Early Greek Philosophy — John Burnet (Empedocles fragments)

1 See Zeller, ‘‘ Zu Leukippus” (Arch. xv. p. 138). The doctrine is attributed to him in Aet. iv. 13, 1 (Dox. p. 403); and Alexander, de Sensu, __ pp. 24, 14 and 56, 10, also mentions his name in connexion with it. This | must come from Theophrastos,

404. Early Greek Philosophy

space. Parmenides had seen that very clearly (fr. 2),
and it was the Eleatic criticism which forced Leukippos
to formulate his system as he did. Even Anaxagoras
took account of Zeno’s arguments about divisibility
(§ 128), but his system of qualitatively different “seeds ”
was lacking in that simplicity which has always been
the chief attraction of atomism.

Chapter X

es ECLECTICISM AND REACTION

184. WITH Leukippos our story should properly come The

‘* bankruptcy

to an end; for he had really answered the question of science.”

first asked by Thales. We have seen, however, that,
though his theory of matter was of a most original and
daring kind, he was not equally successful in his
attempt to construct a cosmology, and this seems to
have stood in the way of the recognition of the atomic
theory for what it really was. We have noted the
growing influence of medicine, and the consequent
substitution of an interest in detailed investigation for
the larger cosmological views of an earlier time,
and there are several treatises in the Hippokratean
corpus which give us a clear idea of the interest which
now prevailed.’ Leukippos had shown that “the
doctrine of Melissos,’? which seemed to make all
science impossible, was not the only conclusion that
could be drawn from the Eleatic premisses, and he had
gone on to give a cosmology which was substantially
of the old Ionic type. The result at first was simply
that all the old schools revived and had a short period
of renewed activity, while at the same time some new

1 Cf. what is said in Chap. IV. p. 167, n. 2, of the Περὶ διαίτης. The Περὶ ἀνθρώπου φύσιος and the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς are invaluable

documents for the attitude of scientific men to cosmological theories at this date. 2 Cf. Chap. VIII. p. 379, n. 2.

Moisture.

406 Early Greek Philosophy

schools arose which sought to accommodate the older
views to those of Leukippos, or to make them more
available for scientific purposes by combining them in
an eclectic fashion. None of these attempts had any
lasting importance or influence, and what we have to
consider in this chapter is really one of the periodical
“bankruptcies of science” which mark the close of one
chapter in its history and announce the beginning of a
new one.

I. Hippon of Samos

185. Hippon of Samos or Kroton belonged to the Italian school of medicine.’ We know very little indeed of him except that he was a contemporary of Perikles. From a scholiast on Aristophanes? we learn that Kratinos satirised him in his Panoptaz; and Aristotle mentions him in the enumeration of early philosophers given in the First Book of the Metaphysics, though only to say that the inferiority of his intellect deprives him of all claim to be reckoned among them.

With regard to his views, the most precise statement
is that of Alexander, who doubtless follows Theo-
phrastos. It is to the effect that he held the primary
substance to be Moisture, without deciding whether it
was Water or Air.* We have the authority of Aris-
totle ° and Theophrastos, represented by Hippolytos,° for

1 Aristoxenos said he was a Samian (R. P. 219 a). In Menon’s afrika he is called a Krotoniate, while others assign him to Rhegion or Meta- pontion. This probably means that he was affiliated to the Pythagorean medical school. The evidence of Aristoxenos is, in that case, all the more valuable. Hippon is mentioned along with Melissos in Iamblichos’s Catalogue of Pythagoreans (V. Pyth. 267).

2 Schol. on Clouds, 94 sqq.

3 Arist. Met. A, 3. 984 a 3 (R. P. 219 a).

4 Alexander in 7722. p. 26, 21 (R. P. 219).

5 Arist. de An. A, 2. 405 b2(R. P. 220).

6 Hipp. Ref. i. 16 (R. P. 221).

Eclecticism and Reaction 407

saying that this theory was supported by physiological
arguments of the kind common at the tine. His other
views belong to the history of Medicine.

Till quite recently no fragment of Hippon was known
to exist, but a single one has now been recovered from
the Geneva Scholia on Homer.’ It is directed against
the old assumption that the “waters under the earth”
are an independent source of moisture, and runs thus :

The waters we drink are all from the sea; for if wells were deeper than the sea, then it would not, doubtless, be from the sea that we drink, for then the water would not be from the sea, but from some other source. But as it is, the sea is deeper than the waters, so all the waters that are above the sea come from it. R. P. 219 b.

We observe here the universal assumption that water tends to rise from the earth, not to sink into it.

Along with Hippon, Idaios of Himera® may just be
mentioned. We really know nothing of him except
that he held air to be the primary substance. The
fact that he was of Sicilian origin is, however, suggestive.

Ii. Diogenes of Apollonia —— ὁὃὁὃ

186. After discussing the three great representatives of the Milesian school, Theophrastos went on to say :

And Diogenes of Apollonia, too, who was almost the latest of those who gave themselves up to these studies, wrote most of his work in an eclectic fashion, agreeing in some points with Anaxagoras and in others with Leukippos. He, too, says that the primary substance of the universe is Air infinite and eternal,

1 Schol. Genav. p. 197, 19. Cf. Diels in Arch, iv. p. 653. The extract
comes from the ‘Ounpixd of Krates of Mallos.
2 Sext. adv. Math. ix. 360.

Date.

Writings.

408 Early Greek Philosophy

from which by condensation, rarefaction, and change of state, the form of everything else arises. R. P. 206 a.!

This passage shows that the Apolloniate was some-
what later in date than the statement in Laertios
Diogenes” that he was contemporary with Anaxagoras
would lead us to suppose, and the fact that he is
satirised in the Clouds of Aristophanes points in the
same direction.2 Of his life we know next to nothing,
He was the son of Apollothemis, and came from
Apollonia in Crete.* The Ionic dialect in which he
wrote is no objection to this ; it was the regular dialect
for cosmological works.°

The fact that Diogenes was parodied in the Clouds
suggests that he had found his way to Athens ; and we
have the excellent authority of Demetrios Phalereus °
for saying that the Athenians treated him in the usual
way. He excited so great dislike as nearly to imperil
his life.

187. Simplicius affirms that Diogenes wrote several
works, though he allows that only one survived till his
own day, namely, the Περὶ φύσεως. This statement is

1 On this passage see Diels, ‘‘ Leukippos und Diogenes von Apollonia ” (Rhein. Mus, xlii. pp. 1 sqq.). Natorp’s view that the words are merely those of Simplicius (zd. xli. pp. 349 sqq.) can hardly be maintained.

2 Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206). The statement of Antisthenes, the writer of Successtons, that he had ‘‘heard” Anaximenes is due to the usual confusion, He was doubtless, like Anaxagoras, ‘‘an associate of the philosophy of Anaximenes.” Cf. Chap. VI. § 122.

8 Aristoph. Clouds, 227 sqq., where Sokrates speaks of ‘‘ mixing his subtle thought with the kindred air,” and especially the words ἡ γῆ βίᾳ | ἕλκει πρὸς αὑτὴν τὴν ἱκμάδα τῆς φροντίδος. For the ixuds, see Beare, Ρ. 259. Cf. also Eur. 770. 884, ὦ γῆς ὄχημα κἀπὶ γῆς ἕδραν ἔχων κ.τ.λ.

4 Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206). 5 Cf. Chap. VII. pp. 327 sqq.

6 Diog. ix. 57, τοῦτόν φησιν ὁ Φαληρεὺς Δημήτριος ἐν τῇ Σωκράτους ἀπολογίᾳ διὰ μέγαν φθόνον μικροῦ κινδυνεῦσαι ᾿Αθήνησιν. Diels follows Volkmann in holding that this is a note on Anaxagoras which has been inserted in the wrong place. I do not think this is necessary, though it is certainly possible.

7 Simpl. Phys. p. 151, 24 (R. P. 207 8).

Eclecticism and Reaction 409

based upon references in the surviving work itself, and
is not to be lightly rejected. In particular, it is very
‘credible that he wrote a tract Against the Sophists, that
is to say, the pluralist cosmologists of the day.’ That
we wrote a Meteorology and a book called The Nature
/ of Man is also quite probable. This would be a
physiological or medical treatise, and perhaps the
famous fragment about the veins comes from it.”

188. The work of Diogenes seems to have been
preserved: in the Academy; practically all the fairly
extensive fragments which we still have are derived

from Simplicius. I give them as they are arranged by Diels :—

(1) In beginning any discourse, it seems to me that one
should make one’s starting-point something indisputable, and
one’s expression simple and dignified. R. P. 207.

(2) My view is, to sum it all up, that all things are differentiations of the same thing, and are the same thing. And this is obvious; for, if the things which are now in this world—earth, and water, and air and fire, and the other things which we see existing in this world,—if any one of these things, I say, were different from any other, different, that is, by having a substance peculiar to itself; and if it were not the same thing that is often changed and differentiated, then things could not in any way mix with one another, nor could they do one another good or harm. Neither could a plant grow out of the earth, nor any animal nor anything else come into-being unless things were com- posed in such a way as to be the same. Bout all these things arise from the same thing; they are differentiated and take different forms at different times, and return again to the same thing. R. P. 208.

1 Simplicius says Πρὸς φυσιολόγους, but he adds that Diogenes called them σοφισταί, which is the older word. This is, so far, in favour of the genuineness of the work.

2 Diels gives this as fr. 6 ( Vors. p. 350). I have omitted it, as it really belongs to the history of Medicine.

The Fragments.

410 Early Greek Philosophy

(3) For it would not be possible for it to be divided as it is without intelligence, so as to keep the measures of all things, of winter and summer, of day and night, of rains and winds and fair weather. And any one who cares to reflect will find that everything else is disposed in the best possible manner. Ro Pi 29,

(4) And, further, there are still the following great proofs. Men and all other animals live upon air by breathing it, and this is their soul and their intelligence, as will be clearly shown in this work; while, when this is taken away, they die, and their intelligence fails. R. P. 210.

(5) And my view is, that that which has intelligence is what men call air, and that all things have their course steered by it, and that it has power over all things. For this very thing I hold to be a god,! and to reach everywhere, and to dispose everything, and to be in everything; and there is not anything which does not partake in it. Yet no single thing partakes in it just in the same way as another; but there are many modes both of air and of intelligence. For it undergoes many transformations, warmer and colder, drier and moister, more stable and in swifter motion, and it has many other differentiations in it, and an infinite number of colours and savours. And the soul of all living things is the same, namely, air warmer than that outside us and in which we are, but much colder than that near the sun. And this warmth is not alike in any two kinds of living creatures, nor, for the matter of that, in any two men; but it does not differ much, only so far as is compatible with their being alike. At the same time, it is not possible for any of the things which are differentiated to be exactly like one another till they all once more become the same.

(6) Since, then, differentiation is multiform, living creatures

are multiform and many, and they are like one another neither _