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, [224]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;⁠[84] 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, [225]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 [226]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: [227]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.

Aet. Plac. v. 7; 419. Empedokles: Male or female are born according to warmth and coldness; whence he records that the first males were born to the east and south from the earth, and the females to the north. v. 8; 420. Empedokles: Monstrosities are due to too much or [228]too little seed (semen), or to disturbance of motion, or to division into several parts, or to a bending aside. v. 10; 421. Empedokles: Twins and triplets are due to excess of seed and division of it. v. 11; 422. Empedokles: Likenesses (of children to parents) are due to power of the fruitful seed, and differences occur when the warmth in the seed is dissipated.⁠[85] v. 12; 423. Empedokles: Offspring are formed according to the fancy of the woman at the time of conception; for oftentimes women fall in love with images and statues, and bring forth offspring like these. v. 14; 425. Empedokles: (Mules are not fertile) because the womb is small and low and narrow, and attached to the belly in a reverse manner, so that the seed does not go into it straight, nor would it receive the seed even if it should reach it. v. 15; 425. Empedokles: The embryo is [not] alive, but exists without breathing in the belly; and the first breath of the animal takes place at birth, when the moisture in infants gives way, and when the airy matter from without comes to the void, to enter into the openings of the lungs. v. 19; 430. Empedokles: The first generations of animals and plants were never complete, but were yoked with incongruous parts; and the second were forms of parts that belong together; and the third, of parts grown into one whole; and the fourth were no longer from like parts, as for instance from earth and water, but from elements already permeating each other; for some the food being condensed, for others the fairness of the females causing an excitement of the motion of the seed. And the classes of all the animals were separated on account of such mixings; those more adapted to the water rushed into this, others sailed up into the air as many as had the more of fiery matter, and the heavier remained on the earth, and equal portions in the mixture spoke in [229]the breasts of all. v. 22; 434. Empedokles: Flesh is the product of equal parts of the four elements mixed together, and sinews of double portions of fire and earth mixed together, and the claws of animals are the product of sinews chilled by contact with the air, and bones of two equal parts of water and of earth and four parts of fire mingled together. And sweat and tears come from blood as it wastes away, and flows out because it has become rarefied. v. 24; 435. Empedokles: Sleep is a moderate cooling of the warmth in the blood, death a complete cooling. v. 25; 437. Empedokles: Death is a separation of the fiery matter out of the mixture of which the man is composed; so that from this standpoint death of the body and of the soul happens together; and sleep is a separating of the fiery matter. v. 26; 438. Empedokles: Trees first of living beings sprang from the earth, before the sun was unfolded in the heavens and before day and night were separated; and by reason of the symmetry of their mixture they contain the principle of male and female; and they grow, being raised by the warmth that is in the earth, so that they are parts of the earth, just as the fœtus in the belly is part of the womb; and the fruits are secretions of the water and fire in the plants; and those which lack (sufficient) moisture shed their leaves in summer when it is evaporated, but those which have more moisture keep their leaves, as in the case of the laurel and the olive and the date-palm; and differences in their juices are (due to) variations in the number of their component parts, and the differences in plants arise because they derive their homoeomeries from (the earth which) nourishes them, as in the case of grape-vines; for it is not the kind of vine which makes wine good, but the kind of soil which nurtures it. v. 26; 440. Empedokles: Animals are nurtured by the substance of what is akin to them [moisture], and [230]they grow with the presence of warmth, and grow smaller and die when either of these is absent; and men of the present time, as compared with the first living beings, have been reduced to the size of infants (?). v. 28; 440. Empedokles: Desires arise in animals from a lack of the elements that would render each one complete, and pleasures....

Theophr. Phys. opin. 3; Dox. 478. Empedokles of Agrigentum makes the material elements four: fire and air and water and earth, all of them eternal, and changing in amount and smallness by composition and separation; and the absolute first principles by which these four are set in motion, are Love and Strife; for the elements must continue to be moved in turn, at one time being brought together by Love and at another separated by Strife; so that in his view there are six first principles; for sometimes he gives the active power to Love and Strife, when he says (vv. 67-68): ‘Now being all united by Love into one, now each borne apart by hatred engendered of Strife;’ and again he ranks these as elements along with the four when he says (vv. 77-80): ‘And at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one; fire and water and earth and boundless height of air, and baneful Strife apart from these, balancing each of them, and Love among them, their equal in length and breadth.’

Fr. 23; Dox. 495. Some say that the sea is as it were a sort of sweat from the earth; for when the earth is warmed by the sun it gives forth moisture; accordingly it is salt, for sweat is salt. Such was the opinion of Empedokles.

Theophr. de sens. 7; Dox. 500. Empedokles speaks in like manner concerning all the senses, and says that we perceive by a fitting into the pores of each sense. So they [231]are not able to discern one another’s objects, for the pores of some are too wide and of others too narrow for the object of sensation, so that some things go right through untouched, and others are unable to enter completely. And he attempts to describe what vision is; and he says that what is in the eye is fire and water, and what surrounds it is earth and air, through which light being fine enters, as the light in lanterns. Pores of fire and water are set alternately, and the fire-pores recognise white objects, the water-pores black objects; for the colours harmonise with the pores. And the colours move into vision by means of effluences. And they are not composed alike... and some of opposite elements; for some the fire is within and for others it is on the outside, so some animals see better in the daytime and others at night; those that have less fire see better by day, for the light inside them is balanced by the light outside them; and those that have less water see better at night, for what is lacking is made up for them. And in the opposite case the contrary is true; for those that have the more fire are dim-sighted, since the fire increasing plasters up and covers the pores of water in the daytime; and for those that have water in excess, the same thing happens at night; for the fire is covered up by the water.... Until in the case of some the water is separated by the outside light, and in the case of others the fire by the air; for the cure of each is its opposite. That which is composed of both in equal parts is the best tempered and most excellent vision. This, approximately, is what he says concerning vision. And hearing is the result of noises coming from outside. For when (the air) is set in motion by a sound, there is an echo within; for the hearing is as it were a bell echoing within, and the ear he calls an ‘offshoot of flesh’ (v. 315): and the air when it is set [232]in motion strikes on something hard and makes an echo.⁠[86] And smell is connected with breathing, so those have the keenest smell whose breath moves most quickly; and the strongest odour arises as an effluence from fine and light bodies. But he makes no careful discrimination with reference to taste and touch separately, either how or by what means they take place, except the general statement that sensation takes place by a fitting into the pores; and pleasure is due to likenesses in the elements and in their mixture, and pain to the opposite. And he speaks similarly concerning thought and ignorance: Thinking is by what is like, and not perceiving is by what is unlike, since thought is the same thing as, or something like, sensation. For recounting how we recognise each thing by each, he said at length (vv. 336-337): Now out of these (elements) all things are fitted together and their form is fixed, and by these men think and feel pleasure and pain. So it is by blood especially that we think; for in this especially are mingled <all> the elements of things. And those in whom equal and like parts have been mixed, not too far apart, nor yet small parts, nor exceeding great, these have the most intelligence and the most accurate senses; and those who approximate to this come next; and those who have the opposite qualities are the most lacking in intelligence. And those in whom the elements are scattered and rarefied, are torpid and easily fatigued; and those in whom the elements are small and thrown close together, move so rapidly and meet with so many things that they accomplish but little by reason of the swiftness of the motion of the blood. And those in whom there is a well-tempered mixture in some one part, are wise at this point; so some are good orators, others good artisans, according as the mixture is in the [233]hands or in the tongue; and the same is true of the other powers.

Theophr. de sens. 59; Dox. 516. And Empedokles says of colours that white is due to fire, and black to water.

Cic. De nat. deor. xii.; Dox. 535. Empedokles, along with many other mistakes, makes his worst error in his conception of the gods. For the four beings of which he holds that all things consist, he considers divine; but it is clear that these are born and die and are devoid of all sense.

Hipp. Phil. 3; Dox. 558. And Empedokles, who lived later, said much concerning the nature of the divinities, how they live in great numbers beneath the earth and manage things there. He said that Love and Strife were the first principle of the all, and that the intelligent fire of the monad is god, and that all things are formed from fire and are resolved into fire; and the Stoics agree closely with his teaching, in that they expect a general conflagration. And he believed most fully in transmigration, for he said: ‘For in truth I was born a boy and a maiden, and a plant and a bird, and a fish whose course lies in the sea.’ He said that all souls went at death into all sorts of animals.

Hipp. Phil. 4; Dox. 559. See Herakleitos, p. 64.

Plut. Strom. 10; Dox. 582. Empedokles of Agrigentum: The elements are four—fire, water, aether, earth. And the cause of these is Love and Strife. From the first mixture of the elements he says that the air was separated and poured around in a circle; and after the air the fire ran off, and not having any other place to go to, it ran up from under the ice that was around the air. And there are two hemispheres moving in a circle around the earth, the one of pure fire, the other of air and a little fire mixed, which he thinks is night. And motion [234]began as a result of the weight of the fire when it was collected. And the sun is not fire in its nature, but a reflection of fire, like that which takes place in water. And he says the moon consists of air that has been shut up by fire, for this becomes solid like hail; and its light it gets from the sun. The ruling part is not in the head or in the breast, but in the blood; wherefore in whatever part of the body the more of this is spread, in that part men excel.

Epiph. adv. Haer. iii. 19; Dox. 591. Empedokles of Agrigentum, son of Meton, regarded fire and earth and water and air as the four first elements, and he said that enmity is the first of the elements. For, he says, they were separated at first, but now they are united into one, becoming loved by each other. So in his view the first principles and powers are two, Enmity and Love, of which the one tends to bring things together and the other to separate them.

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