Book Ii. Ch. 15. S. 11.

In the Platonic Parmenides, p. 156 D., we find the remarkable conception of what he calls [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês, a)/topo/s tis phu/sis]--a break in the continuity of duration, an extra-temporal moment.]

The Ens of Parmenides thus coincided mainly with that which (since Kant) has been called the Noumenon--the Thing in itself--the Absolute; or rather with that which, by a frequent illusion, passes for the absolute--no notice being taken of the cogitant and believing apart from mind, as if cogitation and belief, cogitata and credita, would be had without it. By Ens was understood the remnant in his mind, after leaving out all that abstraction, as far as it had then been carried, could leave out. It was the minimum indispensable to the continuance of thought; you cannot think (Parmenides says) without thinking of Something, and that Something Extended and Enduring. Though he and others talk of this Something as an Absolute (i.e. apart from or independent of his own thinking mind), yet he also uses some juster language ([Greek: to\ ga\r au)to\ noei=n e)/stin te kai\ ei)=nai]), showing that it is really relative: that if the Cogitans implies a Cogitatum, the Cogitatum also implies no less its correlative Cogitans: and that though we may divide the two in words, we cannot divide them in fact. It is to be remarked that Parmenides distinguishes the Enduring or Continuous from the Transient or Successive, Duration from Succession (both of which are included in the meaning of the word Time), and that he considers Duration alone as belonging to Ens or the Absolute--to the region of Truth--setting it in opposition or antithesis to Succession, which he treats as relative and phenomenal. We have thus (with the Eleates) the first appearance of Ontology, the science of Being or Ens, in Grecian philosophy. Ens is everything, and everything is Ens. In the view of Parmenides, Ontology is not merely narrow, but incapable of enlargement or application; we shall find Plato and others trying to expand it into numerous imposing generalities.

Apart from Ontology, Parmenides reckons all as belonging to human opinions. These were derived from the observations of sense (which he especially excludes from Ontology) with the comparisons, inferences, hypothesis, &c., founded thereupon: the phenomena of Nature generally. He does not attempt (as Plato and Aristotle do after him) to make Ontology serve as a principle or beginning for anything beyond itself, or as a premiss from which the knowledge of nature is to be deduced. He treats the two--Ontology and Phenomenology, to employ an Hegelian word--as radically disparate, and incapable of any legitimate union. Ens was essentially one and enduring: Nature was essentially multiform, successive, ever changing and moving relative to the observer, and different to observers at different times and places. Parmenides approached the study of Nature from its own starting point, the same as had been adopted by the Ionic philosophers--the data of sense, or certain agencies selected among them, and vaguely applied to explain the rest. Here he felt that he relinquished the full conviction, inseparable from his intellectual consciousness, with which he announced his few absolute truths respecting Ens and Non-Ens, and that he entered upon a process of mingled observation and conjecture, where there was great room for diversity of views between man and man.

"[Greek: Doxasto\n] et [Greek: noêto\n] vocantur duo genera inter se diversa, quorum alterum complectitur res externas et fluxas, notionesque quæ ex his ducuntur--alterum res æternas et à conspectu remotas," &c. (Parm. Fragm. p. 148-149).]

"Learn from me (says Parmenides) the opinions of mortals, brought to your ears in the deceitful arrangement of my words. This is not philosophy (Marbach says): it is Physics. We recognise in modern times two perfectly distinct ways of contemplating Nature: the philosophical and the physical. Of these two, the second dwells in plurality, the first in unity: the first teaches everything as infallible truth, the second as multiplicity of different opinions. We ought not to ask why Parmenides, while recognising the fallibility of this second road of enquiry, nevertheless undertook to march in it,--any more than we can ask, Why does not modern philosophy render physics superfluous?"

The observation of Marbach is just and important, that the line of research which Parmenides treated as illegitimate and deceitful, but which he nevertheless entered upon, is the analogon of modern Physics. Parmenides (he says) indicated most truly the contrast and divergence between Ontology and Physics; but he ought to have gone farther, and shown how they could be reconciled and brought into harmony. This (Marbach affirms) was not even attempted, much less achieved, by Parmenides: but it was afterwards attempted by Plato, and achieved by Aristotle.

Marbach is right in saying that the reconciliation was attempted by Plato; but he is not right (I think) in saying that it was achieved by Aristotle--nor by any one since Aristotle. It is the merit of Parmenides to have brought out the two points of view as radically distinct, and to have seen that the phenomenal world, if explained at all, must be explained upon general principles of its own, raised out of its own data of facts--not by means of an illusory Absolute and Real. The subsequent philosophers, in so far as they hid and slurred over this distinction, appear to me to have receded rather than advanced.]

Yet though thus passing from Truth to Opinions, from full certainty to comparative and irremediable uncertainty, Parmenides does not consider all opinions as equally true or equally untrue. He announces an opinion of his own--what he thinks most probable or least improbable--respecting the structure and constitution of the Kosmos, and he announces it without the least reference to his own doctrines about Ens. He promises information respecting Earth, Water, Air, and the heavenly bodies, and how they work, and how they came to be what they are. He recognises two elementary principles or beginnings, one contrary to the other, but both of them positive--Light, comprehending the Hot, the Light, and the Rare--Darkness, comprehending the Cold, the Heavy, and the Dense. These two elements, each endued with active and vital properties, were brought into junction and commixture by the influence of a Dea Genitalis analogous to Aphroditê, with her first-born son Eros, a personage borrowed from the Hesiodic Theogony. From hence sprang the other active forces of nature, personified under various names, and the various concentric circles or spheres of the Kosmos. Of those spheres, the outer-most was a solid wall of fire--"flammantia moenia mundi"--next under this the Æther, distributed into several circles of fire unequally bright and pure--then the circle called the Milky Way, which he regarded as composed of light or fire combined with denser materials--then the Sun and Moon, which were condensations of fire from the Milky Way--lastly, the Earth, which he placed in the centre of the Kosmos. He is said to have been the first who pronounced the earth to be spherical, and even distributed it into two or five zones. He regarded it as immovable, in consequence of its exact position in the centre. He considered the stars to be fed by exhalation from the Earth. Midway between the Earth and the outer flaming circle, he supposed that there dwelt a Goddess--Justice or Necessity--who regulated all the movements of the Kosmos, and maintained harmony between its different parts. He represented the human race as having been brought into existence by the power of the sun, and he seems to have gone into some detail respecting animal procreation, especially in reference to the birth of male and female offspring. He supposed that the human mind, as well as the human body, was compounded of a mixture of the two elemental influences, diffused throughout all Nature: that like was perceived and known by like: that thought and sensation were alike dependent upon the body, and upon the proportions of its elemental composition: that a certain limited knowledge was possessed by every object in Nature, animate or inanimate.

Brucker, Hist. Philosoph., part ii. lib. ii. ch. xi. tom. 1, p. 1152-3, about Xenophanes:--"Ex iis enim quæ apud Aristotelem ex ejus mente contra motum disputantur, patet Xenophanem motûs notionem aliam quam quæ in physicis obtinet, sibi concepisse; et ad verum motum progressum a nonente ad ens ejusque existentiam requisivisse. Quo sensu notionis hujus semel admisso, sequebatur (cum illud impossibile sit, ut ex nihilo fiat aliquid) universum esse immobile, adeoque et partes ejus non ita moveri, ut ex statu nihili procederent ad statum existentiæ. Quibus admissis, de rerum tamen mutationibus disserere poterat, quas non alterationes, generationes, et extinctiones, rerum naturalium, sed modificationes, esse putabat: hoc nomine indignas, eo quod rerum universi natura semper maneret immutabilis, soliusque materiæ æternum fluentis particulæ varie inter se modificarentur. Hâc ratione si Eleaticos priores explicemus de motu disserentes, rationem facile dabimus, quî de rebus physicis disserere et phenomena naturalia explicare, salvâ istâ hypothesi, potuerint. Quod tamen de iis negat Aristoteles, conceptum motûs metaphysicum ad physicum transferens: ut, more suo, Eleatico systemate corrupto, eò vehementius illud premeret."]

Plutarch, Amator, 13.]

It is impossible to make out with any clearness the Kosmos and its generation as conceived by Parmenides. We cannot attain more than a general approximation to it.]

Parmenides (according to Theophrastus) thought that the dead body, having lost its fiery element, had no perception of light, or heat, or sound; but that it had perception of darkness, cold, and silence--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs de\ pa=n to\ o)\n e)/chein tina gnô=sin].]

Before we pass from Parmenides to his pupil and successor Zeno, who developed the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic doctrine, it will be convenient to notice various other theories of the same century: first among them that of Herakleitus, who forms as it were the contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and Parmenides.

Herakleitus of Ephesus, known throughout antiquity by the denomination of the Obscure, comes certainly after Pythagoras and Xenophanes and apparently before Parmenides. Of the two first he made special mention, in one of the sentences, alike brief and contemptuous which have been preserved from his lost treatise:--"Much learning does not teach reason: otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hekatæus." In another passage Herakleitus spoke of the "extensive knowledge, cleverness, and wicked arts" of Pythagoras. He declared that Homer as well as Archilochus deserved to be scourged and expelled from the public festivals. His thoughts were all embodied in one single treatise, which he is said to have deposited in the temple of the Ephesian Artemis. It was composed in a style most perplexing and difficult to understand, full of metaphor, symbolical illustration, and antithesis: but this very circumstance imparted to it an air of poetical impressiveness and oracular profundity. It exercised a powerful influence on the speculative minds of Greece, both in the Platonic age, and subsequently: the Stoics especially both commented on it largely (though with many dissentient opinions among the commentators), and borrowed with partial modifications much of its doctrine.

Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanes Quamde graves inter Græcos qui vera requirunt: Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque Inversis quæ sub verbis latitantia cernunt.

Even Aristotle complains of the difficulty of understanding Herakleitus, and even of determining the proper punctuation (Rhetoric. iii. 5).]

The expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero conceived Herakleitus as having proclaimed Fire to be the universal and all-pervading element of nature; as Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes air. This interpretation was countenanced by some striking passages of Herakleitus: but when we put together all that remains from him, it appears that his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical or ontological: that the want of adequate general terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations, among which fire was only one, though the most prominent and most significant. Xenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only objective reality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, perpetual, infinite, indeterminate, incapable of change or modification. They denied the objective reality of motion, change, generation, and destruction--considering all these to be purely relative and phenomenal. Herakleitus on the contrary denied everything in the nature of a permanent and perpetual substratum: he laid down nothing as permanent and perpetual except the process of change--the alternate sequence of generation and destruction, without beginning or end--generation and destruction being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the same process, since the generation of one particular state was the destruction of its antecedent contrary. All reality consisted in the succession and transition, the coming and going, of these finite and particular states: what he conceived as the infinite and universal, was the continuous process of transition from one finite state to the next--the perpetual work of destruction and generation combined, which terminated one finite state in order to make room for a new and contrary state.

This endless process of transition, or ever-repeated act of generation and destruction in one, was represented by Herakleitus under a variety of metaphors and symbols--fire consuming its own fuel--a stream of water always flowing--opposite currents meeting and combating each other--the way from above downwards, and the way from below upwards, one and the same--war, contest, penal destiny or retributive justice, the law or decree of Zeus realising each finite condition of things and then destroying its own reality to make place for its contrary and successor. Particulars are successively generated and destroyed, none of them ever arriving at permanent existence: the universal process of generation and destruction alone continues. There is no Esse, but a perpetual Fieri: a transition from Esse to Non-Esse, from Non-Esse to Esse, with an intermediate temporary halt between them: a ceaseless meeting and confluence of the stream of generation with the opposite stream of destruction: a rapid and instant succession, or rather coincidence and coalescence, of contraries. Living and dead, waking and sleeping, light and dark, come into one or come round into each other: everything twists round into its contrary: everything both is and is not.

Plutarch, De [Greek: Ei] apud Delphos, c. 18, p. 392. [Greek: Potamô=| ga\r ou)/k e)stin e)mbê=nai di\s tô=| au)tô=| kath' Ê(ra/kleiton, ou)de\ thnêtê=s ou)si/as di\s a(/psasthai kata\ e(/xin; a)ll' o)xu/têti kai\ tachei metabolês skidnêsi kai\ pa/lin suna/gei, ma=llon de\ ou)de\ pa/lin ou)de\ u(/steron, a)ll' a(/ma suni/statai kai\ a)polei/pei, pro/seisi kai\ a)/peisi. O(/then ou)d' ei)s to\ ei)=nai perai/nei to\ gigno/menon au)tê=s, tô=| mêde/pote lê/gein mêd' i(/stasthai tê\n ge/nesin, a)ll' a)po\ spe/rmatos a)ei\ metaba/llousan--ta\s prô/tas phthei/rousan gene/seis kai\ ê(liki/as tai=s e)pigignome/nais].

Clemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711. [Greek: Ko/smon to\n au)to\n a(pa/ntôn ou)/te tis theô=n ou)/t' a)nthrô/pôn e)poi/êsen; a)ll' ê=n a)ei\ kai\ e)/stai pu=r a)ei/zôon, a(pto/menon me/tra kai\ a)posbennu/menon me/tra]. Compare also Eusebius, Præpar. Evang. xiv. 3, 8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.]

Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106. [Greek: Po/te ga\r e)n ê(mi=n au)toi=s ou)k e)/stin o( tha/natos? kai\ ê(=| phêsin Ê(ra/kleitos, tau)to/ t' e)/ni zô=n kai\ tethnêko/s, kai\ to\ e)grêgoro\s kai\ to\ katheu=don, kai\ ne/on kai\ gêraio/n; ta/de ga\r metapeso/nta e)kei=na e)sti, ka)kei=na pa/lin metapeso/nta tau=ta].

Pseudo-Origenes, Refut. Hær. ix. 10, [Greek: O( theo\s ê(me/rê, eu)phro/nê--chei/môn, the/ros--po/lemos, ei)rê/nê--ko/ros, li/mos], &c.]

The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and destruction, this alternation of contraries. To carry out such law fully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass away instantaneously--to have no duration of its own, but to be supplanted by its contrary at once. And this happens to a great degree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river appears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago has flowed away: we and all around us are in rapid movement, though we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus a delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his absolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in respect to all particulars. Some positive and particular manifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of fixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were destroyed. There was a difference between one particular and another, in this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable, another less. But according to the universal law or destiny, each particular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted and re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching on the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative agency of the universal. Hence arises an antithesis or hostility between the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence of particular states on the other. The universal law or process is generative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but the particular realities in which it manifests itself are all positive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to maintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of the universal process. Each particular reality represented rest and fixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of the cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating. Herakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.

The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or Ens, either material or immaterial--no category either of substance or quality--but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change, generation and destruction, position and negation, immediately succeeding, or coinciding with each other. It is this principle or everlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative phrases--"the common ([Greek: to\ xuno\n]), the universal, the all-comprehensive ([Greek: to\ perie/chon]), the governing, the divine, the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding," &c. The most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as embodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of the dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this paradoxical tenor. Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow, change, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which latter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since change was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other. In the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into action: destruction and generation always take effect together: there is no negative without a positive, nor positive without a negative.

Bernays and Lassalle (vol. i. p. 81) contend, on reasonable grounds (though in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the following verses in the Fragments of Parmenides refer to Herakleitus:

The commentary of Alexander Aphrodis. on the Metaphysica says, "Heraclitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem esse et non esse et opposita simul consistere, contradictionem veram simul esse statuebat, et omnia dicebat esse vera" (Lassalle, p. 83).

One of the metaphors by which Herakleitus illustrated his theory of opposite and co-existent forces, was the pulling and pushing of two sawyers with the same saw. See Bernays, Heraclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn, 1848.]

Such was the metaphysical or logical foundation of the philosophy of Herakleitus: the idea of an eternal process of change, manifesting itself in the perpetual destruction and renovation of particular realities, but having itself no reality apart from these particulars, and existing only in them as an immanent principle or condition. This principle, from the want of appropriate abstract terms, he expressed in a variety of symbolical and metaphorical phrases, among which Fire stood prominent. But though Fire was thus often used to denote the principle or ideal process itself, the same word was also employed to denote that one of the elements which formed the most immediate manifestation of the principle. In this latter sense, Fire was the first stage of incipient reality: the second stage was water, the third earth. This progression, fire, water, earth, was in Herakleitean language "the road downwards," which was the same as "the road upwards," from earth to water and again to fire. The death of fire was its transition into water: that of water was its transition partly into earth, partly into flame. As fire was the type of extreme mobility, perpetual generation and destruction--so earth was the type of fixed and stationary existence, resisting movement or change as much as possible. Water was intermediate between the two.

The distinction made by Herakleitus, but not clearly marked out or preserved, between the ideal fire or universal process, and the elementary fire or first stage towards realisation, is brought out by Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol. ii. p. 25-29).]

Herakleitus conceived the sun and stars, not as solid bodies, but as meteoric aggregations perpetually dissipated and perpetually renewed or fed, by exhalation upward from the water and earth. The sun became extinguished and rekindled in suitable measure and proportion, under the watch of the Erinnyes, the satellites of Justice. These celestial lights were contained in troughs, the open side of which was turned towards our vision. In case of eclipses the trough was for the time reversed, so that the dark side was turned towards us; and the different phases of the moon were occasioned by the gradual turning round of the trough in which her light was contained. Of the phenomena of thunder and lightning also, Herakleitus offered some explanation, referring them to aggregations and conflagrations of the clouds, and violent currents of winds. Another hypothesis was often ascribed to Herakleitus, and was really embraced by several of the Stoics in later times--that there would come a time when all existing things would be destroyed by fire ([Greek: e)kpu/rôsis]), and afterwards again brought into reality in a fresh series of changes. But this hypothesis appears to have been conceived by him metaphysically rather than physically. Fire was not intended to designate the physical process of combustion, but was a symbolical phrase for the universal process; the perpetual agency of conjoint destruction and renovation, manifesting itself in the putting forth and re-absorption of particulars, and having no other reality except as immanent in these particulars. The determinate Kosmos of the present moment is perpetually destroyed, passing into fire or the indeterminate: it is perpetually renovated or passes out of fire into water, earth--out of the indeterminate, into the various determinate modifications. At the same time, though Herakleitus seems to have mainly employed these symbols for the purpose of signifying or typifying a metaphysical conception, yet there was no clear apprehension, even in his own mind, of this generality, apart from all symbols: so that the illustration came to count as a physical fact by itself, and has been so understood by many. The line between what he meant as the ideal or metaphysical process, and the elementary or physical process, is not easy to draw, in the fragments which now remain.

About the doctrine of the Stoics, built in part upon this of Herakleitus, see Cicero, Natur. Deor. ii. 46; Seneca, Quæst. Natur. ii. 5, vi. 16.]

Compare about the obscure and debated meaning of the Herakleitean [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 103; Zeller, Philos. der Griech. vol. i. p. 477-479.

The word [Greek: diako/smêsis] stands as the antithesis (in the language of Herakleitus) to [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis]. A passage from Philo Judæus is cited by Lassalle illustrating the Herakleitean movement from ideal unity into totality of sensible particulars, forwards and backwards--[Greek: o( de\ gonorrhuê\s (lo/gos) e)k ko/smou pa/nta kai\ ei)s ko/smon a)na/gôn, u(po\ theou= de\ mêde\n oi)o/menos, Ê(rakleitei/ou do/xês e(tai=ros, ko/ron kai\ chrêsmosu/nên, kai\ e(\n to\ pa=n kai\ pa/nta a)moibê=| ei)sa/gôn]--where [Greek: ko/ros] and [Greek: chrêsmosu/nê] are used to illustrate the same ideal antithesis as [Greek: diako/smêsis] and [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis] (Lassalle, vol. i. p. 232).]

The like blending of metaphysics and physics--of the abstract and the concrete and sensible--is to be found in the statements remaining from Herakleitus respecting the human soul and human knowledge. The human soul, according to him, was an effluence or outlying portion of the Universal--the fire--the perpetual movement or life of things. As such, its nature was to be ever in movement: but it was imprisoned and obstructed by the body, which represented the stationary, the fixed, the particular--that which resisted the universal force of change. So long as a man lived, his soul or mind, though thus confined, participated more or less in the universal movement: but when he died, his body ceased to participate in it, and became therefore vile, "fit only to be cast out like dung". Every man, individually considered, was irrational; reason belonged only to the universal or the whole, with which the mind of each living man was in conjunction, renewing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or inhalation, vaporous transition, impressions through the senses and the pores, &c. During sleep, since all the media of communication, except only those through respiration, were suspended, the mind became stupefied and destitute of memory. Like coals when the fire is withdrawn, it lost its heat and tended towards extinction. On waking, it recovered its full communication with the great source of intelligence without--the universal all-comprehensive process of life and movement. Still, though this was the one and only source of intelligence open to all waking men, the greater number of men could neither discern it for themselves, nor understand it without difficulty even when pointed out to them. Though awake, they were not less unconscious or forgetful of the process going on around them, than if they had been asleep. The eyes and ears of men with barbarous or stupid souls, gave them false information. They went wrong by following their own individual impression or judgment: they lived as if reason or intelligence belonged to each man individually. But the only way to attain truth was, to abjure all separate reason, and to follow the common or universal reason. Each man's mind must become identified and familiar with that common process which directed and transformed the whole: in so far as he did this, he attained truth: whenever he followed any private or separate judgment of his own, he fell into error. The highest pitch of this severance of the individual judgment was seen during sleep, at which time each man left the common world to retire into a world of his own.

Plutarch, Sympos., p. 644. [Greek: neku/es kopri/ôn e)kblêto/teroi].

Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i. 23, p. 884. [Greek: Ê(ra/kleitos ê)remi/an kai\ sta/sin e)k tô=n o(/lôn a)nê/|rei; e)sti\ ga\r tou=to tô=n nekrô=n.]]

The Stoic version of this Herakleitean doctrine, is to be seen in Marcus Antoninus, viii. 54. [Greek: Mêke/ti mo/non sumpnei=n tô=| perie/chonti a)e/ri, a)ll' ê)/dê kai\ sumphronei=n tô=| perie/chonti pa/nta noerô=|. Ou) ga\r ê(=tton ê( noera\ du/namis pa/ntê ke/chutai kai\ diapephoi/têke tô=| spa=sai boulome/nô|, ê(/per ê( a)erô/dês tô=| a)napneu=sai duname/nô|].

The Stoics, who took up the doctrine of Herakleitus with farther abstraction and analysis, distinguished and named separately matters which he conceived in one and named together--the physical inhalation of air--the metaphysical supposed influx of intelligence--inspiration in its literal and metaphorical senses. The word [Greek: to\ perie/chon], as he conceives it, seems to denote, not any distinct or fixed local region, but the rotatory movement or circulation of the elements, fire, water, earth, reverting back into each other. Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 119-120; which transition also is denoted by the word [Greek: a)nathumi/asis] in the Herakleitean sense--cited from Herakleitus by Aristotle. De Animâ, i. 2, 16.]

By this denunciation of the mischief of private judgment, Herakleitus did not mean to say that a man ought to think like his neighbours or like the public. In his view the public were wrong, collectively as well as individually. The universal reason to which he made appeal, was not the reason of most men as it actually is but that which, in his theory, ought to be their reason: that which formed the perpetual and governing process throughout all nature, though most men neither recognised nor attended to it, but turned away from it in different directions equally wrong. No man was truly possessed of reason, unless his individual mind understood the general scheme of the universe, and moved in full sympathy with its perpetual movement and alternation or unity of contraries. The universal process contained in itself a sum-total of particular contraries which were successively produced and destroyed: to know the universal was to know these contraries in one, and to recognise them as transient, but correlative and inseparable, manifestations, each implying the other--not as having each a separate reality and each excluding its contrary. In so far as a man's mind maintained its kindred nature and perpetual conjoint movement with the universal, he acquired true knowledge; but the individualising influences arising from the body usually overpowered this kindred with the universal, and obstructed the continuity of this movement, so that most persons became plunged in error and illusion.

The absolute of Herakleitus stands thus at the opposite pole as compared with that of Parmenides: it is absolute movement, change, generation and destruction--negation of all substance and stability, temporary and unbecoming resistance of each successive particular to the destroying and renewing current of the universal. The Real, on this theory, was a generalisation, not of substances, but of facts, events, changes, revolutions, destructions, generations, &c., determined by a law of justice or necessity which endured, and which alone endured, for ever. Herakleitus had many followers, who adopted his doctrine wholly or partially, and who gave to it developments which he had not adverted to, perhaps might not have acknowledged. It was found an apt theme by those who, taking a religious or poetical view of the universe, dwelt upon the transitory and contemptible value of particular existences, and extolled the grandeur or power of the universal. It suggested many doubts and debates respecting the foundations of logical evidence, and the distinction of truth from falsehood; which debates will come to be noticed hereafter, when we deal with the dialectical age of Plato and Aristotle.

"Of absolute rest, Nature gives us no evidence. All matter, as far as we can discern, is ever in movement: not merely in masses, as in the planetary spheres, but also molecularly, or throughout its intimate structure. Thus every alteration of temperature produces a molecular change throughout the whole substance heated or cooled: slow chemical or electrical forces, actions of light or invisible radiant forces, are always at play; so that, as a fact, we cannot predicate of any portion of matter, that it is absolutely at rest."]

These are only paradoxes in appearance--the relative predicate being affirmed without mention of its correlate. When you supply the correlate to each predicate, there remains no contradiction at all.]

After Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with Parmenides, we arrive at Empedokles (about 500-430 B. C.) and his memorable doctrine of the Four Elements. This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum, and a distinguished as well as popular-minded citizen, expounded his views in poems, of which Lucretius speaks with high admiration, but of which few fragments are preserved. He agreed with Parmenides, and dissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in rejecting all real generation and destruction. That which existed had not been generated and could not be destroyed. Empedokles explained what that was, which men mistook for generation and destruction. There existed four distinct elements--Earth, Water, Air, and Fire--eternal, inexhaustible, simple, homogeneous, equal, and co-ordinate with each other. Besides these four substances, there also existed two moving forces, one contrary to the other--Love or Friendship, which brought the elements into conjunction--Enmity or Contest, which separated them. Here were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing together different portions of the elements to form a new product, or breaking up the product thus formed and separating the constituent elements. Sometimes the Many were combined into One; sometimes the One was decomposed into Many. Generation was simply this combination of elements already existing separately--not the calling into existence of anything new: destruction was in like manner the dissolution of some compound, not the termination of any existent simple substance. The four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles sometimes calls by names of the popular Deities--Zeus, Hêrê, Aidoneus, &c.), were the roots or foundations of everything.

Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus Vociferantur, et exponunt præclara reperta: Ut vix humanâ videatur stirpe creatus.]

From the four elements--acted upon by these two forces, abstractions or mythical personifications--Empedokles showed how the Kosmos was constructed. He supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but not always with equal efficacy: sometimes the one was predominant, sometimes the other, sometimes there was equilibrium between them. Things accordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed cycle. The complete preponderance of Love brings alternately all the elements into close and compact unity, Enmity being for the time eliminated. Presently the action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in which Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative; until at length Enmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the time dissolved. But this condition of things does not last. Love again becomes active, so that partial and increasing combination of the elements is produced, and another period commences--the simultaneous action of the two forces, which ends in renewed empire of Love, compact union of the elements, and temporary exclusion of Enmity.

This is the Empedoklean cycle of things, divine or predestined, without beginning or end: perpetual substitution of new for old compounds--constancy only in the general principle of combination and dissolution. The Kosmos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes its commencement from the period of complete empire of Love, or compact and undisturbed union of all the elements. This he conceives and divinises under the name of Sphærus--as One sphere, harmonious, uniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting no parts or separate existences within it, exhibiting no one of the four elements distinctly, "instabilis tellus, innabilis unda"--a sort of chaos. At the time prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity recommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of Sphærus, "agitating the members of the God one after another," disjoining the parts from each other, and distending the compact ball into a vast porous mass. This mass, under the simultaneous and conflicting influences of Love and Enmity, became distributed partly into homogeneous portions, where each of the four elements was accumulated by itself--partly into compounds or individual substances, where two or more elements were found in conjunction. Like had an appetite for Like--Air for Air, Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther extension of this appetite brought about the mixture of different elements in harmonious compounds. First, the Air disengaged itself, and occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and Water: next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself externally to the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost crystalline sphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which formed the wall encompassing the Kosmos. A remnant of Fire and Air still remained embodied in the Earth, but the great mass of both so distributed themselves, that the former occupied most part of one hemisphere, the latter most part of the other. The rapid and uniform rotation of the Kosmos, caused by the exterior Fire, compressed the interior elements, squeezed the water out of the earth like perspiration from the living body, and thus formed the sea. The same rotation caused the earth to remain unmoved, by counterbalancing and resisting its downward pressure or gravity. In the course of the rotation, the light hemisphere of Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of Air, alternately came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day and night. Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be not self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which collected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire. He regarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline sphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving free and detached from any sphere. He supposed the alternations of winter and summer to arise from a change in the proportions of Air and Fire in the atmospheric regions: winter was caused by an increase of the Air, both in volume and density, so as to drive back the exterior Fire to a greater distance from the Earth, and thus to produce a diminution of heat and light: summer was restored when the Fire, in its turn increasing, extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer to the Earth, and imparted to the latter more heat and light. Empedokles farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and Diogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and flat at top and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its surface had been originally horizontal, in reference to the rotation of the Kosmos around it, but that it had afterwards tilted down to the south and upward towards the north, so as to lie aslant instead of horizontal. Hence he explained the fact that the north pole of the heavens now appeared obliquely elevated above the horizon.

Also:--

These are new Empedoklean verses, derived from the recently published fragments of Hippolytus (Hær. Refut.) printed by Stein, v. 110, in his collection of the Fragments of Empedokles, p. 43. Compare another passage in the same treatise of Hippolytus, p. 251.]

Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunæ, c. 12.

About the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sphærus, see Aristot. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. [Greek: a(/panta ga\r e)k tou/tou (nei/kous) ta)/lla/ e)sti plê\n o( theo/s] (i.e. Sphærus).--[Greek: Ei) ga\r mê\ ê)=n to\ nei=kos e)n toi=s pra/gmasi, e(\n a)\n ê)=n a(/panta, ô(s phêsi/n] (Empedokles). See Preller, Hist. Philos. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3.

The condition of things which Empedokles calls Sphærus may be illustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern phraseology of attraction and repulsion) from an eminent modern work on Physics:--"Were there only atoms and attraction, as now explained, the whole material of creation would rush into close contact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness and death. There is heat or caloric, however, which directly counteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results. It has been described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as water does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among the atoms. The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can study and classify the phenomena of both most accurately." (Dr. Arnott, Elements of Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)]

The very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and meteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by these two authors.]

From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles proceeded to describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first produced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals. After a certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propagated. Among these productions were not only plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the "long-lived Gods". All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in different proportions, more or less harmonious. These elements remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter, could not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.

This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.]

Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. [Greek: ei)=pe pa/lin o( E)mpedoklê=s, o(/ti ta\ phuta\ e)/chousi ge/nesin e)n ko/smô| ê)lattôme/nô|, kai\ ou) telei/ô| kata\ tê\n sumplê/rôsin au)tou=; tau/tês de\ sumplêroume/nês] (while it is in course of being completed), [Greek: ou) genna=tai zô=on.]]

Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20; Physic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Coelo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29; with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.]

Galen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De Homin. Nat. t. iii. p. 101. See Karsten, De Emped. Phil. p. 407, and Emp. Fr. v. 155.

Galen says, however (after Aristot. Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 334, a. 30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture properly speaking, but merely close proximity. Hippokrates (he says) was the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture. But Empedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the structure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles. Oil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no such symmetry between them--[Greek: o(/lôs ga\r poiei=] (Empedokles) [Greek: tê\n mi/xin tê=| summetri/a| tô=n po/rôn; dio/per e)/laion me\n kai\ u(/dôr ou) mi/gnusthai, ta\ de\ a)/lla u(gra\ kai\ peri\ o(/sôn dê\ katarithmei=tai ta\s i)di/as kra/seis] (Theophrastus, De Sensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol. i. p. 651, ed. Schneider).]

Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology. He dwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details respecting gestation and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it was that determined the birth of male or female offspring. About respiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories: his explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments. He supposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs, but partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with those pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the blood vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre. Such was the movement which Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood: alternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession backwards towards the centre. When the blood thus receded, the extremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without entered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had thus entered was expelled. Empedokles conceived this outward tide of blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape and join its analogous element without.

The comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly pertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not what Empedokles had in view (Aristot. De Respirat. c. 3).]

Emp. Fr. v. 307--[Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r--pu=r d' e)/xô diathrô=skon], &c.

Empedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by the klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a broad bottom pierced with many small holes. When the neck was kept closed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into water, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the bottom, because of the resistance of the air within. As soon as the neck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape, the water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.

This illustration is interesting. It shows that Empedokles was distinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the ascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as allowing such movement. Vers. 286:--

This dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite amusement with children.]

The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain sensation. He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had advanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that sensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike acting upon unlike. Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried) to apply his doctrine to the various senses separately. Man was composed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and since like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements within himself, he perceived and knew the like element without. Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a suitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by water, and so forth. Empedokles, assuming perception and knowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four elements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other substances besides, perceived and knew in the same way. Everything possessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than man, who was a more compound structure. Perception and knowledge was more developed in different animals in proportion as their elementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood, as the most compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of intelligence.

ib. v. 321:

Theophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.

Aristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a [Greek: psuchê\] (soul, vital principle) by itself. Sextus Empiricus treats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a [Greek: kritê/rion a)lêthei/as] (Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 116).]

Stein gives (Emp. Fr. v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding this from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.

Parmenides had held the same opinion before--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs pa=n to\ o)\n e)/chein tina\ gnô=sin]--ap. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 4.

Theophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as one of his grounds of objection--That Empedokles, in maintaining sensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into pores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances (Theophr. De Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts this as if it were an inconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so considered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have accepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference, except one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.]

In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly by the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light without. The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior coat was a thin layer of earth and air. Colours were brought to the eye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by passing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white colour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black colour with those of water. Some animals had the proportions of fire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently located, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on the outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others, water was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the animals which saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light being required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former class of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little light without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed--or left more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to them.

In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or trumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the solid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and caused the sensation of sound within. Smell was, in his view, an adjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin. Respecting taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate and actual contact. Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid it down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not merely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or ducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious with them in respect to elementary mixture.

Empedokles described the ear under the metaphor of [Greek: sa/rkinon o)/zon], "the fleshy branch."]

Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries--especially that of the metempsychosis. He represented himself as having passed through prior states of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He proclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not to kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the sacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the soul of a deceased friend or brother. His religious faith, however, and his opinions about Gods, Dæmons, and the human soul, stood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on kosmology and physiology. In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid great stress on the existence of Dæmons (of intermediate order and power between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the Gods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long period of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals. He laments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others, condemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they could regain the society of the Gods. In one of his remaining fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured pupil the most wonderful gifts--powers to excite or abate the winds, to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead. He was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer. Gorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical ceremonies.

Aristot. Rhetoric. i. 13, 2: [Greek: e)sti\ ga\r, o(\ manteu/ontai/ ti pa/ntes, phu/sei koino\n di/kaion kai\ a)/dikon, ka)\n mêdemi/a koinôni/a pro\s a)llê/lous ê)=|, mêde\ sunthê/kê--ô(s E)mpedoklê=s le/gei peri\ tou= mê\ ktei/nein to\ e)/mpsuchon; tou=to ga\r ou) tisi\ me\n di/kaion, tisi\ d' ou) di/kaion,

A)lla\ to\ me\n pa/ntôn no/mimon dia/ t' eu)rume/dontos Ai)the/ros ê)neke/ôs te/tatai dia/ t' a)ple/tou au)gê=s].

Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix. 127.]

See Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 151.]

None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than a few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great or comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings of our short life. Every man took a different road, confiding only in his own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man could obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.

Anaxagoras of Klazomenæ, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less ambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry, without any of those mystical pretentions common among the Pythagoreans. His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic dialect. His theory, like all those of his age, was all-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning, and shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come into those appearances which were exhibited to sense. He agreed with Empedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other Ionic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which, by various transformations, other sensible things were generated--and into which, when destroyed, they were again resolved. Like Empedokles, and like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation, understood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no existing thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or could undergo real transformation into any other thing different from what it was. Existing things were what they were, possessing their several inherent properties: there could be no generation except the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any transformation except the substitution of one compound for another.

But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum total of first substances. He reckoned all the different sorts of matter as original and primæval existences: he supposed them all to lie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no greatest and no least. Particles of the same sort he called Homoeomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts; wherein the parts were like each other and like the whole. Flesh, bone, blood, fire, earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of particles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh, bone, and blood, than the whole mass.

Nunc et Anaxagoræ scrutemur Homoeomerian, Quam Grai memorant, nec nostrâ dicere linguâ Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.

Lucretius calls this theory Homoeomeria, and it appears to me that this name must have been bestowed upon it by its author. Zeller and several others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first from Aristotle and his physiological classification. But what other name was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?]

But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homoeomeries was a special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one of them could have an existence apart from the rest. Everything was mixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one of them could be obtained pure and unmixed. This was true of any portion however small. The visible and tangible bodies around us affected our senses, and received their denominations according to that one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided preponderance and prominence. But each of them included in itself all the other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.

Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud Apparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,** Et magis in promptu primâque in fronte** locata.

Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, 3. [Greek: Dio/ phasi pa=n e)n panti\ memi=chthai, dio/ti pa=n e)k panto\s e(ô/rôn gigno/menon; phai/nesthai de\ diaphe/ronta kai/ prosagoreu/esthai e(/tera a)llê/lôn, e)k tou= ma/lista u(pere/chontos, dia\ to\ plê=thos e)n tê=| mi/xei tô=n a)pei/rôn; ei)likrinô=s me\n ga\r o(/lon leuko\n ê)\ me/lan ê)\ sa/rka ê)\ o)stou=n, ou)k ei)=nai; o(/tou de\ plei=ston e(/kaston e)/chei, tou=to dokei=n ei)=nai tê\n phu/sin tou= pra/gmatos.] Also Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 3; Gen. et Corr. i. 1.]

In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter) were together, in one mass or mixture. Infinitely numerous and infinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded together that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite figure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself. Nothing was distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and Æther (Fire), which surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together. Thus all things continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity. The fundamental contraries--wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense, rare,--in their intimate contact neutralised each other. Upon this inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind. The characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus marked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with each other. Having no communion of nature with other things, it was noway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and was of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and purest of all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things. It was like to itself throughout--the greater manifestations of mind similar to the less.

The first three words--[Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata]--were the commencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected and cited than any other words in it. See Fragm. 16, 17, Schaubach, and p. 66-68. Aristotle calls this primeval chaos [Greek: to\ mi/gma].]

Compare Plato, Kratylus, c. 65, p. 413, c. [Greek: nou=n au)tokra/tora kai\ ou)deni\ memigme/non (o(\ le/gei A)naxago/ras).]]

But though other things could not act upon mind, mind could act upon them. It first originated movement in the quiescent mass. The movement impressed was that of rotation, which first began on a small scale, then gradually extended itself around, becoming more efficacious as it extended, and still continuing to extend itself around more and more. Through the prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was effected of those things which had been hitherto undistinguishably huddled together. Dense was detached from rare, cold from hot, dark from light, dry from wet. The Homoeomeric particles congregated together, each to its like; so that bodies were formed--definite and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a preponderance of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear manifestation. But while the decomposition of the multifarious mass was thus carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of them specialised, knowable, and regular--still the separation can never be complete, nor can any one thing be "cut away as with a hatchet" from the rest. Each thing, great or small, must always contain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not manifest, of everything else. Nothing except mind can be thoroughly pure and unmixed.

Anaxag. Fr. 11, p. 119, Schaub. [Greek: ou) kechô/ristai ta\ e(n e(ni\ ko/smô|, ou)de\ a)poke/koptai pele/kei], &c. Frag. 12, p. 122. [Greek: e)n panti\ pa/nta, ou)de\ chôri\s e)/stin ei)=nai].--Frag. 15, p. 125.]

Nevertheless other things approximate in different degrees to purity, according as they possess a more or less decided preponderance of some few ingredients over the remaining multitude. Thus flesh, bone, and other similar portions of the animal organism, were (according to Anaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one constituent more thoroughly preponderant and all other coexistent natures more thoroughly subordinate and latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air, Fire, Earth, &c.; which were compounds wherein many of the numerous ingredients present were equally effective, so that the manifestations were more confused and complicated. In this way the four Empedoklean elements formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct developments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within it. Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while flesh and bone did not. Amidst all these changes, however, the infinite total mass remained the same, neither increased nor diminished.

Lucretius (i. 835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh, bone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homoeomeries; and I cannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with Empedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have been used by the latter. [Greek: E)nanti/ôs de\ phai/nontai le/gontes oi( peri\ A)naxago/ran toi=s peri\ E)mpedokle/a. O( me\n ga/r] (Emp.) [Greek: phêsi pu=r kai\ u(/dôr kai\ a)e/ra kai\ gê=n stoichei=a te/ssara kai\ a(pla= ei)=nai, ma=llon ê)\ sa/rka kai\ o)stou=n kai\ ta\ toiau=ta tô=n o(moiomerô=n. Oi( de\] (Anaxag.) [Greek: tau=ta me\n a(pla= kai\ stoichei=a, gê=n de\ kai\ pu=r kai\ a)e/ra su/ntheta; panspermi/an ga\r ei)=nai tou/tôn.] (Gen. et Corr. i. 1.) The last words ([Greek: panspermi/an]) are fully illustrated by a portion of the other passage, De Coelo, iii. 3, [Greek: a)e/ra de\ kai\ pu=r mi=gma tou/tôn] (the Homoeomeries, such as flesh and blood) [Greek: kai\ tô=n a)/llôn sperma/tôn pa/ntôn; ei)=nai ga\r e(ka/teron au)tô=n e)x a)ora/tôn o(moiomerô=n pa/ntôn ê)throisme/nôn; dio\ kai\ gi/gnesthai pa/nta e)k tou/tôn].

Now it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies as simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set of bodies as such. Anaxagoras expressly denied all simple bodies. In his theory, all bodies were compound: Nous alone formed an exception. Everything existed in everything. But they were compounds in which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had come together into such positive and marked action, as practically to nullify the remainder. The generation of the Homoeomeric aggregate was by disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which their agency had before lain buried ([Greek: ge/nesis, e)/kphansis mo/non kai\ e)/kkrisis tou= pri\n kruptome/nou]. Simplikius ap. Schaub. Anax. Fr. p. 115). The Homoeomeric aggregates or bodies were infinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined in countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive and definite manifestations. Considered in reference to the Homoeomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense be called elements.]

In comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empedokles, we perceive that both of them denied not only the generation of new matter out of nothing (in which denial all the ancient physical philosophers concurred), but also the transformation of one form of matter into others, which had been affirmed by Thales and others. Both of them laid down as a basis the existence of matter in a variety of primordial forms. They maintained that what others called generation or transformation, was only a combination or separation of these pre-existing materials, in great diversity of ratios. Of such primordial forms of matter Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called Elements; each simple and radically distinct from the others, and capable of existing apart from them, though capable also of being combined with them. Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter in indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of particles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous) capable of being entirely severed from the remainder. In the constitution of every individual body in nature, particles of all the different forms were combined; but some one or a few forms were preponderant and manifest, all the others overlaid and latent. Herein consisted the difference between one body and another. The Homoeomeric body was one in which a confluence of like particles had taken place so numerous and powerful, as to submerge all the coexistent particles of other sorts. The majority thus passed for the whole, the various minorities not being allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason ceasing to exist: a type of human society as usually constituted, wherein some one vein of sentiment, ethical, æsthetical, religious, political, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on dissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot proclaim themselves without ruin.

The hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still real and recoverable, appears to have been suggested to Anaxagoras mainly by the phenomena of animal nutrition. The bread and meat on which we feed nourishes all the different parts of our body--blood, flesh, bones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment must contain in itself different matters homogeneous with all these tissues and organs; though we cannot see such matters, our reason tells us that they must be there. This physiological divination is interesting from its general approximation towards the results of modern analysis.

Both Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive process from a state of stagnation and confusion both tantamount to Chaos; which is not so much active discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity arising from the equilibrium of opposite forces. The chaos is in fact almost a reproduction of the Infinite of Anaximander. But Anaxagoras as well as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by introducing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary to Anaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting positive movement and development out of the negative and stationary Chaos. The Nous or Mind is the Agency selected for this purpose by Anaxagoras: Love and Enmity by Empedokles. Both the one and the other initiate the rotatory cosmical motion; upon which follows as well the partial disgregation of the chaotic mass, as the congregation of like particles of it towards each other.

The Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as a God; but there is nothing in the fragments now remaining to justify the belief that the author himself conceived it in that manner--or that he proposed it (according to Aristotle's expression) as the cause of all that was good in the world, assigning other agencies as the causes of all evil. It is not characterised by him as a person--not so much as the Love and Enmity of Empedokles. It is not one but multitudinous, and all its separate manifestations are alike, differing only as greater or less. It is in fact identical with the soul, the vital principle, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and to all plants also. It is one substance, or form of matter among the rest, but thinner than all of them (thinner than even fire or air), and distinguished by the peculiar characteristic of being absolutely unmixed. It has moving power and knowledge, like the air of Diogenes the Apolloniate: it initiates movement; and it knows about all the things which either pass into or pass out of combination. It disposes or puts in order all things that were, are, or will be; but it effects this only by acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled mass, and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale, then gradually increasing. Rotation having once begun, and the mass having been as it were unpacked and liberated the component Homoeomeries are represented as coming together by their own inherent attraction. The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order and symmetry into Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory motion in the inert mass, so as to release the Homoeomeries from prison. It originates and maintains the great cosmical fact of rotatory motion; which variety of motion, from its perfect regularity and sameness, is declared by Plato also to be the one most consonant to Reason and Intelligence. Such rotation being once set on foot, the other phenomena of the universe are supposed to be determined by its influence, and by their own tendencies and properties besides: but there is no farther agency of Nous, which only knows these phenomena as and when they occur. Anaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could; not by reference to final causes, nor by assuming good purposes of Nous which each combination was intended to answer--but by physical analogies, well or ill chosen, and especially by the working of the grand cosmical rotation.

Compare Schaubach, Anax. Frag. p. 153.]

Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 65-6-13.

Aristotle says that the language of Anaxagoras about [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê\] was not perfectly clear or consistent. But it seems also from Plato De Legg. xii. p. 967, B, that Anaxagoras made no distinction between [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê/]. Compare Plato, Kratylus, p. 400 A.]

"Mens erat id, quod movebat molem homoeomeriarum: hâc ratione, per hunc motum à mente excitatum, secretio facta est . . . . Materiæ autem propriæ insunt vires: proprio suo pondere hæc, quæ mentis vi mota et secreta sunt, feruntur in eum locum, quo nunc sunt."

Compare Alexand. Aphrod. ap. Scholia ad Aristot. Physic. ii. p. 194, a. (Schol. p. 348 a. Brandis); Marbach, Lehrbuch der Gesch. Philos. s. 54, note 2, p. 82; Preller, Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, s. 53, with his comment.]

Anaxagoras [Greek: di/nous tina\s a)noê/tous a)nazôgraphô=n, su\n tê=| tou= nou= a)praxi/a| kai\ a)noi/a|] (Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. ii. p. 365).

To move (in the active sense, i.e. to cause movement in) and to know, are the two attributes of the Anaxagorean [Greek: Nou=s] (Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2, p. 405, a. 18).]

This we learn from Plato and Aristotle, who blame Anaxagoras for inconsistency in deserting his own hypothesis, and in invoking explanations from physical agencies, to the neglect of Nous and its supposed optimising purposes. But Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge by his remaining fragments, seems not to have committed any such inconsistency. He did not proclaim his Nous to be a powerful extra-cosmical Architect, like the Demiurgus of Plato--nor an intra-cosmical, immanent, undeliberating instinct (such as Aristotle calls Nature), tending towards the production and renewal of regular forms and conjunctions, yet operating along with other agencies which produced concomitants irregular, unpredictable, often even obstructive and monstrous. Anaxagoras appears to conceive his Nous as one among numerous other real agents in Nature, material like the rest, yet differing from the rest as being powerful, simple, and pure from all mixture, as being endued with universal cognizance, as being the earliest to act in point of time, and as furnishing the primary condition to the activity of the rest by setting on foot the cosmical rotation. The Homoeomeries are coeternal with, if not anterior to, Nous. They have laws and properties of their own, which they follow, when once liberated, without waiting for the dictation of Nous. What they do is known by, but not ordered by, Nous. It is therefore no inconsistency in Anaxagoras that he assigns to mind one distinct and peculiar agency, but nothing more; and that when trying to explain the variety of phenomena he makes reference to other physical agencies, as the case seems to require.

This means, not that [Greek: nou=s] was unextended or immaterial, but that it was thinner or more subtle than either fire or air. Herakleitus regarded [Greek: to\ perie/chon] as [Greek: logiko\n kai\ phrenê=res]. Diogenes of Apollonia considered air as endued with cognition, and as imparting cognition by being inhaled. Compare Plutarch, De Placit. Philos. iv. 3.

I cannot think, with Brücker (Hist. Philosop. part ii. b. ii. De Sectâ Ionicâ, p. 504, ed. 2nd), and with Tennemann, Ges. Ph. i. 8, p. 312, that Anaxagoras was "primus qui Dei ideam inter Græcos à materialitate quasi purificavit," &c. I agree rather with Zeller (Philos. der Griech. i. p. 680-683, ed. 2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is not conceived as having either immateriality or personality.]

Brücker, Hist. Philos. ut supra. "Scilicet, semel inducto in materiam à mente motu, sufficere putavit Anaxagoras, juxta leges naturæ motûsque, rerum ortum describere."]

In describing the formation of the Kosmos, Anaxagoras supposed that, as a consequence of the rotation initiated by mind, the primitive chaos broke up. "The Dense, Wet, Cold, Dark, Heavy, came together into the place where now Earth is: Hot, Dry, Bare, Light, Bright, departed to the exterior region of the revolving Æther." In such separation each followed its spontaneous and inherent tendency. Water was disengaged from air and clouds, earth from water: earth was still farther consolidated into stones by cold. Earth remained stationary in the centre, while fire and air were borne round it by the force and violence of the rotatory movement. The celestial bodies--Sun, Moon, and Stars--were solid bodies analogous to the earth, either caught originally in the whirl of the rotatory movement, or torn from the substance of the earth and carried away into the outer region of rotation. They were rendered hot and luminous by the fiery fluid in the rapid whirl of which they were hurried along. The Sun was a stone thus made red-hot, larger than Peloponnesus: the Moon was of earthy matter, nearer to the Earth, deriving its light from the Sun, and including not merely plains and mountains, but also cities and inhabitants. Of the planetary movements, apart from the diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere, Anaxagoras took no notice. He explained the periodical changes in the apparent course of the sun and moon by resistances which they encountered, the former from accumulated and condensed air, the latter from the cold. Like Anaximenes and Demokritus, Anaxagoras conceived the Earth as flat, round in the surface, and not deep, resting on and supported by the air beneath it. Originally (he thought) the earth was horizontal, with the axis of celestial rotation perpendicular, and the north pole at the zenith, so that this rotation was then lateral, like that of a dome or roof; it was moreover equable and unchanging with reference to every part of the plane of the earth's upper surface, and distributed light and heat equally to every part. But after a certain time the Earth tilted over of its own accord to the south, thus lowering its southern half, raising the northern half, and causing the celestial rotation to appear oblique.

Besides these doctrines respecting the great cosmical bodies, Anaxagoras gave explanations of many among the striking phenomena in geology and meteorology--the sea, rivers, earthquakes, hurricanes, hail, snow, &c. He treated also of animals and plants--their primary origin, and the manner of their propagation. He thought that animals were originally produced by the hot and moist earth; but that being once produced, the breeds were continued by propagation. The seeds of plants he supposed to have been originally contained in the air, from whence they fell down to the warm and moist earth, where they took root and sprung up. He believed that all plants, as well as all animals, had a certain measure of intelligence and sentiment, differing not in kind but only in degree from the intelligence and sentiment of men; whose superiority of intelligence was determined, to a great extent, by their possession of hands. He explained sensation by the action of unlike upon unlike (contrary to Empedokles, who referred it to the action of like upon like), applying this doctrine to the explanation of the five senses separately. But he pronounced the senses to be sadly obscure and insufficient as means of knowledge. Apparently, however, he did not discard their testimony, nor assume any other means of knowledge independent of it, but supposed a concomitant and controlling effect of intelligence as indispensable to compare and judge between the facts of sense when they appeared contradictory. On this point, however, it is difficult to make out his opinions.

This difference followed naturally from the opinions of the two philosophers on the nature of the soul or mind. Anaxagoras supposed it peculiar in itself, and dissimilar to the Homoeomeries without. Empedokles conceived it as a compound of the four elements, analogous to all that was without: hence man knew each exterior element by its like within himself--earth by earth, water by water, &c.]

Anaxagoras remarked that the contrast between black and white might be made imperceptible to sense by a succession of numerous intermediate colours very finely graduated. He is said to have affirmed that snow was really black, notwithstanding that it appeared white to our senses: since water was black, and snow was only frozen water (Cicero, Academ. iv. 31; Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 33). "Anaxagoras non modo id ita esse (sc. albam nivem esse) negabat, sed sibi, quia sciret aquam nigram esse, unde illa concreta esset, albam ipsam esse ne videri quidem." Whether Anaxagoras ever affirmed that snow did not appear to him white, may reasonably be doubted: his real affirmation probably was, that snow, though it appeared white, was not really white. And this affirmation depended upon the line which he drew between the fact of sense, the phenomenal, the relative, on one side--and the substratum, the real, the absolute, on the other. Most philosophers recognise a distinction between the two; but the line between the two has been drawn in very different directions. Anaxagoras assumed as his substratum, real, or absolute, the Homoeomeries--numerous primordial varieties of matter, each with its inherent qualities. Among these varieties he reckoned water, but he did not reckon snow. He also considered that water was really and absolutely black or dark (the Homeric [Greek: me/lan u(/dôr])--that blackness was among its primary qualities. Water, when consolidated into snow, was so disguised as to produce upon the spectator the appearance of whiteness; but it did not really lose, nor could it lose, its inherent colour. A negro covered with white paint, and therefore looking white, is still really black: a wheel painted with the seven prismatic colours, and made to revolve rapidly, will look white, but it is still really septi-coloured: i.e. the state of rapid revolution would be considered as an exceptional state, not natural to it. Compare Plato, Lysis, c. 32, p. 217 D.]

Anaxagoras, residing at Athens and intimately connected with Perikles, incurred not only unpopularity, but even legal prosecution, by the tenor of his philosophical opinions, especially those on astronomy. To Greeks who believed in Helios and Selênê as not merely living beings but Deities, his declaration that the Sun was a luminous and fiery stone, and the Moon an earthy mass, appeared alike absurd and impious. Such was the judgment of Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon, as well as of Aristophanes and the general Athenian public. Anaxagoras was threatened with indictment for blasphemy, so that Perikles was compelled to send him away from Athens.

That physical enquiries into the nature of things, and attempts to substitute scientific theories in place of the personal agency of the Gods, were repugnant to the religious feelings of the Greeks, has been already remarked. Yet most of the other contemporary philosophers must have been open to this reproach, not less than Anaxagoras; and we learn that the Apolloniate Diogenes left Athens from the same cause. If others escaped the like prosecution which fell upon Anaxagoras, we may probably ascribe this fact to the state of political party at Athens, and to the intimacy of the latter with Perikles. The numerous political enemies of that great man might fairly hope to discredit him in the public mind--at the very least to vex and embarrass him--by procuring the trial and condemnation of Anaxagoras. Against other philosophers, even when propounding doctrines not less obnoxious respecting the celestial bodies, there was not the same collateral motive to stimulate the aggressive hostility of individuals.

Contemporary with Anaxagoras--yet somewhat younger, as far as we can judge, upon doubtful evidence--lived the philosopher Diogenes, a native of Apollonia in Krete. Of his life we know nothing except that he taught during some time at Athens, which city he was forced to quit on the same ground as Anaxagoras. Accusations of impiety were either brought or threatened against him: physical philosophy being offensive generally to the received religious sentiment, which was specially awakened and appealed to by the political opponents of Perikles.

Simplikius (ad Aristot. Phys. fol. 6 A) describes Diogenes as having been [Greek: schedo\n neô/tatos] in the series of physical theorists.]

Diogenes the Apolloniate, the latest in the series of Ionic philosophers or physiologists, adopted, with modifications and enlargements, the fundamental tenet of Anaximenes. There was but one primordial element--and that element was air. He laid it down as indisputable that all the different objects in this Kosmos must be at the bottom one and the same thing: unless this were the fact, they would not act upon each other, nor mix together, nor do good and harm to each other, as we see that they do. Plants would not grow out of the earth, nor would animals live and grow by nutrition, unless there existed as a basis this universal sameness of nature. No one thing therefore has a peculiar nature of its own: there is in all the same nature, but very changeable and diversified.

Aristotle approves this fundamental tenet of Diogenes, the conclusion that there must be one common Something out of which all things came--[Greek: e)x e(no\s a(/panta] (Gen. et Corrupt. i. 6-7, p. 322, a. 14), inferred from the fact that they acted upon each other.]

Now the fundamental substance, common to all, was air. Air was infinite, eternal, powerful; it was, besides, full of intelligence and knowledge. This latter property Diogenes proved by the succession of climatic and atmospheric phenomena of winter and summer, night and day, rain, wind, and fine weather. All these successions were disposed in the best possible manner by the air: which could not have laid out things in such regular order and measure, unless it had been endowed with intelligence. Moreover, air was the source of life, soul, and intelligence, to men and animals: who inhaled all these by respiration, and lost all of them as soon as they ceased to respire.

--Kai\ moi\ doke/ei to\ tê\n no/êsin e)/chon ei)=nai o( a)ê\r kaleo/menos u(po\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn], &c.

Schleiermacher has an instructive commentary upon these fragments of the Apolloniate Diogenes (Vermischte Schriften, vol. ii. p. 157-162; Ueber Diogenes von Apollonia).]

Air, life-giving and intelligent, existed everywhere, formed the essence of everything, comprehended and governed everything. Nothing in nature could be without it: yet at the same time all things in nature partook of it in a different manner. For it was distinguished by great diversity of properties and by many gradations of intelligence. It was hotter or colder--moister or drier--denser or rarer--more or less active and movable--exhibiting differences of colour and taste. All these diversities were found in objects, though all at the bottom were air. Reason and intelligence resided in the warm air. So also to all animals as well as to men, the common source of vitality, whereby they lived, saw, heard, and understood, was air; hotter than the atmosphere generally, though much colder than that near the sun. Nevertheless, in spite of this common characteristic, the air was in other respects so indefinitely modifiable, that animals were of all degrees of diversity, in form, habits, and intelligence. Men were doubtless more alike among themselves: yet no two of them could be found exactly alike, furnished with the same dose of aerial heat or vitality. All other things, animate and inanimate, were generated and perished, beginning from air and ending in air: which alone continued immortal and indestructible.

Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2, p. 405, a. 21. [Greek: Dioge/nês d', ô(/sper kai\ e(teroi/ tines, a)e/ra [u(pe/labe tê\n psuchê/n]], &c.]

The intelligence of men and animals, very unequal in character and degree, was imbibed by respiration, the inspired air passing by means of the veins and along the blood into all parts of the body. Of the veins Diogenes gave a description remarkable for its minuteness of detail, in an age when philosophers dwelt almost exclusively in loose general analogies. He conceived the principal seat of intelligence in man to be in the thoracic cavity, or in the ventricle of the heart, where a quantity of air was accumulated ready for distribution. The warm and dry air concentrated round the brain, and reached by veins from the organs of sense, was the centre of sensation. Taste was explained by the soft and porous nature of the tongue, and by the number of veins communicating with it. The juices of sapid bodies were sucked up by it as by a sponge: the odorous stream of air penetrated from without through the nostrils: both were thus brought into conjunction with the sympathising cerebral air. To this air also the image impressed upon the eye was transmitted, thereby causing vision: while pulsations and vibrations of the air without, entering through the ears and impinging upon the same centre, generated the sensation of sound. If the veins connecting the eye with the brain were inflamed, no visual sensation could take place; moreover if our minds or attention were absorbed in other things, we were often altogether insensible to sensations either of sight or of sound: which proved that the central air within us was the real seat of sensation. Thought and intelligence, as well as sensation, was an attribute of the same central air within us, depending especially upon its purity, dryness, and heat, and impeded or deadened by moisture or cold. Both children and animals had less intelligence than men: because they had more moisture in their bodies, so that the veins were choked up, and the air could not get along them freely to all parts. Plants had no intelligence; having no apertures or ducts whereby the air could pervade their internal structure. Our sensations were pleasurable when there was much air mingled with the blood, so as to lighten the flow of it, and to carry it easily to all parts: they were painful when there was little air, and when the blood was torpid and thick.

The expression ascribed to Diogenes by Theophrastus--[Greek: o( e)nto\s a)ê\r, mikro\n ô)\n mo/rion tou= theou=]--is so printed by Philippson; but the word [Greek: theou=] seems not well avouched as to the text, and Schneider prints [Greek: thumou=]. It is not impossible that Diogenes may have called the air God, without departing from his physical theory; but this requires proof.]

The structure of the Kosmos Diogenes supposed to have been effected by portions of the infinite air, taking upon them new qualities and undergoing various transformations. Some air, becoming cold, dense, and heavy, sunk down to the centre, and there remained stationary as earth and water: while the hotter, rarer, and lighter air ascended and formed the heavens, assuming through the intelligence included in it a rapid rotatory movement round the earth, and shaping itself into sun, moon, and stars, which were light and porous bodies like pumice stone. The heat of this celestial matter acted continually upon the earth and water beneath, so that the earth became comparatively drier, and the water was more and more drawn up as vapour, to serve for nourishment to the heavenly bodies. The stars also acted as breathing-holes to the Kosmos, supplying the heated celestial mass with fresh air from the infinite mass without. Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes conceived the figure of the earth as flat and round, like a drum; and the rotation of the heavens as lateral, with the axis perpendicular to the surface of the earth, and the north pole always at the zenith. This he supposed to have been the original arrangement; but after a certain time, the earth tilted over spontaneously towards the south--the northern half was elevated and the southern half depressed--so that the north pole was no longer at the zenith, and the axis of rotation of the heavens became apparently oblique. He thought, moreover, that the existing Kosmos was only of temporary duration; that it would perish and be succeeded by future analogous systems, generated from the same common substance of the infinite and indestructible air. Respecting animal generation--and to some extent respecting meteorological phenomena--Diogenes also propounded several opinions, which are imperfectly known, but which appear to have resembled those of Anaxagoras.

Nearly contemporary with Anaxagoras and Empedokles, two other enquirers propounded a new physical theory very different from those already noticed--usually known under the name of the atomic theory. This Atomic theory, though originating with the Eleate Leukippus, obtained celebrity chiefly from his pupil Demokritus of Abdera, its expositor and improver. Demokritus (born seemingly in B.C. 460, and reported to have reached extreme old age) was nine years younger than Sokrates, thirty-three years older than Plato, and forty years younger than Anaxagoras. The age of Leukippus is not known, but he can hardly have been much younger than Anaxagoras.

Of Leukippus we know nothing: of Demokritus, very little--yet enough to exhibit a life, like that of Anaxagoras, consecrated to philosophical investigation, and neglectful not merely of politics, but even of inherited patrimony. His attention was chiefly turned towards the study of Nature, with conceptions less vague, and a more enlarged observation of facts, than any of his contemporaries had ever bestowed. He was enabled to boast that no one had surpassed him in extent of travelling over foreign lands, in intelligent research and converse with enlightened natives, or in following out the geometrical relations of lines. He spent several years in visiting Egypt, Asia Minor, and Persia. His writings were numerous, and on many different subjects, including ethics, as well as physics, astronomy, and anthropology. None of them have been preserved. But we read, even from critics like Dionysius of Halikarnassus and Cicero, that they were composed in an impressive and semi-poetical style, not unworthy to be mentioned in analogy with Plato; while in range and diversity of subjects they are hardly inferior to Aristotle.

Pliny, Hist. Natur. "Democritus--vitam inter experimenta consumpsit," &c.]

Diogenes (ix. 46-48) enumerates the titles of the treatises of Demokritus, as edited in the days of Tiberius by the rhetor Thrasyllus: who distributed them into tetralogies, as he also distributed the dialogues of Plato. It was probably the charm of style, common to Demokritus with Plato, which induced the rhetor thus to edit them both. In regard to scope and spirit of philosophy, the difference between the two was so marked, that Plato is said to have had a positive antipathy to the works of Demokritus, and a desire to burn them (Aristoxenus ap. Diog. Laert. ix. 40). It could hardly be from congeniality of doctrine that the same editor attached himself to both. It has been remarked that Plato never once names Demokritus, while Aristotle cites him very frequently, sometimes with marked praise.]

The theory of Leukippus and Demokritus (we have no means of distinguishing the two) appears to have grown out the Eleatic theory. Parmenides the Eleate (as I have already stated) in distinguishing Ens, the self-existent, real, or absolute, on one side--from the phenomenal and relative on the other--conceived the former in such a way that its connection with the latter was dissolved. The real and absolute, according to him, was One, extended, enduring, continuous, unchangeable, immovable: the conception of Ens included these affirmations, and at the same time excluded peremptorily Non-Ens, or the contrary of Ens. Now the plural, unextended, transient, discontinuous, changeable, and moving, implied a mixture of Ens and Non-Ens, or a partial transition from one to the other. Hence (since Non-Ens was inadmissible) such plurality, &c., could not belong to the real or absolute (ultra-phenomenal), and could only be affirmed as phenomenal or relative. In the latter sense, Parmenides did affirm it, and even tried to explain it: he explained the phenomenal facts from phenomenal assumptions, apart from and independent of the absolute. While thus breaking down the bridge between the phenomenal on one side and the absolute on the other, he nevertheless recognised each in a sphere of its own.

This bridge the atomists undertook to re-establish. They admitted that Ens could not really change--that there could be no real generation, or destruction--no transformation of qualities--no transition of many into one, or of one into many. But they denied the unity and continuity and immobility of Ens: they affirmed that it was essentially discontinuous, plural, and moving. They distinguished the extended, which Parmenides had treated as an Unum continuum, into extension with body, and extension without body: into plenum and vacuum, matter and space. They conceived themselves to have thus found positive meanings both for Ens and Non-Ens. That which Parmenides called Non-Ens or nothing, was in their judgment the vacuum; not less self-existent than that which he called Something. They established their point by showing that Ens, thus interpreted, would become reconcilable to the phenomena of sense: which latter they assumed as their basis to start from. Assuming motion as a phenomenal fact, obvious and incontestable, they asserted that it could not even appear to be a fact, without supposing vacuum as well as body to be real: and the proof that both of them were real was, that only in this manner could sense and reason be reconciled. Farther, they proved the existence of a vacuum by appeal to direct physical observation, which showed that bodies were porous, compressible, and capable of receiving into themselves new matter in the way of nutrition. Instead of the Parmenidean Ens, one and continuous, we have a Demokritean Ens, essentially many and discontinuous: plena and vacua, spaces full and spaces empty, being infinitely intermingled. There existed atoms innumerable, each one in itself essentially a plenum, admitting no vacant space within it, and therefore indivisible as well as indestructible: but each severed from the rest by surrounding vacant space. The atom could undergo no change: but by means of the empty space around, it could freely move. Each atom was too small to be visible: yet all atoms were not equally small; there were fundamental differences between them in figure and magnitude: and they had no other qualities except figure and magnitude. As no atom could be divided into two, so no two atoms could merge into one. Yet though two or more atoms could not so merge together as to lose their real separate individuality, they might nevertheless come into such close approximation as to appear one, and to act on our senses as a phenomenal combination manifesting itself by new sensible properties.

Compare also Aristotel. De Coelo, iii. 4, p. 303, a. 6; Metaphys. A. 4, p. 985, b. 5; Physic. iv. 6: [Greek: le/gousi de\] (Demokritus, &c., in proving a vacuum) [Greek: e(\n me\n o(/ti ê( ki/nêsis ê( kata\ to/pon ou)k a)\n ei)/ê, ou) ga\r a)\n dokei=n ei)=nai ki/nêsin ei) mê\ ei)/ê keno/n; to\ ga\r plê=res a)du/naton ei)=nai de/xasthai/ ti], &c.

Plutarch adv. Kolot. p. 1108. [Greek: Oi(=s ou)d' o)/nar e)ntuchô\n o( Kolô/tês, e)spha/lê peri\ le/xin tou= a)ndro\s] (Demokritus) [Greek: e)n ê)=| diori/zetai, mê\ ma=llon to\ de\n, ê)\ to\ mêde\n ei)=nai; de\n me\n o)noma/zôn to\ sô=ma mêde\n de\ to\ keno/n, ô(s kai\ tou/tou phu/sin tina\ kai\ u(po/stasin i)di/an e)/chontos.]

The affirmation of Demokritus--That Nothing existed, just as much as Something--appears a paradox which we must probably understand as implying that he here adopted, for the sake of argument, the language of the Eleates, his opponents. They called the vacuum Nothing, but Demokritus did not so call it. If (said Demokritus) you call vacuum Nothing, then I say that Nothing exists as well as Something.

The direct observations by which Demokritus showed the existence of a vacuum were--1. A vessel with ashes in it will hold as much water as if it were empty: hence we know that there are pores in the ashes, into which the water is received. 2. Wine can be compressed in skins. 3. The growth of organised bodies proves that they have pores, through which new matter in the form of nourishment is admitted. (Aristot. Physic. iv. 6, p. 213, b.)

Besides this, Demokritus set forth motion as an indisputable fact, ascertained by the evidence of sense: and affirmed that motion was impossible, except on the assumption that vacuum existed. Melissus, the disciple of Parmenides, inverted the reasoning, in arguing against the reality of motion. If it be real (he said), then there must exist a vacuum: but no vacuum does or can exist: therefore there is no real motion. (Aristot. Physic. iv. 6.)

Since Demokritus started from these facts of sense, as the base of his hypothesis of atoms and vacua, so Aristotle (Gen. et Corr. i. 2; De Animâ, i. 2) might reasonably say that he took sensible appearances as truth. But we find Demokritus also describing reason as an improvement and enlightenment of sense, and complaining how little of truth was discoverable by man. See Mullach, Demokritus (pp. 414, 415). Compare Philippson--[Greek: U(=lê a)nthrôpi/nê]--Berlin, 1831.]

Zeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i. p. 583-588, ed. 2nd; Aristotel. Metaphys. Z. 13, p. 1039, a. 10, [Greek: a)du/naton ei)=nai/ phêsi Dêmo/kritos e)k du/o e(\n ê)\| e)x e(no\s du/o gene/sthai; ta\ ga\r mege/thê ta\ a)/toma ta\s ou)si/as poiei=.]]

The bridge, broken down by Parmenides, between the real and the phenomenal world, was thus in theory re-established. For the real world, as described by Demokritus, differed entirely from the sameness and barrenness of the Parmenidean Ens, and presented sufficient movement and variety to supply a basis of explanatory hypothesis, accommodated to more or less of the varieties in the phenomenal world. In respect of quality, indeed, all the atoms were alike, not less than all the vacua: such likeness was (according to Demokritus) the condition of their being able to act upon each other, or to combine as phenomenal aggregates. But in respect to quantity or magnitude as well as in respect to figure, they differed very greatly: moreover, besides all these diversities, the ordination and position of each atom with regard to the rest were variable in every way. As all objects of sense were atomic compounds, so, from such fundamental differences--partly in the constituent atoms themselves, partly in the manner of their arrangement when thrown into combination--arose all the diverse qualities and manifestations of the compounds. When atoms passed into new combination, then there was generation of a new substance: when they passed out of an old combination there was destruction: when the atoms remained the same, but were merely arranged anew in order and relative position, then the phenomenon was simply change. Hence all qualities and manifestations of such compounds were not original, but derivative: they had no "nature of their own," or law peculiar to them, but followed from the atomic composition of the body to which they belonged. They were not real and absolute, like the magnitude and figure of the constituent atoms, but phenomenal and relative--i.e. they were powers of acting upon correlative organs of sentient beings, and nullities in the absence of such organs. Such were the colour, sonorousness, taste, smell, heat, cold, &c., of the bodies around us: they were relative, implying correlative percipients. Moreover they were not merely relative, but perpetually fluctuating; since the compounds were frequently changing either in arrangement or in diversity of atoms, and every such atomic change, even to a small extent, caused it to work differently upon our organs.

Stobæus, Eclog. Physic. i. c. 16. [Greek: Phu/sin me\n mêde\n ei)=nai chrô=ma, ta\ me\n ga\r stoichei=a a)/poia, ta/ te mesta\ kai\ to\ keno/n; ta\ d' e)x au)tô=n sugkri/mata ke/chrô=sthai diatagê=| te kai\ r(uthmô=| kai\ protropê=|], &c.

Demokritus restricted the term [Greek: Phu/sis]--Nature--to the primordial atoms and vacua (Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. p. 310 A.).]

Among the various properties of bodies, however, there were two which Demokritus recognised as not merely relative to the observer, but also as absolute and belonging to the body in itself. These were weight and hardness--primary qualities (to use the phraseology of Locke and Reid), as contrasted with the secondary qualities of colour, taste, and the like. Weight, or tendency downward, belonged (according to Demokritus) to each individual atom separately, in proportion to its magnitude: the specific gravity of all atoms was supposed to be equal. In compound bodies one body was heavier than another, in proportion as its bulk was more filled with atoms and less with vacant space. The hardness and softness of bodies Demokritus explained by the peculiar size and peculiar junction of their component atoms. Thus, comparing lead with iron, the former is heavier and softer, the latter is lighter and harder. Bulk for bulk, the lead contained a larger proportion of solid, and a smaller proportion of interstices, than the iron: hence it was heavier. But its structure was equable throughout; it had a greater multitude of minute atoms diffused through its bulk, equally close to and coherent with each other on every side, but not more close and coherent on one side than on another. The structure of the iron, on the contrary, was unequal and irregular, including larger spaces of vacuum in one part, and closer approach of its atoms in other parts: moreover these atoms were in themselves larger, hence there was a greater force of cohesion between them on one particular side, rendering the whole mass harder and more unyielding than the lead.

Aristotel. De Coelo, iv. 2, 7, p. 309, a. 10; Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 326, a. 9. [Greek: Kai/toi baru/teron ge kata\ tê\n u(perochê/n phêsin ei)=nai Dêmo/kritos e(/kaston tô=n a)diaire/tôn], &c.]

We thus see that Demokritus, though he supposed single atoms to be all of the same specific gravity, yet recognised a different specific gravity in the various compounds of atoms or material masses. It is to be remembered that, when we speak of contact or combination of atoms, this is not to be understood literally and absolutely, but only in a phenomenal and relative sense; as an approximation, more or less close, but always sufficiently close to form an atomic combination which our senses apprehended as one object. Still every atom was essentially separate from every other, and surrounded by a margin of vacant space: no two atoms could merge into one, any more than one atom could be divided into two.

Pursuant to this theory, Demokritus proclaimed that all the properties of objects, except weight, hardness, and softness, were not inherent in the objects themselves, but simply phenomenal and relative to the observer--"modifications of our sensibility". Colour, taste, smell, sweet and bitter, hot and cold, &c., were of this description. In respect to all of them, man differed from other animals, one man from another, and even the same man from himself at different times and ages. There was no sameness of impression, no unanimity or constancy of judgment, because there was no real or objective "nature" corresponding to the impression. From none of these senses could we at all learn what the external thing was in itself. "Sweet and bitter, hot and cold (he said) are by law or convention (i.e. these names designate the impressions of most men on most occasions, taking no account of dissentients): what really exists is, atoms and vacuum. The sensible objects which we suppose and believe to exist do not exist in truth; there exist only atoms and vacuum. We know nothing really and truly about an object, either what it is or what it is not: our opinions depend upon influences from without, upon the position of our body, upon the contact and resistances of external objects. There are two phases of knowledge, the obscure and the genuine. To the obscure belong all our senses--sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The genuine is distinct from these. When the obscure phase fails, when we can no longer see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch--from minuteness and subtlety of particles--then the genuine phase, or reason and intelligence, comes into operation."

True knowledge (in the opinion of Demokritus) was hardly at all attainable; but in so far as it could be attained, we must seek it, not merely through the obscure and insufficient avenues of sense, but by reason or intelligence penetrating to the ultimatum of corpuscular structure, farther than sense could go. His atoms were not pure Abstracta (like Plato's Ideas and geometrical plane figures, and Aristotle's materia prima), but concrete bodies, each with its own magnitude, figure, and movement; too small to be seen or felt by us, yet not too small to be seen or felt by beings endowed with finer sensitive power. They were abstractions mainly in so far as all other qualities were supposed absent. Demokritus professed to show how the movements, approximations, and collisions of these atoms, brought them into such combinations as to form the existing Kosmos; and not that system alone, but also many other cosmical systems, independent of and different from each other, which he supposed to exist.

Marbach observes justly that the Demokritean atoms, though not really objects of sense in consequence of their smallness (of their disproportion to our visual power), are yet spoken of as objects of sense: they are as it were microscopic objects, and the [Greek: gnêsi/ê gnô/mê], or intelligence, is conceived as supplying something of a microscopic power. (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, sect. 58, vol. i. p. 94.)]

How this was done we cannot clearly make out, not having before us the original treatise of Demokritus, called the Great Diakosmos. It is certain, however, that he did not invoke any separate agency to set the atoms in motion--such as the Love and Discord of Empedokles--the Nous or Intelligence of Anaxagoras. Demokritus supposed that the atoms moved by an inherent force of their own: that this motion was as much without beginning as the atoms themselves: that eternal motion was no less natural, no more required any special cause to account for it, than eternal rest. "Such is the course of nature--such is and always has been the fact," was his ultimatum. He farther maintained that all the motions of the atoms were necessary--that is, that they followed each other in a determinate order, each depending upon some one or more antecedents, according to fixed laws, which he could not explain. Fixed laws, known or unknown, he recognised always. Fortune or chance was only a fiction imagined by men to cover their own want of knowledge and foresight. Demokritus seems to have supposed that like atoms had a spontaneous tendency towards like; that all, when uncombined, tended naturally downwards, yet with unequal force, owing to their different size, and weight proportional to size; that this unequal force brought them into impact and collision one with another, out of which was generated a rotatory motion, gradually extending itself, and comprehending a larger and larger number of them, up to a certain point, when an exterior membrane or shell was formed around them. This rotatory motion was the capital fact which both constituted the Kosmos, and maintained the severance of its central and peripheral masses--Earth and Water in the centre--Air, Fire, and the celestial bodies, near the circumference. Demokritus, Anaxagoras, and Empedokles, imagined different preliminary hypotheses to get at the fact of rotation; but all employed the fact, when arrived at, as a basis from which to deduce the formation of the various cosmical bodies and their known manifestations. In respect to these bodies--Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, &c.--Demokritus seems to have held several opinions like those of Anaxagoras. Both of them conceived the Sun as a redhot mass, and the Earth as a flat surface above and below, round horizontally like a drum, stationary in the centre of the revolving celestial bodies, and supported by the resistance of air beneath.

Aristotle blames Demokritus for thus acquiescing in the general course of nature as an ultimatum, and for omitting all reference to final causes. M. Lafaist, in a good dissertation, Sur la Philosophie Atomistique (Paris, 1833, p. 78), shows that this is exactly the ultimatum of natural philosophers at the present day. "Un phénomène se passait-il, si on lui en demandait la raison, il (Demokritus) répondait, 'La chose se passe ainsi, parcequ'elle s'est toujours passée ainsi.' C'est, en d'autres termes, la seule réponse que font encore aujourd'hui les naturalistes. Suivant eux, une pierre, quand elle n'est pas soutenue, tombe en vertu de la loi de la pesanteur. Qu'est-ce que la loi de la pesanteur? La généralisation de ce fait plusieurs fois observé, qu'une pierre tombe quand elle n'est pas soutenue. Le phénomène dans un cas particulier arrive ainsi, parceque toujours il est arrivé ainsi. Le principe qu'implique l'explication des naturalistes modernes est celle de Démokrite, c'est que la nature demeure constante à elle-même. La proposition de Démokrite--'Tel phénomène a lieu de cette façon, parceque toujours il a eu lieu de cette même façon'--est la première forme qu' ait revêtue le principe de la stabilité des lois naturelles."]

Zeller has a like remark upon the phrase of Aristotle, which is calculated to mislead as to the doctrine of Demokritus (Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 600, 2nd.** ed.).

Dugald Stewart, in one of the Dissertations prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica, has the like comment respecting the fundamental principle of the Epicurean (identical quoad hoc with the Demokritean) philosophy.

"I cannot conclude this note without recurring to an observation ascribed by Laplace to Leibnitz--'that the blind chance of the Epicureans involves the supposition of an effect taking place without a cause'. This is a very incorrect statement of the philosophy taught by Lucretius, which nowhere gives countenance to such a supposition. The distinguishing tenet of this sect was, that the order of the universe does not imply the existence of intelligent causes, but may be accounted for by the active powers belonging to the atoms of matter: which active powers, being exerted through an indefinitely long period of time, might have produced, nay must have produced, exactly such a combination of things as that with which we are surrounded. This does not call in question the necessity of a cause to produce every effect, but, on the contrary, virtually assumes the truth of that axiom. It only excludes from these causes the attribute of intelligence. In the same way, when I apply the words blind chance to the throw of a die, I do not mean to deny that I am ultimately the cause of the particular event that is to take place: but only to intimate that I do not here act as a designing cause, in consequence of my ignorance of the various accidents to which the die is subjected while shaken in the box. If I am not mistaken, this Epicurean theory approaches very nearly to the scheme which it is the main object of the Essay on Probabilities (by Laplace) to inculcate." (Stewart--First Dissertation, part ii. p. 139, note.)]

Diog. Laert. ix. 31-44.]

Among the researches of Demokritus there were some relating to animal generation, and zoology; but we cannot find that his opinions on these subjects were in peculiar connection with his atomic theory. Nor do we know how far he carried out that theory into detail by tracing the various phenomenal manifestations to their basis in atomic reality, and by showing what particular magnitude, figure, and arrangement of atoms belonged to each. It was only in some special cases that he thus connected determinate atoms with compounds of determinate quality; for example, in regard to the four Empedoklean elements. The atoms constituting heat or fire he affirmed to be small and globular, the most mobile, rapid, and penetrating of all; those constituting air, water, and earth, were an assemblage of all varieties of figures, but differed from each other in magnitude--the atoms of air being apparently smallest, those of earth largest.

In regard to mind or soul generally, he identified it with heat or fire, conceiving it to consist in the same very small, globular, rapidly movable atoms, penetrating everywhere: which he illustrated by comparison with the fine dust seen in sunbeams when shining through a doorway. That these were the constituent atoms of mind, he proved by the fact, that its first and most essential property was to move the body, and to be itself moved. Mind, soul, the vital principle, fire, heat, &c., were, in the opinion of Demokritus, substantially identical--not confined to man or even to animals, but diffused, in unequal proportions, throughout plants, the air, and nature generally. Sensation, thought, knowledge, were all motions of mind or of these restless mental particles, which Demokritus supposed to be distributed over every part of the living body, mingling and alternating with the corporeal particles. It was the essential condition of life, that the mental particles should be maintained in proper number and distribution throughout the body; but by their subtle nature they were constantly tending to escape, being squeezed or thrust out at all apertures by the pressure of air on all the external parts. Such tendency was counteracted by the process of respiration, whereby mental or vital particles, being abundantly distributed throughout the air, were inhaled along with air, and formed an inward current which either prevented the escape, or compensated the loss, of those which were tending outwards. When breathing ceased, such inward current being no longer kept up, the vital particles in the interior were speedily forced out, and death ensued.

Lucretius, iii. 370.

Illud in his rebus nequaquam sumere possis, Democriti quod sancta viri sententia ponit; Corporis atque animi primordia singula privis Adposita alternis variare ac nectere membra.]

Though Demokritus conceived those mental particles as distributed all over the body, yet he recognised different mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the body. Besides the special organs of sense, he considered intelligence as attached to the brain, passion to the heart, and appetite to the liver: the same tripartite division afterwards adopted by Plato. He gave an explanation of perception or sensation in its different varieties, as well as of intelligence or thought. Sensation and thought were, in his opinion, alike material, and alike mental. Both were affections of the same peculiar particles, vital or mental, within us: both were changes operated in these particles by effluvia or images from without; nevertheless the one change was different from the other.

Plutarch (Placit. Philos. iv. 4), ascribes a bipartite division of the soul to Demokritus: [Greek: to\ logiko\n], in the thorax: [Greek: to\ a)/logon], distributed over all the body. But in the next section (iv. 6), he departs from this statement, affirming that both Demokritus and Plato supposed [Greek: to\ ê(gemoniko\n] of the soul to be in the head.]

Cicero, De Finibus, i. 6, 21, "imagines, quæ idola nominant, quorum incursione non solum videamus, sed etiam cogitemus," &c.]

In regard to sensations, Demokritus said little about those of touch, smell, and hearing; but he entered at some length into those of sight and taste.

Proceeding upon his hypothesis of atoms and vacua as the only objective existences, he tried to show what particular modifications of atoms, in figure, size, and position, produced upon the sentient the impressions of different colours. He recognised four fundamental or simple colours--white, black, red, and green--of which all other colours were mixtures and combinations. White colour (he said) was caused by smooth surfaces, which presented straight pores and a transparent structure, such as the interior surface of shells: where these smooth substances were brittle or friable, this arose from the constituent atoms being at once spherical and loosely connected together, whereby they presented the clearest passage through their pores, the least amount of shadow, and the purest white colour. From substances thus constituted, the effluvia flowed out easily, and passed through the intermediate air without becoming entangled or confused with it. Black colour was caused by rough, irregular, unequal substances, which had their pores crooked and obstructed, casting much shadow, and sending forth slowly their effluvia, which became hampered and entangled with the intervening medium of air. Red colour arose from the effluvia of spherical atoms, like those of fire, though of larger size: the connection between red colour and fire was proved by the fact that heated substances, man as well as the metals, became red. Green was produced by atoms of large size and wide vacua, not restricted to any determinate shape, but arranged in peculiar order and position. These four were given by Demokritus as the simple colours. But he recognised an infinite diversity of compound colours, arising from mixture of them in different proportions, several of which he explained--gold-colour, purple, blue, violet, leek-green, nut-brown, &c.

Demokritus seems also to have attempted to show, that the sensation of cold and shivering was produced by the irruption of jagged and acute atoms. See Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, p. 947, 948, c. 8.]

Besides thus setting forth those varieties of atoms and atomic motions which produced corresponding varieties of colour, Demokritus also brought to view the intermediate stages whereby they realised the act of vision. All objects, compounds of the atoms, gave out effluvia or images resembling themselves. These effluvia stamped their impression, first upon the intervening air, next upon the eye beyond: which, being covered by a fine membrane, and consisting partly of water, partly of vacuum, was well calculated to admit the image. Such an image, the like of which any one might plainly see by looking into another person's eye, was the immediate cause of vision. The air, however, was no way necessary as an intervening medium, but rather obstructive: the image proceeding from the object would be more clearly impressed upon the eye through a vacuum: if the air did not exist, vision would be so distinct, even at the farthest distance, that an object not larger than an ant might be seen in the heavens. Demokritus believed that the visual image, after having been impressed upon the eye, was distributed or multiplied over the remaining body. In like manner, he believed that, in hearing, the condensed air carrying the sound entered with some violence through the ears, passed through the veins to the brain, and was from thence dispersed over the body. Both sight and hearing were thus not simply acts of the organ of sense, but concurrent operations of the entire frame: over all which (as has been already stated) the mental or vital particles were assumed to be disseminated.

Theophrastus notices this intermediate [Greek: a)potu/pôsis e)n tô=| a)e/ri] as a doctrine peculiar ([Greek: i)di/ôs]) to Demokritus: he himself proceeds to combat it (51, 52).]

Demokritus thought that air entered into the system not only through the ears, but also through pores in other parts of the body, though so gently as to be imperceptible to our consciousness: the ears afforded a large aperture, and admitted a considerable mass.]

Farther, Demokritus conceived that the diversities of taste were generated by corresponding diversities of atoms, or compounds of atoms, of particular figure, magnitude and position. Acid taste was caused by atoms rough, angular, twisted, small, and subtle, which forced their way through all the body, produced large interior vacant spaces, and thereby generated great heat: for heat was always proportional to the amount of vacuum within. Sweet taste was produced by spherical atoms of considerable bulk, which slid gently along and diffused themselves equably over the body, modifying and softening the atoms of an opposite character. Astringent taste was caused by large atoms with many angles, which got into the vessels, obstructing the movement of fluids both in the veins and intestines. Salt taste was produced by large atoms, much entangled with each other, and irregular. In like manner Demokritus assigned to other tastes particular varieties of generating atoms: adding, however, that in every actual substance, atoms of different figures were intermingled, so that the effect of each on the whole was only realised in the ratio of the preponderating figure. Lastly, the working of all atoms, in the way of taste, was greatly modified by the particular system upon which they were brought to act: effects totally opposite being sometimes produced by like atoms upon different individuals.

This essential intermixture, in each distinct substance, of atoms of all different shapes, is very analogous to the essential intermixture of all sorts of Homoeomeries in the theory of Anaxagoras.]

As sensation, so also thought or intelligence, was produced by the working of atoms from without. But in what manner the different figures and magnitudes of atoms were understood to act, in producing diverse modifications of thought, we do not find explained. It was, however, requisite that there should be a symmetry, or correspondence of condition between the thinking mind within and the inflowing atoms from without, in order that these latter might work upon a man properly: if he were too hot, or too cold, his mind went astray. Though Demokritus identified the mental or vital particles with the spherical atoms constituting heat or fire, he nevertheless seems to have held that these particles might be in excess as well as in deficiency, and that they required, as a condition of sound mind, to be diluted or attempered with others. The soundest mind, however, did not work by itself or spontaneously, but was put in action by atoms or effluvia from without: this was true of the intellectual mind, not less than of the sensational mind. There was an objective something without, corresponding to and generating every different thought--just as there was an objective something corresponding to every different sensation. But first, the object of sensation was an atomic compound having some appreciable bulk, while that of thought might be separate atoms or vacua so minute as to be invisible and intangible. Next, the object of sensation did not reveal itself as it was in its own nature, but merely produced changes in the percipient, and different changes in different percipients (except as to heavy and light, hard and soft, which were not simply modifications of our sensibility, but were also primary qualities inherent in the objects themselves): while the object of thought, though it worked a change in the thinking subject, yet also revealed itself as it was, and worked alike upon all.

This is a remarkable point to be noted in the criticisms of Theophrastus on the doctrine of Demokritus. Demokritus maintains that hot and cold are relative to us: hard and soft, heavy and light, are not only relative to us, but also absolute, objective, things in their own nature,--though causing in us sensations which are like them. Theophrastus denies this distinction altogether: and denies it with the best reason. Not many of his criticisms on Demokritus are so just and pertinent as this one.]

Hence Demokritus termed sensation, obscure knowledge--thought, genuine knowledge. It was only by thought (reason, intelligence) that the fundamental realities of nature, atoms and vacua, could be apprehended: even by thought, however, only imperfectly, since there was always more or less of subjective movements and conditions, which partially clouded the pure objective apprehension--and since the atoms themselves were in perpetual movement, as well as inseparably mingled one with another. Under such obstructions, Demokritus proclaimed that no clear or certain knowledge was attainable: that the sensible objects, which men believed to be absolute realities, were only phenomenal and relative to us,--while the atoms and vacua, the true existences or things in themselves, could scarce ever be known as they were: that truth was hidden in an abyss, and out of our reach.

Compare Cicero, Acad. Quæst. i. 13, ii. 10; Diog. Laert. ix. 72; Aristotel. Metaphys. iii. 5, p. 1009, b. 10.]

As Demokritus supposed both sensations and thoughts to be determined by effluvia from without, so he assumed a similar cause to account for beliefs, comfortable or uncomfortable dispositions, fancies, dreams, presentiments, &c. He supposed that the air contained many effluences, spectres, images, cast off from persons and substances in nature--sometimes even from outlying very distant objects which lay beyond the bounds of the Kosmos. Of these images, impregnated with the properties, bodily and mental, of the objects from whence they came, some were beneficent, others mischievous: they penetrated into the human body through the pores and spread their influence all through the system. Those thrown off by jealous and vindictive men were especially hurtful, as they inflicted suffering corresponding to the tempers of those with whom they originated. Trains of thought and feeling were thus excited in men's minds; in sleep, dreams, divinations, prophetic warnings, and threats, were communicated: sometimes, pestilence and other misfortunes were thus begun. Demokritus believed that men's happiness depended much upon the nature and character of the images which might approach them, expressing an anxious wish that he might himself meet with such as were propitious. It was from grand and terrific images of this nature, that he supposed the idea and belief of the Gods to have arisen: a supposition countenanced by the numerous tales, respecting appearances of the Gods both to dreaming and to waking men, current among the poets and in the familiar talk of Greece.

Among the lost treasures of Hellenic intellect, there are few which are more to be regretted than the works of Demokritus. Little is known of them except the titles: but these are instructive as well as multifarious. The number of different subjects which they embrace is astonishing. Besides his atomic theory, and its application to cosmogony and physics, whereby he is chiefly known, and from whence his title of physicus was derived--we find mention of works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, optics, geography or geology, zoology, botany, medicine, music, and poetry, grammar, history, ethics, &c. In such universality he is the predecessor, perhaps the model, of Aristotle. It is not likely that this wide range of subjects should have been handled in a spirit of empty generality, without facts or particulars: for we know that his life was long, his curiosity insatiable, and his personal travel and observation greater than that of any contemporary. We know too that he entered more or less upon the field of dialectics, discussing those questions of evidence which became so rife in the Platonic age. He criticised, and is said to have combated, the doctrine laid down by Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things". It would have been interesting to know from what point of view he approached it: but we learn only the fact that he criticised it adversely. The numerous treatises of Demokritus, together with the proportion of them which relate to ethical and social subjects, rank him with the philosophers of the Platonic and Aristotelian age. His Summum Bonum, as far as we can make out, appears to have been the maintenance of mental serenity and contentment: in which view he recommended a life of tranquil contemplation, apart from money-making, or ambition, or the exciting pleasures of life.

Among the Demokritean treatises, was one entitled Pythagoras, which contained probably a comment on the life and doctrines of that eminent man, written in an admiring spirit. (Diog. Laert. ix. 38.)]