The Syracusan antiquaries were already seeking to modify the explanations they had previously proposed, so as to adapt them to the newly-arrived picture, when Dionysius commanded the latter to be carried to the house of Epicharmus, a philosopher of the Pythagorean school, who dwelt in a remote part of Syracuse called Tyche. Epicharmus rarely presented himself at the court of Dionysius, for although the latter was fond of calling around him the most distinguished men from all the Greek colonial cities, yet the philosopher found that the proximity of princes takes even from men of the greatest intellectual power part of their spirit and their freedom. He devoted himself unceasingly to the study of natural things, their forces or powers, the origin of animals and plants, and the harmonious laws in accordance with which the heavenly bodies, as well as the grains of hail and the flakes of snow, assume their distinctive forms. Oppressed with age, and unable to proceed far without assistance, he caused himself to be conducted daily to the Pœcile, and thence to the entrance of the port, where, as he said, his eyes received the image of the boundless and the infinite which his spirit ever strove in vain to apprehend. He lived honoured alike by the tyrant, whose presence he avoided, and by the lower classes of the people, whom he met gladly, and often with friendly help.
Exhausted with fatigue, he was reposing on his couch, when the newly-arrived picture was brought to him by the command of Dionysius. Care had been taken to bring, at the same time, a faithful copy of the “Rhodian Genius,” and the philosopher desired the two paintings to be placed side by side before him. After having remained for some time with his eyes fixed upon them, and absorbed in thought, he called his scholars together, and spoke to them in the following terms, in a voice which was not without emotion:—
“Withdraw the curtain from the window, that I may enjoy once more the view of the fair earth animated with living beings. During sixty years I have reflected on the internal motive powers of nature, and on the differences of substances: to-day for the first time the picture of the Rhodian Genius leads me to see more clearly that which I had before only obscurely divined. As living beings are impelled by natural desires to salutary and fruitful union, so the raw materials of inorganic nature are moved by similar impulses. Even in the reign of primeval night, in the darkness of chaos, elementary principles or substances sought or shunned each other in obedience to indwelling dispositions of amity or enmity. Thus the fire of heaven follows metal, iron obeys the attraction of the loadstone, amber rubbed takes up light substances, earth mixes with earth, salt collects together from the water of the sea, and the acid moisture of the Stypteria (στυπτηρια υγρα), as well as the flocculent salt Trichitis, love the clay of Melos. In inanimate nature all things hasten to unite with each other according to their particular laws. Hence no terrestrial element (and who would dare to include light among the number of such elements?) is to be found anywhere in its pure and primitive simple state. Each as soon as formed tends to enter into new combinations, and the art of man is needed to disjoin and present in a separated state substances which you would seek in vain in the interior of the earth, and in the fluid oceans of air or water. In dead inorganic matter, entire inactivity and repose reign so long as the bonds of affinity continue undissolved, so long as no third substance comes to join itself to the others. But even then, the action and disturbance produced are soon again succeeded by unfruitful repose.
“It is otherwise, however, when the same substances are brought together in the bodies of plants and animals. In these the vital force or power reigns supreme, and regardless of the mutual amity or enmity of the atoms recognised by Democritus, commands the union of substances which in inanimate nature shun each other, and separates those which are ever seeking to enter into combination.
“Now come nearer to me, my friends; look with me on the first of the pictures before us, and recognise in the Rhodian Genius, in the expression of youthful energy, in the butterfly on his shoulder, and in the commanding glance of his eye, the symbol of vital force animating each individual germ of the organic creation. At his feet are the earthy elements desiring to mix and unite, conformably to their particular tendencies. The Genius, holding aloft his lighted torch with commanding gesture, controls and constrains them, without regard to their ancient rights, to obey his laws.
“Now view with me the new picture which the tyrant has sent to me for explanation: turn your eyes from the image of life to that of death. The butterfly has left its former place and soars upwards; the extinguished torch is reversed, the head of the youth has sunk: the spirit has fled to other spheres, and the vital force is dead. Now the youths and maidens joyfully join hands, the earthy substances resume their ancient rights: they are freed from the chains that bound them, and follow impetuously after long restraint the impulse to union.—Thus inert matter, animated awhile by vital force, passes through an innumerable diversity of forms, and perhaps in the same substance which once enshrined the spirit of Pythagoras, a poor worm may have enjoyed a momentary existence.
“Go, Polycles, and tell Dionysius what thou hast heard;—and you my friends, Euryphamos, Lysis, and Scopas, come nearer to me and support me; I feel that in my weakened frame the enfeebled vital power will not long hold in subjection the earthly substances which reclaim their ancient liberty. Lead me once again to the Pœcile, and thence to the sea shore; soon you will collect my ashes.”
NOTE.
I have noticed in the Preface to the Second and Third Editions (S. xiii., p. xii. English Trans.) the subject of the republication here of the preceding pages, which were first printed in Schiller’s Horen (Jahrg. 1795, St. 5, S. 90-96). They contain the development of a physiological idea clothed in a semi-mythical garb. In the Latin “Aphorisms from the Chemical Physiology of Plants” appended to my “Subterranean Flora,” in 1793,—I had defined the “vital force” as “the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following their original affinities.” The first of my aphorisms were as follows:—Rerum naturam si totam consideres, magnum atque durabile, quod inter elementa intercedit, discrimen perspicies, quorum altera affinitatum legibus obtemperantia, altera, vinculis solutis, varie juncta apparent. Quod quidem discrimen in elementis ipsis eorumque indole neutiquam positum, quum ex sola distributione singulorum petendum esse videatur. Materiam segnem, brutam, inanimam eam vocamus, cujus stamina secundum leges chymicæ affinitatis mixta sunt. Animata atque organica ea potissimum corpora appellamus, quæ, licet in novas mutari formas perpetuo tendant, vi interna quadam continentur, quominus priscam sibique insitam formam relinquant.
“Vim internam, quæ chymicæ affinitatis vincula resolvit, atque obstat, quominus elementa corporum libere conjungantur, vitalem vocamus. Itaque nullum certius mortis criterium putredine datur, qua primæ partes vel stamina rerum, antiquis juribus revocatis, affinitatum legibus parent. Corporum inanimorum nulla putredo esse potest.” (Vide Aphorismi ex doctrina Physiologiæ chemicæ Plantarum, in Humboldt, Flora Fribergensis subterranea, 1793, p. 133-136).