[80] Cicero, Nat. Deor., iii. 14, 35.
Doctrine of Herakleitus — perpetual process of generation and destruction — everything flows, nothing stands — transition of the elements into each other, backwards and forwards.
The expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero conceived Herakleitus as having proclaimed Fire to be the universal and all-pervading element of nature;[81] as Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes air. This interpretation was countenanced by some striking passages of Herakleitus: but when we put together all that remains from him, it appears that his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical or ontological: that the want of adequate general terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations, among which fire was only one, though the most prominent and most significant.[82] Xenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only objective reality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, perpetual, infinite, indeterminate, incapable of change or modification. They denied the objective reality of motion, change, generation, and destruction — considering all these to be purely relative and phenomenal. Herakleitus on the contrary denied everything in the nature of a permanent and perpetual substratum: he laid down nothing as permanent and perpetual except the process of change — the alternate sequence of generation and destruction, without beginning or end — generation and destruction being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the same process, since the generation of one particular state was the destruction of its antecedent contrary. All reality consisted in the succession and transition, the coming and going, of these finite and particular states: what he conceived as the infinite and universal, was the continuous process of transition from one finite state to the next — the perpetual work of destruction and generation combined, which terminated one finite state in order to make room for a new and contrary state.
[81] To some it appeared that Herakleitus hardly distinguished Fire from Air. Aristotel. De Animâ, i. 2; Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. 127-129, ix. 360.
[82] Zeller’s account of the philosophy of Herakleitus in the second edition of his Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 450-496, is instructive. Marbach also is useful (Gesch. der Phil. s. 46-49); and his (Hegelian) exposition of Herakleitus is further developed by Ferdinand Lassalle (Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen, published 1858). This last work is very copious and elaborate, throwing great light upon a subject essentially obscure and difficult.
Variety of metaphors employed by Herakleitus, signifying the same general doctrine.
This endless process of transition, or ever-repeated act of generation and destruction in one, was represented by Herakleitus under a variety of metaphors and symbols — fire consuming its own fuel — a stream of water always flowing — opposite currents meeting and combating each other — the way from above downwards, and the way from below upwards, one and the same — war, contest, penal destiny or retributive justice, the law or decree of Zeus realising each finite condition of things and then destroying its own reality to make place for its contrary and successor. Particulars are successively generated and destroyed, none of them ever arriving at permanent existence:[83] the universal process of generation and destruction alone continues. There is no Esse, but a perpetual Fieri: a transition from Esse to Non-Esse, from Non-Esse to Esse, with an intermediate temporary halt between them: a ceaseless meeting and confluence of the stream of generation with the opposite stream of destruction: a rapid and instant succession, or rather coincidence and coalescence, of contraries. Living and dead, waking and sleeping, light and dark, come into one or come round into each other: everything twists round into its contrary: everything both is and is not.[84]
[83] Plato, Kratylus, p. 402, and Theætet. p. 152, 153.
Plutarch, De Εἰ apud Delphos, c. 18, p. 392. Ποταμῷ γὰρ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, οὐδὲ θνητῆς οὐσίας δὶς ἅψασθαι κατὰ ἕξιν· ἀλλ’ ὀξύτητι καὶ ταχει μεταβολης σκιδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει, μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδὲ ὕστερον, ἀλλ’ ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει, πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι. Ὅθεν οὐδ’ εἰς τὸ εἶναι περαίνει τὸ γιγνόμενον αὐτῆς, τῷ μηδέποτε λήγειν μηδ’ ἵστασθαι τὴν γένεσιν, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ σπέρματος ἀεὶ μεταβάλλουσαν — τὰς πρώτας φθείρουσαν γενέσεις καὶ ἡλικίας ταῖς ἐπιγιγνομέναις.
Clemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711. Κόσμον τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτ’ ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν· ἀλλ’ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα. Compare also Eusebius, Præpar. Evang. xiv. 3, 8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.