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| An Account of the System of Heraclitus.
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Chapter IV.—An Account of the System of
Heraclitus.
Heraclitus then says that the universe is
one,971
| 971
This addition seems necessary from Stobæus’ account of
Heraclitus. (See Eclog. Phys., i. 47, where we have
Heraclitus affirming that “unity is from plurality, and plurality
from unity;” or, in other words, “that all things are
one.”) | divisible and
indivisible; generated and ungenerated; mortal and
immortal; reason, eternity; Father, Son, and justice, God.972
| 972 Dr.
Wordsworth for δίκαιον suggests
εἰκαῖον, i.e.,
“but that the Deity is by chance.” There is some
difficulty in arriving at the correct text, and consequently at the
meaning of Hippolytus’ extracts from Heraclitus. The
Heraclitean philosophy is explained by Stobæus, already
mentioned. See likewise Bernays’ “Critical
Epistle” in Bunsen’s Analect. Ante-Nicæn. (vol.
iii. p. 331 et seq. of Hippolytus and his Age), and
Schleiermacher in Museum der
Alterthumswissenschaft, t. i. p. 408 et seq. | “For those who hearken not to
me, but the doctrine, it is wise that they acknowledge all things to be
one,” says Heraclitus; and because all do not know or confess
this, he utters a reproof somewhat in the following terms:
“People do not understand how what is diverse (nevertheless)
coincides with itself, just like the inverse harmony of a bow and
lyre.”973
| 973
παλίντροπος.
Miller suggests παλίντονος, the word used by Plutarch (De Isid. et Osirid., p. 369, ed.
Xyland) in recounting Heraclitus’ opinion.
Παλίντονος,
referring to the shape of the bow, means “reflex” or
“unstrung,” or it may signify “clanging,” that
is, as a consequence of its being well bent back to wing a shaft. | But that
Reason always exists, inasmuch as it constitutes the universe, and as
it pervades all things, he affirms in this manner. “But in
regard of this Reason, which always exists, men are continually devoid
of understanding,974
| 974
Compare Aristotle’s Rhet., iii. 5, and Sextus
Empiricus, Adv. Math., lib. vii. p. 152, ed. Aurel,
1621. | both before
they have heard of it and in first hearing of it. For though all
things take place according to this Reason, they seem like persons
devoid of any experience regarding it. Still they attempt both
words and works of such a description as I am giving an account of, by
making a division according to nature, and declaring how things
are.” And that a Son is the universe and throughout endless
ages an eternal king of all things, he thus asserts: “A
sporting child, playing at his dice, is eternity; the kingdom is that
of a child.”975
| 975
See Lucian, Vit. Auct., vol. i. p. 554, ed.
Hemsterh. | And that
the Father of all things that have been generated is an unbegotten
creature who is creator, let us hear Heraclitus affirming in
these words: “Contrariety is a progenitor of all things,
and king of all; and it exhibited some as gods, but others as men, and
made some slaves, whereas others free.” And (he likewise
affirms) that there is “a harmony, as in a bow and
lyre.” That obscure harmony (is better),976
| 976 This
word seems necessary, see Plutarch, De Procreat. animæ, c.
xxvii. | though unknown and invisible to men, he
asserts in these words: “An obscure harmony is preferable
to an obvious one.” He commends and admires before what is
known, that which is unknown and invisible in regard of its
power. And that harmony visible to men, and not incapable
of being discovered, is better, he asserts in these words:
“Whatever things are objects of vision, hearing, and
intelligence, these I pre-eminently honour,” he says; that is,
he prefers things visible to those that are invisible.
From such expressions of his it is easy to understand the spirit of
his philosophy. “Men,” he says, “are
deceived in reference to the knowledge of manifest things similarly
with Homer, who was wiser than all the Greeks. For even
children977
| 977
This is a well-known anecdote in the life of Homer. See
Coleridge’s Greek Poets—Homer. [The unsavoury
story is decently given by Henry Nelson Coleridge in this work,
republished. Boston: James Munroe & Co.,
1842.] | killing vermin
deceived him, when they said, ‘What we have seen and seized,
these we leave behind; whereas what we neither have seen nor seized,
these we carry away.’”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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