Empedocles: translation
EmpedoclesM.R.WrightINTRODUCTIONEmpedocles was a native of Acragas (Agrigento) in Sicily, a Doric colonyfounded on the south coast of the island in the sixth century BC, which soongrew to rival Syracuse in its prosperity. A line of temples, many of which arestill standing, attested to its wealth and public piety; behind the city rose thedramatic volcano of Etna, and the plains further into the hinterland were heldsacred to Demeter and her daughter Persephone, and their associated mysteriesand cults.Empedocles’ lifetime spanned the greater part of the fifth century, probablyfrom 494 to 434 BC. His family was aristocratic, but more inclined to democracythan oligarchy. There are various anecdotes supporting his own pro-democraticoutlook, and his part in overthrowing a tyrannical regime in the city. He had areputation as an experienced orator, and taught, or at least influenced, the greatSicilian rhetorician Gorgias. He is also credited with giving practical help invarious emergencies, and his work shows a detailed interest in anatomy,embryology and physiology, as well as in more general biological and botanicalthemes. He claims to have travelled extensively, and to have been both wellknownand popular:Whenever I enter prosperous towns I am honoured by both men andwomen. They follow me in countless numbers, to ask what is best for them,some seeking prophecies, others, long pierced by harsh pains, ask to hearthe word of healing for all kinds of illnesses.(fr. 112.7–12)As a result of such claims, and of the confidence in his understanding of naturalscience, he acquired a reputation as a wonder-worker. There was however nosound basis for this, or for the legend, preserved in the same context, of hissuicide leap into the volcano at Etna. Despite their romantic appeal, a life-styleas a magician and this dramatic death are both firmly rejected as fabrications bythe early local historian Timaeus.As was often the case such biographical detailsprobably arose from particular interpretations of the philosopher’s own words indifferent contexts. Because of his known political sympathies Empedocles ismore likely to have ended his years in exile in south Italy or mainland Greece; heis reported to have been barred from Sicily when the descendants of his politicalenemies opposed his return.Empedocles’ travels through the towns of south Italy, for which there isevidence independent of his own words, would have brought him into contactwith the philosophical activity there. He is likely to have known of thePythagorean communities around Croton and the pan-Hellenic foundation ofThurii in 443 BC, which involved the sophist Protagoras and later attracted thehistorian Herodotus. He was certainly influenced by Parmenides in Elea and wasa contemporary of Zeno there. His place in the history of pre-Socratic thought isfurther confirmed by the notice in the first book of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics that hewas younger than Anaxagoras but his philosophy came earlier.Like Parmenides, Empedocles wrote in verse, in the epic hexameters and styleof Homer’s
Iliad and
Odyssey. It is reported from Timaeus that part of his workwas recited at the Olympic games as one of the display pieces, and his talent as apoet later earned praise from Aristotle. Although he is credited with variouswritings in the
Life of Empedocles by Diogenes Laertius—a
Hymn to Apollo, anessay on Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, a medical treatise, political works,tragedies and epigrams—there is reliable evidence for just two poems, known as
Physics (or
On Nature) and
Katharmoi (Methods of Purification). These titleswere probably assigned later, and have since been understood by some asalternatives for one comprehensive work. All in all there are over 450 lines extantfrom the Empedoclean corpus, more than from any other pre-Socratic, in over130 fragments, some in continuous blocks and others as individual verses orphrases. From various surviving summaries and doxographical evidence itappears that these form a nucleus of the original which allows for a reasonablyconfident reconstruction of the main topics of his philosophy and his treatmentof them.There are two main themes: one deals with scientific and cosmologicalprinciples, set out in the fragments traditionally assigned to the
Physics, and isaddressed to the student Pausanias; the second, the subject of the
Katharmoi, hasthe form of a public proclamation to the citizens of Acragas, and is concernedmore with psychology, purification and related ritual. The fragments may beattached to one or other of these themes according to explicit citations fromancient authors, the use of the second person singular or plural for the addresseeand other criteria, but the placing of many is dubious. Recently there have beenattempts to relocate some important fragments from the
Katharmoi to a
Proem ofthe
Physics, and so significantly reduce the content and subject-matter of the publicpoem, or to take them all as from a single work. In whatever way the fragmentsare arranged (and the case for two separate works is still the stronger) scholarshipon Empedocles has always been much concerned with the problem of reconcilinga complex scientific philosophy explained to a particular individual with publicexhortations to a moral and religious life-style that appears to be incompatiblewith it. In Empedocles’ case the problems of compatibility and consistency areincreased by the the fact that he expounded his ideas in the form of epic poetryrather than through the medium of prose, which had first been developed by theIonians in the sixth century BC as a medium more appropriate than verse forphilosophical exposition. The exotic vocabulary and complex style thatcharacterize Empedocles’ talent often make his work ambiguous and obscure,especially when contrasted with the simpler language and more direct argumentof Parmenides’ poem, but they also add to its fascination.As with later figures in the history of ideas, it is not necessary to assume a‘conversion’ from science to religion or a disillusioned rejection of religiousprinciples in favour of the rigours of science, since obviously a common issuemay be approached from different points of view, appropriate to the immediatecontext and level of understanding assumed. Nor is it as obvious now as formerlyappeared that there is such a great divide between science and theology that thetwo cannot be expected to engage the same mind at the same time. Few ancientGreek philosophers would have recognized such a division, and now once morethe distinctions are blurring. The last sentence of
God and the New Physics(Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1984), for example, by the contemporarycosmologist Paul Davies shows an innate sympathy with the comprehensiveapproach found two thousand years earlier in Empedocles:It is my deep conviction that only by understanding the world in its manyaspects—reductionist and holistic, mathematical and poetical, throughforces, fields and particles as well as through good and evil—that we willcome to understand ourselves and the meaning behind this universe.(Davies, 1984:229)In some recent developments which are likely to dominate scientific studies intothe next millennium it is possible to view Empedocles as a distant precursor. Firstthe combined study of physics, chemistry and biology is apparently unlockingthe secret of life itself as the mapping of the sequences of the DNA moleculeprogresses. These rest on the myriad variations of a genetic alphabet of just thefour letters A, T, G and C (the initials of adenine, thymine, guanine andcytosine), the basic building blocks of protein being in principle something likeEmpedocles’ four ‘roots’. As with Empedocles the results cover the wholespectrum of life, from the simplest plant forms to humans, and show large areasof overlap in genetic material between what were thought to be widely differingspecies. It is expected that there will be great rewards in improved understandingof disease, in new cures and in the manipulation of the limits of life in birth anddeath; those who work in these areas are given Nobel prizes, the modernequivalent of being ‘crowned with ribbons and garlands, honoured by all’. Thenthe latest theories in cosmology also have great popular appeal, and books on thesubject become best-sellers. A particular interest here which is relevant to thestudent of the pre-Socratics and especially of Empedocles is the search for aunified theory which will explain the complexity of phenomena from theimmensely large to the most minute as a seamless manifestation of basicprinciples.A third focus of modern science comes in new research into the old mind-bodyproblem, where the study of the brain, and advances in parallel neural computing,might well engender a more sympathetic attitude to the reductionism of the earlythinkers as well as providing a context in which it is still worthwhile to discussthe working of individual sense-organs in something akin to Empedoclean terms.Finally it becomes necessary to find a way of life for humans in the light of thelatest discoveries, to deal with individual emotions (especially the polarities oferotic attraction and aggressive hostility) and to direct decision-making towardsthe development of viable relationships and societies that do not conflict withother living creatures and the natural environment. It is in these four main areas,in the theories of elements, of cosmology, of perception and cognition, and of theunity of life, that Empedocles’ position in the history of philosophy is assured.
THE THEORY OF ELEMENTSEmpedocles started from a basic principle that was his most influential discoveryin the history of science: the understanding of the nature of an element, and thereduction of all apparent generation, alteration and destruction, along with theparticular and changing characteristics of what is perceived, to a limited numberof persisting and unchanging basic entities. Empedocles had assented to theconclusion from the ‘Way of Truth’ of his predecessor Parmenides that there couldbe no absolute birth or death, since these entail temporal non-existence,which was found to be logically unacceptable; his wording here follows theEleatic argument closely:It is impossible for there to be a coming into existence from what is not,and for what exists to be completely destroyed cannot be fulfilled, nor is tobe heard of.(fr. 12)Parmenides had likewise denied the corresponding spatial non-existence;Empedocles identified this as void (what is empty or
kenon) and then, on similarlogical grounds, refused its admittance as a divider between the continuity andhomogeneity of being, for ‘there is no part of the whole that is empty’ (fr. 13).This also meant that there could be no addition to or subtraction from the totalsum, for, as he says elsewhere, ‘What could increase the whole? And wherewould it come from?’ (fr. 17.32). The common acceptance of additions andsubtractions as births and deaths should consequently be understood as merely‘names’ mistakenly used in human speech:When there has been a mixture in the shape of a man which comes to theair, or the shape of the species of wild animals, or of plants, or of birds,then people say that this is to be born, and when they separate they call thisagain ill-fated death; these terms are not right, but I follow the custom anduse them myself.(fr. 9)Empedocles then developed from the hint of the two forms of light and night inParmenides’ ‘Way of Opinion’ the concept of a minimum number of elements,with permanent and unalterable characteristics, which could account for a worldof plurality and variety according to their proportion and arrangement incompounds.Like Parmenides, Empedocles was also a poet wrestling with a newvocabulary, and for his opening move, instead of saying in a straightforwardmanner that the number of elements was four, and that they correspond to fire,air, earth and water, his words translate as:Hear first the four roots of all things: bright Zeus, life-bringing Hera,Aidoneus and Nestis, whose tears are the source of mortal streams.(fr. 6)The botanical term ‘roots’
(rizōmata) indicated the vitality of the sub-structures,their unseen depths and the potential for growths from them, while the divinenames were an indication of their potency and sempiternity. Why were thesefour chosen? Perhaps Empedocles had in mind the Homeric division of the worldwhich allotted the sky to Zeus, the sea to Poseidon, the underworld to Hades, andleft the earth common to all, and then adapted this division to apply to two pairsof male and female principles, one higher (Zeus the fire above, and Hera the air),and one lower (Aidoneus for earth, and Nestis as water). Four was theeconomical minimum number, reinforced by the importance of the opposites ofhot and cold, dry and wet for the earlier Milesians, and by the adoption ofdifferent basic principles:—of air (by Anaximenes), of fire (by Heraclitus), ofwater (attributed to Thales) and the general tradition of earth as the mother of all.A group of four (the first square number and associated with justice for thePythagoreans) also allowed for mutual activity within a structure of balance andequilibrium. Most obviously the four comprised the natural masses visible in acoastal town of Sicily:—the earth below, the sea at its edge, the air above andfire visible in the bright sun and also in the lava pouring from the volcanoes.This is confirmed by one fragment of Empedocles which states that anunderstanding of the true nature of things can come simply from looking around:since all these—sun and earth and sky and sea—are one with the parts ofthemselves that have been separated off and born in mortal things.(fr. 22)At their first appearance the four were given divine names, since they had nowtaken the place of the traditional gods as the true immortals, but Empedocles’vocabulary was not consistent. As well as the names of gods and goddesses, healso listed them by the common terms of fire, air, earth and water, or by theirmost obvious manifestations as sun, sky, earth (
chthōn as well as
gaia), and seaor rain. He posited just these four, no more and no less, eternally existing, everthe same, equal in privilege and power, but capable, as they mingle, separate andreassemble, of producing a variety of phenomena. The evidence for theirindividual characteristics, as for their very existence, was to be found in theirappearance as conglomerates in the natural world:sun with its radiant appearance and pervading warmth, heavenly bodiesbathed in heat and shining light, rain everywhere dark and chill, and earththe basis of firmly rooted solids.(fr. 21.3–6)Such qualitative differences as hot and cold, wet and dry, light and dark, remainwhether the four are separated out in perceived stretches of bright sky, mist, landand sea, or brought together in compounds, in which the characteristics of thepredominating elements may be apparent, but others imperceptible because ofthe smallness of the component particles.Empedocles therefore considered the four roots or elements to be basic andpermanent corporeal entities, forming temporary arrangements as their partswere brought into compounds of different shapes, although they themselves werenot subject to alteration of any kind. He constantly rammed the point home:these are the only real things, but as they run through each other theybecome different objects at different times, yet they are throughout foreverthe same.(fr. 17.34–5 and cf. 21.13–4, 26.3–4)Birth and death, generation and destruction have to be accepted as illusory, theconsequence merely of the mingling and separating of parts of the elements invarious proportions, which give to the different structures their apparentindividuality. The context in fragment 21 explains further:From them (the four ‘roots’) comes all that was and is and will be hereafter—trees have sprung from them, and men and women, and animals andbirds and water-nourished fish, and long-lived gods too, highest in honour.For these are the only real things, and as they run through each other theyassume different shapes, for the mixing interchanges them.(fr. 21.9–14)To illustrate the possibility of the wide diversity of phenomena generated fromjust four elements Empedocles used the simile of a painting, which can show intwo dimensions a variety of plant, animal and human life, although it consistsbasically of pigments of a few primary colours in a particular arrangement:As painters, men well taught by wisdom in the practice of their art,decorate temple offerings when they take in their hands pigments of variouscolours, and after fitting them in close combination—more of some andless of others—they produce from them shapes resembling all things,creating trees and men and women, animals and birds and water-nourishedfish, and long-lived gods too, highest in honour; so do not let errorconvince you that there is any other source for the countless perishablesthat are seen…(fr. 23.1–10)This fragment also throws light on how parts of elements are placed together in acompound. Empedocles is not speaking of a complete fusion, like blue andyellow blending to form green, but, according to the common practice in Greekpainting, of the juxtaposition of pigments or washes (usually black, white, redand yellow) to produce the effect of figures and objects. The parts of elementsinvolved in a compound may be very small, as when for example they form thealternating channels of fire and water in the eye, or are compared to metalsground down to fine powders, but even so they are not reducible to absoluteminima. In positing elements in Aristotle’s phrase (
On the Heavens 305a4) thatare ‘divisible but never going to be divided’, Empedocles’ philosophy herecontrasts on the one hand with the complete infinite divisibility of compounds inAnaxagoras’ theory and on the other with Democritean atomism.Empedocles’ far-reaching conclusion that despite appearances to the contraryall animate and inanimate forms should be understood as particular arrangementsin different proportions of a small number of unchanging, qualitatively distinctelements immediately became standard, and was taken into account byphilosophers, cosmologists, natural scientists and medical writers throughoutantiquity, and into the Middle Ages and beyond. As a basic principle itforeshadows contemporary assumptions in a number of areas, for example thatthe main ingredients of living things are the elements of carbon, hydrogen andoxygen, that language, literature and mathematics can be expressed as encodedvariations of the binary numbers zero and one, and that the genetic range ofspecies is reducible to an arrangement of the four basic letters of the DNAstrings.Some further motive force however was required in Empedocles’ scheme toexplain how the four elements come into compounds and separate into their ownmasses. For this role he posited opposed principles of attraction and repulsionwhich, in his vivid vocabulary, he called
philia (‘love’, ‘friendship’) and
neikos(‘strife’, ‘hate’). As the visible masses of earth, sea, sun and sky had providedevidence for the four elements and their characteristics in the composition ofindividual constructs, so a further inference was drawn from the power whichthese two basic drives have in human experience and action to their involvementin the widespread generation and destruction of forms of life. Empedoclesattributed the continual grouping, separating and regrouping of elements intemporary compounds to the beneficient or destructive effects of these forces:For all these—sun and earth and sky and sea—are one with the parts thathave been separated off and born in mortal things. In the same way, thosethat are more ready to combine are made similar by love and feel mutualaffection. But such as are more different from each other in birth andmixture and the moulding of their forms are most hostile, inexperienced inunion, and grieving at their generation in strife.(fr. 22)The same patterns of constructive unity and corruptive separating could also befound on a larger scale, in the different kinds of life found in the distinctiveelemental masses:This is well known in the mass of mortal limbs: at one time, in the maturityof a vigorous life, all the limbs that are the body’s portion come into oneunder love; at another time again, torn asunder by evil strifes, they stray onthe borderline of life. So it is for plants, and for fish that live in the water,and for wild animals who have their lairs in the hills, and for the wing-spedgulls.(fr. 20)From such quotations it is clear that Empedocles’ arguments for the existence ofuniversal principles of attraction and repulsion were derived from empiricalobservations in the natural world of the processes of birth and growth beingcountered inevitably by decline and disintegration, and from consideration of thepowerful stimuli to action engendered by love and hate in human experience. Inaddition a crucial significance had been given to love (as
erōs) in Hesiod’s
Theogony which Parmenides had adapted for his cosmology, and Anaximanderand Heraclitus had used the political terminology of aggression and war for thetensions and oppositions necessary to the maintenance of the present world order.Love and strife in this theory are, like the elements, ungenerated, unchangingand indestructible, and Empedocles presented them as set against each other ineternal rivalry for universal government. They are not however material, as fire,air, earth and water are, or like them visually recognizable on a large scale;instead the student is told to ‘contemplate love with the mind’:She is acknowledged to be inborn in human bodies, and because of hertheir thoughts are friendly and they work together, giving her the name Joy,as well as Aphrodite. No mortal has perceived her as she moves amongthem, but pay attention to my line of argument, which will not mislead you.(fr. 17.21–6)The existence of the opposed stimuli is to be
inferred from an understanding ofhow the elements act and react to each other, and any apparent personification isa question of allegory or poetic licence.Empedocles described his principles of attraction and repulsion in terms ofequal balance and power. They are able to extend over the elements and act onthem, with expanding and contracting areas of application as the four are broughttogether or held further apart. Love ‘increases’ and takes up more place in thesense that more and more elemental particles may be brought together to mingle,and the converse holds ‘when Strife rises to its honours as the time is completed’(fr. 30), and the elements move out of their combinations to group with their ownkind. The two principles are manifest in the patterns of attraction and separationof the elements, and are contained within the same limits as them. InEmpedocles’ theory the consequences of this wide-ranging polar opposition areto be found at different levels: in the repeated patterns of movements andarrangements of the elements within the cosmos, in the genesis and destructionof successive generations of mortal life, and for individuals in their friendshipsand enmities.
COSMOLOGYEmpedocles’ four-element cosmos was a spherical everlasting
plenum.Parmenides had previously argued that it is peculiarly self-contradictory to assertthe existence of ‘what is not’
(mē on). Applied temporally this meant that therecould be no generation or destruction (which would entail earlier or later nonexistence),and in spatial terms there had to be continuity, balance andhomogeneity ‘as in the bulk of a well-rounded sphere’. Empedocles took this asthe literal shape of the cosmos, and, as has been shown, further adapted theEleatic argument by equating the non-existent with
kenon (empty space), andthen denying its existence: ‘there is no part of the whole that is empty oroverfull’ (fr. 13).The atomists later agreed with this identification of non-being with emptyspace, but then reinstated it as an existing void. In Empedocles’ theory, however,the elements are contained within the cosmos with no spaces between them, nordid he allow the possibility of variation in consistency; this possibility had beenadopted by the Ionian Anaximenes previously, to account for differencesbetween solid, liquid and gaseous substances by assuming a process ofrarefaction and condensation of primary matter. For Empedocles, earth, air, fireand water assimilate and separate in the
plenum, shifting together and movingapart in continually changing arrangements and rearrangements, while eachkeeps its character inviolate.The evidence on the whole suggests that the activity of the elements under theprinciples of attraction and repulsion follows certain patterns in recurring cycles.There is an unceasing alternation of all the elements at one time coming into aunity through Love (where their particles are so completely and finely mingledthat no part can be distinguished from any other) and then at another ofseparating into their respective masses under the influence of Strife. At this stagethey are probably to be envisaged in the traditional form of concentric spheres, withearth at the centre, surrounded by water and air, and the fiery sky (the
ouranos)enclosing the whole. The processes of elemental movement from one extreme tothe other and back again result in a generation of mortal things, as is explained inpart of one of the longest fragments:A twofold tale I shall tell: at one time it grew to be one only from many,and at another again it divided to be many from one. There is a doublebirth of the mortal, and a double passing-away; for the uniting of all thingsbrings one generation into being and destroys it, and the other is reared andscattered as they again divide. And these things never cease their continualexchange of position, at one time all coming together through love, atanother again being borne away by strife’s repulsion. So in so far as one isaccustomed to arise from many and many are produced from one as it isagain being divided, to this extent they are born and have no abiding life;but in so far as they never cease their continual exchange, so far they areforever unaltered in the cycle.(fr. 17.1–13)Empedocles took the description of the elements as logically prior (‘hear first theroots of all things…’), and, although there can be no chronological beginning toeternal recurrence, for the purposes of the narrative he apparently started with anaccount of the elements in separation, indicating how in such a state earth, water,air and fire would cling to their own kind, shunning association with each other,in a sterile and unharmonious lack of order
(akosmia). When, however, the powerof Strife began to wane, the principle of attraction gradually pulled the separatedparts together until eventually their individual characteristics (as earth, air, seaand sun) were no longer manifest, but they became completely united, taking theform of a unique cosmic divinity:held fast in the close covering of harmony…two branches do not springfrom his back, there are no feet, no swift knees, no organs of generation,but he is equal to himself in every direction, the same all over, a roundedsphere, rejoicing in encircling stillness.(frs. 28–9)Empedocles said however that inevitably, at a time ascribed somewhatenigmatically to a ‘broad oath’, Strife would enter and begin to cause thedisintegration of the divine harmony. In the resulting movements, as theelements ‘run through each other’, the present world order would be generated,with its teeming variety of plant, animal and human life. During this time Loveshould be envisaged initially as the more powerful force, and, on the analogy of acraftsman, as engendering well-constructed forms of life in sympathy with eachother. But Strife, with increasing power and ferocity, is preparing to tear themapart, and eventually to bring down the cosmic edifice in the return once more to
akosmia. The limits of the powers of both attraction and separation are presumedto be held, like the elements which they control, within the circumference of thesphere, the
kuklos, that persists throughout; beyond these lies what is describedin the doxography without further explanation as ‘idle matter’ (
argē httlē is theterm at Aetius I.5.2).Some of the details of the process are controversial, and even the basic idea ofcosmic phases being repeated has been challenged, and, given the fragmentarynature of the primary sources, there can be no certainty. But the consensus ofopinion, supported by such testimony as we do have from the primary andsecondary sources, suggests a reconstruction along the following lines, withEmpedocles’ poetic skill giving a vivid character to his descriptions of elementsreacting to contrary forces. At one time the four (‘fire and water and earth andmeasureless height of air’) were completely separate under Strife, and Love layinactive at the circumference; then came the increase of her power, initiated (inthe metaphor of the invasion of foreign territory) by a move to the centre, and theconsolidation of her position as Strife was pushed back. This alternation wasmanifest in the elements consequently ‘running through’ each other, and socausing the rise of a generation of mortal beings. Some monsters and strangeshapes emerged at first, even separate limbs and ‘heads without necks’, but thesewere short-lived, whereas those that were well formed and fitted for survivalbecame a viable generation of living creatures. Love was eventual victor in thecosmic battle, bringing all the elements into one, and so generating the blessedgod
(theos eudaimonestatos), in which Strife had no part. But the ideal statecame to an end, and, when the time was completed, Strife struck as Love haddone by rushing to claim the centre. This caused a mighty disturbance as ‘one byone all the parts of the god began to tremble’ (fr. 31).Empedocles saw the emergence of the present world as a consequence of thisupheaval. In the succeeding phase of his cosmogony, as Strife began the processof separation, he introduced the important concept of a rotation (a vortex or
dinē)starting in the centre, which was the immediate cause of the separating of theclosely mingled parts of the different elements. First it seems that air was drawnout and flowed round in a circle, followed by fire, which solidified some of theair into the
ouranos as
aithēr and brought down the heavier particles asatmospheric mist. The force of the rotation also compressed parts of the earthinto the centre, and water consequently exuded from it to form the sea (‘sea is thesweat of earth’ as Empedocles expressed it in a typical homology, fr. 55). Suchfire as was still in the earth warmed some of the remaining water to produce hotsprings, and hardened lumps of earth into rocks; as it moved upwards to join itscounterparts it also created the conditions of warm, moist clay which would becapable of engendering life, first in the form of trees and plants, and then of animalsand humans.This imaginative narrative, pieced together from direct quotations and indirectreport, was in the tradition of the early pre-Socratics, but treated with much moreacumen and sophistication. The use of a swirl in the original mixture to start theseparation, the outward movement of the lighter air and fire, and what lookssomething like an early theory of gravity, when the bulk of earth at the centredrew parts of earth elsewhere towards itself, show a remarkable mind at work.Further evidence of Empedocles’ achievements comes in the wealth of insightpreserved on many of the individual aspects of the subsequent phenomena.Starting with the initial formation of the elemental masses—‘earth and swellingsea, moist air and Titan sky’ (fr. 38.4)—Empedocles included explanations forthe spherical shape of the earth, volcanoes beneath the earth’s surface and thesalinity of the sea. Of particular interest in this section was the recognition thatthe moon is a satellite of earth reflecting the sun’s brightness (‘a circle ofborrowed light moves swiftly round the earth’, fr. 45), and that solar eclipses arecaused by the moon coming directly between sun and earth; and whenEmpedocles says that ‘earth causes night by coming under the sun’s rays’ (fr. 42)it is tempting to assume that he realized that this meant that night on the uppersurface of a spherical earth would be complemented by day in the antipodes.
THE NATURAL WORLDAt some time into the present era, once the main bulk of the elements wereseparated out into the distinct masses of earth, sea and air, with fire visible in thesky as sun and stars and as volcanoes erupting from the earth, then livingcreatures began to emerge. Empedocles described this genesis, in a typical blendof poetry and science, as derived from amorphous lumps which bubble up fromthe earth’s surface during the separating process:And now hear this—how fire, as it was being separated, brought up bynight the growths of men and pitiable women, for the account is to thepoint and well-informed. First whole-nature forms, having a share of bothwater and heat, emerged from the earth; fire as it tended to reach its like,kept sending them up, when they did not yet show the lovely shape of limbs,or voice, or language native to men.(fr. 62)With the passage of time the forms were further articulated until they becomerecognizable as the human race, able then to reproduce sexually andcommunicate by language.In a world antithetical to the present one Empedocles found a place for the biformmonsters of myth in a kind of genetic nightmare:Many creatures with a face and breasts on both sides were produced,human-faced bulls and again bull-headed humans, others with male andfemale nature combined.(fr. 61)Some of these were put together from different parts—heads without necks, armswithout shoulders—but, despite the bizarre nature of the concept, a more seriouspoint was being made. As Aristotle reports:Wherever all the parts came together as though for a purpose, the creaturessurvived, being organized spontaneously in an appropriate way. Those thatdid not then died out (and continue to do so), as Empedocles said of his‘human-faced bulls’.(
Physics 198b29–32)It would be an exaggeration to read into the reports of Empedocles’ views here aprecursor of a Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest, but he does seem tohave been prepared to recognize that for survival a species or ‘animal-kind’ mustbe able to reproduce itself, and have organs that are mutually supportive innutrition and growth: teeth to masticate food, a stomach with which to digest it,and a liver to transform it into blood and tissue. In any case the unsuccessfulhybrids were shunted into a different era, complementary to the present one,when the cosmos was coming out of a state of disorder into one in which unitywould eventually prevail.The world which the human race now inhabits is by contrast to be understoodas coming from a better past into a more turbulent future. In Empedocles’ termsLove has not yet relinquished her hold on the elements, and in the battle againstthe forces of dissolution she has considerable if temporary success in theformation of harmonious wholes. These depend on the formula of elements inthe compound, again a crucial scientific point lurking behind Empedocles’ loosepoetic language:And the kindly earth received into its broad hollows of the eight parts twoof the brightness of Nestis and four of Hephaestus; and these came to bewhite bones, marvellously held together by the gluing of harmony.(fr. 96)Aristotle quoted these lines in a compliment to Empedocles for realizing that it wasnot so much the elements of which something is made which give it its characterbut the
logos or ratio of their combination; it was rare to find among the pre-Socratics a foreshadowing of what later came to be known as Aristotle’s ‘formalcause’. The particular ratio here of four parts fire: two earth: two water (or on analternative version one each of water and air) is a simple one, but theachievement is in the understanding of the principle of proportion in theformation of organisms rather than any sophistication in its development.The last line of the quotation—‘marvellously held together by the gluing ofharmony’—shows the ‘bonding’ of the elements, not as an additional ingredient,but inherent in their attraction when they come together in the right formula.Another way for the poet to express this is was to envisage the artisan-goddessfashioning living forms as artefacts:When Kypris was busily producing forms, she moistened earth in waterand gave it to swift fire to harden.(fr. 73)In other fragments she acted as a baker or sculptor, and sometimes as acarpenter, joining the organic parts together. More conventionally, shepersonified the sexual urge, the mutual desire that brings male and femaletogether, and ensures the continuation of the species. The theme continued in asection devoted to embryology, which included an account of sex differentiationwithin the womb. This was a subject which interested many pre-Socratics, andEmpedocles’ medical experience may have sharpened his concerns in this area.On one occasion, when he maintained that both the male and female contributeto the embryo’s substance, matching like the two parts of a tally, he was closer tothe truth of the shared parental donation of chromosomes than was Aristotle withhis preference for the domination of the male.In his account of life now on earth Empedocles had explanations for a widevariety of phenomena, from the structure of trees, plants and fruits through to abroad range of animal species. He comments for example on the normalcombination of hard bone surrounded by soft flesh as an instance of a chancecompound developing a formal structure, represented as the artisan at work:bones within and flesh as an outer covering, a kind of flaccidity chanced onat the hands of Kypris(fr. 75)but in some creatures the hard and soft tissues are reversed:In those with heavy backs who live in the sea…you will notice that earth ison the top surface of the flesh of sea-snails and stony-skinned turtles.(fr. 76)Here the collecting and hardening of earth ‘on top’ is a means of protection forthe organism, and this prevails over the tendency of earth to come to the centre.But the carapace is also the sea-turtle’s bone structure. In this and in manyother fragments Empedocles shows a remarkable first awareness of biologicalanalogy and homology in similarities found between plant and animal structures.The elements themselves are first called
rizōmata, or root clumps, and this typeof language is extended throughout the natural world in a variety of contexts.Empedocles regarded humans as plants that grow from ‘shoots’, he called theauricle of the ear a ‘sprig of flesh’, he had a common word for the bark of a treeand for the skin of a grape and apple peel, olive trees were said to bear ‘eggs’,and
amnion was the term used both for the skin of an egg and the caul of anembryo. Processes similarly correlate, and it seems to be a similar change in theliquid, a
sēpsis, which makes wine of water, yoghurt of milk and colostrum ofblood. Connections between primitive and more advanced species were drawnwhen horses’ manes were seen as analogous to the spines of hedgehogs, and afamous fragment took this further:Hair, leaves, the close-packed feathers of birds and scales on strong limbs—as the same they grow.(fr. 82)The shared function here of covering and protection crosses the forms of life andthe different elements to link humans and plants in land, birds in the air, and fishin water.
PERCEPTION AND COGNITIONAnother advance in the history of science came when Empedocles originated theconcept of pores and effluences to explain the workings of the organs of sensesin animals and humans, a theory which also extended the range of homologythrough the various species. The medical philosopher Alcmaeon had previouslysuggested that channel-like pores led from the eye to the brain, but Empedoclesset up a universal theory of perception, according to which all bodies have poresclose packed on their surfaces, and effluences like films ‘from everything inexistence’ are capable of entering the opening of these pores where there issymmetry between them. According to his method Empedocles gave somecommon examples of the theory at work before arguing for its extension over awider range. He cited the way in which water can mix with wine but not oil asevidence for symmetry and asymmetry of the pores and ‘thick parts’ of theliquids. Another example was when saffron dye became firmly fixed into a pieceof linen, and the magnet could be explained by effluences dragging the iron untilit closes with the pores in the stone. Something like this also happens in nutritionand growth, where nourishment is broken up in the organism and distributed toappropriate parts of the body according to their fit, for like substances areattracted to their like, and unite with them:So sweet seized on sweet, bitter rushed to bitter, sharp came to sharp, andhot coupled with hot.(fr. 90)The application of the theory could then proceed to cover the range of humanand animal perception, which also occurs in the context of the attraction of likes,as given in the Empedoclean lines most widely quoted in antiquity:With earth we perceive earth, with water water, with air divine air, withfire destructive fire, with love love, and strife with baneful strife.(fr. 109)In more straightforward terms this means that the element within a sense-organdraws to itself the corresponding elemental part of an external object andassimilates it in the act of perception. As we perceive fire outside ourselves, forexample, by means of fire within, then the fire in the constitution is increased,and so with earth, air and water. Further, we have control to some extent overour perceptions, with the implication on the moral plane that the inner strength oflove or strife can be increased by concentrating on its like in the external world,with consequent profit or loss in general well-being or disharmony. In theextension to human relations such compatibility between likes produces unityand friendship, whereas those who are most different from each other ‘in birthand mixture and the moulding of their form’ wander alone, hostile and in deepgrief (fr. 22).A good example of Empedocles combining scientific theory with poetry—here in a Homeric-type simile—comes in his account of vision:As when a man who intends to make a journey prepares a light for himself,a flame of fire burning through a wintry night; he fits linen screens againstall the winds which break the blast of the winds as they blow, but the lightthat is more diffuse leaps through, and shines across the threshold withunfailing beams. In the same way the elemental fire, wrapped inmembranes and delicate tissues, was then concealed in the round pupil—these keep back the surrounding deep waters, but let through the morediffuse light.(fr. 84)This and some related fragments show that Empedocles’ account of the structureof the eye is remarkably accurate. He explains how the fiery part of the eye, i.e.the lens, is concealed behind the dark opening of the pupil and protected bymembranes and tissues composed of earth and air. Surrounding the membranes,and prevented by them from quenching the fire, is water. There are pores in thisfire and water, and vision occurs when effluences from objects fit into thesepores, dark colours being seen when they fit into the pores of water, and lightcolours in the pores of fire. Eyes that have less fire (i.e. a smaller pupil and lens)see better by day, and those with more by night. The particular point of thelantern simile is to show the function of the membranes, which keep the water inthe eye from the fire, but allow the fire to penetrate through it.In his explanation of the sense of hearing Empedocles supposed that externalsounds, which are emanations of air particles, enter the channel of the outer ear(which he called a ‘sprig of flesh’, again linking plant and animal organs); if theyfit the pores there they then reverberate within as ‘in a trumpet bell’. Empedoclesaccounted for smell in a similarly modern way as the entry of odorant particlesinto receptive sockets on the surface of the organ—of the nostrils in the higheranimals, but extending over the whole body in lower forms of life. All skinsurfaces may be sensitive to odours, and so ‘all are apportioned breathing andsmelling’ (fr. 102).The theory extended beyond that of simple perception, according to the lineswhich probably followed on fragment 109, quoted above:all things are fitted together and constructed out of these (the elements),and by means of them they think and feel pleasure and pain.(fr. 107)Pleasure might occur as a result of the appropriate conjuncture of elementalcompounds within the body’s physical structure, but also as a response toexternal stimuli that harmonize with this structure, or from the replenishment ofa deficiency by a complementary mixture of similar proportions. Conversely painwas thought to be caused by ill-adjusted coalitions, the clash of contraries orexcessive replenishment. Examples of such painful experiences could be foundin nutrition when the food absorbed could not be assimilated to the body, and inharmful perceptual encounters such as with a bright light or loud noise where theintake overwhelms the organ. Asymmetry of pores in the senseorgan and theeffluences from the external object were also able to provide an explanation fororgans being unable to distinguish each other’s objects, for the eye sees coloursbut not sounds, whereas sounds as effluences or ‘waves’ from a distant object aresymmetrical with the pores of the ear, and odours enter and fit with the nostrils.Empedocles recognized that pores through the surface of the body in simpleranimal forms could be aware of and assimilate odours from distant objects in a wayanalogous to humans taking them in through the nostrils, or hunting-dogssniffing spoors in the form of odorous effluences left by their prey, which enablethem to follow a trail. Skin and nostrils are not only the organs of smell, but arealso involved in respiration; this again is widespread, so that Empedocles wasready to claim that ‘all things are apportioned breathing and smelling’ (fr. 102) ina way similar or analogous to human respiration. One of the longest fragmentsdeals with this topic, and, as with the quotation on the eye, uses an engagingsimile:This is the way in which all things breathe in and out: they all havechannels of flesh which the blood leaves, stretched over the surface of thebody, and at the mouth of these the outside of the skin is pierced rightthrough with close-set holes, so that blood is contained, but a passage iscut for the air to pass through freely. Then, when the smooth blood rushesaway from the surface, a wild surge of blustering air rushes through, andwhen the blood leaps up, the air is breathed out again. It is like a girlplaying with a clepsydra…(fr. 100.1–9)The clepsydra was a common household utensil for transferring liquid from onecontainer to another, and for measuring. It had a narrow opening at the top,which could be plugged by hand, and a perforated base. Empedocles comparedthe movement of air into and out of the body through skin pores (and in humanand higher animals through the two large pores that are the nostrils) to that ofwater into and out of the perforated base of the clepsydra. He used the clepsydraas a model (comparable to Harvey’s use of a pump as a model for the heart), ratherthan as a specific experimental device.For the first time in extant Greek physiological theory respiration was hereconnected with the movement of the blood. Empedocles recognized that theblood is in continuous motion as air is breathed in and exhaled, not yetunderstanding that the movement involves a circulation but taking it asoscillatory, from the heart to and from the body’s surface in small-scale channels.Taking the perforations in the clepsydra to correspond to these channels or pores,Empedocles explained inhalation as blood moving inwards followed by airentering the pores, and exhalation (comparable to the child unplugging theclepsydra) as the blood returning to the surface as the air is expelled again intothe atmosphere. No void is involved, but, as is obvious, the heart and chest areaexpands with the intake of air and returns to normal as the air goes back outthrough the channels. The comparison is not exact in every detail for the bloodobviously does not pour out of the body into an external container, butEmpedocles did not claim an exact correlation. The model works admirably inshowing a mutual movement of air and blood in respiration, the correspondingoscillation of the blood within the body, and the way in which it can be held inthe capillaries at the extremities by the pressure of the air outside.Empedocles took these discoveries further in suggesting that the blood acts asa kind of neural system between the individual sense organs (which in touch andsmell can include the whole of the body surface) and the centre of the cognitivesystem which, like most Greek philosophers apart from Plato, he located in theheart:In seas of blood coursing to and fro, there above all is what men callthought, because for humans blood around the heart is thought
[noēma].(fr. 105)The basis for this apparently strange statement is not only that blood travelsincessantly to and from the organs to the heart and so acts as a conduit (the‘broadest path of persuasion’ goes from the eyes and hands to the cognitivecentre according to fragment 133), but also because of its physical construction.It contains all the elements, and in a ratio closer to equal amounts of each than inany other part of the body; and Empedocles attributed the sophistication of thiscompound to the powerful principle of attraction (here personified as the goddessof love):And earth, anchored in the perfect harbours of Aphrodite, chanced to cometogether with them in almost equal quantities, with Hephaestus and rainand all-shining air, either a little more, or less where there was more. Fromthese came blood and the different forms of flesh.(fr. 98)Earth here is a crucial ingredient in the formation of the tissues: with less of thiselement there is blood, and with more there would be flesh. Aristotle’s pupilTheophrastus wrote a history of early theories of perception and in it interpretedEmpedocles’ theory as it would be when stripped of its poetic vocabulary:We think chiefly with the heart-blood, for there the elements are more fullymingled than in any other part of the body. Those who have an equal oralmost equal mingling of these elements are the most intelligent and havethe keenest sense perceptions, but those whose condition is the reverse arethe most stupid.(Theophrastus
On the Senses 10–11)The proportion of ingredients (as in any chemical formula) is crucial for theperformance of the compound; here the best intelligence comes from the mixturemost approaching equality as, in other examples cited by Theophrastus, the oratorhas a good mixture in his tongue and the craftsman in his hands.On the mind-body problem all the pre-Socratics were in principlereductionists, since in Aristotle’s terminology they recognized only ‘materialcause’. In Empedocles’ theory the centre of cognition was explained asconstituted of the same elements as everything else, i.e. of earth, air, fire andwater, but the quality of thought is dependent on their increase and decrease, andconsequent proportion relative to each other. This means, as he says, thatHuman wisdom grows according to what is present.(fr. 106)and it is also the case thatAs one’s constitution changes, so the present thoughts are always changing.(fr. 108)The continual modifications here of incoming and outgoing thoughts are taken tocorrespond both to fluctuations in the outside world and to alterations in theinner condition.The less intelligent (including in particular those who infer erroneous generalconclusions too quickly from inadequate evidence) quite literally haveinadequate means of ‘grasping’ the truth, whereas a wealth of appropriate thoughtsresults in proper understanding (frs 2, 3, 132). Although the medical terminologyof heart and lungs
(phrenes), midriff
(prapides) and intestines
(splangchna) evenin the Homeric poems was losing its literal meaning, Empedocles’ constant use ofit points to a consistent theory of a physical basis for rational activity. In this wayhe can envisage a struggle in the
phrēn between deceit and persuasion (fr. 23),introduce evidence to strengthen feeble conviction (fr. 35), speak of thoughtsentering the
phrontis of the Muse (fr. 131), and describe a wise man, perhapsPythagoras, stretching his
prapides when he remembers generations that are pastand makes prophecies for the future (fr. 129).Similarly Empedocles sees the instruction of his student as a literal transfer viaspeech from one to the other. This is shown when he asks that a ‘pure stream’ ofthoughts in the form of the words that express them might pass from his lips tohis pupil (fr. 3), and he advises Pausanias to ensure that his sense-organs are intheir different ways receptive to the transfer of truth:do not keep back trust from seeing, hearing, taste or any other channel forthinking, but think each thing in the way in which it is clear.(fr. 3)When Pausanias has taken in the account the argument is to be divided into itscomponent parts and almost literally digested like food in the stomach area (fr. 4.3). And Empedocles gives a final exhortation:If you put the words I say firmly into your crowded thoughts, andcontemplate them with clear and constant attention, assuredly they will allbe with you through life, and you will gain much else from them, for ofthemselves they will cause each [new thought] to grow into your character,according to its nature. But if you should reach out for things of a differentkind, for the countless trivialities that dull human meditation, straightawaythey will leave you as the time comes round…(fr. 110.1–8)The meaning here would seem to be that the mixture of the bodily componentsreflects or represents whatever is thought about in the external world, while thecontinual physical changes in the structure of the body alter that mixture, withcorresponding shifts in the nature and range of the thinking. The resultingthoughts may be further confused or dulled according to the intention or effort ofthe thinker, or correspondingly made purer.There is further a great confidence, an optimism that the consequent scientificknowledge of the processes of nature will bring with it the power to control them.Empedocles suggests to his student that the understanding of the elements ofearth, air, fire and water alone and in combination, in virtue of one’s ownthoughts being akin to them and made up of like parts, will allow theirmanipulation. In this way it might be possible for the internal elements that makeup the intelligent mind to control their like in the external masses; the chancewould most obviously come in the vagaries of the weather:You will check the force of tireless winds, which sweep over land anddestroy fields with their blasts; and again if you wish you will restorecompensating breezes. After black rain you will bring dry weather inseason for people, and too bring tree-nourishing showers after summerdryness.(fr. 111.3–8)The knowledge of the working of elements within the body’s structure could alsoform the basis of medical skill, allowing the avoidance and curing of illness andthe postponement of old age. The climax would be a restoration to life:You will lead from Hades the life-force of someone who has died.(fr. 111.9)Whether the story is true or based on this line, the biographers report thatEmpedocles did resuscitate a women who had been in a coma; it would beconsistent with Empedocles’ interest in respiration that an understanding of itsmechanism would enable one to restart the heart and so renew the life of a patient.
THE UNITY OF ALL THINGSThe series of fragments in the
Physics has shown an original, sharply observantand analytical mind suggesting solutions to a comprehensive range of problemsin the realm of natural science. Empedocles’ second poem
Katharmoi (Methodsof Purification), which a minority have taken to be another part of the samepoem, is superficially quite different in tone and content from what has beendiscussed so far. The
Physics had been in the form of instruction to a singlestudent, but the
Katharmoi opened with an address in the plural, to Empedocles’fellow-citizens of Acragas, and went on to celebrate the high esteem in which thephilosopher was held. He travelled he says ‘as an immortal god, mortal nolonger’, on his journey through prosperous towns, and people flocked to him forprophecies and cures.The most important fragment, which needs to be quoted in full, gives anexplanation of his position:There is a decree of necessity, ratified long ago by gods, eternal, and sealedby broad oaths, that whenever one in error, from fear, [defiles] his ownlimbs—daimons to whom life long-lasting is apportioned—having by hiserror made false the oath he swore, he wanders from the blessed ones forthree times ten thousand years, being born throughout the time as all kindsof mortal forms, exchanging one hard way of life for another. For the forceof air pursues him into sea, and sea spits him out on to earth’s surface,earth casts him into the rays of blazing sun, and sun into the eddies of air;one takes him from another and all abhor him. I too am now one of these,an exile from the gods and a wanderer, trusting in raging strife.(fr. 115)After this comes the statement:before now I have been at some time boy and girl, bush, bird, and a mutefish in the sea.(fr. 117)Empedocles then went on to describe a journey to an unfamiliar place, a cave,peopled by pairs of personified opposites, including ‘Earth and Sun, Discord andHarmony, Beauty and Ugliness, lovely Truth and blind Uncertainty’, as well as‘Birth and Death, Sleep and Wakefulness, Movement and Rest’. This is followedby an account of a time in the past that was an adaptation of the ‘golden age’under Kronos in traditional mythology, when there was no war, all creatureswere tame and friendly, and the ruling power was Kypris, another name forAphrodite, goddess of love.A universal law, extending ‘through wide-ruling air and measureless sunlight’,was then said to bring about a change which was a degeneration from this idealstate. Empedocles in his own person expresses regret for a crime he committed,described as ‘the cruel deed of eating flesh’, and, in verses which recallAgamemnon killing his daughter Iphigenia at the altar of Artemis, the standardpious ritual of the sacrifice of an animal is shown to be comparable to theimpious slaying of kin. Furthermore, the traditional meal of the meat of thesacrificed animal enjoyed by the community becomes a re-enactment of thetragedy of a Thyestes, who unwittingly consumed his own children:The father will lift up his dear son in a changed form, and, blind fool, as heprays he will slay him, and those who take part in the sacrifice bring [thevictim] as he pleads. But the father, deaf to his cries, slays him in his houseand prepares an evil feast. In the same way son seizes father, and childrentheir mother, and having deprived them of life devour the flesh of thosethey love.(fr. 137)The citizens of Acragas are urged to give up such practices, which further the workof strife, and instead to honour the power of love, personified as Kypris, in theold way:with holy images and painted animal figures, with perfumes of subtlefragrance…and libations of golden honey.(fr. 128.5–7)Empedocles apparently extended the injury to the common bond of life displayedin animal sacrifice even to plants, for Plutarch, in the context of fragment 140:‘keep completely from leaves of laurel’, reports a prohibition against tearing offleaves because of the injury to the parent tree. He also links the themes oncemore in another fragment, which gives a ranking of the highest types of plantsand animals in a scale of an exchange of lives:Among animals they are born as lions that make their lair in the hills andbed on the ground, and among fair-leafed trees as laurels.(fr. 127)And finally the highest human lives are listed, as the last stage before becominga god:And at the end as prophets, minstrels, healers and princes they comeamong men on earth; and from these they arise as gods, highest in honour.(fr. 128)The ways in which the subject-matter of these fragments bears on those alreadydiscussed as from the
Physics may now be explored. Any interpretation shouldbe based on the direct quotations as far as possible, for there is very little reliableexternal evidence, and the comments of ancient authors, even when giving aquotation, have to be used with caution, and stripped as far as possible of theirown particular bias.It is appropriate to start with the four elements. A
daimōn is the term given inthe
Katharmoi to an individual divinity, the enhanced form of life that is superiorto a human but still a temporary compound of the true immortals, the fourelements. When, in fragment 115 quoted above, it is said that the air drives the
daimōn into sea, sea casts him on to earth, earth into sun, and sun back to theswirling air, these areas of banishment refer explicitly to the masses of the fourelements described and explained in the
Physics. The language of ‘a changing ofthe paths’ for the combining of living creatures from elemental parts, theseparating of them at death and their subsequent rearrangement into other formsis common to both poems. The boy, girl, bush, bird and fish of fragment 117 areobvious examples of the types of mortal life that the
daimōn assumes as he goesfrom one hard way of life to another, and they are lives in different elements.Empedocles has explained that, according to necessity and universal law, comingunder Strife results in so-called birth as
tbnēton, ‘a mortal thing’; so, findinghimself as prophet, leader, minstrel and healer at the highest stage of mortal lifehe would suppose that the law had run its course in his case. Since this involveslives in different elements, he might well consider that he has himself been bornin some way as a bird in the air, fish in the sea and plant on earth. This need notimply that he
remembers being in these states; it is an inference from the law thatthe
daimōn of necessity takes on a variety of forms.Like the four roots, Love and Strife have their place in the
Katharmoi; theterminology is similar, and it is the account of their nature and function in the
Physics that helps in the understanding of their role in this second context. Theprinciple of Philia throughout is responsible for universal friendship, unity andthe good of the cosmos; Strife, ‘raging’ and ‘destructive’, is the cause of hatred,enmity and separation. In the
Physics bodies were said to grieve at their birth inhatred and anger, and to be ‘torn apart by evil strifes’ (frs. 20 and 22); the themeis repeated in the representation of this world in the
Katharmoi as ‘a joylessplace’ and ‘the field of blind delusion’ (fr. 121).The traditional mythology of anthropomorphic gods was rejected byEmpedocles, and instead he gave the elements the names of Olympian gods—Zeus, Hera and Hephaestus—to signify immortality and universal power. He alsoreplaced the former age of the Titan Kronos, the time of ‘the golden race ofmortals’ in Hesiod’s poem, with the past sovereignty of Love as Kypris, and thisin turn reflected the description of the cosmic sphere under Love as an ideal andblessed state of harmony, with strife absent. A place was found however for themore conventional ‘long-lived gods, highest in honour’ as the original
daimones‘who have a share of blessed life’, and as divinities in the final stage of a seriesof lives that include plants, animals and humans (fr. 128, quoted above). Theseare all temporary arrangements of elements, in which the combinations that aregods are distinguished merely because they last longer before their inevitabledissolution than the other forms of life, as he explains:trees sprang from [the elements], and men and women, animals and birdsand water-nourished fish, and long-lived gods too, highest in honour.(fr. 21)This erasing of the dividing line between men and gods, which in the epictradition was fixed and except in rare cases impassable, has two effects. One is toreduce the level of these gods by showing them superior only in having a longerand happier existence than other forms; the second is to raise the status of plants,animals and humans by recognizing in them a nature akin to that of honouredgods, but with a shorter and less fortunate term of existence as particulararrangements of elements. Empedocles, as has been shown in the famousexample of the comparability of hair, leaves, feathers and fish-scales,demonstrated that the functions of the different structures were similar indifferent life forms and also that they all in some analogous way were‘apportioned breathing and a sense of smell’ (fr. 102). But he went further tosay:As chance wills, all things have the power of thought.(fr. 103)and later reiterated the point:All things have intelligence and a share of thought.(fr. 110.10)The inadequacy that Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus complained of in all thepre-Socratics—that they failed to distinguish perception and thought—becomesan advantage here for Empedocles. In his universal ascription of the power ofthought
(phronēsis) he was able to show a seamless stretch of activity from thesimplest awareness of a part of one element for another of its kind and anattraction towards it, through a range of more sophisticated perceptions in animallife to human ratiocination. So the physical and biological theory, which removesthe traditional distinctions between life as god, man, animal, bird, fish and plantand sets them along the one spectrum, makes the suggestion of a transition fromone form of life to another less startling.The accepted frontiers of birth and death were also broken down. Empedoclesthought that humans generally have a narrow outlook:After observing a small part of life in their lifetime…they are convincedonly of that which each has experienced, yet all boast of finding the whole.(fr. 2.3–6)Instead of rash generalizations based on limited experience people should realizethat their life does not begin with birth and end with death but is part of abroader scheme. And this conclusion is supported with the arguments fromParmenides that nothing comes from nothing, and that what is cannot cease tobe. Birth and death in Empedocles’ theory are merely names, to be understood inreality as the mingling and separating of eternally existing elements, which aresubject on the cosmic and the human scale to the alternating control of Love andStrife. Since, therefore, birth is not to be considered as generation from what wasnot there before, nor death the annihilation of that which now is, it is no surpriseto learn that there is some kind of existence before and after this present life:Someone who is wise in such matters would not surmise in his mind thatpeople are, and meet with good and ill, for as long as they live, for alifetime as they call it, and that before they were formed, and after theyhave disintegrated, they do not exist at all.(fr. 15)One more connecting topic that is present in the two aspects of Empedocles’work deals with the elemental structure of blood, and its significance for life andintelligence. In fragment 105 Empedocles said that, Tor humans, blood aroundthe heart is thought
[noēma].’ This is explained by Theophrastus, in his history ofprevious views on sensation, as meaning that the elements in the structure of theblood and tissues of the heart are mingled in a better proportion (that is, closer tothe ratio of one to one of the minimal parts) than elsewhere in the body. Heretherefore is the cognitive principle; it is analogous in its composition to thephysical structure of the sphere under Love, in the state that was described as ‘holymind’ and ‘most happy god’. The combination of elements that comes nearest inthis world of increasing Strife to such an optimum condition is said to be foundin the blood around the heart, so the controversial prohibition against bloodshedcan be seen to have a place in the overall scheme. There are three reasons: first,the shedding of blood is given as a cause of the exile of the
daimōn from ahappier state; second the earlier age of Kypris/ Aphrodite was characterized bythe absence of animal sacrifice; and third the continuing shedding of blood inwar, and in the name of religion, is given as grounds for the continuing misery ofhuman life.The themes of
Physics and
Katharmoi are not therefore diametrically opposed,but connect on several issues. The theory of four elements helps to explain theexchange of lives of the
daimōn in earth, sea, air and sun, and the account of thecosmic activity of Love and Strife is necessary to show how one can come underthese powers, and the inevitable consequences. The frontiers of birth and deathno longer hold, and traditional theology has to be revised. Plants, animals, menand gods have a common origin and nature, and there are no fixed boundariesmarking off the kinds of life. And the principle of thought, based on amaterialistic structure, has features common to the individual and the cosmos asa whole.Throughout Empedocles’ work there is emphasis on an alternation betweengod and human, mortal and immortal. The elements united under Love are acosmic god; when held apart by Strife they are separate but still immortal; and inthe intervening times they take on mortal forms. The god-like
daimones are bornas mortals, and in turn ‘many-times dying men’ become immortal gods. But inthe
Katharmoi the alternation of the states ‘mortal’ and ‘immortal’ takes on avividly personal tone. Notions of wrongdoing, banishment and return tohappiness give individual histories to gods and mortals, which at first sightappears incompatible with a theory that explains particular forms of life as atemporary arrangement of elemental parts.A solution to this difficulty can be found in an appreciation of the differentcontexts in which the underlying ideas are set. Before the present state of theworld all things were said to have been united under Love; this was an ideal state,and the present one a degeneration from it. In physical terms the elements wereexactly mixed and held fast in harmony, with Neikos, the principle of enmity andseparation, having no control. The interpretation of this for publication to thepeople of Acragas was in terms of a previous ‘golden age’ comparable to the eraof general happiness and universal friendship traditionally ascribed to Kronos inthe Isles of the Blessed. Then, at a fixed time, there came an end to the idealstate. Strife entered the cosmic sphere, causing tremors that resulted in elementsseparating out from the mixture; it was as a consequence of this further disturbancethat the conditions arose that were appropriate for the emergence of varied formsof life. In the language of the
Katharmoi Strife gained control of some of the
daimones and separated them from their fellows, causing them to take on ‘anunfamiliar garment’ of skin and tissues (fr. 126); that is, the substance isreconstituted as forms of lives in different elements. That this is the same processviewed in two ways is confirmed by the mention of the oath at the appropriatemoment in each case: the time for the end of the state of harmony, for the rise ofStrife and the consequent generation of mortal lives, is held secure by the ‘broadoath of necessity’, a striking way of indicating the inevitability of universal law.Empedocles sees himself involved in these cosmic events. The elements ofwhich each individual is composed have, in this present phase of the cosmiccycle, been pulled apart from their original unity and plunged into rounds of socalledbirths and deaths. Life on earth is therefore to be viewed as an exile froman earlier true home. In terms of human law exile is the standard penalty forblood-shedding and perjury, and so these are given as the acts committed by the
daimōn, who consequently takes on a series of mortal forms, and lives in oneelement after another. Although the
daimōn has come under the power of Strifeand so is said to have acted ‘wrongly’, this does not imply wrong intention oropportunity for choice on the part of the
daimōn, for it was ‘according tonecessity’ that Strife would gain control. And when Empedocles says that he hasbeen born as boy, girl, plant, bird and fish, no personal remembrance of suchstates is involved, but it is an inference from the universal law ordaining that the
daimōns be born in different elements as different kinds of mortal life.There would however seem to be some constant factor to justify Empedocles’use of
egō (‘I’ as first person) at each stage of his history, which would beincompatible with the theory of the complete dispersal at death of the elementalparts that make up the individual. Now in the
Physics, as has been shown, theelements, eternal and unchanging, are called gods, which, when the time comesround, adopt the form of mortal things. The supreme cosmic god (
theoseudaimonestatos, where the adjective has connotations of a good and happydaimonic status) is the union of the whole under Love, resulting in holy mind
(phrēn hierē), until attacked and broken into separated parts by Strife. The
daimones of the
Katharmoi similarly were united under Love, then forced toseparate by Strife, but will again return, after being prophets, minstrels, doctorsor leaders, as ‘gods highest in honour’. It is said that they will share ‘hearths andtables’, but this is to be taken as a standard adaptation of the ancient tradition ofprivileged people winning admittance to the banquets of the gods, and implies nomore than achieving some kind of divine status.It is the wisdom shown in the most advanced types of humanity which wouldbe enhanced when the mortal life returns to the divine; in this condition it wouldapproach and perhaps even be expected to share in the supreme ‘holy mind’
(phrēn hierē). In this context comes Empedocles’ own advice to his student citedearlier (p. 196)If you put the words I say firmly into your crowded thoughts, andcontemplate them with clear and constant attention, assuredly they will allbe with you through life, and you will gain much else from them, for ofthemselves they will cause each [new thought] to grow into your character,according to its nature. But if you should reach out for things of a differentkind, for the countless trivialities that dull human meditation, straightawaythey will leave you as the time comes round…(fr. 110. 1–8)If the thinking, the
phronēsis in which all things partake, becomes most perfect,in physical terms the combination of elements in the structure becomescompletely integrated, and in
Katharmoi language the wise man is about toreturn to daimonic status.In the complete blending of elements which provides the structure for theperfected
phronēsis the individual qualities of the elements would so balanceeach other that their individual characteristics would no longer be apparent. Thisstate would be similar to the characterless and unvarying composition of ‘themost blessed god’, which, as has been shown, described the condition of thecosmos in the harmony of Love, before the intrusion of Strife and the emergenceof mortal life. Other pre-Socratic philosophers had made use of a similarprinciple (or
archē) which had no perceptible features. Anaximander, forexample, had posited a neutral source of becoming in the
apeiron, andAnaximenes had generated a cosmos from characterless air, which he regardedas a mean between the rarer and the more compact; Anaxagoras, soon afterEmpedocles, spoke of an initial state of affairs as ‘all things together’, where nocolour or other distinguishing feature could be picked out. Empedocles adaptedsuch notions to link the nature of the individual daimonic thought to that of theoriginal cosmos, and our present cognitive powers to what survives of that originalnow at the circumference of the sphere. In this he also foreshadows theAristotelian theory of a fifth element (the
quinta essentia) eternally encircling thecosmos, to which the human
psuchē is related.The historian of Greek philosophy, W.K.C.Guthrie, said in the introduction tohis chapter on Empedocles that ‘in the union of rational thought with mysticalexaltation, he sums up and personifies the spirit of his age and race’ ([2.13] II:125–6). But it would be more appropriate to see Empedocles in the light of recentdevelopments in modern science as the search is renewed for ‘a theory ofeverything’. In investigations that range from the study of the very smallest atomicstructures to the vastness of the cosmos, and in the latest attempts to bridge thegulf between life on earth and activity in outer space, a fresh sympathy might befound for an original thinker from the ancient world, sometimes dismissed as anengaging eccentric, who found ways in which the familiar earth and the forms oflife it contains were involved in the history of the whole. Enriched by the poeticstyle, and the exotic and often archaic language in which they were expressed,Empedocles’ ideas still hold interest. His achievements are especially to be foundin the comprehensive theory of elements subject to opposed forces, in thereduction of all life forms to greater or less sophistication on a single scale, in theperceptive insights into human origins and behaviour, and general biologicalstructures and functions, and in the first attempts to link these themes to thecycles of regeneration at the outer limits of cosmic space.
1NOTE1 General interest in the philosophy of Empedocles has recently been increased bythe discovery of nearly forty scraps of papyrus fragments in the archives of theUniversity of Strasbourg, first reported in
The Times for 16 April 1994. The scraps,which range from a single letter to a portion of some contiguous verses, come froman early Greek papyrus found in a burial site in upper Egypt. They have beenidentified as Empedoclean, connected with citations from the cycle of birth and deathin the contexts both of natural science and ‘purifications’. The publication withcommentary by Professor Alain Martin of Brussels is eagerly awaited.
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