Nature Mysticism

by John Edward Mercer

While still a youth, he forsook the bustle of the city for the solitude and charm of the lovely country which surrounded his home, and he definitely set himself to feed his imagination on the concrete and sensuous imagery of the poets. He laid himself open to the impressions and intuitions which such an environment so richly provided, and thus laid the foundation for those speculations on the nature of the universe and of life which have rendered his influence so lasting and his fame so great.

He is undoubtedly difficult to understand, and his cryptic utterances earned for him the doubtful title of the Dark. But his champions have pointed out that his obscurity of diction was not the outcome of pride or intentional assumption of mystery, but of the genuine difficulty he found in giving expression to his novel thoughts. He waxes vehement in his struggles to subdue his language to his purposes, his vague intuitions, his movements in worlds not fully realised; and in this regard he can at any rate claim the sympathy of mystics of every school.

Such was the man and such his training. What was his central, dominating thought? What was his conception of the universal Ground of existence? It was this—Pure Fire—motion is the secret of the eternal change which characterises all known phenomena of every grade and kind. "All things flow" is the far-famed aphorism which sums up his philosophy. This eternal movement is not, however, formless, but is determined to ever-recurrent forms, and is obedient to law and rhythm.

He taught, then, that the eternal movement which constitutes existence is Fire. "This one order of all things (he affirms) was created by none of the gods, nor yet by any of mankind; but it was ever, and is, and shall be, eternal fire-ignited by measure and extinguished by measure." But more—he held that this Fire-motion is alive. It will be remembered that Thales had placed the cause of motion in matter itself, not in something other than matter; that is to say, he was to all intents and purposes a hylozoist. Heracleitus went a step farther, and maintained that the life in Fire-motion is organic, like to that which is manifested in the plant and animal worlds. His idea of the essential kinship of all things is very clear and complete.

He conceived, therefore, that soul is in no way fundamentally distinct from any other of the transformations of the ever-living Fire. And thus the problem which so grievously torments modern psychologists, that of the connection between soul and body, did not exist for him. And a notable corollary of his view is this. Since man has essential kinship with his environment, he can apprehend both the outer surface of things and their inner law; and it is in this recognition of their inner law that his true nature is to be found. Now if it be granted that this inner law can be apprehended by intuition as well as by conscious reasoning process, the corollary is one to which the nature-mystic can heartily subscribe. In fact, he recognises in it a statement of his own master principle.

The soul, as fire, depends on the cosmic Fire for sustenance, the breath being the physical medium; and in this regard, all that was said of Anaximenes and "Breath," or Air, will have its place. But Heracleitus has a further thought which is in full harmony with the nature-mystic's chief contention. He holds that sense perception is also a medium, for the outer fire is thereby absorbed by the inner fire. The value of this thought remains in spite of the sage's doctrine of the body. For though the body is regarded by him as a clog on the activity of the inner fire, because it consists of water and earth (two forms in which the movement of the Fire is greatly reduced) it is nevertheless akin to the soul, and is itself destined, in the course of ceaseless change, to become Fire in its most living and active form.

Such is the central doctrine of this noted thinker, round which all his other teaching turned. Let us now ask, as in the corresponding cases of Thales and Anaximander, why the particular element was chosen as the Ground of all things. The answer to this question will furnish, as in the previous cases, much matter for our special purpose, since the emphasis will lie rather on the physical properties and functions of fire, than on its more abstract ontology.

It is obvious that Heracleitus would start with a knowledge of the speculations of his more immediate predecessors, and of the data on which they were based—the phenomena of circulation in nature, evaporation, mist, rain, melting, freezing, and the rest. And we find that in this direction he merely amplified the older systems, taking fire, instead of water or air, as his Welt-stoff. He also observed, with special care, certain suggestive cases of rarefaction by heat and condensation by cold; as also the facts of constant decomposition and renewal in the vegetable and animal worlds. But the phenomenon which stands out as the chiefest determinant of his thought is one which is always bound to act as a powerful stimulant on a thoughtful mind—that of combustion.

The flame of an ordinary fire can still be a thing of wonder to the man whose mind is open to receive impressions even from the commonplace. How illusive it is!—dancing, darting, flickering, flashing—appearing, disappearing—unsubstantial yet active and almost miraculously potent. The effect upon the mind of primitive man must have been keen and vivid to the highest degree, and must have produced results of corresponding significance upon his spiritual development.

But the deeper kind of wonder is reserved for the systematic speculative thinker, whose attention is arrested by the phenomena of a steadily burning flame, say that of a lamp. The oil is sucked up into the wick and slowly decreases in volume. At the point where the flame begins it rises in vapour, becomes brilliant, and, in the case of a clear flame, disappears. There is thus a constant movement from below upwards. The flame has all the appearance of a "thing," with comparatively definite form and continued existence, and yet is never really the same, not for the minutest fraction of a moment. It is an appearance born of incessant motion—let the motion stop, the flame is gone. Where the burning is accompanied by smoke, there is an apparent return of volatilised matter to solid form.