eBook of George Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates: Vol. 1 of 4

65 Parm. Frag. v. 77.

Οὐδὲ διαίρετόν ἐστιν, ἐπεὶ πᾶν ἐστὶν ὅμοιον,
οὐδέ τι τῇ μᾶλλον τό κεν εἴργοι μιν ξυνέχεσθαι,
οὐδέ τι χειρότερον· πᾶν δὲ πλέον ἐστὶν ἐόντος·
τῷ ξυνεχὲς πᾶν ἐστίν· ἐὸν γὰρ ἐόντι πελάζει.

Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 29, with the Scholia, and Physic. i. 2, 3. Simplikius Comm. in Physic. Aristot. (apud Tennemann Geschichte der Philos. b. i. s. 4, vol. i. p. 170) πάντα γάρ φησι (Παρμενίδης) τὰ ὄντα, καθὸ ὄντα, ἑν ἐστίν. This chapter, in which Tennemann gives an account of the Eleatic philosophy, appears to me one of the best and most instructive in his work.

66 “To make parts, — or to part or divide, Space or Time, — is nothing else but to consider one and another within the same: so that if any man divide space or time, the diverse conceptions he has are more, by one, than the parts which he makes. For his first conception is of that which is to be divided — then, of some part of it — and again of some other part of it: and so forwards, as long as he goes in dividing. But it is to be noted, that here, by division, I do not mean the severing or pulling asunder of one space or time from another (for does any man think that one hemisphere may be separated from the other hemisphere, or the first hour from the second?), but diversity of consideration: so that division is not made by the operation of the hands, but of the mind.” — Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, chap. vii. 5, vol. i. p. 96, ed. Molesworth.

“Expansion and duration have this farther agreement, that though they are both considered by us as having parts, yet their parts are not separable one from another, not even in thought; though the parts of bodies from which we take our measure of the one — and the parts of motion, from which we may take the measure of the other — may be interrupted or separated.” — Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, book ii. ch. 15. s. 11.

In the Platonic Parmenides, p. 156 D., we find the remarkable conception of what he calls τὸ ἐξαίφνης, ἄτοπός τις φύσις — a break in the continuity of duration, an extra-temporal moment.

The Ens of Parmenides thus coincided mainly with that which (since Kant) has been called the Noumenon — the Thing in itself — the Absolute; or rather with that which, by a frequent illusion, passes for the absolute — no notice being taken of the cogitant and believing apart from mind, as if cogitation and belief, cogitata and credita, would be had without it. By Ens was understood the remnant in his mind, after leaving out all that abstraction, as far as it had then been carried, could leave out. It was the minimum indispensable to the continuance of thought; you cannot think (Parmenides says) without thinking of Something, and that Something Extended and Enduring. Though he and others talk of this Something as an Absolute (i.e. apart from or independent of his own thinking mind), yet he also uses some juster language (τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι), showing that it is really relative: that if the Cogitans implies a Cogitatum, the Cogitatum also implies no less its correlative Cogitans: and that though we may divide the two in words, we cannot divide them in fact. It is to be remarked that Parmenides distinguishes the Enduring or Continuous from the Transient or Successive, Duration from Succession (both of which are included in the meaning of the word Time), and that he considers Duration alone as belonging to Ens or the Absolute — to the region of Truth — setting it in opposition or antithesis to Succession, which he treats as relative and phenomenal. We have thus (with the Eleates) the first appearance of Ontology, the science of Being or Ens, in Grecian philosophy. Ens is everything, and everything is Ens. In the view of Parmenides, Ontology is not merely narrow, but incapable of enlargement or application; we shall find Plato and others trying to expand it into numerous imposing generalities.67

67 Leibnitz says, Réponse à M. Foucher, p. 117, ed. Erdmann, “Comment seroit il possible qu’aucune chose existât, si l’être même, ipsum Esse, n’avoit l’existence? Mais bien au contraire ne pourrait on pas dire avec beaucoup plus de raison, qu’il n’y a que lui qui existe véritablement, les êtres particuliers n’ayant rien de permanent? Semper generantur, et nunquam sunt.”

Apart from Ontology, Parmenides reckons all as belonging to human opinions. These were derived from the observations of sense (which he especially excludes from Ontology) with the comparisons, inferences, hypothesis, &c., founded thereupon: the phenomena of Nature generally.68 He does not attempt (as Plato and Aristotle do after him) to make Ontology serve as a principle or beginning for anything beyond itself,69 or as a premiss from which the knowledge of nature is to be deduced. He treats the two — Ontology and Phenomenology, to employ an Hegelian word — as radically disparate, and incapable of any legitimate union. Ens was essentially one and enduring: Nature was essentially multiform, successive, ever changing and moving relative to the observer, and different to observers at different times and places. Parmenides approached the study of Nature from its own starting point, the same as had been adopted by the Ionic philosophers — the data of sense, or certain agencies selected among them, and vaguely applied to explain the rest. Here he felt that he relinquished the full conviction, inseparable from his intellectual consciousness, with which he announced his few absolute truths respecting Ens and Non-Ens, and that he entered upon a process of mingled observation and conjecture, where there was great room for diversity of views between man and man.

68 Karsten observes that the Parmenidean region of opinion comprised not merely the data of sense, but also the comparisons, generalisations, and notions, derived from sense.

“Δοξαστὸν et νοητὸν vocantur duo genera inter se diversa, quorum alterum complectitur res externas et fluxas, notionesque quæ ex his ducuntur — alterum res æternas et à conspectu remotas,” &c. (Parm. Fragm. p. 148-149).

69 Marbach (Lehrbuch der Gesch. der Philos., s. 71, not. 3) after pointing out the rude philosophical expression of the Parmenidean verses, has some just remarks upon the double aspect of philosophy as there proclaimed, and upon the recognition by Parmenides of that which he calls the “illegitimate” vein of enquiry along with the “legitimate.”

“Learn from me (says Parmenides) the opinions of mortals, brought to your ears in the deceitful arrangement of my words. This is not philosophy (Marbach says): it is Physics. We recognise in modern times two perfectly distinct ways of contemplating Nature: the philosophical and the physical. Of these two, the second dwells in plurality, the first in unity: the first teaches everything as infallible truth, the second as multiplicity of different opinions. We ought not to ask why Parmenides, while recognising the fallibility of this second road of enquiry, nevertheless undertook to march in it, — any more than we can ask, Why does not modern philosophy render physics superfluous?”

The observation of Marbach is just and important, that the line of research which Parmenides treated as illegitimate and deceitful, but which he nevertheless entered upon, is the analogon of modern Physics. Parmenides (he says) indicated most truly the contrast and divergence between Ontology and Physics; but he ought to have gone farther, and shown how they could be reconciled and brought into harmony. This (Marbach affirms) was not even attempted, much less achieved, by Parmenides: but it was afterwards attempted by Plato, and achieved by Aristotle.

Marbach is right in saying that the reconciliation was attempted by Plato; but he is not right (I think) in saying that it was achieved by Aristotle — nor by any one since Aristotle. It is the merit of Parmenides to have brought out the two points of view as radically distinct, and to have seen that the phenomenal world, if explained at all, must be explained upon general principles of its own, raised out of its own data of facts — not by means of an illusory Absolute and Real. The subsequent philosophers, in so far as they hid and slurred over this distinction, appear to me to have receded rather than advanced.

Yet though thus passing from Truth to Opinions, from full certainty to comparative and irremediable uncertainty,70 Parmenides does not consider all opinions as equally true or equally untrue. He announces an opinion of his own — what he thinks most probable or least improbable — respecting the structure and constitution of the Kosmos, and he announces it without the least reference to his own doctrines about Ens. He promises information respecting Earth, Water, Air, and the heavenly bodies, and how they work, and how they came to be what they are.71 He recognises two elementary principles or beginnings, one contrary to the other, but both of them positive — Light, comprehending the Hot, the Light, and the Rare — Darkness, comprehending the Cold, the Heavy, and the Dense.72 These two elements, each endued with active and vital properties, were brought into junction and commixture by the influence of a Dea Genitalis analogous to Aphroditê,73 with her first-born son Eros, a personage borrowed from the Hesiodic Theogony. From hence sprang the other active forces of nature, personified under various names, and the various concentric circles or spheres of the Kosmos. Of those spheres, the outer-most was a solid wall of fire — “flammantia mœnia mundi” — next under this the Æther, distributed into several circles of fire unequally bright and pure — then the circle called the Milky Way, which he regarded as composed of light or fire combined with denser materials — then the Sun and Moon, which were condensations of fire from the Milky Way — lastly, the Earth, which he placed in the centre of the Kosmos.74 He is said to have been the first who pronounced the earth to be spherical, and even distributed it into two or five zones.75 He regarded it as immovable, in consequence of its exact position in the centre. He considered the stars to be fed by exhalation from the Earth. Midway between the Earth and the outer flaming circle, he supposed that there dwelt a Goddess — Justice or Necessity — who regulated all the movements of the Kosmos, and maintained harmony between its different parts. He represented the human race as having been brought into existence by the power of the sun,76 and he seems to have gone into some detail respecting animal procreation, especially in reference to the birth of male and female offspring. He supposed that the human mind, as well as the human body, was compounded of a mixture of the two elemental influences, diffused throughout all Nature: that like was perceived and known by like: that thought and sensation were alike dependent upon the body, and upon the proportions of its elemental composition: that a certain limited knowledge was possessed by every object in Nature, animate or inanimate.77

70 Parmen. Fr. v. 109.

ἐν τῷ σοὶ παύω πιστὸν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα
ἀμφὶς ἀληθείης· δόξας δ’ ἀπὸ τοῦδε βροτείας
μάνθανε, κόσμον ἐμῶν ἐπέων ἀπατηλὸν ἀκούων.

71 Parm. Frag. v. 132-142.

72 Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 5, p. 987, a. 1) represents Parmenides as assimilating one of his phenomenal principles (Heat) to Ens. and the other (Cold) to Non-Ens. There is nothing in the fragments of Parmenides to justify this supposed analogy. Heat as well as Cold belongs to Non-Ens, not to Ens, in the Parmenidean doctrine. Moreover Cold or Dense is just as much a positive principle as Hot or Rare, in the view of Parmenides; it is the female to the male (Parm. Fragm. v. 129; comp. Karsten, p. 270). Aristotle conceives Ontology as a substratum for Phenomenology; and his criticisms on Parmenides imply (erroneously in my judgment) that Parmenides did the same. The remarks which Brucker makes both on Aristotle’s criticism and on the Eleatic doctrine are in the main just, though the language is not very suitable.

Brucker, Hist. Philosoph., part ii. lib. ii. ch. xi. tom. 1, p. 1152-3, about Xenophanes:—“Ex iis enim quæ apud Aristotelem ex ejus mente contra motum disputantur, patet Xenophanem motûs notionem aliam quam quæ in physicis obtinet, sibi concepisse; et ad verum motum progressum a nonente ad ens ejusque existentiam requisivisse. Quo sensu notionis hujus semel admisso, sequebatur (cum illud impossibile sit, ut ex nihilo fiat aliquid) universum esse immobile, adeoque et partes ejus non ita moveri, ut ex statu nihili procederent ad statum existentiæ. Quibus admissis, de rerum tamen mutationibus disserere poterat, quas non alterationes, generationes, et extinctiones, rerum naturalium, sed modificationes, esse putabat: hoc nomine indignas, eo quod rerum universi natura semper maneret immutabilis, soliusque materiæ æternum fluentis particulæ varie inter se modificarentur. Hâc ratione si Eleaticos priores explicemus de motu disserentes, rationem facile dabimus, quî de rebus physicis disserere et phenomena naturalia explicare, salvâ istâ hypothesi, potuerint. Quod tamen de iis negat Aristoteles, conceptum motûs metaphysicum ad physicum transferens: ut, more suo, Eleatico systemate corrupto, eò vehementius illud premeret.”

73 Parmenides, ap. Simplik. ad Aristot. Physic. fol. 9 a.

ἐν δὲ μέσῳ τούτων Δαιμων, ἣ πάντα κυβερνᾷ, &c.

Plutarch, Amator, 13.

74 See especially the remarkable passage from Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. i. 23, p. 482, cited in Karsten, Frag. Parm. p. 241, and Cicero, De Natur. Deor, i. 11, s. 28, with the Commentary of Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, viii. p. 98, seqq.

It is impossible to make out with any clearness the Kosmos and its generation as conceived by Parmenides. We cannot attain more than a general approximation to it.

75 Diogen. Laert. ix. 21, viii. 48; Strabo, ii. p. 93 (on the authority of Poseidonius). Plutarch (Placit. Philos. iii. 11) and others ascribe to Parmenides the recognition not of five zones, but only of two. If it be true that Parmenides held this opinion about the figure of the earth, the fact is honourable to his acuteness; for Leukippus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes the Apolloniate, and Demokritus, all thought the earth to be a flat, round surface, like a dish or a drum: Plato speaks about it in so confused a manner that his opinion cannot be made out: and Aristotle was the first who both affirmed and proved it to be spherical. The opinion had been propounded by some philosophers earlier than Anaxagoras, who controverted it. See the dissertation of L. Oettinger. Die Vorstellungen der Griechen über die Erde als Himmelskörper, Freiburg, 1850, p. 42-46.

76 Diogen. Laert. ix. 22.

77 Parmen. Frag. v. 145; Theophrastus, De Sensu, Karsten. pp. 268, 270.

Parmenides (according to Theophrastus) thought that the dead body, having lost its fiery element, had no perception of light, or heat, or sound; but that it had perception of darkness, cold, and silence — καὶ ὅλως δὲ πᾶν τὸ ὂν ἔχειν τινα γνῶσιν.

Before we pass from Parmenides to his pupil and successor Zeno, who developed the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic doctrine, it will be convenient to notice various other theories of the same century: first among them that of Herakleitus, who forms as it were the contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and Parmenides.

78 Diogen. L. ix. 1. Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὖτις τε Ξενοφάνεα καὶ Ἑκαταῖον, &c. Ib. viii. 1, 6. Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων, καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποίησεν ἑωϋτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην.

79 Diogen. Laert. ix. 1-6. Theophrastus conceived that Herakleitus had left the work unfinished, from eccentricity of temperament (ὑπὸ μελαγχολίας). Of him, as of various others, it was imagined by some that his obscurity was intentional (Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 26, 74, De Finib. 2, 5). The words of Lucretius about Herakleitus are remarkable (i. 641):—

Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanes
Quamde graves inter Græcos qui vera requirunt:
Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque
Inversis quæ sub verbis latitantia cernunt.

Even Aristotle complains of the difficulty of understanding Herakleitus, and even of determining the proper punctuation (Rhetoric. iii. 5).

80 Cicero, Nat. Deor., iii. 14, 35.

The expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero conceived Herakleitus as having proclaimed Fire to be the universal and all-pervading element of nature;81 as Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes air. This interpretation was countenanced by some striking passages of Herakleitus: but when we put together all that remains from him, it appears that his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical or ontological: that the want of adequate general terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations, among which fire was only one, though the most prominent and most significant.82 Xenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only objective reality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, perpetual, infinite, indeterminate, incapable of change or modification. They denied the objective reality of motion, change, generation, and destruction — considering all these to be purely relative and phenomenal. Herakleitus on the contrary denied everything in the nature of a permanent and perpetual substratum: he laid down nothing as permanent and perpetual except the process of change — the alternate sequence of generation and destruction, without beginning or end — generation and destruction being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the same process, since the generation of one particular state was the destruction of its antecedent contrary. All reality consisted in the succession and transition, the coming and going, of these finite and particular states: what he conceived as the infinite and universal, was the continuous process of transition from one finite state to the next — the perpetual work of destruction and generation combined, which terminated one finite state in order to make room for a new and contrary state.

81 To some it appeared that Herakleitus hardly distinguished Fire from Air. Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. 127-129, ix. 360.

82 Zeller’s account of the philosophy of Herakleitus in the second edition of his Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 450-496, is instructive. Marbach also is useful (Gesch. der Phil. s. 46-49); and his (Hegelian) exposition of Herakleitus is further developed by Ferdinand Lassalle (Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen, published 1858). This last work is very copious and elaborate, throwing great light upon a subject essentially obscure and difficult.

83 Plato, Kratylus, p. 402, and Theætet. p. 152, 153.

Plutarch, De Εἰ apud Delphos, c. 18, p. 392. Ποταμῷ γὰρ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, οὐδὲ θνητῆς οὐσίας δὶς ἅψασθαι κατὰ ἕξιν· ἀλλ’ ὀξύτητι καὶ ταχει μεταβολης σκιδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει, μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδὲ ὕστερον, ἀλλ’ ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει, πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι. Ὅθεν οὐδ’ εἰς τὸ εἶναι περαίνει τὸ γιγνόμενον αὐτῆς, τῷ μηδέποτε λήγειν μηδ’ ἵστασθαι τὴν γένεσιν, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ σπέρματος ἀεὶ μεταβάλλουσαν — τὰς πρώτας φθείρουσαν γενέσεις καὶ ἡλικίας ταῖς ἐπιγιγνομέναις.

Clemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711. Κόσμον τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτ’ ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν· ἀλλ’ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα. Compare also Eusebius, Præpar. Evang. xiv. 3, 8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.

84 Plato, Sophist. p. 242 E. Διαφερόμενον γὰρ ἀεὶ ξυμφέρεται.

Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106. Πότε γὰρ ἐν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ θάνατος; καὶ ᾗ φησιν Ἡράκλειτος, ταὐτό τ’ ἔνι ζῶν καὶ τεθνηκός, καὶ τὸ ἐγρηγορὸς καὶ τὸ καθεῦδον, καὶ νέον καὶ γηραιόν· τάδε γὰρ μεταπεσόντα ἐκεῖνα ἐστι, κἀκεῖνα πάλιν μεταπεσόντα ταῦτα.

Pseudo-Origenes, Refut. Hær. ix. 10, Ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη, εὐφρόνη — χείμων, θέρος — πόλεμος, εἰρήνη — κόρος, λίμος, &c.

The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and destruction, this alternation of contraries. To carry out such law fully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass away instantaneously — to have no duration of its own, but to be supplanted by its contrary at once. And this happens to a great degree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river appears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago has flowed away:85 we and all around us are in rapid movement, though we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus a delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his absolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in respect to all particulars. Some positive and particular manifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of fixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were destroyed. There was a difference between one particular and another, in this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable, another less.86 But according to the universal law or destiny, each particular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted and re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching on the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative agency of the universal. Hence arises an antithesis or hostility between the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence of particular states on the other. The universal law or process is generative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but the particular realities in which it manifests itself are all positive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to maintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of the universal process. Each particular reality represented rest and fixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of the cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating. Herakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.

85 Aristot. De Cœlo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30; Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 9. Φασί τινες κινεῖσθαι τῶν ὄντων οὐ τὰ μὲν τὰ δ’ οὔ, ἀλλὰ πάντα καὶ ἀεὶ, ἀλλὰ λανθάνειν τοῦτο τὴν ἡμετέραν αἴσθησιν — which words doubtless refer to Herakleitus. See Preller, Hist. Phil. Græc. Rom. s. 47.

86 Lassalle, Philosophie des Herakleitos, vol. i. pp. 54, 55. “Andrerseits bieten die sinnlichen Existenzen graduelle oder Mass-Unterschiede dar, je nachdem in ihnen das Moment des festen Seins über die Unruhe des Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und diese Graduation wird also zugleich den Leitfaden zur Classification der verschiedenen Existenz-formen bilden.”

The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or Ens, either material or immaterial — no category either of substance or quality — but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change, generation and destruction, position and negation, immediately succeeding, or coinciding with each other.87 It is this principle or everlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative phrases — “the common (τὸ ξυνον), the universal, the all-comprehensive (τὸ περιέχον), the governing, the divine, the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding,” &c. The most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as embodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of the dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this paradoxical tenor.88 Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow, change, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which latter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since change was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other.89 In the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into action: destruction and generation always take effect together: there is no negative without a positive, nor positive without a negative.90

87 Aristot. De Cœlo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30. Οἱ δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα πάντα γίνεσθαί τέ φασι καὶ ῥεῖν, εἶναι δὲ παγίως οὐδέν, ἓν δέ τι μόνον ὑπομένειν, ἐξ οὗ ταῦτα πάντα μετασχηματίζεσθαι πέφυκεν· ὅπερ ἐοίκασιν βούλεσθαι λέγειν ἄλλοι τε πολλοὶ καὶ Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος. See the explanation given of this passage by Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 21, 39, 40, founded on the comment of Simplikius. He explains it as an universal law or ideal force — die reine Idee des Werdens selbst (p. 24), and “eine unsinnliche Potenz” (p. 25). Yet, in i. p. 55 of his elaborate exposition, he does indeed say, about the theory of Herakleitus, “Hier sind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Bestimmtheiten zu bloss verschiedenen und absolut in einander übergehenden Formen eines identischen, ihnen zu Grunde liegenden, Substrats herabgesetzt”. But this last expression appears to me to contradict the whole tenor and peculiarity of Lassalle’s own explanation of the Herakleitean theory. He insists almost in every page (compare ii. p. 156) that “das Allgemeine” of Herakleitus is “reines Werden; reiner, steter, erzeugender, Prozess”. This process cannot with any propriety be called a substratum, and Herakleitus admitted no other. In thus rejecting any substratum he stood alone. Lassalle has been careful in showing that Fire was not understood by Herakleitus as a substratum (as water by Thales), but as a symbol for the universal force or law. In the theory of Herakleitus no substratum was recognised — no τόδε τι or οὐσία — in the same way as Aristotle observes about τὸ ἄπειρον (Physic. iii. 6, a. 22-31) ὥστε τὸ ἄπειρον οὐ δεῖ λαμβάνειν ὡς τόδε τι, οἷον ἄνθρωπον ἢ οἰκίαν, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἡ ἡμέρα λέγεται καὶ ὁ ἀγων, οἷς τὸ εἶναι οὐχ’ ὡς οὐσία τις γέγονεν, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἐν γενέσει ἣ φθορᾷ, εἰ καὶ πεπερασμένον, ἀλλ’ ἀεί γε ἕτερον καὶ ἕτερον.

88 Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, c. 5, p. 396, b. 20. Ταὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο ἦν καὶ τὸ παρὰ τῷ σκοτεινῷ λεγόμενον Ἡρακλειτῷ: “συνάψειας οὖλα καὶ οὐχὶ οὖλα, συμφερόμενον καὶ διαφερόμενον, συνᾷδον καὶ διᾷδον, καὶ ἐκ πάντων ἑ καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα.” Heraclid. Allegor. ap. Schleiermacher (Herakleitos, p. 529), ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἰμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἰμέν: Plato, Sophist, p. 242, E., διαφερόμενον ἀεὶ ξυμφέρεται: Aristotle, Metaphys. iii. 7, p. 1012, b. 24, ἔοικε δ’ ὁ με Ἡρακλείτου λόγος, λέγων πάντα εἶναι καὶ μὴ εἶναι, ἅπαντα ἀληθῆ ποεῖν: Aristot. Topic. viii. 5, p. 155, b., οἷον ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν εἶναι ταὐτὸν, καθάπερ Ἡράκλειτός φησιν: also Aristot. Physic. i. 2, p. 185, b. Compare the various Herakleitean phrases cited in Pseudo-Origen. Refut. Hæres. Fragm. ix. 10; also Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, vol. i. p. 370-468.

Bernays and Lassalle (vol. i. p. 81) contend, on reasonable grounds (though in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the following verses in the Fragments of Parmenides refer to Herakleitus:

οἷς τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν νενόμισται
κοὐ ταὐτὸν, πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.

The commentary of Alexander Aphrodis. on the Metaphysica says, “Heraclitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem esse et non esse et opposita simul consistere, contradictionem veram simul esse statuebat, et omnia dicebat esse vera” (Lassalle, p. 83).

One of the metaphors by which Herakleitus illustrated his theory of opposite and co-existent forces, was the pulling and pushing of two sawyers with the same saw. See Bernays, Heraclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn, 1848.