[84] Plato, Sophist. p. 242 E. Διαφερόμενον γὰρ ἀεὶ ξυμφέρεται.
Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106. Πότε γὰρ ἐν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ θάνατος; καὶ ᾗ φησιν Ἡράκλειτος, ταὐτό τ’ ἔνι ζῶν καὶ τεθνηκός, καὶ τὸ ἐγρηγορὸς καὶ τὸ καθεῦδον, καὶ νέον καὶ γηραιόν· τάδε γὰρ μεταπεσόντα ἐκεῖνα ἐστι, κἀκεῖνα πάλιν μεταπεσόντα ταῦτα.
Pseudo-Origenes, Refut. Hær. ix. 10, Ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη, εὐφρόνη — χείμων, θέρος — πόλεμος, εἰρήνη — κόρος, λίμος, &c.
Nothing permanent except the law of process and implication of contraries — the transmutative force. Fixity of particulars is an illusion for most part, so far as it exists, it is a sin against the order of Nature.
The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and destruction, this alternation of contraries. To carry out such law fully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass away instantaneously — to have no duration of its own, but to be supplanted by its contrary at once. And this happens to a great degree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river appears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago has flowed away:[85] we and all around us are in rapid movement, though we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus a delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his absolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in respect to all particulars. Some positive and particular manifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of fixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were destroyed. There was a difference between one particular and another, in this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable, another less.[86] But according to the universal law or destiny, each particular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted and re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching on the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative agency of the universal. Hence arises an antithesis or hostility between the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence of particular states on the other. The universal law or process is generative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but the particular realities in which it manifests itself are all positive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to maintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of the universal process. Each particular reality represented rest and fixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of the cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating. Herakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.
[85] Aristot. De Cœlo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30; Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 9. Φασί τινες κινεῖσθαι τῶν ὄντων οὐ τὰ μὲν τὰ δ’ οὔ, ἀλλὰ πάντα καὶ ἀεὶ, ἀλλὰ λανθάνειν τοῦτο τὴν ἡμετέραν αἴσθησιν — which words doubtless refer to Herakleitus. See Preller, Hist. Phil. Græc. Rom. s. 47.
[86] Lassalle, Philosophie des Herakleitos, vol. i. pp. 54, 55. “Andrerseits bieten die sinnlichen Existenzen graduelle oder Mass-Unterschiede dar, je nachdem in ihnen das Moment des festen Seins über die Unruhe des Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und diese Graduation wird also zugleich den Leitfaden zur Classification der verschiedenen Existenz-formen bilden.”
Illustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his perpetual force, destroying and generating.
The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or Ens, either material or immaterial — no category either of substance or quality — but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change, generation and destruction, position and negation, immediately succeeding, or coinciding with each other.[87] It is this principle or everlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative phrases — “the common (τὸ ξυνον), the universal, the all-comprehensive (τὸ περιέχον), the governing, the divine, the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding,” &c. The most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as embodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of the dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this paradoxical tenor.[88] Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow, change, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which latter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since change was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other.[89] In the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into action: destruction and generation always take effect together: there is no negative without a positive, nor positive without a negative.[90]
[87] Aristot. De Cœlo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30. Οἱ δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα πάντα γίνεσθαί τέ φασι καὶ ῥεῖν, εἶναι δὲ παγίως οὐδέν, ἓν δέ τι μόνον ὑπομένειν, ἐξ οὗ ταῦτα πάντα μετασχηματίζεσθαι πέφυκεν· ὅπερ ἐοίκασιν βούλεσθαι λέγειν ἄλλοι τε πολλοὶ καὶ Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος. See the explanation given of this passage by Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 21, 39, 40, founded on the comment of Simplikius. He explains it as an universal law or ideal force — die reine Idee des Werdens selbst (p. 24), and “eine unsinnliche Potenz” (p. 25). Yet, in i. p. 55 of his elaborate exposition, he does indeed say, about the theory of Herakleitus, “Hier sind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Bestimmtheiten zu bloss verschiedenen und absolut in einander übergehenden Formen eines identischen, ihnen zu Grunde liegenden, Substrats herabgesetzt”. But this last expression appears to me to contradict the whole tenor and peculiarity of Lassalle’s own explanation of the Herakleitean theory. He insists almost in every page (compare ii. p. 156) that “das Allgemeine” of Herakleitus is “reines Werden; reiner, steter, erzeugender, Prozess”. This process cannot with any propriety be called a substratum, and Herakleitus admitted no other. In thus rejecting any substratum he stood alone. Lassalle has been careful in showing that Fire was not understood by Herakleitus as a substratum (as water by Thales), but as a symbol for the universal force or law. In the theory of Herakleitus no substratum was recognised — no τόδε τι or οὐσία — in the same way as Aristotle observes about τὸ ἄπειρον (Physic. iii. 6, a. 22-31) ὥστε τὸ ἄπειρον οὐ δεῖ λαμβάνειν ὡς τόδε τι, οἷον ἄνθρωπον ἢ οἰκίαν, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἡ ἡμέρα λέγεται καὶ ὁ ἀγων, οἷς τὸ εἶναι οὐχ’ ὡς οὐσία τις γέγονεν, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἐν γενέσει ἣ φθορᾷ, εἰ καὶ πεπερασμένον, ἀλλ’ ἀεί γε ἕτερον καὶ ἕτερον.