78. Most modern writers, however, ascribe to Herakleitos the doctrine of a periodical conflagration or ἐκπύρωσις, to use the Stoic term.[[403]] That this is inconsistent with the theory, as we have interpreted it, is obvious, and is indeed admitted by Zeller. To his paraphrase of the statement of Plato quoted above (p. 159) he adds the words: “Herakleitos did not intend to retract this principle in the doctrine of a periodic change in the constitution of the world; if the two doctrines are not compatible, it is a contradiction which he has not observed.” Now, it is in itself quite likely that there were contradictions in the discourse of Herakleitos, but it is very unlikely that there was this particular one. In the first place, it is a contradiction of the central idea of his system, the thought that possessed his whole mind ([§ 67]), and we can only admit the possibility of that, if the evidence for it should prove irresistible. In the second place, such an interpretation destroys the whole point of Plato’s contrast between Herakleitos and Empedokles ([§ 68]), which is just that, while Herakleitos said the One was always many, and the Many always one, Empedokles said the All was many and one by turns. Zeller’s interpretation obliges us, then, to suppose that Herakleitos flatly contradicted his own discovery without noticing it, and that Plato, in discussing this very discovery, was also blind to the contradiction.[[404]]

Nor is there anything in Aristotle to set against Plato’s emphatic statement. We have seen that the passage in which he speaks of him along with Empedokles as holding that the heavens were alternately in one condition and in another refers not to the world in general, but to fire, which Aristotle identified with the substance of his own “first heaven.”[[405]] It is also quite consistent with our interpretation when he says that all things at one time or another become fire. This does not necessarily mean that they all become fire at the same time, but is merely a statement of the undoubted Herakleitean doctrine of the upward and downward path.[[406]]

The only clear statements to the effect that Herakleitos taught the doctrine of a general conflagration are posterior to the rise of Stoicism. It is unnecessary to enumerate them, as there is no doubt about their meaning. The Christian apologists too were interested in the idea of a final conflagration, and reproduce the Stoic view. The curious thing, however, is that there was a difference of opinion on the subject even among the Stoics. In one place, Marcus Aurelius says: “So that all these things are taken up into the Reason of the universe, whether by a periodical conflagration or a renovation effected by external exchanges.”[[407]] Indeed, there were some who said there was no general conflagration at all in Herakleitos. “I hear all that,” Plutarch makes one of his personages say, “from many people, and I see the Stoic conflagration spreading over the poems of Hesiod, just as it does over the writings of Herakleitos and the verses of Orpheus.”[[408]] We see from this that the question was debated, and we should therefore expect that any statement of Herakleitos which could settle it would be quoted over and over again. It is highly significant that not a single quotation of the kind can be produced.

On the contrary, the absence of anything to show that Herakleitos spoke of a general conflagration only becomes more patent when we turn to the few fragments which are supposed to prove it. The favourite is fr. [24], where we are told that Herakleitos said Fire was Want and Surfeit. That is just in his manner, and it has a perfectly intelligible meaning on our interpretation, which is further confirmed by fr. [36]. On the other hand, it seems distinctly artificial to understand the Surfeit as referring to the fact that fire has burnt everything else up, and still more so to interpret Want as meaning that fire, or most of it, has turned into a world. The next is fr. [26], where we read that fire in its advance will judge and convict all things. There is nothing in this, however, to suggest that fire will judge all things at once rather than in turn, and, indeed, the phraseology reminds us of the advance of fire and water which we have seen reason for attributing to Herakleitos, but which is expressly said to be limited to a certain maximum.[[409]] These appear to be the only passages which the Stoics and the Christian apologists could discover, and, whether our interpretation of them is right or wrong, it is surely obvious that they cannot bear the weight of their conclusion, and that there was certainly nothing more definite to be found.

It is much easier to find fragments which are on the face of them inconsistent with a general conflagration. The “measures” of fr. [20] and fr. [29] must be the same thing, and they must surely be interpreted in the light of fr. [23]. If this be so, fr. [20], and more especially fr. [29], directly contradict the idea of a general conflagration. “The sun will not overstep his measures.”[[410]] Secondly, the metaphor of “exchange,” which is applied to the transformations of fire in fr. [22], points in the same direction. When gold is given in exchange for wares and wares for gold, the sum or “measure” of each remains constant, though they change owners. All the wares and gold do not come into the same hands. In the same way, when anything becomes fire, something of equal amount must cease to be fire, if the “exchange” is to be a just one; and that it will be just, we are assured by the watchfulness of the Erinyes (fr. [29]), who see to it that the sun does not take more than he gives. Of course there is, as we have seen, a certain variation; but this is strictly confined within limits, and is compensated in the long run by a variation in the other direction. Thirdly, fr. [43], in which Herakleitos blames Homer for desiring the cessation of strife, is very conclusive. The cessation of strife would mean that all things should take the upward or downward path at the same time, and cease to “run in opposite directions.” If they all took the upward path, we should have a general conflagration. Now, if Herakleitos had himself held that this was the appointment of fate, would he have been likely to upbraid Homer for desiring so necessary a consummation?[[411]] Fourthly, we note that in fr. [20] it is this world,[[412]] and not merely the “ever-living fire,” which is said to be eternal; and it appears also that its eternity depends upon the fact that it is always kindling and always going out in the same “measures,” or that an encroachment in one direction is compensated by a subsequent encroachment in the other. Lastly, Lassalle’s argument from the concluding sentence of the passage from the Περὶ διαίτης, quoted above, is really untouched by Zeller’s objection, that it cannot be Herakleitean because it implies that all things are fire and water. It does not imply this, but only that man, like the heavenly bodies, oscillates between fire and water; and that is just what Herakleitos taught. It does not appear either that the measures of earth varied at all. Now, in this passage we read that neither fire nor water can prevail completely, and a very good reason is given for this, a reason too which is in striking agreement with the other views of Herakleitos.[[413]] And, indeed, it is not easy to see how, in accordance with these views, the world could ever recover from a general conflagration if such a thing were to take place. The whole process depends, so far as we can see, on the fact that Surfeit is also Want, or, in other words, that an advance of fire increases the moist exhalation, while an advance of water deprives the fire of the power to cause evaporation. The conflagration, though it lasted but for a moment,[[414]] would destroy the opposite tension on which the rise of a new world depends, and then motion would become impossible.

Strife and “harmony.”

79. We are now in a position to understand more clearly the law of strife or opposition which manifests itself in the “upward and downward path.” At any given moment, each of the three forms of matter, Fire, Water, and Earth, is made up of two equal portions,—subject, of course, to the oscillation described above,—one of which is taking the upward and the other the downward path. Now, it is just the fact that the two halves of everything are being “drawn in opposite directions,” this “opposite tension,” that “keeps things together,” and maintains them in an equilibrium which can only be disturbed temporarily and within certain limits. It thus forms the “hidden attunement” of the universe (fr. [47]), though, in another aspect of it, it is Strife. Bernays has pointed out that the word ἁρμονία meant originally “structure,” and the illustration of the bow and the lyre shows that this idea was present. On the other hand, that taken from the concord of high and low notes shows that the musical sense of the word, namely, an octave, was not wholly absent. As to the “bow and the lyre” (fr. [45]), I think that Professor Campbell has best brought out the point of the simile. “As the arrow leaves the string,” he says, “the hands are pulling opposite ways to each other, and to the different parts of the bow (cf. Plato, Rep. 4. 439); and the sweet note of the lyre is due to a similar tension and retention. The secret of the universe is the same.”[[415]] War, then, is the father and king of all things, in the world as in human society (fr. [44]); and Homer’s wish that strife might cease was really a prayer for the destruction of the world (fr. [43]).

We know from Philo that Herakleitos supported his theory of the attainment of harmony through strife by a multitude of examples; and, as it happens, some of these can be recovered. There is a remarkable agreement between a passage of this kind in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, entitled The Kosmos, and the Hippokratean work to which we have already referred. That the authors of both drew from the same source, namely, Herakleitos, is probable in itself, and is made practically certain by the fact that this agreement extends in part to the Letters of Herakleitos, which, though spurious, were certainly composed by some one who had access to the original work. The argument was that men themselves act just in the same way as Nature, and it is therefore surprising that they do not recognise the laws by which she works. The painter produces his harmonious effects by the contrast of colours, the musician by that of high and low notes. “If one were to make all things alike, there would be no delight in them.” There are many similar examples in the Hippokratean tract, some of which must certainly come from Herakleitos; but it is not easy to separate them from the later additions.[[416]]

Correlation of opposites.

80. There are a number of Herakleitean fragments which form a class by themselves, and are among the most striking of all the utterances that have come down to us. Their common characteristic is, that they assert in the most downright way the identity of various things which are usually regarded as opposites. The clue to their meaning is to be found in the account already given of the assertion that day and night are one. We have seen that Herakleitos meant to say, not that day was night or that night was day, but that they were two sides of the same process, namely, the oscillation of the “measures” of fire and water, and that neither would be possible without the other. Any explanation that can be given of night will also be an explanation of day, and vice versa; for it will be an account of that which is common to both, and manifests itself now as one and now as the other. Moreover, it is just because it has manifested itself in the one form that it must next appear in the other; for this is required by the law of compensation or Justice.