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. Such a reconstruction Schuster holds to be possible, since by the law of selection, the fragments which have been preserved to us must have been the central thoughts of the original work. Con- trary to Schleiermacher, he accepts aa trustworthy the
12 Heraclitus*
statement of Diogenes (Diog. Laert. ix. 5) that the
book of Heraclitus was divided into three partsjor
Logoi, the first concerning "the all," the second jfoli-
.tical, the third theological, ^n this basis Schuster
arranges the fragments, freely translated or rather
paraphrased, and interspaced with the restored pro-
gress of thought. The well known obscurity of our
philosopher, Schuster, contrary to all other critics ex-
cept Teichmtiller, supposes to have been partly, at
least, intentional, as a precaution against persecution
for atheism. O
^he distinctive feature of Schuster's conception of Heraclitus is that he was not a distruster of the senses, but- on the contrary thiB first philosopher who dared to base all knowledge upon sense experience. He was therefore the first of experimental philosophers/ To this idea the introduction of Heraclitus' book was devoted. The majority of people, says the Ephesian, have little interest in that which inunediately sur- rounds them, nor do they think to seek for knowledge by investigation of that with which they daily come in contact (Clement of Alex. Strom, ii. 2, p. 432 ; M. Aurelius iv. 46 ; cp. frags. 5, 93). Nevertheless, that which surrounds us is the source of knowledge. Nature is not irrational and dumb, but is an ever living Voice plainly revealing the law of the world. This Voice of Nature is the Heraclitic Logos. The thought which Heraclitus utters in the passage stand- ing at the beginning of his book (frag. 2, Hippolytus, Ref . haer. ix. 9 ; cp. Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 5, p. 1407, b. 14) is no other than that which since the Renaissance has
^ Compare Plutarch. Pyth. orac. 21, p. 404 ; =: frag. 11 ; Clement of Alex'. Strom, v. 13, p. 699 ; = frag. 116. The numbers refer not to Schuster's numbering of the fragments, but to that of the present work, which is the numeration oi Bywater,
Historical and Critical. 13
inspired natural science and its accompanying specu- lation, namely, that truth is to be won by observation of the visible world. But the people, he complains, despise the revelation which Nature offers us with audible voice. Why, asks Heraclitus (Hippolytus, Ref . haer. ix. 9 ; cp. frag. 47), should an invisible harmony, be better than a visible ? It is not better, but, on the contrary, whatever is the object of seeing, hearing, or investigation, that I particularly honor (idem ix. 10 ; cp. frag. 13). Men, therefore, must trust their eyes (Polybius, xii. 27 ; cp. frag. 15) and not make reckless guesses concerning the weightiest things (Diog. Laert. ix. 73 ; cp. frag. 48). That Heraclitus' theory of knowl- edge, therefore, based it upon sense perception and reflection thereupon, is shown, continues Schuster, not only by the above passages, but also by the fact that the exaggerated form of the theory held by Protagoras (cp. Plato's Theaetetus) must necessarily have had its source in Heraclitus, his master. None the less is this shown also by Parmenides' attack on the empirical theory of knowledge (Sextus Empir. vii. 3), which could have been aimed only at the philoso- pher of Ephesus (Schuster, pp. 7 and 13-42).
Turning now from the theory of knowledge to its
results, the first law which the observation of Nature
teaches us is the law of eternal and recurrent mo-
tion {TrduTa xo)pet xal oudeu fihu^ Plato, Crat. p. 402 A).
The starting point and central position of our philoso-
pher we must find in this recurrent motion, rather
fhan in the primitive fire which itself held a subordi-
nate place in the system. But the Heraclitic motion
was not conceived as any absolute molecular change
in the modern sense, nor yet as that absolute insta-
bility which appeared in the nihilism of the later
14 HERACLITUS.
Heracliteans. It was rather conceived in a simpler
way, as a general law that everything comes to an end
and there is nothing permanent. Under this was
included : 1) spacial motion, as of the flowing river ;
2) qualitative change, as in the human body; 3) a
kind of periodicity which brings everything under its
dominion. The last was the most emphasized. Birth
and death are im.iversal; nothing escapes this fate.
There is no fixed or unmoved being above or outside
the shifting world, no divine heavenly existence that
does not change, but all is involved in the same
perpetual ebb and flow, rise and fall, life and death
(Schuster, p. 81 flf.).
But this life and death of the universe is literal, not
figurative. The world itself is a great living organism
subject to the same alternation of elemental fire, air,
and water. This thoroughgoing hylozoism which
Schuster attributes to Heraclitus, he bases principally
on the writing de diaeta of Pseudo-Hippocrates, who,
he believes, made a free use of the work of Heraclitus,
if he did not directly plagiarize from him. Comparing
this writing (particularly the passage, c. 10, p. 638)
with Plato's Timaeus (p. 40 A, also drawn from Hera-
clitus), he ventures to reconstruct the original as
follows : " Everything passes away and nothing per-
sists. So it is with the river, and so with mortal
beings ; in whom continually fire dies in the birth of
air, and air in the birth of water. So also with the
divine heavenly existence, which is subject to the
same process, for we are in reality only an imitatioh
of that and of the whole world; as it happens with
that so it must happen with us, and inversely we may
judge of that by ourselves " (Schuster, p. 118).
The life principle of the universe, as of the human
Historical and Critical. 15
organism, is fire. This fire is everywhere present, so
that "everything is full of gods and souls'' (Diog.
Laert. ix. 7). The life of the body is sustained by the
breath which inhales the dry vapors kindred to fire.
At night, when the sun is extinguished and the world
becomes unconscious, we inhale the dark wet vapors
and sink into death-like sleep (Schuster, p. 135).
The sun, which is new every day, changes at night
into the surrounding air and then into the water of the
sea. The sea produces the daily sun, as it is the source
of all earthly phenomena. On a large scale this three-
fold change takes place with the universe, which will
ultimately be consumed in fire, again to become sea
and cosmos. This is " the way up and down " — not a
circular movement of the elements within the cosmos
(Zeller), but the periodicity of the world itself. The
way up and the way down relate only to the cosmogony.
The latter is the creation of the world by condensation
of fire into water, then earth ; the former is the reverse
process of vaporization (Id. p. 169).
This law or order is not dependent upon any divine
purposeful will, but all is ruled by an inherent neces-
sary ** fate." The elemental fire carries within itself
the tendency toward change, and thus pursuing the
way down, it enters the " strife " and war of opposites
which condition the birth of the world (dcaxoaiiTjacf),
and experience that hunger {y^pT^aixoaoi/TJ) which arises
in a state where life is dependent upon nourishment,
and where satiety (x6po(:) is only again found when, in
pursuit of the way up, opposites are annulled, and
" unity " and " peace " again emerge in the pure
original fire {imijp(oac(;). This impulse of Nature
towards change is conceived now as "destiny,"
" force," " necessity," " justice," or, when exhibited
16 HERACLITUS.
in definite forms of time and matter, as *' intelligence '* (Id. p. 182, 194 ff.).
- The Heraclitic harmony of opposites, as of the bow
and the lyre, is a purely physical harmony. It is
simply the operation of the strife of opposite forces, by
which motion within an organism, at the point where
if further continued it would endanger the whole, is
balanced and caused to return within the limits of a
determined amplitude (Id. p. 230 flf.).
The identity of opposites means only that very dif-
ferent properties may unite in the same physical thing,
either by simultaneous comparison with different
things or successive comparison with a changeable
thing (Id. pp. 236, 243).
The second or political section of Heraclitus' work
treated of arts, ethics, society, and politics. It aimed
to show how human arts are imitations of Nature, and
how organized life, as in the universe and the indi-
vidual, so in the state, is the secret of unity in
variety. The central thought was the analogy existing
between man and the universe, between the microcosm
and the macrocosm, from which it results that the
true ethical principle lies in imitation of Nature, and
that law is founded on early customs which sprang
from Nature (Id. p. 310 flf.).
The third or theological section was mainly devoted to
showing that the names of things are designations of
their essence. That Heraclitus himself, not merely his
followers, held the (pua^c dpd6T7j<; dvofidxcovy and used
etymologies as proofs of the nature of things, Schuster
believes is both consistent with his philosophy and
conclusively proved by Plato's Cratylus. Primitive
men named things from the language which Nature
spoke to them ; names, therefore, give us the truth of
Historical and Critical. 17
things. Etymologies of the names of the gods was the
proof first brought forward, as in Plato's Cratylus;
hence the name of this section of the work. To show
this connection* of names and things was to prove the
intimate connection of man with Nature, and so to lead
to the conclusion that all knowledge is based on
experience, which, indeed, was the end he had in
view (Id. p. 317 flf.).
(^It is not our purpose to criticize in detail Schuster's conception of Heraclitus. Much of it will commend itself to the careful student of the remains, particu- larly that which relates to the Heraclitic flux and its relation to the primitive fire. Suggestive, also, if not unimpeachable, is his conception of the relation of the microcosm to the macrocosm, and of the harmony and identity of opposites. In his exposition of these doctrines, Schuster has rendered valuable service. We can by no means, however, allow thus tentatively to pass, Schuster's conception of Heraclitus as a purely empirical philosopher. Before noticing this, a word needs to be said in regard to Schuster's method as a whole. As to the latter, the very extent of the task proposed made over-systemization inevitable. In criticism of Schuster's attempt, Zeller has well said that with the extant material of Heraclitus' book, the recovery of its plan is impossible (Vol. 1, p. 570, note). Such a plan of reconstruction as that which Schuster undertakes, demands the power not only to penetrate the sense of every fragment, but also so to read the mind of the author as to be able to restore that of the large absent portions. The small number and enigmatical character of the fragments which are extant, together with the contradictory character of ancient testimony to Heraclitus, makes such a task extremely hazardous.
18 HERACLITUS.