1 The popular word is used for the sake of its paradoxical effect. Strictly speaking, they are all mortal from one point of view and immortal from another.
2 We need not hesitate to ascribe to Herakleitos the view that the dead become guardian demons of the living; it appears already in Hesiod, Works and Days, 121, and the Orphic communities had popularised it. Rohde, Psyche (pp. 442 sqq.), refused to admit that Herakleitos believed the soul survived after death. Strictly speaking, it is no doubt an inconsistency ; but I believe, with Zeller and Diels, that it is one of a kind we may well admit. Many thinkers have spoken of a personal immortality, though there was really no room for it in their systems. It is worthy of note in this connexion that the first argument which Plato uses to establish the doctrine of immortality in the Paedo is just the Herakleitean parallelism of life and death with sleeping and waking.
sl 3 OO ΤΤΜΜΨρΠ ---τ-τττττπἩ ἫΝ ᾿
Herakleitos of Ephesos 173
those immortals become mortal in their turn, Every-
thing is really the death of something else (fr. 64).
The living and the dead are always changing places
(fr. 78), like the pieces on a child’s draught-board
(fr. 79), and this applies not only to the souls that
have become water, but to those that have become fire
and are now guardian spirits. The real weariness is
f . . 7
% tinuance in the same state (fr. 82), and the real rest,
is change (fr. $3). Rest in any other sense is ἡ
tantamount to dissolution (fr. 84). So they too are
born once more. MHerakleitos estimated the duration
of the cycle which preserves the balance of life and
death as thirty years, the shortest time in which a man
may become a grandfather (frs. 87-89) .”
76. Let us turn now to the world. Diogenes tells The day ana us that fire was kept up by the bright vapours from land beech and sea, and moisture by the dark.2 What are these “dark” vapours which increase the moist element? If we remember the “ Air” of Anaximenes, we shall be inclined to regard them as darkness itself. We know that the idea of darkness as privation of light is not natural to the unsophisticated mind. We sometimes hear even now of darkness “thick enough to cut with a knife.” I suppose, then, that Herakleitos believed
1 These fragments are quoted by Plotinos, Iamblichos, and Noumenios in this very connexion (see R. P. 46 c), and it does not seem to me possible to hold, with Rohde, that they had no grounds for so interpreting them. They knew the context and we do not.
3 Plut. def. orac. 415 d, ἔτη τριάκοντα ποιοῦσι τὴν γενεὰν καθ᾽ Ἡράκλειτον, ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ γεννῶντα παρέχει τὸν ἐξ αὑτοῦ γεγεννημένον ὁ γεννήσας. Philo, fr. Harris, p. 20, δυνατὸν ἐν τριακοστῷ ἔτει αὖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον πάππον γενέσθαι κιτ.λ. Censorinus, de die nat. 17, 2, ““Βος enim tempus (triaginta annos) genean vocari Heraclitus auctor est, quia ovdzs aetatis in eo sit spatio ; orbem autem vocat aetatis, dum natura ab sementi humana ad sementim revertitur.”” The words ογδὲς aefatis seem to mean αἰῶνος κύκλος, ‘ the circle
of life.” Ifso, we may compare the Orphic κύκλος γενέσεως. 3. Diog. ix. 9 (R. P. 39 b).
174 Early Greek Philosophy
night and winter to be produced by the rise of dark-
ness from earth and sea,—he saw, of course, that the
valleys were dark before the hill-tops,—and that this
darkness, being moist, so increased the watery element
as to put out the sun’s light. This, however, destroys
the power of darkness itself. It can no longer rise
upwards unless the sun gives it motion, and so it
becomes possible for a fresh sun (fr. 32) to be kindled,
and to nourish itself at the expense of the moist
element for a time. But it can only be for a time.
The sun, by burning up the bright vapour, deprives
himself of nourishment, and the dark vapour once more
gets the upper hand. It is in this sense that “ day and
night are one” (fr. 35). Each implies the other, and
they are therefore to be regarded as merely two sides
of the one, in which alone their true ground of explana-
tion is to be found (fr. 36).
Summer and winter were easily to be explained in
the same way. We know that the “turnings” of the
sun were a subject of interest in those days, and it was
natural for Herakleitos to see in its retreat further to
the south the gradual advance of the moist element,
caused by the heat of the sun itself. This, however,
diminishes the power of the sun to cause evaporation,
and so it must return to the north once more that it
may supply itself with nourishment. Such was, at any
rate, the Stoic doctrine on the subject and that it
comes from Herakleitos seems to be proved by its
1 See Kleanthes, fr. 29, Pearson, ὠκεανὸς δ᾽ ἐστὶ «καὶ ὙῆΣ ἧς τὴν ἀναθυ- μίασιν ἐπινέμεται (ὁ ἥλιος). Cf. Cic. V.D. iii. 37: ‘*Quid enim? non eisdem vobis placet omnem ignem pastus indigere nec permanere ullo modo posse, nisi alitur : ali autem solem, lunam, reliqua astra aquis, alia dulcibus (from the earth), alia marinis ? eamque causam Cleanthes adfert cur se sol referat nec longius progrediatur solstitiali orbi itemque brumali, ne longius discedat a cibo.”
— oa ΝΟ νὼ. ν.. ον
Herakleitos of Ephesos 175
occurrence in the Περὶ διαίτης. It seems impossible to refer the following sentence to any other source :—
And in turn each (fire and water) prevails and is prevailed over to the greatest and least degree that is possible. For neither can prevail altogether for the following reasons. If fire advances towards the utmost limit of the water, its nourish- ment fails it. It retires, then, to a place where it can get nourishment. And if water advances towards the utmost limit of the fire, movement fails it. At that point, then, it stands still ; and, when it has come to a stand, it has no longer power to resist, but is consumed as nourishment for the fire that falls upon it.. For these reasons neither can prevail altogether. But if at any time either should be in any way overcome, then none of the things that exist would be as they are now. So long as things are as they are, fire and water will always be too, and neither will ever fail.+
7 7. Herakleitos spoke also of a longer period, which cad Great
is identified with the “Great Year,’ and is variously
described as lasting 18,000 and 10,800 years.2 We
have no definite statement, however, of what process
Herakleitos supposed to take place in the Great Year.
We have seen that the period of 36,000 years was, in
all probability, Babylonian, and was that of the revolu-
tion which produces the precession of the equinoxes.*
1 For the Greek text of this passage, see below, p. 183, n. 1. Fredrichs allows that it is from the same source as that quoted above (p. 169), and, as that comes from Περὶ διαίτης, i. 3, he denies the Herakleitean origin of this too. He has not taken account of the fact that it gives the Stoic doctrine, which raises a presumption in favour of that being Herakleitean. If I could agree with Fredrichs’ theory, I should still say that the present passage was a Herakleitean interpolation in the Phystker rather than that the other was an interpolation from the Phystker in the Herakleitean section. As it is, I find no difficulty in believing that both passages give the Herakleitean doctrine, though it becomes mixed up with other theories in the sequel. See p. 167, n. 2.
2 Aet. ii. 32, 3, Ἡράκλειτος ἐκ μυρίων ὀκτακισχιλίων ἐνιαυτῶν ἡλιακῶν (τὸν μέγαν ἐνιαυτὸν εἶναι), ἘΑρονεοηα, de die nat. 11, Heraclitus et Linus, XDCccc.
8 See Introd. § XII. p. 25, ἢ. 2.
176 Early Greek Philosophy
Now 18,000 years is just half that period, a fact which
may be connected with Herakleitos’s way of dividing
all cycles into an “upward and downward path.” It is
not at all likely, however, that Herakleitos, who held
with Xenophanes that the sun was “new every day,”
would trouble himself about the precession of the
equinoxes, and we seem forced to assume that he
gave some new application to the traditional period.
The Stoics, or some of them, held that the Great Year
was the period between one world-conflagration and
the next. They were careful, however, to make it a
good deal longer than Herakleitos did, and, in any
case, we are not entitled without more ado to credit
him with the theory of a general conflagration.. We
must try first, if possible, to interpret the Great Year
on the analogy of the shorter periods discussed
already.
Now we have seen that a generation is the shortest
time in which a man can become a grandfather, it is
the period of the upward or downward path of the soul,
and the most natural interpretation of the longer period
would surely be that it represents the time taken by a
“measure” of the fire in the world to travel on the
downwatd path to earth or return to fire once more by
the upward path. Plato certainly implies that such a
parallelism between the periods of man and the world
1 For the Stoic doctrine, cf. Nemesios, de mat. hom. 38 (R. P. 4 Mr. Adam allowed that no destruction of the world or conflagratio marked the end of Plato’s year, but he declined to draw what seems to me the natural inference that the connexion between the two things belongs to a later age, and should not, therefore, be ascribed to Herakleitos in the absence of any evidence that he did so connect them. Nevertheless, his treatment of these questions in the second volume of his edition of the Republic, pp. 302 sqq., must form the basis of all further discussion on the subject. It has certainly helped me to put the view which he rejects (p. 303, n. 9) in what I hope will be found a more convincing form.
-_ ΝΣ νον «ον νὰ HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS 177
was recognised,’ and this receives a curious confirmation from a passage in Aristotle, which is usually supposed to refer to the doctrine of a periodic conflagration. He is discussing the question whether the “heavens,” that is to say, what he calls the “ first heaven,” is eternal or .not, and he naturally enough, from his own point of view, identifies this with the Fire of Herakleitos. He quotes him along with Empedokles as holding that the “heavens” are alternately as they are now and in some other state, one of passing away; and he goes on to point out that this is not really to say they pass away, any more than it would be to say that a man ceases to be, if we said that he turned from boy to man and then ~ from man to boy again.? It is surely clear that this is - a reference to the parallel between the generation and the Great Year, and, if so, the ordinary interpretation of the passage must be wrong. It is true that it is not quite consistent with the theory to suppose that a “measure” of Fire could preserve its identity through- out the whole of its upward and downward path ; but it is exactly the same inconsistency that we have felt bound to recognise with regard to the continuance of individual souls, a fact which is really in favour of our interpretation. It should be added that, while 18,000 is half 36,000, 10,800 is 360 x 30, which
1 This is certainly the general sense of the parallelism between the periods of the ἀνθρώπειον and the θεῖον γεννητόν, however we may under-
nd the details. See Adam, Repudiic, vol. ii. pp. 288 sqq.
2 Arist. de Caelo, A, 10. 279 Ὁ 14, οἱ δ᾽ ἐναλλὰξ ὁτὲ μὲν οὕτως ὁτὲ δὲ ἄλλως ἔχειν φθειρόμενον, . . . ὥσπερ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς ὁ ᾿Ακραγαντῖνος καὶ Ἡράκλειτος ὁ ᾿Εφέσιος. Aristotle points out that this really amounts only to saying that it is eternal and changes its form, ὥσπερ εἴ τις ἐκ παιδὸς ἄνδρα γιγνόμενον καὶ ἐξ ἀνδρὸς παῖδα ὁτὲ μὲν φθείρεσθαι, ὁτὲ δ᾽ εἶναι οἴοιτο (280 a 14). The point of the reference to Empedokles will appear from de Gen. Corr. B, 6. 334 a 1 sqq. What Aristotle finds fault with in both theories is that they do not regard the substance of the heavens as something outside the upward and downward motion of the elements.
178 Early Greek Philosophy
would make each generation a day in the Great
Year.’
Did Hera- \J 78. Most modern writers, however, ascribe to
kleitos teach Σ 3 ba : a general Herakleitos the doctrine of a periodical conflagration or