1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. B, 1. 329 Ὁ 1. ® Jbid. B, 6. 333 ἃ τό.
8 Jbid. A, 8. 325 Ὁ 19 (R. P. 164 e). This was so completely misunderstood by later writers that they actually attribute to Empedokles the doctrine of στοιχεῖα πρὸ τῶν στοιχείων (Aet. i. 13, 13 17, 3). The criticism of the Pythagoreans and Plato had made the hypothesis of elements almost unintelligible to Aristotle, and @ fortiori to his successors. As Plato put it (7%. 48 Ὁ 8), they were ‘‘ not even syllables,” let alone *‘ letters” (στοιχεῖα). That is why Aristotle, who derived them from
something more primary, calls them τὰ καλούμενα στοιχεῖα (Diels, Elementum, p. 25).
Strife and Love,
266 Early Greek Philosophy
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, we see at once
how the theory is related to previous views of reality.’
To put it shortly, what Empedokles did was to take
the opposites of Anaximander and to declare that
they were “things,” each of which was real in the
Parmenidean sense. 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 Parmienides, 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 that a thing zs.
Aristotle twice” 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 of the elements 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
certainly 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. The Eleatic criticismggad made it necessary for
1 We know from Menon that Philistion put the matter in this way. See p. 235, n. 2.
2 Arist. Met. A, 4. 985 a 31; de Gen. Corr. B, 3. 330 Ὁ 19 (R. Ρ. 164 e).
Empedokles of Akragas 267
subsequent thinkers to explain motion.’ Empedokles
starts, as 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 homo-
geneous and continuous mass. The fact that it is a
mixture makes change and motion possible; but, were
there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter
in, like the Pythagorean “Air,” to separate the four
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 iseparate 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 purely
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 which
men know in their bodies had a place among the
elements.
It is important to observe that the Love and Strife
of Empedokles are no incorporeal forces, but corporeal
elements like the other four. 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 sayy “is both an efficient cause,
for it brings things together, and a material cause, for
it is a part of the mixture.” And Theophrastos
1 Cf. Introd. § VIII. . 2 Arist. Met. A, 10. 1075 Ὁ 3.
268 Early Greek Philosophy
expressed the same idea by saying’ that Empedokles
sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife,
and sometimes put them on a level with the other
four. The verses of Empedokles himself leave no ~
room for doubt that the two 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.? 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, we shall see, on the proper nature of each element, and is only able to take effect when Strife divides the Sphere. Love, on the contrary, is something that comes from outside and produces an attraction of unlikes.
1 Theophr. Phys. Op. fr. 3 (Dox. p. 477); ap. Simpl. Phys. p. 25, 21 (R. P. 166 b).
2 Arist. Jet. A, 4. 985 a 21; I, 4. 1000 a 243 bg (R. P. 166 i).
Empedokles of Akragas 269
109. But, when Strife has once separated the Mixture and
elements, what is it that determines the direction of ἜΠῚῚ
their motion? Empedokles seems to have given no
further explanation than that each was “running”
in a certain direction (fr. 53). Plato severely con-
demns this in the Zaws,' 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.? Strife enters into
the Sphere at a certain time in virtue of Necessity, or
“the mighty oath” (fr. 30) ; but we are left in the dark
as to the origin of this.
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* 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 into the pores of a finer one at all. It will be
observed that, 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
1 Plato, Laws, x. 889 Ὁ. The reference is not to Empedokles ex- clusively, but the language shows that Plato is thinking mainly of him.
2 Arist. de Gen. Corr. B, 6. 334 τ; Phys. Θ, 1. 252 ἃ 5 (R. P. 166k).
3 Jbid. A, 8. 324 Ὁ 34 (R. P. 166 h).
The four. periods.
jur world the ork of Strife,
270 Early Greek Philosophy
void? If full, why need we assume pores at all?’
These questions Empedokles would have found it hard
to answer. They point to a real want of thoroughness
in his system, and mark it as a mere stage in the
transition from Monism to Atomism.
110. It will be clear from all this 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
eparation 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 in time 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; and it is clear that, if we are to
understand Empedokles, we must discover in which of
these we now are. It seems to be generally supposed
that we are in the fourth period ;? I hope to show that
we are really in the second, that when Strife is gaining
the upper hand.
111. That a world of perishable things arises both
in the second and fourth period is distinctly stated by
Empedokles (fr. 17), and it is inconceivable that he
1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. 326 Ὁ 6.
2 This is the view of Zeller (pp. 785 sqq.), but he admits that the external testimony, especially that of Aristotle, is wholly in favour of the other. His difficuity is with the fragments, and if it can be shown that these can be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle’s statements, the question is settled. Aristotle was specially interested in Empedokles, and was not likely to misrepresent him on such a point.
Empedokles of Akragas 271
himself had not made up his mind which of these worlds isours. Aristotle is clearly of opinion that it is the world which arises when 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.”* In another, he tell 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.” This remark can only mean that the scientific theories con- tained in the poem of Empedokles assumed the increase of Strife, or, in other words, that they represented the course of evolution as the disintegration of the Sphere, not as the gradual coming together of things from a state of separation. That is only 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 universal 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. To begin with the Sphere, in which the “ four Formation of
roots of all things” are mixed together, we note in the poets γα
1 Arist. de Gen. Corr. Β, 6. 334.26: τὸν κόσμον ὁμοίως ἔχειν φησὶν ἐπί τε τοῦ νείκους νῦν καὶ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς φιλίας.
2 Arist. de Caelo, T, 2. 301 414: ἐκ. διεστώτων δὲ καὶ κινουμένων οὐκ εὔλογον ποιεῖν τὴν γένεσιν. διὸ καὶ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς παραλείπει τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς φιλότητος" οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἠδύνατο συστῆσαι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκ κεχωρισμένων μὲν κατασκευάζων, σύγκρισιν δὲ ποιῶν διὰ τὴν φιλότητα" ἐκ διακεκριμένων γὰρ συνέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος τῶν στοιχείων (‘* our world consists of the elements in a state of separation”), ὥστ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον γενέσθαι ἐξ ἑνὸς καὶ συγκεκριμένου.
8. It need not mean that Empedokles said nothing about the world of Love at all ; for he obviously says something of both worlds in fr. 17. It is enough to suppose that, having described both in general terms, he went on to treat the world of Strife in detail.