Early Greek Philosophy — John Burnet (Heraclitus fragments)

1 Plato, Symp. 195 c 1. It is implied that these παλαιὰ πράγματα were πολλὰ καὶ βίαια, including such things as éxroual and δεσμοί. The Epicurean criticism of all this is partially preserved in Philodemos, ae

pietate, p. 68, Gomperz ; and Cicero, de nat. D. i. 28 (Dox. p. 534; R. P. 126 b).

Physiology.

232 Early Greek Philosophy

to say a good deal about physiological matters. Like
everything else, man was composed of the warm and
the cold, and death was caused by the removal of the
warm. Some curious views with regard to generation
were also stated. In the first place, males came from
the right side and females from the left. Women had
more of the warm and men of the cold, a view which
we shall find Empedokles contradicting.’ It is just
the proportion of the warm and cold in men that
determines the character of their thought, so that
even corpses, from which the warm has been removed,
retain a perception of what is cold and dark.” These
fragments of information do not tell us much when
taken by themselves; but they connect themselves
in a most interesting way with the history of medicine,
and point to the fact that one of its leading schools
stood in close relation with the Pythagorean Society
Even before the days of Pythagoras, we know that
Kroton was famous for its doctors. A Krotoniate,
Demokedes, was court physician to the Persian king,
and married Milo the Pythagorean’s daughter.2 We
also know the name of a very distinguished medical
writer who lived at Kroton in the days between
Pythagoras and Parmenides, and the few facts we are
told about him enable us to regard the physio-
logical views described by Parmenides not as isolated
curiosities, but as landmarks by means of which we
can trace the origin and growth of one of the most
influential of medical theories, that which explains
health as a balance of opposites.

1 For all this, see R. P. 127 a, with Arist. de Part. An. B, 2. 648 a 28; de Gen. An. A, τ. 765 Ὁ 19.

2 Theophr. dé sens. 3, 4 (R. P. 129).

3 Herod. iii. 131, 137.

Parmenides of Elea 223

96. Aristotle tells us that Alkmaion of Kroton! was Alkmaion of

a young man in the old age of Pythagoras. He does eee

not actually say, as later writers do, that he was a
Pythagorean, though he points out that he seems
either to have derived his theory of opposites from
the Pythagoreans or they theirs from him.? In any
case, he was intimately connected with the society,
as is proved by one of the scanty fragments of his
book. It began as follows: “Alkmaion of Kroton,
son of Peirithous, spoke these words to Brotinos and
Leon and Bathyllos. As to things invisible and things

mortal, the gods have certainty ; but, so far as men

may infer. . The quotation unfortunately ends

in this abrupt way, but we learn two things from it.
In the first place, Alkmaion possessed that reserve
which marks all the best Greek medical writers ; and
in the second place, he dedicated his work to the heads
of the Pythagorean Society.*

Alkmaion’s chief importance in the history of \| philosophy really lies in the fact that he is the founder | of empirical psychology.’ It is certain that he regarded |

1 On Alkmaion, see especially Wachtler, De Alcmaeone Crotoniata (Leipzig, 1896).

2 Arist. Met. A, 5. 986 a 27 (R. P. 66). In a 30 Diels reads, with great probability, ἐγένετο τὴν ἡλικίαν «νέος» ἐπὶ γέροντι Πυθαγόρᾳ. Cf. Iambl. V. Pyth. 104, where Alkmaion is mentioned among the συγχρονί- σαντες kal μαθητεύσαντες τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ πρεσβύτῃ νέοι.

ὃ. Αλκμαίων Κρωτωνιήτης τάδε ἔλεξε Πειρίθου υἱὸς Βροτίνῳ καὶ Λέοντι καὶ Βαθύλλῳ " περὶ τῶν ἀφανέων, περὶ τῶν θνητῶν, σαφήνειαν μὲν θεοὶ ἔχοντι, ὡς δὲ ἀνθρώποις τεκμαίρεσθαι καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. The fact that this is not written in conventional Doric, like the forged Pythagorean books, is a strong proof of genuineness.

* Brotinos (not Brontinos) is variously described as the son-in-law or father-in-law of Pythagoras. Leon is one of the Metapontines in the catalogue of Iamblichos (Diels, Vors. p. 268), and Bathyllos is presumably the Poseidoniate Bathylaos also mentioned there.

> Everything bearing on the early history of this subject is brought together and discussed in Prof. Beare’s Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition, to which I must refer the reader for all details.

224 Early Greek Philosophy

the brain as the common sensorium, an important discovery which Hippokrates and Plato adopted from him, though Empedokles, Aristotle, and the Stoics reverted to the more primitive view that the heart performs this function. There is no reason to doubt that he made this discovery by anatomical means. We have some authority for saying that he practised dissection, and, though the nerves were not yet re- cognised as such, it was known that there were certain “passages” which might be prevented from com- municating sensations to the brain by lesions.’ He also distinguished between sensation and understanding, though we have no means of knowing exactly where he ᾿ drew the line between them. His theories of the special senses are of great interest. We find in him already, what is characteristic of Greek theories of vision as a whole, the attempt to combine the view of vision as an act proceeding from the eye with that which attributes it to an image reflected in the eye. He knew the importance of air for the sense of hearing, though he called it the void, a thoroughly Pythagorean touch. With regard to the other senses, our information is more scanty, but sufficient to show that he treated the subject systematically.”

His astronomy seems surprisingly crude for one
who stood in close relations with the Pythagoreans,
We are told that he adopted Anaximenes’ theory
of the sun and Herakleitos’s explanation of eclipses.’

1 Theophr. de sens. 26 (Beare, p. 252, ἢ. 1). Our authority for the dissections of Alkmaion is only Chalcidius, but he gets his information on such matters from far older sources. The πόροι and the inference from lesions are vouched for by Theophrastos.

2 The details will be found in Beare, pp. 11 sqq. (vision), pp. 93 sqq. (hearing), pp. 131 sqq. (smell), pp. 180 sqq. (touch), pp. 160 sqq. (taste).

3 Aet. ii. 22, 4, πλατὺν εἶναι τὸν ἥλιον ; 29, 3, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ σκαφοειδοῦς στροφὴν καὶ τὰς περικλίσεις (ἐκλείπειν τὴν σελήνγν).

Parmenides of Elea 225

It is all the more remarkable that he is credited with
originating the idea, which it required all Plato’s
authority to get accepted later, that the planets have
an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the
diurnal revolution of the heavens.’ This, if true,
probably stood in close connexion with his saying
that soul was immortal because it resembled immortal
things, and was always in motion like the heavenly
bodies.” He seems, in fact, to be the real author
of the curious view which Plato put into the mouth
of the Pythagorean Timaios, that the soul has circles |
revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This
too seems to be the explanation of his further state-
ment that man dies because he cannot join the
beginning to the end.®? The orbits of the heavenly
bodies always come full circle, but the circles in the
head may fail to complete themselves. This new
version of the parallelism between the microcosm
and the macrocosm would be perfectly natural for
Alkmaion, though it is, of course, no more than a
playful fancy to Plato.

Alkmaion’s theory of health as “ isonomy ” is at
once that which most clearly connects him with earlier
inquirers like Anaximander, and also that which had
the greatest influence on the subsequent development
of philosophy. He observed, to begin with, that “ most
things human were two,” and by this he meant that
man was made up of the hot and the cold, the moist and

1 Aet. ii. 16, 2, (τῶν μαθηματικῶν τινες) τοὺς πλανήτας τοῖς ἀπλάνεσιν ἀπὸ δυσμῶν ἐπ᾽ ἀνατολὰς ἀντιφέρεσθαι. τούτῳ δὲ συνομολογεῖ καὶ ᾿Αλκμαίων.

2 Arist. de An. A, 2. 405 ἃ 30 (R. Ρ. 66 ο).

8 Arist. Probl. 17, 3. 916 a 33, τοὺς ἀνθρώπους φησὶν ᾿Αλκμαίων διὰ τοῦτο ἀπόλλυσθαι, ὅτι οὐ δύνανται τὴν ἀρχὴν τῷ τέλει προσάψαι.

226 Early Greek Philosophy

the dry, and the rest of the opposites.’ Disease was
just the “monarchy” of any one of these—the same
thing that Anaximander had called “ injustice ”—
while health was the establishment in the body of
a free government with equal laws.” This was the
leading doctrine of the Sicilian school of medicine
which came into existence not long after, and we
shall have to consider in the sequel its influence

on the development of Pythagoreanism. Taken along

with the theory of “pores,”’ it is of the greatest

importance for later science.

1 Arist. AZe¢. A, 5. 986a 27 (R. P. 66).

2 Aet. v. 30, 1, ᾿Αλκμαίων τῆς μὲν ὑγιείας εἶναι συνεκτικὴν τὴν ἰσο- νομίαν τῶν δυνάμεων, ὑγροῦ, ξηροῦ, ψυχροῦ, θερμοῦ, πικροῦ, γλυκέος, καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν, τὴν δ᾽ ἐν αὐτοῖς μοναρχίαν νόσου ποιητικήν ᾿" φθοροποιὸν yap ἑκατέρου μοναρχίαν.

3. My colleague, Dr. Fraser Harris, points out to me that Alkmaion’s πόροι may have been a better guess than he knew. The nerve-fibres, when magnified 1000 diameters, ‘‘sometimes appear to have a clear centre, as if the fibrils were tubular.” —Schiafer, Essentials of Physiology (7th edition), p. 132.

CHAPTER V EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS

97. THE belief that all things are one was common Pluralism.
to the philosophers we have hitherto studied; but
now Parmenides has shown that, if this one thing
really zs, we must give up the idea that it can take
different forms. The senses, which present to us a,
world of change and multiplicity, are deceitful. From
this there was no escape; the time was still to come
when men would seek the unity of the world in
something which, from its very nature, the senses could
riever perceive.

We find, accordingly, that from the time of
Parmenides to that of Plato, all thinkers in whose
hands philosophy made real progress abandoned _the
monistic hypothesis. Those who still held by it
adopted a critical attitude, and confined themselves
to a defence of the theory of Parmenides against the
new views. Others taught the doctrine of Herakleitos
in an exaggerated form; some continued to expound
the systems of the early Milesians. This, of course,
showed want of insight ; but even those thinkers who
saw that Parmenides could not be left unanswered,
were by no means equal to their predecessors in power
and thoroughness. The corporealist hypothesis had

Date of Em- pedokles. .

228 Early Greek Philosophy

proved itself unable to bear the weight of a monistic
structure ; but a thorough-going pluralism such as the
atomic theory might have some value, if not as a
final explanation of the world, yet at least as an
intelligible view of a part of it. Any pluralism, on
the other hand, which, like that of Empedokles and

Anaxagoras, stops short of the atoms, will achieve no 3

permanent result, however many may be the brilliant |

apercus which it embodies. It will remain an attempt
to reconcile two things that cannot be reconciled,
and may always, therefore, be developed into con-
tradictions and paradoxes.

98. Empedokles was a citizen of Akragas in
Sicily, and his father’s name, according to the best
accounts, was Meton.’ His grandfather, also called
Empedokles, had won a victory in the horse-race at
Olympia in Ol. LXXI. (496-95 B.c.),? and Apollodoros
fixed the foruzt of Empedokles himself in Ol. LXXXIV.
I (444-43 B.C.). This is the date of the foundation of
Thourioi; and it appears from the quotation in
Diogenes that the almost contemporary biographer,
Glaukos of Rhegion,® said Empedokles visited the

1 Aet. i. 3, 20(R. P. 164), Apollodoros ag. Diog. viii. 52 (R. P. 162). The details of the life of Empedokles are discussed, with a careful criticism of the sources, by Bidez, La biographie ad’ Empédocle (Gand, 1894).

2 For this we have the authority of Apollodoros (Diog. viii. 51, 52; R. P. 162), who follows the Olympic Victors of Eratosthenes, who in turn appealed to Aristotle. Herakleides of Pontos, in his Περὲ νόσων (see below, p. 233, n. 3), spoke of the elder Empedokles as a ‘‘ breeder of horses” (R. P. 162 a); and Timaios mentioned him as a distinguished man in his Fifteenth Book.

3 Glaukos wrote Περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων ποιητῶν καὶ μουσικῶν, and is said to have been contemporary with Demokritos (Diog. ix. 38). Apollodoros adds (R. P. 162) that, according to Aristotle and Herakleides, Empedokles died at the age of sixty. It is to be observed, however, that the words ἔτι 6” Ἡρακλείδης are Sturz’s conjecture, the MSS. having ἔτι δ᾽ Ἡράκλειτον, and Diogenes certainly said (ix. 3) that Herakleitos lived sixty years. On the other hand, if the statement of Aristotle comes from the Περὶ ποιητῶν, it is

Empedokles of Akragas 229

new city shortly after its foundation. But we are
in no way bound to believe that he was just forty years
old at the time of the event in his life which can

most easily be dated. That is the assumption made
by Apollodoros; but there are reasons for thinking
that his date is too late by some eight or ten years.
It is, indeed, most likely that Empedokles did not go
to Thourioi till after his banishment from Akragas,
and he may well have been more than forty years old
when that happened. All, therefore, we can be said
to know of his date is, that his grandfather was still
alive in 496 B.c.; that he himself was active at
Akragas after 472, the date of Theron’s death; and
that he died later than 444.

Even these indications are enough to show that
he must have been a boy in the reign of Theron,
the tyrant who co-operated with Gelon of Syracuse
in the repulse of the Carthaginians from Himera.
His son and successor, Thrasydaios, was a man of
another stamp. Before his accession to the throne
of Akragas, he had ruled in his father’s name at
Himera, and completely estranged the affections of its
inhabitants. Theron died in 472 B.c., and Thrasydaios
at once displayed all the vices and follies usual in
the second holder of a usurped dominion. After a
disastrous war with Hieron of Syracuse, he was driven
out; and Akragas enjoyed a free government till it