HERACLITUS (Ἡράκλειτος; c. 540-475 B.C.), Greek philosopher, was born at Ephesus of distinguished parentage. Of his early life and education we know nothing; from the contempt with which he spoke of all his fellow-philosophers and of his fellow-citizens as a whole we may gather that he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. So intensely aristocratic (hence his nickname ὀχλολοίδορος, “he who rails at the people”) was his temperament that he declined to exercise the regal-hieratic office of βασιλεύς which was hereditary in his family, and presented it to his brother. It is probable, however, that he did occasionally intervene in the affairs of the city at the period when the rule of Persia had given place to autonomy; it is said that he compelled the usurper Melancomas to abdicate. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the extreme profundity of his philosophy and his contempt for mankind in general, he was called the “Dark Philosopher” (ὁ σκοτεινός), or the “Weeping Philosopher,” in contrast to Democritus, the “Laughing Philosopher.”
Heraclitus is in a real sense the founder of metaphysics. Starting from the physical standpoint of the Ionian physicists, he accepted their general idea of the unity of nature, but entirely denied their theory of being. The fundamental uniform fact in nature is constant change (πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει); everything both is and is not at the same time. He thus arrives at the principle of Relativity; harmony and unity consist in diversity and multiplicity. The senses are “bad witnesses” (κακοὶ μάρτυρες); only the wise man can obtain knowledge.
To appreciate the significance of the doctrines of Heraclitus, it must be borne in mind that to Greek philosophy the sharp distinction between subject and object which pervades modern thought was foreign, a consideration which suggests the conclusion that, while it is a great mistake to reckon Heraclitus with the materialistic cosmologists of the Ionic schools, it is, on the other hand, going too far to treat his theory, with Hegel and Lassalle, as one of pure Panlogism. Accordingly, when he denies the reality of Being, and declares Becoming, or eternal flux and change, to be the sole actuality, Heraclitus must be understood to enunciate not only the unreality of the abstract notion of being, except as the correlative of that of not-being, but also the physical doctrine that all phenomena are in a state of continuous transition from non-existence to existence, and vice versa, without either distinguishing these propositions or qualifying them by any reference to the relation of thought to experience. “Every thing is and is not”; all things are, and nothing remains. So far he is in general agreement with Anaximander (q.v.), but he differs from him in the solution of the problem, disliking, as a poet and a mystic, the primary matter which satisfied the patient researcher, and demanding a more vivid and picturesque element. Naturally he selects fire, according to him the most complete embodiment of the process of Becoming, as the principle of empirical existence, out of which all things, including even the soul, grow by way of a quasi condensation, and into which all things must in course of time be again resolved. But this primordial fire is in itself that divine rational process, the harmony of which constitutes the law of the universe (see [Logos]). Real knowledge consists in comprehending this all-pervading harmony as embodied in the manifold of perception, and the senses are “bad-witnesses,” because they apprehend phenomena, not as its manifestation, but as “stiff and dead.” In like manner real virtue consists in the subordination of the individual to the laws of this harmony as the universal reason wherein alone true freedom is to be found. “The law of things is a law of Reason Universal (λόγος), but most men live as though they had a wisdom of their own.” Ethics here stands to sociology in a close relation, similar, in many respects, to that which we find in Hegel and in Comte. For Heraclitus the soul approaches most nearly to perfection when it is most akin to the fiery vapour out of which it was originally created, and as this is most so in death, “while we live our souls are dead in us, but when we die our souls are restored to life.” The doctrine of immortality comes prominently forward in his ethics, but whether this must not be reckoned with the figurative accommodation to the popular theology of Greece which pervades his ethical teaching, is very doubtful.
The school of disciples founded by Heraclitus flourished for long after his death, the chief exponent of his teaching being Cratylus. A good deal of the information in regard to his doctrines has been gathered from the later Greek philosophy, which was deeply influenced by it.
Bibliography.—The only authentic extant work of Heraclitus is the περὶ φύσεως. The best edition (containing also the probably spurious Ἐπιστολαί) is that of I. Bywater, Heracliti Ephesii reliquiae (Oxford, 1877); of the epistles alone by A. Westermann (Leipzig, 1857). See also in A. H. Ritter and L. Preller’s Historia philosophiae Graecae (8th ed. by E. Wellmann, 1898); F. W. A. Mullach, Fragm. philos. Graec. (Paris, 1860); A. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece (1898); H. Diels, Heraklit von Ephesus (2nd ed., 1909), Greek and German. English translation of Bywater’s edition with introduction by G. T. W. Patrick (Baltimore, 1889). For criticism see, in addition to the histories of philosophy, F. Lassalle, Die Philosophie Herakleitos’ des Dunklen (Berlin, 1858; 2nd ed., 1892), which, however, is too strongly dominated by modern Hegelianism; Paul Schuster, Heraklit von Ephesus (Leipzig, 1873); J. Bernays, Die heraklitischen Briefe (Berlin, 1869); T. Gomperz, Zu Heraclits Lehre und den Überresten seines Werkes (Vienna, 1887), and in his Greek Thinkers (English translation, L. Magnus, vol. i. 1901); J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (1892); A. Patin, Heraklits Einheitslehre (Leipzig, 1886); E. Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraklitus von Ephesus im Lichte der Mysterienidee (Berlin, 1886); G. T. Schäfer, Die Philosophie des Heraklit von Ephesus und die moderne Heraklitforschung (Leipzig, 1902); Wolfgang Schultz, Studien zur antiken Kultur, i.; Pythagoras und Heraklit (Leipzig, 1905); O. Spengler, Heraklit. Eine Studie über den energetischen Grundgedanken seiner Philosophie (Halle, 1904); A. Brieger, “Die Grundzüge der heraklitischen Physik” in Hermes, xxxix. (1904), 182-223, and “Heraklit der Dunkle” in Neue Jahrb. f. das klass. Altertum (1904), p. 687. For his place in the development of early philosophy see also articles [Ionian School of Philosophy] and [Logos]. Ancient authorities: Diog. Laërt. ix.; Sext. Empiric., Adv. mathem. vii. 126, 127, 133; Plato, Cratylus, 402 A and Theaetetus, 152 E; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 45, 48; Arist. Nic. Eth. vii. 3, 4; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v. 599, 603 (ed. Paris).
(J. M. M.)
HERACLIUS (Ἡρακλεῖος) (c. 575-642), East Roman emperor, was born in Cappadocia. His father held high military command under the emperor Maurice, and as governor of Africa maintained his independence against the usurper Phocas (q.v.). When invited to head a rebellion against the latter, he sent his son with a fleet which reached Constantinople unopposed, and precipitated the dethronement of Phocas. Proclaimed emperor, Heraclius set himself to reorganize the utterly disordered administration. At first he found himself helpless before the Persian armies (see [Persia]: Ancient History; and [Chosroës II.]) of Chosroës II., which conquered Syria and Egypt and since 616 had encamped opposite Constantinople; in 618 he even proposed in despair to abandon his capital and seek a refuge in Carthage, but at the entreaty of the patriarch he took courage. By securing a loan from the Church and suspending the corn-distribution at Constantinople, he raised sufficient funds for war, and after making a treaty with the Avars, who had nearly surprised the capital during an incursion in 619, he was at last able to take the field against Persia. During his first expedition (622) he failed to secure a footing in Armenia, whence he had hoped to take the Persians in flank, but by his unwearied energy he restored the discipline and efficiency of the army. In his second campaign (624-26) he penetrated into Armenia and Albania, and beat the enemy in the open field. After a short stay at Constantinople, which his son Constantine had successfully defended against renewed incursions by the Avars, Heraclius resumed his attacks upon the Persians (627). Though deserted by the Khazars, with whom he had made an alliance upon entering into Pontus, he gained a decisive advantage by a brilliant march across the Armenian highlands into the Tigris plain, and a hard-fought victory over Chosroës’ general, Shahrbaraz, in which Heraclius distinguished himself by his personal bravery. A subsequent revolution at the Persian court led to the dethronement of Chosroës in favour of his son Kavadh II. (q.v.); the new king promptly made peace with the emperor, whose troops were already advancing upon the Persian capital Ctesiphon (628). Having thus secured his eastern frontier, Heraclius returned to Constantinople with ample spoils, including the true cross, which in 629 he brought back in person to Jerusalem. On the northern frontier of the empire he kept the Avars in check by inducing the Serbs to migrate from the Carpathians to the Balkan lands so as to divert the attention of the Avars.
The triumphs which Heraclius had won through his own energy and skill did not bring him lasting popularity. In his civil administration he followed out his own ideas without deferring to the nobles or the Church, and the opposition which he encountered from these quarters went far to paralyse his attempts at reform. Worn out by continuous fighting and weakened by dropsy, Heraclius failed to show sufficient energy against the new peril that menaced his eastern provinces towards the end of his reign. In 629 the Saracens made their first incursion into Syria (see [Caliphate], section A, § 1); in 636 they won a notable victory on the Yermuk (Hieromax), and in the following years conquered all Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Heraclius made no attempt to retrieve the misfortunes of his generals, but evacuated his possessions in sullen despair. The remaining years of his life he devoted to theological speculation and ecclesiastical reforms. His religious enthusiasm led him to oppress his Jewish subjects; on the other hand he sought to reconcile the Christian sects, and to this effect propounded in his Ecthesis a conciliatory doctrine of monothelism. Heraclius died of his disease in 642. He had been twice married; his second union, with his niece Martina, was frequently made a matter of reproach to him. In spite of his partial failures, Heraclius must be regarded as one of the greatest of Byzantine emperors, and his early campaigns were the means of saving the realm from almost certain destruction.