[76] Diogen. Laert. ix. 22.
[77] Parmen. Frag. v. 145; Theophrastus, De Sensu, Karsten. pp. 268, 270.
Parmenides (according to Theophrastus) thought that the dead body, having lost its fiery element, had no perception of light, or heat, or sound; but that it had perception of darkness, cold, and silence — καὶ ὅλως δὲ πᾶν τὸ ὂν ἔχειν τινα γνῶσιν.
Before we pass from Parmenides to his pupil and successor Zeno, who developed the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic doctrine, it will be convenient to notice various other theories of the same century: first among them that of Herakleitus, who forms as it were the contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and Parmenides.
Herakleitus — his obscure style, impressive metaphors, confident and contemptuous dogmatism.
Herakleitus of Ephesus, known throughout antiquity by the denomination of the Obscure, comes certainly after Pythagoras and Xenophanes and apparently before Parmenides. Of the two first he made special mention, in one of the sentences, alike brief and contemptuous which have been preserved from his lost treatise:—“Much learning does not teach reason: otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hekatæus.” In another passage Herakleitus spoke of the “extensive knowledge, cleverness, and wicked arts” of Pythagoras. He declared that Homer as well as Archilochus deserved to be scourged and expelled from the public festivals.[78] His thoughts were all embodied in one single treatise, which he is said to have deposited in the temple of the Ephesian Artemis. It was composed in a style most perplexing and difficult to understand, full of metaphor, symbolical illustration, and antithesis: but this very circumstance imparted to it an air of poetical impressiveness and oracular profundity.[79] It exercised a powerful influence on the speculative minds of Greece, both in the Platonic age, and subsequently: the Stoics especially both commented on it largely (though with many dissentient opinions among the commentators), and borrowed with partial modifications much of its doctrine.[80]
[78] Diogen. L. ix. 1. Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὖτις τε Ξενοφάνεα καὶ Ἑκαταῖον, &c. Ib. viii. 1, 6. Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων, καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποίησεν ἑωϋτοῦ σοφίην, πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην.
[79] Diogen. Laert. ix. 1-6. Theophrastus conceived that Herakleitus had left the work unfinished, from eccentricity of temperament (ὑπὸ μελαγχολίας). Of him, as of various others, it was imagined by some that his obscurity was intentional (Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 26, 74, De Finib. 2, 5). The words of Lucretius about Herakleitus are remarkable (i. 641):—
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Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter
inanes Quamde graves inter Græcos qui vera requirunt: Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque Inversis quæ sub verbis latitantia cernunt. |
Even Aristotle complains of the difficulty of understanding Herakleitus, and even of determining the proper punctuation (Rhetoric. iii. 5).