remarkable fragments would be very useful: Göttling's purely rationalist treatment of them does them less than justice. (Corn. Hölk, _De acusmatis s. symbolis Pythag._, Diss. Kiel. 1894.)]

[48\11: Efforts in a more positive direction may perhaps be seen in the practice of the musical form of ~ka/tharsis~ which Pythag. and the Pythagoreans used in accordance with an elaborate system: cf. Iamb., _VP._ 64 ff., 110 ff.; Sch. V. on ~Ch~ 391; also Quint. 9, 4, 12; Porph., _VP._ 33, etc.--What Aristoxenos has to say about Pythagorean ethics, moralistic _parainesis_ and edification--most of it of a purely rationalist kind--can scarcely be said to have historical value.]

[49\11: Good formulation of Pythag. belief ap. Max. Tyr. 16, 2, i, 287 R.: ~Puthago/ras prô=tos en toi=s He/llêsin eto/lmêsen eipei=n, ho/ti hautô=| to\ me\n sô=ma tethnê/xetai, hê de\ psuchê\ anapta=sa oichê/setai athanê\s kai\ agê/rôs. _kai\ ga\r ei=nai autê\n pri\n hê/kein deu=ro_~. i.e. the life of the soul is not only endless but without beginning; the soul is immortal because it is timeless.]