Part 55

De respir. 477 a 32. Empedokles was incorrect in saying that the warmest animals having the most fire were aquatic, avoiding the excess of warmth in their nature, in order that since there was a lack of cold and wet in them, they might be preserved by their position.

Pneumat. 482 a 29. With reference to breathing some do not say what it is for, but only describe the manner in which it takes place, as Empedokles and Demokritos.

484 a 38. Empedokles says that fingernails arise from sinew by hardening.

Part. anim. i. 1; 640 a 19. So Empedokles was wrong in saying that many characteristics appear in animals because it happened to be thus in their birth, as that they have such a spine because they happen to be descended from one that bent itself back....

i. 1; 642 a 18. And from time to time Empedokles chances on this, guided by the truth itself, and is compelled to say that being and nature are reason, just as when he is declaring what a bone is; for he does not say it is one of the elements, nor two or three, nor all of them, but it is the reason of the mixture of these.

De Plant. i.; 815 a 16. Anaxagoras and Empedokles say that plants are moved by desire, and assert that they have perception and feel pleasure and pain.... Empedokles thought that sex had been mixed in them. (Note 817 a 1, 10, and 36.)

i.; 815 b 12. Empedokles et al. said that plants have intelligence and knowledge.

i.; 817 b 35. Empedokles said again that plants have their birth in an inferior world which is not perfect in its fulfilment, and that when it is fulfilled an animal is generated.

i. 3; 984 a 8. Empedokles assumes four elements, adding earth as a fourth to those that have been mentioned; for these always abide and do not come into being, but in greatness and smallness they are compounded and separated out of one and into one.

i. 3; 984 b 32. And since the opposite to the good appeared to exist in nature, and not only order and beauty but also disorder and ugliness, and the bad appeared to be more than the good and the ugly more than the beautiful, so some one else introduced Love and Strife, each the cause of one of these. For if one were to follow and make the assumption in accordance with reason and not in accordance with what Empedokles foolishly says, he will find Love to be the cause of what is good, and Strife of what is bad; so that if one were to say that Empedokles spoke after a certain manner and was the first to call the bad and the good first principles, perhaps he would speak rightly, if the good itself were the cause of all good things, and the bad of all bad things.

Met. i. 4; 915 a 21. And Empedokles makes more use of causes than Anaxagoras, but not indeed sufficiently; nor does he find in them what has been agreed upon. At any rate love for him is often a separating cause and strife a uniting cause. For whenever the all is separated into the elements by strife, fire and each of the other elements are collected into one; and again, whenever they all are brought together into one by love, parts are necessarily separated again from each thing. Empedokles moreover differed from those who went before, in that he discriminated this cause and introduced it, not making the cause of motion one, but different and opposite. Further, he first described the four elements spoken of as in the form of matter; but he did not use them as four but only as two, fire by itself, and the rest opposed to fire as being one in nature, earth and air and water.

i. 8; 989 a 20. And the same thing is true if one asserts that these are more numerous than one, as Empedokles says that matter is four substances. For it is necessary that the same peculiar results should hold good with reference to him. For we see the elements arising from each other inasmuch as fire and earth do not continue the same substance (for so it is said of them in the verses on nature); and with reference to the cause of their motion, whether it is necessary to assume one or two, we must think that he certainly did not speak either in a correct or praiseworthy manner.

i. 9; 993 a 15. For the first philosophy seems to speak inarticulately in regard to all things, as though it were childish in its causes and first principle, when even Empedokles says that a bone exists by reason, that is, that it was what it was and what the essence of the matter was.

Meta. ii. 4; 1000 a 25. And Empedokles who, one might think, spoke most consistently, even he had the same experience, for he asserts that a certain first principle, Strife, is the cause of destruction; but one might think none the less that even this causes generation out of the unity; for all other things are from this as their source, except god.

Meta. ii. 4; 1000 a 32. And apart from these verses (vv. 104-107) it would be evident, for if strife were not existing in things, all would be one, as he says; for when they come together, strife comes to a stand last of all. Wherefore it results that for him the most blessed God has less intelligence than other beings; for he does not know all the elements; for he does not have strife, and knowledge of the like is by the like.

Meta. ii. 4; 1000 b 16. He does not make clear any cause of necessity. But, nevertheless, he says thus much alone consistently, for he does not make some beings perishable and others imperishable, but he makes all perishable except the elements. And the problem now under discussion is why some things exist and others do not, if they are from the same (elements).

Meta. xi. 10; 1075 b 2. And Empedokles speaks in a manner, for he makes friendship the good. And this is the first principle, both as the moving cause, for it brings things together; and as matter, for it is part of the mixture.

Ethic. vii. 5; 1147 b 12. He has the power to speak but not to understand, as a drunken man repeating verses of Empedokles.

Ethic. viii. 2; 1155 b 7. Others, including Empedokles, say the opposite, that the like seeks the like.

Moral. ii. 11; 1208 b 11. And he says that when a dog was accustomed always to sleep on the same tile, Empedokles was asked why the dog always sleeps on the same tile, and he answered that the dog had some likeness to the tile, so that the likeness is the reason for its frequenting it.

Poet. 1; 1447 b 16. Homer and Empedokles have nothing in common but the metre, so that the former should be called a poet, the latter should rather be called a student of nature.

Fr. 65; Diog. Laer. viii. 57. Aristotle, in the Sophist, says that Empedokles first discovered rhetoric and Zeon dialectic.

Fr. 66; Diog. Laer. viii. 63. Aristotle says that (Empedokles) became free and estranged from every form of rule, if indeed he refused the royal power that was granted to him, as Xanthos says in his account of him, evidently much preferring his simplicity.

PASSAGES IN DIELS’ ‘DOXOGRAPHI GRAECI’ RELATING TO EMPEDOKLES.

Aet. Plac. i. 3; Dox. 287. Empedokles of Akragas, son of Meton, says that there are four elements, fire, air, water, earth; and two dynamic first principles, love and strife; one of these tends to unite, the other to separate. And he speaks as follows:—Hear first the four roots of all things, bright Zeus and life-bearing Hera and Aidoneus, and Nestis, who moistens the springs of men with her tears. Now by Zeus he means the seething and the aether, by life-bearing Hera the moist air, and by Aidoneus the earth; and by Nestis, spring of men, he means as it were moist seed and water. i. 4; 291. Empedokles: The universe is one; not however that the universe is the all, but some little part of the all, and the rest is matter. i. 7; 303. And he holds that the one is necessity, and that its matter consists of the four elements, and its forms are strife and love. And he calls the elements gods, and the mixture of these the universe. And its uniformity will be resolved into them; and he thinks souls are divine, and that pure men who in a pure way have a share of them (the elements) are divine. i. 13; 312. Empedokles: Back of the four elements there are smallest particles, as it were elements before elements, homoeomeries (that is, rounded bits). i. 15; 313. Empedokles declared that colour is the harmonious agreement of vision with the pores. And there are four equivalents of the elements—white, black, red, yellow. i. 16; 315. Empedokles (and Xenokrates): The elements are composed of very small masses which are the most minute possible, and as it were elements of elements. i. 24; 320. Empedokles et al. and all who make the universe by putting together bodies of small parts, introduce combinations and separations, but not genesis and destruction absolutely; for these changes take place not in respect to quality by transformation, but in respect to quantity by putting together. i. 26; 321. Empedokles: The essence of necessity is the effective cause of the first principles and of the elements.

Aet. Plac. ii. 1; Dox. 328. Empedokles: The course of the sun is the outline of the limit of the universe. ii. 4; 331. Empedokles: The universe <arises and> perishes according to the alternating rule of Love and Strife. ii. 6; 334. Empedokles: The aether was first separated, and secondly fire, and then earth, from which, as it was compressed tightly by the force of its rotation, water gushed forth; and from this the air arose as vapour, and the heavens arose from the aether, the sun from the fire, and bodies on the earth were compressed out of the others. ii. 7; 336. Empedokles: Things are not in fixed position throughout the all, nor yet are the places of the elements defined, but all things partake of one another. ii. 8; 338. Empedokles: When the air gives way at the rapid motion of the sun, the north pole is bent so that the regions of the north are elevated and the regions of the south depressed in respect to the whole universe. ii. 10; 339. Empedokles: The right side is toward the summer solstice, and the left toward the winter solstice. ii. 11; 339. Empedokles: The heaven is solidified from air that is fixed in crystalline form by fire, and embraces what partakes of the nature of fire and of the nature of air in each of the hemispheres. ii. 13; 341. Empedokles: The stars are fiery bodies formed of fiery matter, which the air embracing in itself pressed forth at the first separation. 342. The fixed stars are bound up with the crystalline (vault), but the planets are set free. ii. 20; 350. Empedokles: There are two suns; the one is the archetype, fire in the one hemisphere of the universe, which has filled that hemisphere, always set facing the brightness which corresponds to itself; the other is the sun that appears, the corresponding brightness in the other hemisphere that has been filled with air mixed with heat, becoming the crystalline sun by reflection from the rounded earth, and dragged along with the motion of the fiery hemisphere; to speak briefly, the sun is the brightness corresponding to the fire that surrounds the earth. ii. 21; 351. The sun which faces the opposite brightness, is of the same size as the earth. ii. 23; 353. Empedokles: The solstices are due to the fact that the sun is hindered from moving always in a straight line by the sphere enclosing it, and by the tropic circles. ii. 24; 354. The sun is eclipsed when the moon passes before it. ii. 25; 357. Empedokles: The moon is air rolled together, cloudlike, its fixed form due to fire, so that it is a mixture. ii. 27; 358. The moon has the form of a disk. ii. 28; 358. The moon has its light from the sun. ii. 31; 362. Empedokles: The moon is twice as far from the sun as it is from the earth (?) 363. The distance across the heavens is greater than the height from earth to heaven, which is the distance of the moon from us; according to this the heaven is more spread out, because the universe is disposed in the shape of an egg.

Aet. Plac. iii. 3; Dox. 368. Empedokles: (Thunder and lightning are) the impact of light on a cloud so that the light thrusts out the air which hinders it; the extinguishing of the light and the breaking up of the cloud produces a crash, and the kindling of it produces lightning, and the thunderbolt is the sound of the lightning. iii. 8; 375. Empedokles and the Stoics: Winter comes when the air is master, being forced up by condensation; and summer when fire is master, when it is forced downwards. iii. 16; 381. The sea is the sweat of the earth, brought out by the heat of the sun on account of increased pressure.

Aet. Plac. iv. 3; Theod. v. 18; Dox. 389. Empedokles: The soul is a mixture of what is air and aether in essence. iv. 5; 392. Empedokles et al.: Mind and soul are the same, so that in their opinion no animal would be absolutely devoid of reason. Theod. v. 23; 392. Empedokles et al.: The soul is imperishable. Aet. iv. 9; 396. Empedokles et al.: Sensations are deceptive. 397. Sensations arise part by part according to the symmetry of the pores, each particular object of sense being adapted to some sense (organ). iv. 13; 403. Empedokles: Vision receives impressions both by means of rays and by means of images. But more by the second method; for it receives effluences. iv. 14; 405. (Reflections from mirrors) take place by means of effluences that arise on the surface of the mirror, and they are completed by means of the fiery matter that is separated from the mirror, and that bears along the air which lies before them into which the streams flow. iv. 6; 406. Empedokles: Hearing takes place by the impact of wind on the cartilage of the ear, which, he says, is hung up inside the ear so as to swing and be struck after the manner of a bell. iv. 17; 407. Empedokles: Smell is introduced with breathings of the lungs; whenever the breathing becomes heavy, it does not join in the perception on account of roughness, as in the case of those who suffer from a flux. iv. 22; 411. Empedokles: The first breath of the animal takes place when the moisture in infants gives way, and the outside air comes to the void to enter the opening of the lungs at the side; and after this the implanted warmth at the onset from without presses out from below the airy matter, the breathing out; and at the corresponding return into the outer air it occasions a corresponding entering of the air, the breathing in. And that which now controls the blood as it goes to the surface and as it presses out the airy matter through the nostrils by its own currents on its outward passage, becomes the breathing out; and when the air runs back and enters into the fine openings that are scattered through the blood, it is the breathing in. And he mentions the instance of the clepsydra.