Strife and Love.
108. The Eleatic criticism had made it necessary for subsequent thinkers to explain motion.[[589]] Empedokles starts, as we have seen, from an original state of the “four roots,” which only differs from the Sphere of Parmenides in so far as it is a mixture, not a homogeneous and continuous mass. The fact that it is a mixture makes change and motion possible; but, were there nothing outside the Sphere which could enter in, like the Pythagorean “Air,” to separate the four elements, nothing could ever arise from it. Empedokles accordingly assumed the existence of such a substance, and he gave it the name of Strife. But the effect of this would be to separate all the elements in the Sphere completely, and then nothing more could possibly happen; something else was needed to bring the elements together again. This Empedokles found in Love, which he regarded as the same impulse to union that is implanted in human bodies (fr. [17], [22] sqq.). He looks at it, in fact, from a purely physiological point of view, as was natural for the founder of a medical school. No mortal had yet marked, he says, that the very same Love which men know in their bodies had a place among the elements.
It is important to observe that the Love and Strife of Empedokles are no incorporeal forces, but corporeal elements like the other four. At the time, this was inevitable; nothing incorporeal had yet been dreamt of. Naturally, Aristotle is puzzled by this characteristic of what he regarded as efficient causes. “The Love of Empedokles,” he says[[590]] “is both an efficient cause, for it brings things together, and a material cause, for it is a part of the mixture.” And Theophrastos expressed the same idea by saying[[591]] that Empedokles sometimes gave an efficient power to Love and Strife, and sometimes put them on a level with the other four. The verses of Empedokles himself leave no room for doubt that the two were thought of as spatial and corporeal. All the six are called “equal.” Love is said to be “equal in length and breadth” to the others, and Strife is described as equal to each of them in weight (fr. [17]).
The function of Love is to produce union; that of Strife, to break it up again. Aristotle, however, rightly points out that in another sense it is Love that divides and Strife that unites. When the Sphere is broken up by Strife, the result is that all the Fire, for instance, which was contained in it comes together and becomes one; and again, when the elements are brought together once more by Love, the mass of each is divided. In another place, he says that, while Strife is assumed as the cause of destruction, and does, in fact, destroy the Sphere, it really gives birth to everything else in so doing.[[592]] It follows that we must carefully distinguish between the Love of Empedokles and that “attraction of like for like” to which he also attributed an important part in the formation of the world. The latter is not an element distinct from the others; it depends, we shall see, on the proper nature of each element, and is only able to take effect when Strife divides the Sphere. Love, on the contrary, is something that comes from outside and produces an attraction of unlikes.
Mixture and separation.
109. But, when Strife has once separated the elements, what is it that determines the direction of their motion? Empedokles seems to have given no further explanation than that each was “running” in a certain direction (fr. [53]). Plato severely condemns this in the Laws,[[593]] on the ground that no room is thus left for design. Aristotle also blames him for giving no account of the Chance to which he ascribed so much importance. Nor is the Necessity, of which he also spoke, further explained.[[594]] Strife enters into the Sphere at a certain time in virtue of Necessity, or “the mighty oath” (fr. [30]); but we are left in the dark as to the origin of this.
The expression used by Empedokles to describe the movement of the elements is that they “run through each other” (fr. [17], [34]). Aristotle tells us[[595]] that he explained mixture in general by “the symmetry of pores.” And this is the true explanation of the “attraction of like for like.” The “pores” of like bodies are, of course, much the same size, and these bodies can therefore mingle easily. On the other hand, a finer body will “run through” a coarse one without becoming mixed, and a coarse body will not be able to enter into the pores of a finer one at all. It will be observed that, as Aristotle says, this really implies something like the atomic theory; but there is no evidence that Empedokles himself was conscious of that. Another question raised by Aristotle is even more instructive. Are the pores, he asks, empty or full? If empty, what becomes of the denial of the void? If full, why need we assume pores at all?[[596]] These questions Empedokles would have found it hard to answer. They point to a real want of thoroughness in his system, and mark it as a mere stage in the transition from Monism to Atomism.
The four periods.
110. It will be clear from all this that we must distinguish four periods in the cycle. First we have the Sphere, in which all the elements are mixed together by Love. Secondly, there is the period when Love is passing out and Strife coming in, when, therefore, the elements are partially separated and partially combined. Thirdly, comes the complete separation of the elements, when Love is outside the world, and Strife has given free play to the attraction of like for like. Lastly, we have the period when Love is bringing the elements together again, and Strife is passing out. This brings us back in time to the Sphere, and the cycle begins afresh. Now a world such as ours can exist only in the second and fourth of these periods; and it is clear that, if we are to understand Empedokles, we must discover in which of these we now are. It seems to be generally supposed that we are in the fourth period;[[597]] I hope to show that we are really in the second, that when Strife is gaining the upper hand.
Our world the work of Strife.