[98] θεοὶ δολιχαίωνες (frr. 20, 12, 23, 8). Exactly the same is said of the δαίμονες οἵτε βίοιο λελόγχασι μακραίωνος (115, 5). In the face of these expressions, so definitely setting a period to the lifetime of the gods, we must suppose that the epithets which Emp. applies to himself—he is to be in the future θεὸς ἄμβροτος οὐκ ἔτι θνητός, 112, 4—are merely intended to assert that he shall not die any more in his incarnation as a man (the same thing must be meant when those who are delivered from the circle of rebirth are called ἀπόκηροι, ἄτειρεῖς (147); the gods are only called ἄθανατοι by traditional convention). Plutarch also, Def. Or. 16, p. 418 E, distinctly states that the δαίμονες of Emp. eventually die. That the gods (but not τὸ θεῖον itself) were liable to extinction had already been the opinion of Anaximander and Anaximenes. Acc. to Emp. the individual δαίμονες would be reabsorbed into the universal divinity, the σφαῖρος (just as the individual deities of the Stoics are reabsorbed at the world-conflagration into Zeus who is alone indestructible). [= ll. 131, 141, 461, 460 M.]
[99] Emp., frr. 133, 134 (389–96), speaks of a supersensual divinity that is entirely φρὴν ἱερή: he gives to this divinity the name of Apollo, but the description is said to apply περὶ παντὸς τοῦ θείου. Hipp., RH. vii, 29, p. 386 D.-S., refers the description to the σφαῖρος. The σφαῖρος, in which no νεῖκος is left was called by Emp. ὁ θεός, ὁ εὐδαιμονέστατος θεός (Arist., An. i, 5, 410b, 5–6; Metaph. ii, 4, 1000b, 3). It is, however, certain that Emp. would not have regarded the σφαῖρος as pure φρὴν ἱερή. It appears, in fact, that in the σφαῖρος, in which everything is together and united, even the divine power thought of as supersensual is brought to a close. In the world-state of multiplicity caused by νεῖκος divinity seems to be regarded as separate from the elements and the forces. “Furious conflict” (115, 14) then attacks even the divinity and divides it against itself; hence the origin of individual δαίμονες as a self-caused division of the divine, a desertion from the One θεῖον—the individual δαίμονες are φυγάδες, θεόθεν (115, 13). These individual δαίμονες are entangled in the world from its origin until at last, having become purified, they rise again to the heights of divinity; and when all individuality is again fused into one by φιλία they return once more into the universal divinity in order with it to enter into the σφαῖρος.—Thus we may perhaps reconstruct the Empedoklean fantasy. His lines do not supply sufficient evidence for the complete reconstruction of his picture of the perpetually recurring process. We should naturally expect a certain obscurity to cling to this attempt to fuse together physiology and theology.
[100] Lucr. iii, 370–3.
[101] All that is essential on the subject of Demokritos’ doctrine of the soul is to be found in Arist., An. i, 2, p. 403b, 31–404a, 16; 405a., 7–13; i, 3, p. 406b, 15–22; Resp. iv, p. 471b, 30–472a, 17.—The air is full of the particles which Demokritos calls νοῦς and ψυχή: Resp. 472a, 6–8 [Vors. ii, 36]. The atoms hovering in the air become visible as “motes in the sunbeam”; of these some are the soul-atoms (this must be the meaning of An. 404A, 3 ff.; Iamb. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 384, 15 W., is only drawing upon Arist.). This is a modification of the opinion held by the Pythagoreans (mentioned also by Arist. 404a, 16 ff.) that the motes in the sunbeam are “souls” (see above, chap. x, [n. 34]). Inhalation of the world-stuff as a condition of life in the individual is imitated from Herakleitos (see S.E., M. vii, 129).
[102] The soul acc. to Dem. ἐκβαίνει μὲν τοῦ σώματος, ἐν δὲ τῷ ἐκβαίνειν διαφορεῖται καὶ διασκεδάννυται, Iamb. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 384, 16 f. W. [408]
[103] Dem. φθαρτὴν (εἶναι τὴν ψυχὴν) τῷ σώματι συνδιαφθειρομένην, Dox. 393a, 8 [Vors. A 109]. Since the disruption of the soul-atoms is not effected at a single blow death may, in consequence, sometimes be only apparent; i.e. when many but not all the soul-particles have escaped. For this reason also, with the possible re-assemblage of the soul-atoms, ἀναβιώσεις of the apparently dead may occur. Cases of this kind seem to have been treated in the work περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου: see Procl., in Rp. ii, 113, 6 Kr.; D.L. ix, 46; it is counted among the most famous, or at least the most popular of Dem.’s writings in the anecdote ap. Ath. 168 B; cf. [Hp.] Ep. 10, 3, p. 291 Hch. [ix, 322 Lit.]; Vors. 55 C, 2. This view of the retention of vitality, of course, only applies to the period immediately following the (apparent) death (it is fairly correctly represented by [Plu.] Plac. Ph. 4, 4, 4 [Dox. 390], it was probably attributed to Dem. on account of a similar observation made by Parmenides; see above, [p. 373]). Nevertheless, out of it grew up the assertion, which was then attributed to Dem., that in fact τὰ νεκρὰ τῶν σωμάτων αἰσθάνεται: e.g. Alex. Aph. in Arist., Top. 21, 21; [Vors. ii, 38, 8]; Stob., Ecl. i, p. 477, 18 W. In the case, at least, of those that are really “dead”, i.e. of bodies that have been deserted by all the soul-atoms, Dem. certainly never taught the presence of αἴσθησις: against the vulgarization of his opinions that would attribute such a view as this to him (as Epicurus himself did) the Democritici spoken of by Cic. (TD. i, 82) made their protest.—The work περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου can certainly not have confined itself to considerations of a purely physical nature; otherwise Thrasyllos (D.L. ix, 46) could not have classified it among the ἠθικὰ βιβλία of Dem. [Vors. ii, 19]. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine what from Dem.’s point of view there could have been to say about “the things in the Underworld”. It is hardly possible to suppose (as Mullach, Dem. fr., pp. 117–18, and Heyne do) that Dem. would think himself obliged either to answer or to parody the fabulous inventions of the poets about the realm of shadows. It is difficult to be certain that Dem. was really the author of the work: the forgery of later times was particularly fond of turning the most clear-headed of materialists into a mage and a jack-of-all-trades. (Dem.’s observations of the possibility of ἀναβιοῦν is in part at least the origin of the writing π. τ. ἐν ᾅδου; it is also responsible for the anecdote that makes him promise to the Persian king that he will restore his dead wife to life again, etc.—a variation of an ingenious story widely spread both in the East and the West. See my Lecture on Greek Novel-writing: Verh. der Philologenvers. zu Rostock, 1875, p. 68 f.)—The “fragmenta moralia” of Dem. are with rare exceptions (e.g. Mull. frr. 7, 23, 48, 49, etc. = 146, 159, 147, 127 D.) wholesale fabrications of the feeblest kind. One of them, however (119 Mull., 297 D.), agrees at least with what Dem. may very well have said about the punishments in Hell (though in rather different words—he was incapable of quite such a monstrosity as μυθοπλαστέοντες, which sounds very late Greek. Vain efforts have been made to justify this μυθοπλαστέω by reference to the older μυθοπλάστης. But μυθοποιός, ὀδοφύλαξ, ἀργυροκόπος, etc., are also old, and it is no secret that verbs derived by further extension from such composite verbal nouns are mostly late formations: thus μυθοποιέω, ὀδοφυλακέω, ἀργυροκοπέω, and again πετροβολέω, ἱεροφαντέω, τεκνοκτονέω, etc.). In another of these falsa no echo even of Dem.’s thought is to be found: fr. moral. 1 Mull. [171 D.] ψυχὴ οἰκητήριον δαίμονος.
[104] Dem., whose inquiries set out from the study of inorganic nature, [409] was led to predicate a mechanical obedience to law in organic nature as well. Anaxagoras starting from the study of organic nature and in particular of man, its highest development, derived from that study the concept of purpose—purpose consciously undertaken and carried out—and this idea affected his outlook upon the whole of nature, including inorganic nature. This teleological system, regarded as of universal application, is made by him to depend on a Being modelled upon the human mind, the only source, in fact, from which he could have derived his experience of action carried out in accordance with pre-arranged purpose.
[105] Cf. here and on what follows, Heinze, Ber. d. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. 1890, pp. 1 ff.
[106] νοῦς must be omniscient if it γνώμην περὶ παντὸς ἴσχει (fr. 6 M. = 12 D.). It has organized (διεκόσμησε) not only what was and is but also what is to be: frr. 6, 12 [12, 14 D.].
[107] Arist., Ph. 256b. 24 ff.