From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles[120] proceeded to describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first produced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals.[121] After a certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propagated.[122] Among these productions were not only plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the “long-lived Gods”.[123] All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in different proportions, more or less harmonious.[124] These elements remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,[125] could not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.
[120] Hippokrates — Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς — c. 20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littré. καθάπερ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἢ ἄλλοι οἳ περὶ φύσιος γεγράφασιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὅ τί ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ὅπως ἐγενετο πρώτον, καὶ ὅπως ξυνεπάγη.
This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.
[121] Emp. Fr. v. 253, Kar. τοὺς μὲν πῦρ ἀνεπεμπ’ ἔθελον πρὸς ὅμοιον ἱκέσθαι, &c.
Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. εἶπε πάλιν ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ὅτι τὰ φυτὰ ἔχουσι γένεσιν ἐν κόσμῳ ἠλαττωμένῳ, καὶ οὐ τελείῳ κατὰ τὴν συμπλήρωσιν αὐτοῦ· ταύτης δὲ συμπληρουμένης (while it is in course of being completed), οὐ γεννᾶται ζῶον.
[122] Emp. Frag. v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed. Karst. Ver. 238:—
|
πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφίστερν’
ἐφύοντο, βουγενῆ ἀνδρόπρωρα, &c. |
Ver. 251:—
| Οὐλοφυεῖς μὲν πρῶτα τύποι χθονὸς ἑξανέτελλον, &c. |
Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20; Physic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Cœlo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29; with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.