The possibility of organic combinations depends upon the fact that there is still water in the earth, and even fire (fr. [52]). The warm springs of Sicily were a proof of this, not to speak of Etna. These springs Empedokles appears to have explained by one of his characteristic images, drawn this time from the heating of warm baths.[[615]] It will be noted that his similes are nearly all drawn from human inventions and manufactures.
Plants.
115. Plants and animals were formed from the four elements under the influence of Love and Strife. The fragments which deal with trees and plants are 77-81; and these, taken along with certain Aristotelian statements and the doxographical tradition, enable us to make out pretty fully what the theory was. The text of Aetios is very corrupt here; but it may, perhaps, be rendered as follows:—
Empedokles says that trees were the first living creatures to grow up out of the earth, before the sun was spread out, and before day and night were distinguished; that, from the symmetry of their mixture, they contain the proportion of male and female; that they grow, rising up owing to the heat which is in the earth, so that they are parts of the earth just as embryos are parts of the uterus; that fruits are excretions of the water and fire in plants, and that those which have a deficiency of moisture shed their leaves when that is evaporated by the summer heat, while those which have more moisture remain evergreen, as in the case of the laurel, the olive, and the palm; that the differences in taste are due to variations in the particles contained in the earth and to the plants drawing different particles from it, as in the case of vines; for it is not the difference of the vines that makes wine good, but that of the soil which nourishes them. Aet. v. 26, 4 (R. P. 172).
Aristotle finds fault with Empedokles for explaining the double growth of plants, upwards and downwards, by the opposite natural motions of the earth and fire contained in them.[[616]] For “natural motions” we must, of course, substitute the attraction of like for like ([§ 109]). Theophrastos says much the same thing.[[617]] The growth of plants, then, is to be regarded as an incident in that separation of the elements which Strife is bringing about. Some of the fire which is still beneath the earth (fr. [52]) meeting in its upward course with earth, still moist with water and “running” down so as to “reach its own kind,” unites with it, under the influence of the Love still left in the world, to form a temporary combination, which we call a tree or a plant.
At the beginning of the pseudo-Aristotelian Treatise on Plants,[[618]] we are told that Empedokles attributed desire, sensation, and the capacity for pleasure and pain to plants, and he rightly saw that the two sexes are combined in them. This is mentioned by Aetios, and discussed in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise. If we may so far trust that Byzantine translation from a Latin version of the Arabic,[[619]] we get a most valuable hint as to the reason. Plants, we are there told, came into being “in an imperfect state of the world,”[[620]] in fact, at a time when Strife had not so far prevailed as to differentiate the sexes. We shall see that the same thing applies to the original race of animals in this world. It is strange that Empedokles never observed the actual process of generation in plants, but confined himself to the statement that they spontaneously “bore eggs” (fr. [79]), that is to say, fruit.
Evolution of animals.
116. The fragments which deal with the evolution of animals (57-62) must be understood in the light of the statement (fr. [17]) that there is a double coming into being and a double passing away of mortal things. Empedokles describes two processes of evolution, which take exactly opposite courses, one of them belonging to the period of Love and the other to that of Strife. The four stages of this double evolution are accurately distinguished in a passage of Aetios,[[621]] and we shall see that there is evidence for referring two of them to the second period of the world’s history and two to the fourth.
The first stage is that in which the various parts of animals arise separately. It is that of heads without necks, arms without shoulders, and eyes without foreheads (fr. [57]). It is clear that this must be the first stage in what we have called the fourth period of the world’s history, that in which Love is coming in and Strife passing out. Aristotle distinctly refers it to the period of Love, by which, as we have seen, he means the period when Love is increasing.[[622]] It is in accordance with this that he also says these scattered members were subsequently put together by Love.[[623]]
The second stage is that in which the scattered limbs are united. At first, they were combined in all possible ways (fr. [59]). There were oxen with human heads, creatures with double faces and double breasts, and all manner of monsters (fr. [61]). Those of them that were fitted to survive did so, while the rest perished. That is how the evolution of animals took place in the period of Love.[[624]]