· 11

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

(148)

... Earth that envelops the man.

​106. Empedokles and Parmenides.At the very outset of his poem, Empedocles speaks angrily of those who professed to have found the whole (fr. 2); he even calls this "madness" (fr. 4). No doubt he is thinking of Parmenides. His own position is not, however, sceptical. He only deprecates the attempt to construct a theory of the universe off-hand instead of trying to understand each thing we come across "in the way in which it is clear" (fr. 4). And this means that we must not, like Parmenides, reject the assistance of the senses. We soon discover, however, that Empedokles too sets up a system which is to explain everything, though that system is no longer a monistic one.

It is often said that this system was an attempt to mediate between Parmenides and Herakleitos. It is not easy, however, to find any trace of Herakleitean doctrine in it, and it would be truer to say that it aimed at mediating between Eleaticism and the senses. Empedokles repeats, almost in the same words, the Eleatic argument for the sole reality and indestructibility of "what is" (frs. 11–15); and his idea of the "Sphere" seems to be derived from the Parmenidean description of reality.[75] Parmenides had held that what underlies the illusory world of the senses was a corporeal, spherical, continuous, eternal, and immovable plenum, and it is from this Empedokles starts. Given the sphere of Parmenides, he seems to have said, how are we to get from it to the world we know? How are we to introduce motion into the immovable plenum? Now Parmenides need not have denied the possibility of motion within the Sphere, though he was bound to deny all motion of the Sphere itself; but such an admission would not have served to explain anything. If any part of the Sphere were to move, the room of the displaced body must at once be taken by other body, for there is no empty space. This, however, would be of precisely the same kind as the body it had displaced; for all "that is" is one. The result of ​the motion would be precisely the same as that of rest; it could account for no change. But is this assumption of perfect homogeneity in the Sphere really necessary? Evidently not; it is simply the old unreasoned feeling that existence must be one. Nevertheless, we cannot regard the numberless forms of being the senses present us with as ultimate realities. They have no φύσις of their own, and are always passing away (fr. 8), so the only solution is to assume a limited number of ultimate forms of reality. We may then apply all that Parmenides says of What is to each one of these, and the transitory forms of existence we know may be explained by their mingling and separation. The conception of "elements" (στοιχεῖα), to use a later term,[76] was found, and the required formula follows at once. So far as concerns particular things, it is true, as our senses tell us, that they come into being and pass away; but, if we have regard to the ultimate elements of which they are composed, we shall say with Parmenides that "what is" is uncreated and indestructible (fr. 27). The elements are immortal, just as the single φύσις of the Milesians was "ageless and deathless."

107.The "four roots". The "four roots" of all things (fr. 6) which Empedokles assumed—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water—seem to have been arrived at by making each of the traditional "opposites"—hot and cold, wet and dry—into a thing which is real in the full Parmenidean sense of the word. It is to be noticed, however, that he does not call Air ἀήρ but αἰθήρ,[77] and this must be because he wished to avoid ​confusion with what had hitherto been meant by the former word. He had, in fact, made the discovery that atmospheric air is a distinct corporeal substance, and is not to be identified with empty space on the one hand or rarefied mist on the other. Water is not liquid air, but something quite different.[78] This truth Empedokles demonstrated by means of the klepsydya, and we still possess the verses in which he applied his discovery to the explanation of respiration and the motion of the blood (fr. 100). Aristotle laughs at those who try to show there is no empty space by shutting up air in water-clocks and torturing wineskins. They only prove, he says, that air is a thing.[79] That, however, is exactly what Empedokles intended to prove, and it was one of the most important discoveries in the history of science. It will be convenient for us to translate the αἰθήρ Empedokles by "air"; but we must be careful in that case not to render the word ἀήρ in the same way. Anaxagoras seems to have been the first to use it of atmospheric air.

Empedokles also called the "four roots" by the names of certain divinities—"shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis" (fr. 6)—though there is some doubt as to how these names are to be apportioned among the elements. Nestis is said to have been a Sicilian water-goddess, and the description of her shows that she stands for Water; but there is a conflict of opinion as to the other three. This, however, need not detain us.[80] We are ​already prepared to find that Empedokles called the elements gods; for all the early thinkers had spoken in this way of whatever they regarded as the primary substance. We must only remember that the word is not used in its religious sense. Empedokles did not pray or sacrifice to the elements.

Empedokles regarded the "roots of all things" as eternal. Nothing can come from nothing or pass away into nothing (fr. 12); what is is, and there is no room for coming into being and passing away (fr. 8). Further, Aristotle tells us, he taught that they were unchangeable.[81] This Empedokles expressed by saying that "they are always alike." Again, the four elements are all "equal," a statement which seemed strange to Aristotle,[82] but was quite intelligible in the days of Empedokles. Above all, the four elements are ultimate. All other bodies might be divided till you came to the elements; but Empedokles could give no further account of these without saying (as he did not) that there is an element of which Fire and the rest are in turn composed.[83]

​The "four roots" are given as an exhaustive enumeration of the elements (fr. 23 sub fin.); for they account for all the qualities presented by the world to the senses. When we find, as we do, that the school of medicine which regarded Empedokles as its founder identified the four elements with the "opposites," the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, which formed the theoretical foundation of its system,[84] we see at once how the theory is related to previous views of reality. We must remember that the conception of quality had not yet been formed. Anaximander had no doubt regarded his "opposites" as things; though, before the time of Parmenides, no one had fully realised how much was implied in saying that anything is a thing. That is the stage we have now reached. There is still no conception of quality, but there is a clear apprehension of what is involved in saying a thing is.

Aristotle twice[85] makes the statement that, though Empedokles assumes four elements, he treats them as two, opposing Fire to all the rest. This, he says, we can see for ourselves from his poem. So far as the general theory goes, it is impossible to see anything of the sort; but, when we come to the origin of the world (§ 112), we shall find that Fire plays a leading part, and this may be what Aristotle meant. It is also true that in the biology (§§ 114–116) Fire fulfils a unique function, while the other three act more or less in the same way. But we must remember that it has no pre-eminence over the rest: all are equal.

108.Strife and Love. The Eleatic criticism had made it necessary to explain motion.[86] Empedokles starts, we have seen, from an original state of the "four roots," which only differs from the Sphere of Parmenides in so far as it is a mixture, not a homogeneous and continuous mass. It is this that makes change and motion possible; but, were there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter in, like the Pythagorean "Air," ​to separate the elements, nothing could ever arise from it. Empedokles accordingly assumed the existence of such a substance, and he gave it the name of Strife. But the effect of this would be to separate all the elements in the Sphere completely, and then nothing more could possibly happen; something else was needed to bring the elements together again. This Empedokles found in Love, which he regarded as the same impulse to union that is implanted in human bodies (fr. 17, 22 sqq.). He looks at it, in fact, from a physiological point of view, as was natural for the founder of a medical school. No mortal had yet marked, he says, that the very same Love men know in their bodies had a place among the elements.

The Love and Strife of Empedokies are no incorporeal forces. They are active, indeed, but they are still corporeal. At the time, this was inevitable; nothing incorporeal had yet been dreamt of. Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of what he regarded as efficient causes. "The Love of Empedokles," he says,[87] "is both an efficient cause, for it brings things together, and a material cause, for it is apart of the mixture." And Theophrastos expressed the same idea by saying[88] that Empedokles sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife, and sometimes put them on a level with the other four. The fragments leave no room for doubt that they were thought of as spatial and corporeal. All the six are called "equal." Love is said to be "equal in length and breadth" to the others, and Strife is described as equal to each of them in weight (fr.17).

The function of Love is to produce union; that of Strife, to break it up again. Aristotle, however, rightly points out that in another sense it is Love that divides and Strife that unites. When the Sphere is broken up by Strife, the result is that all the Fire, for instance, which was contained in it comes together and becomes one; and again, when the ​elements are brought together once more by Love, the mass of each is divided. In another place, he says that, while Strife is assumed as the cause of destruction, and does, in fact, destroy the Sphere, it really gives birth to everything else in so doing.[89] It follows that we must carefully distinguish between the Love of Empedokles and that "attraction of like for like" to which he also attributed an important part in the formation of the world. The latter is not an element distinct from the others; it depends on the proper nature of each element, and is only able to take effect when Strife divides the Sphere. Love, on the contrary, produces an attraction of unlikes.

109.Mixture and separation. But, when Strife has separated the elements, what determines the direction of their motion? Empedokles seems to have given no further explanation than that each was "running" in a certain direction (fr. 53)., Plato severely condemns this in the Laws,[90] on the ground that no room is thus left for design. Aristotle also blames him for giving no account of the Chance to which he ascribed so much importance. Nor is the Necessity, of which he also spoke, further explained.[91] Strife enters into the Sphere at a certain time in virtue of Necessity, or "the mighty oath" (fr. 30); but we are told no more about that.

The expression used by Empedokles to describe the movement of the elements is that they "run through each other" (fr. 17, 34.). Aristotle tells us[92] that he explained mixture in general by "the symmetry of pores." And this is the true explanation of the "attraction of like for like." The "pores" of like bodies are, of course, much the same size, and these bodies can therefore mingle easily. On the other hand, a finer body will "run through" a coarse one without becoming mixed, and a coarse body will not be ​able to enter the pores of a finer one at all. As Aristotle says, this really implies something like the atomic theory; but there is no evidence that Empedokles himself was conscious of that. Another question raised by Aristotle is even more instructive. Are the pores, he asks, empty or full? If empty, what becomes of the denial of the void? If full, why need we assume pores at all?[93] These questions Empedokles would have found it hard to answer.

110.The four periods. It will be clear from what has been said that we must distinguish four periods in the cycle. First we have the Sphere, in which all the elements are mixed together by Love. Secondly, there is the period when Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when, therefore, the elements are partially separated and partially combined. Thirdly comes the complete separation of the elements, when Love is outside the world, and Strife has given free play to the attraction of like for like. Lastly, we have the period when Love is bringing the elements together again, and Strife is passing out. This brings us back to the Sphere, and the cycle begins afresh. Now a world such as ours can exist only in the second and fourth of these periods. It seems to be generally supposed that we are in the fourth period;[94] I hope to show that we are in the second, that when Strife is gaining the upper hand.

111.Our world the work of Strife. That a world of perishable things (θνητά) arises both in the second and fourth period is distinctly stated by Empedokles (fr. 17), and it is inconceivable that he had not made up his mind which of these worlds is ours. Aristotle is clearly of opinion that in our world Strife is increasing. In one place, he says that Empedokles "holds that the world is in a similar condition now in the period of Strife ​as formerly in that of Love."[95] In another, he tells us that Empedokles omits the generation of things in the period of Love, just because it is unnatural to represent this world, in which the elements are separate, as arising from things in a state of separation.[96] This remark can only mean that Empedokles assumed the increase of Strife, or, in other words, that he represented the course of evolution as the disintegration of the Sphere, not as the coming together of things from a state of separation.[97] That is what we should expect, if we are right in supposing that the problem he set himself to solve was the origin of this world from the Sphere of Parmenides, and it is also in harmony with the tendency of such speculations to represent the world as getting worse rather than better. We have only to consider, then, whether the details of the system bear out this general view.

112.Formation of the world by Strife. To begin with the Sphere, in which the "four roots of all things" are mixed together, we note that it is called a god in the fragments just as the elements are, and that Aristotle more than once refers to it in the same way.[98] we ​must remember that Love itself is a part of this mixture,[99] while Strife surrounds or encompasses it on every side just as the Boundless encompasses the world in earlier systems. Strife, however, is not boundless, but equal in bulk to each of the four roots and to Love.

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

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

Empedokles held that the Air when separated off from the original mixture of the elements was spread round in a circle. After the Air, Fire running outwards, and not finding any other place, ran up under the solid that surrounded the Air.[100] There were two hemispheres, revolving round the earth, the one altogether composed of fire, the other of a mixture of air and a little fire. The latter he supposed to be the Night. The origin of their motion he derived from the fact of fire preponderating in one hemisphere owing to its accumulation there. Ps.-Plut. Strom. fr. 10 (Dox. p. 582; R. P. 170 a).

​The first of the elements to be separated out by Strife then, was Air, which took the outermost position surrounding the world (cf. fr. 38). We must not, however, take the statement that it surrounded the world "in a circle" too strictly. It appears that Empedokles regarded the heavens as shaped like an egg.[101] Here, probably, we have a trace of Orphic ideas. At any rate, the outer circle of the Air became solidified or frozen, and we thus get a crystalline vault as the boundary of the world. We note that it was Fire which solidified the Air and turned it to ice. Fire in general had a solidifying power.[102]

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

The accumulation of Fire in the upper hemisphere disturbs the equilibrium of the heavens and causes them to revolve; and this revolution not only produces the alternation of day and night, but by its rapidity keeps the heavens and the earth in their places. This was illustrated, Aristotle tells us, by the simile of a cup of water whirled round at the end of a string.[103] This experimental illustration is much in the manner of Empedokles. It has nothing to do with "centrifugal force," but is intended to show that rapid motion may counteract a tendency to fall.

113.The sun, moon, stars, and earth. It will be observed that day and night have been explained without reference to the sun. Day is the light ​of the fiery diurnal hemisphere, while night is the shadow thrown by the earth when the fiery hemisphere is on the other side of it (fr. 48). What, then, is the sun? The Plutarchean Stromateis[104] again give us the answer: "The sun is not fire in substance, but a reflexion of fire like that which comes from water." Plutarch himself makes one of his personages say: "You laugh at Empedokles for saying that the sun is a product of the earth, arising from the reflexion of the light of heaven, and once more 'flashes back to Olympos with untroubled countenance.'"[105] Aetios says:[106] "Empedokles held that there were two suns: one, the archetype, the fire in one hemisphere of the world, filling the whole hemisphere always stationed opposite its own reflexion; the other, the visible sun, its reflexion in the other hemisphere, that which is filled with air mingled with fire, produced by the reflexion of the earth, which is round, on the crystalline sun, and carried round by the motion of the fiery hemisphere. Or, to sum it up shortly, the sun is a reflexion of the terrestrial fire."

These passages, and especially the last, are by no means clear.[107] The reflexion we call the sun cannot be in the hemisphere opposite the fiery one; for that is the nocturnal hemisphere. We must say rather that the light of the fiery hemisphere is reflected by the earth on to the fiery hemisphere itself in one concentrated flash. It follows that the appearance which we call the sun is the same size as the earth. We may perhaps explain the origin of this view as follows. ​It had just been discovered that the moon shone by reflected light, and there is always a tendency to give any novel theory a wider application than it really admits of. In the early part of the fifth century B.C., men saw reflected light everywhere; some of the Pythagoreans held a similar view (§ 150).

It was probably in this connexion that Empedokles announced that light takes some time to travel, though its speed is so great as to escape our perception.[108]

"The moon was composed of air cut off by the fire; it was frozen just like hail, and had its light from the sun." It is, in other words, a disc of frozen air, of the same substance as the solid sky which surrounds the heavens. Diogenes says that Empedokles taught it was smaller than the sun, and Aetios tells us it was only half as distant from the earth.[109]

Empedokles did not explain the fixed stars by reflected light, nor even the planets. They were made out of the fire which the air carried with it when forced beneath the earth by the upward rush of fire at the first separation. The fixed stars were attached to the frozen air; the planets moved freely.[110]

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