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1rocessi- rende Einheit). It is the unity of opposites, the idea of ^ becoming, the divine law, the yviofirj of the determining God (Id. Vol. 1, p. 24). Fire, strife, peace, time, neces- sity, harmony, the way up and down, the flux, justice, fate. Logos, are all different terms for this one idea (Id. Vol. 1, p. 57). Hence arises Heraclitus' obscurity. It is not a mere grammatical obscurity, as Schleier- macher, following Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 5, p. 1407, b. 14) thought; nor is it a willful obscurity, but it arises from the very nature of his great thought, which could not be enunciated in exact terms, but could only be suggested by such words as fire, time, etc., and so he labored on with one new symbol after another, vainly trying to express himself. The Heraclitic fire is a " metaphysical abstraction " — a pure process, " whose existence is pure self-annuU- "^ ing (sich aufheben), whose being is pure self -consump- tion (sich selbst verzehren) " (Lassalle, Vol. 1, p. 18). Most clearly, however, is the great thought of Hera- clitus shown in " the way up and down," which does not involve change of place, but only a logical process. 8 HERACLITUS. It is " nothing else '' than the change from being into non-being and the reverse. The way ^Wn is transi- tion into being ; the way up is the return into the pure and free negativity of non-being, motion in the undis- turbed ideal harmony (Id. Vol. 2, p. 241 jBf.). God, in his adequate form, is " nothing else " than pure negativity, the pure unity of process of opposites. Nature is only the corporeal manifestation of the law of the identity of opposites. It owes its existence to privation (ddcxcaX that is, to the injustice which pure becoming suffers when it becomes being (Id. Vol. 1, p. 138). The duadij/jua<7e<: of Heraclitus is not any vapor or sen- sible exhalation, but is " nothing else " than the way up, or the ix7r6pa)<7i<:, that is, the cessation of the sen- sible and the particular and the assumption of the real universal becoming. ^Auadufjuw/iiuae, Lassalle says, should be translated " processirend " (Id. Vol. 1, p. 144). The Heraclitic flux is the same as the way up and down. It is the dialectic of spacial being ; it is the unity of being and non-being as spacial ; it is the here which is not here. The Ttepd^ou of Heraclitus is not anything physical or spacial, but ** the universal real process of becoming," which works through the Logos or law of thought (Id. Vol. 1, p. 306). The Heraclitic Logos is the pure intelligible logical law of the identity in process (die processirende Iden- titat) of being and non-being. It is "nothing else" than the law of opposites and the change into the same (Id. Vol. 1, p. 327 ; Vol. 2, p. 265). The substance of the soul is identical with the sub- stance of nature. It is pure becoming which has in- corporated itself, embraced the way down. The dry or fiery soul is better than the moist because moisture HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.
2change into the same (Id. Vol. 1, p. 327 ; Vol. 2, p. 265). The substance of the soul is identical with the sub- stance of nature. It is pure becoming which has in- corporated itself, embraced the way down. The dry or fiery soul is better than the moist because moisture HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 9 is " nothing else " than a symbol of the downward way. The soul that is moist has descended out of its pure self -annulling movement or negativity in process, into the sphere of the particular 'and determinate (Id. Vol. 1, pp. 180, 192). Heraclitus, in his desperate labor to express this idea, enters the sphere of religion. Dionysus and Hades are the same, he says (see frag. 127). That is, says Lassalle, Dionysus, the god of generation which repre- sents the descent of pure non-being into being, is iden- tical with Hades, the god of death ; and this fragment, which is a polemic against Dionysus, is really a polemic against being, which is inferior to non-being (Id. Vol. 1, p. 208). Knowledge consists in the recognition in each parti- cular thing of the two opposites which constitute its *nature (Id. Vol. 2, p. 272). Of ethics, the formal prin- ciple is self-realization or self -representation. It is the realization of what we are in ourselves or according to our inner nature. The ideal is separation from the sensible and particular and the realization of the uni- versar(Id. Vol. 2, p. 428 flf.). (i ^Such in brief outline is what Ferdinand Lassalle finds in Heraclitus' book On Nature. As an exposition of Heraclitus it is not worth the space we have given it, or any space, in fact ; but as one of the most beau- tiful illustrations of over-systemization, it is extremely valuable. Any formal refutation of his conception of Heraclitus is unnecessary, for almost the whole of it is without any foundation whatever. The expositions which are to follow, or even a slight reading of the fragments themselves, will sufficiently show how thor- oughly fantastic and arbitrary are his interpretations. Lassalle seems to have been misled partly by HegePs 10 HERACLITUS. misinterpretation of the passages from Aristotle/ not- iced above, V|tnd partly by the principle of opposition which nins through a nimaber of the sayings of Hera- clitus^an opposition which, as we shall see later, was wholly physical, and far more simple than the abstruse logical meaning given it by Lassalle. This German scholar had no power or no wish to put himself in the attitude of the Greek mind, which was as widely dif- ferent from his as possible. It was a mistake for this disciple of pure thought, bred in the stifling atmosphere of a nineteenth century Hegelian lecture-room, and powerless to transport himself out of it even in thought, to attempt to interpret the sentences of an ingenuous lover of Nature, who, five centuries before the Chris- tian era, lived and moved in the free air of Ephesus.
3d in the stifling atmosphere of a nineteenth century Hegelian lecture-room, and powerless to transport himself out of it even in thought, to attempt to interpret the sentences of an ingenuous lover of Nature, who, five centuries before the Chris- tian era, lived and moved in the free air of Ephesus. In this we do not mean to say that the philosophy of Heraclitus was purely physical rather than metaphys-* ical, for we shall see that such was not the case, but primitive pre-Socratic metaphysics and the panlogism of Lassalle are as wide asunder as the poles. On this point, Benn, in the work already referred to, well says, " The Greek philosophers from Thales to Democritus did not even suspect the existence of those ethical and dialectical problems which long constituted the sole object of philosophical discussion " (Vol. 1, p. 4). Those who wish to trace Lassalle's errors further may compare, on his mistaken conception of the Hera- clitic fire, Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 591, 3^ ; Grote : Plato, Vol. 1, p. 33, note. On ^^the way up and down," com- pare Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 619, 1. On the flux, compare Schuster, p. 201 ; Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 577, 1. The characterization of Lassalle's book as a whole * The references to Zeller in the following pages are to the fourth German edition of Die Philosophic der Griechen. HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 11 is, that it is a striking example of great piiilosophic waste, turning as he does the rich and suggestive phil- osophy of the Ephesian into a wretched mouthful of Hegelian phrases. His citation of so many diverse sentences of Heraclitus, drawn from theology, ethics, nature, and man, and his discovery in all of them of his single ever-recurring notion of ** die reine umschlag- ende Identitat von Sein und Nichtsein," impresses us with the power which the tyranny of a single idea may have to so blur one's vision as to cause him to see that idea reflected in everything that is presented. ( It is not true, as Lassalle's motto goes, that there is no sen- tence of Heraclitus that Hegel has not incorporated in his Logic, but it is not far from the truth that there is no sentence of Heraclitus which Hegel and Lassalle have not either willfully or ignorantly perverted.^ Schuster. We will mentiop mow the work of Paul Schuster) (see above, p. 1). Q Schuster approaches the problem oi the interpretation of Heraclitus wi1;h the advantage of a rich philological and historical knowledge. He suf- fers a disadvantage, however, in the magnitude of the task he undertakes, which is nothing less than the reconstruction of the order and plan of the book of Heraclitus itself. The interpretation of the fragments, . he justly observes, depends upon the connection in which they occurred. It will be necessary, therefore, if we will grasp their true sense, to recover the plan of the original writing.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1rocessi- rende Einheit). It is the unity of opposites, the idea of ^ becoming, the divine law, the yviofirj of the determining God (Id. Vol. 1, p. 24). Fire, strife, peace, time, neces- sity, harmony, the way up and down, the flux, justice, fate. Logos, are all different terms for this one idea (Id. Vol. 1, p. 57). Hence arises Heraclitus' obscurity. It is not a mere grammatical obscurity, as Schleier- macher, following Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 5, p. 1407, b. 14) thought; nor is it a willful obscurity, but it arises from the very nature of his great thought, which could not be enunciated in exact terms, but could only be suggested by such words as fire, time, etc., and so he labored on with one new symbol after another, vainly trying to express himself. The Heraclitic fire is a " metaphysical abstraction " — a pure process, " whose existence is pure self-annuU- "^ ing (sich aufheben), whose being is pure self -consump- tion (sich selbst verzehren) " (Lassalle, Vol. 1, p. 18). Most clearly, however, is the great thought of Hera- clitus shown in " the way up and down," which does not involve change of place, but only a logical process. 8 HERACLITUS. It is " nothing else '' than the change from being into non-being and the reverse. The way ^Wn is transi- tion into being ; the way up is the return into the pure and free negativity of non-being, motion in the undis- turbed ideal harmony (Id. Vol. 2, p. 241 jBf.). God, in his adequate form, is " nothing else " than pure negativity, the pure unity of process of opposites. Nature is only the corporeal manifestation of the law of the identity of opposites. It owes its existence to privation (ddcxcaX that is, to the injustice which pure becoming suffers when it becomes being (Id. Vol. 1, p. 138). The duadij/jua<7e<: of Heraclitus is not any vapor or sen- sible exhalation, but is " nothing else " than the way up, or the ix7r6pa)<7i<:, that is, the cessation of the sen- sible and the particular and the assumption of the real universal becoming. ^Auadufjuw/iiuae, Lassalle says, should be translated " processirend " (Id. Vol. 1, p. 144). The Heraclitic flux is the same as the way up and down. It is the dialectic of spacial being ; it is the unity of being and non-being as spacial ; it is the here which is not here. The Ttepd^ou of Heraclitus is not anything physical or spacial, but ** the universal real process of becoming," which works through the Logos or law of thought (Id. Vol. 1, p. 306). The Heraclitic Logos is the pure intelligible logical law of the identity in process (die processirende Iden- titat) of being and non-being. It is "nothing else" than the law of opposites and the change into the same (Id. Vol. 1, p. 327 ; Vol. 2, p. 265). The substance of the soul is identical with the sub- stance of nature. It is pure becoming which has in- corporated itself, embraced the way down. The dry or fiery soul is better than the moist because moisture HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.
2change into the same (Id. Vol. 1, p. 327 ; Vol. 2, p. 265). The substance of the soul is identical with the sub- stance of nature. It is pure becoming which has in- corporated itself, embraced the way down. The dry or fiery soul is better than the moist because moisture HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 9 is " nothing else " than a symbol of the downward way. The soul that is moist has descended out of its pure self -annulling movement or negativity in process, into the sphere of the particular 'and determinate (Id. Vol. 1, pp. 180, 192). Heraclitus, in his desperate labor to express this idea, enters the sphere of religion. Dionysus and Hades are the same, he says (see frag. 127). That is, says Lassalle, Dionysus, the god of generation which repre- sents the descent of pure non-being into being, is iden- tical with Hades, the god of death ; and this fragment, which is a polemic against Dionysus, is really a polemic against being, which is inferior to non-being (Id. Vol. 1, p. 208). Knowledge consists in the recognition in each parti- cular thing of the two opposites which constitute its *nature (Id. Vol. 2, p. 272). Of ethics, the formal prin- ciple is self-realization or self -representation. It is the realization of what we are in ourselves or according to our inner nature. The ideal is separation from the sensible and particular and the realization of the uni- versar(Id. Vol. 2, p. 428 flf.). (i ^Such in brief outline is what Ferdinand Lassalle finds in Heraclitus' book On Nature. As an exposition of Heraclitus it is not worth the space we have given it, or any space, in fact ; but as one of the most beau- tiful illustrations of over-systemization, it is extremely valuable. Any formal refutation of his conception of Heraclitus is unnecessary, for almost the whole of it is without any foundation whatever. The expositions which are to follow, or even a slight reading of the fragments themselves, will sufficiently show how thor- oughly fantastic and arbitrary are his interpretations. Lassalle seems to have been misled partly by HegePs 10 HERACLITUS. misinterpretation of the passages from Aristotle/ not- iced above, V|tnd partly by the principle of opposition which nins through a nimaber of the sayings of Hera- clitus^an opposition which, as we shall see later, was wholly physical, and far more simple than the abstruse logical meaning given it by Lassalle. This German scholar had no power or no wish to put himself in the attitude of the Greek mind, which was as widely dif- ferent from his as possible. It was a mistake for this disciple of pure thought, bred in the stifling atmosphere of a nineteenth century Hegelian lecture-room, and powerless to transport himself out of it even in thought, to attempt to interpret the sentences of an ingenuous lover of Nature, who, five centuries before the Chris- tian era, lived and moved in the free air of Ephesus.
3d in the stifling atmosphere of a nineteenth century Hegelian lecture-room, and powerless to transport himself out of it even in thought, to attempt to interpret the sentences of an ingenuous lover of Nature, who, five centuries before the Chris- tian era, lived and moved in the free air of Ephesus. In this we do not mean to say that the philosophy of Heraclitus was purely physical rather than metaphys-* ical, for we shall see that such was not the case, but primitive pre-Socratic metaphysics and the panlogism of Lassalle are as wide asunder as the poles. On this point, Benn, in the work already referred to, well says, " The Greek philosophers from Thales to Democritus did not even suspect the existence of those ethical and dialectical problems which long constituted the sole object of philosophical discussion " (Vol. 1, p. 4). Those who wish to trace Lassalle's errors further may compare, on his mistaken conception of the Hera- clitic fire, Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 591, 3^ ; Grote : Plato, Vol. 1, p. 33, note. On ^^the way up and down," com- pare Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 619, 1. On the flux, compare Schuster, p. 201 ; Zeller, Vol. 1, p. 577, 1. The characterization of Lassalle's book as a whole * The references to Zeller in the following pages are to the fourth German edition of Die Philosophic der Griechen. HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 11 is, that it is a striking example of great piiilosophic waste, turning as he does the rich and suggestive phil- osophy of the Ephesian into a wretched mouthful of Hegelian phrases. His citation of so many diverse sentences of Heraclitus, drawn from theology, ethics, nature, and man, and his discovery in all of them of his single ever-recurring notion of ** die reine umschlag- ende Identitat von Sein und Nichtsein," impresses us with the power which the tyranny of a single idea may have to so blur one's vision as to cause him to see that idea reflected in everything that is presented. ( It is not true, as Lassalle's motto goes, that there is no sen- tence of Heraclitus that Hegel has not incorporated in his Logic, but it is not far from the truth that there is no sentence of Heraclitus which Hegel and Lassalle have not either willfully or ignorantly perverted.^ Schuster. We will mentiop mow the work of Paul Schuster) (see above, p. 1). Q Schuster approaches the problem oi the interpretation of Heraclitus wi1;h the advantage of a rich philological and historical knowledge. He suf- fers a disadvantage, however, in the magnitude of the task he undertakes, which is nothing less than the reconstruction of the order and plan of the book of Heraclitus itself. The interpretation of the fragments, . he justly observes, depends upon the connection in which they occurred. It will be necessary, therefore, if we will grasp their true sense, to recover the plan of the original writing.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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