[61] Or, "that it was hot and cold," or "hot of moist."
[62] Or it might be rendered, "a process of arrangement." The Abbe Cruice (in his edition of Hippolytus, Paris, 1860) suggests a different reading, which would make the words translate thus, "when the earth was an undigested and solid mass."
[63] [See book vi. cap. xxii., infra, and note. But Clement gives another explanation. See vol. ii. p. 385, this series.]
[64] Or, "Zametus."
[65] Or, "leading them down into cells, made them," etc.; or, "made his disciples observe silence," etc.
Chapter III.--Empedocles; His Twofold Cause; Tenet of Transmigration.
But Empedocles, born after these, advanced likewise many statements respecting the nature of demons, to the effect that, being very numerous, they pass their time in managing earthly concerns. This person affirmed the originating principle of the universe to be discord and friendship, and that the intelligible fire of the monad is the Deity, and that all things consist of fire, and will be resolved into fire; with which opinion the Stoics likewise almost agree, expecting a conflagration. But most of all does he concur with the tenet of transition of souls from body to body, expressing himself thus:--
"For surely both youth and maid I was,
And shrub, and bird, [66] and fish, from ocean stray'd." [67]
This (philosopher) maintained the transmutation of all souls into any description of animal. For Pythagoras, the instructor of these (sages), [68] asserted that himself had been Euphorbus, who served in the expedition against Ilium, alleging that he recognised his shield. The foregoing are the tenets of Empedocles.
[66] Or, "and beast," more in keeping with the sense of the name; or "a lamb" has been suggested in the Gottingen edition of Hippolytus.
[67] Or, "traveller into the sea;" or, "mute ones from the sea;" or, "from the sea a glittering fish."
[68] Or, "being the instructor of this (philosopher)."
Chapter IV.--Heraclitus; His Universal Dogmatism; His Theory of Flux; Other Systems.
But Heraclitus, a natural philosopher of Ephesus, surrendered himself to universal grief, condemning the ignorance of the entire of life, and of all men; nay, commiserating the (very) existence of mortals, for he asserted that he himself knew everything, whereas the rest of mankind nothing. [69] But he also advanced statements almost in concert with Empedocles, saying that the originating principle of all things is discord and friendship, and that the Deity is a fire endued with intelligence, and that all things are borne one upon another, and never are at a standstill; and just as Empedocles, he affirmed that the entire locality about us is full of evil things, and that these evil things reach as far as the moon, being extended from the quarter situated around the earth, and that they do not advance further, inasmuch as the entire space above the moon is more pure. So also it seemed to Heraclitus.
After these arose also other natural philosophers, whose opinions we have not deemed it necessary to declare, (inasmuch as) they present no diversity to those already specified. Since, however, upon the whole, a not inconsiderable school has sprung (from thence), and many natural philosophers subsequently have arisen from them, each advancing different accounts of the nature of the universe, it seems also to us advisable, that, explaining the philosophy that has come down by succession from Pythagoras, we should recur to the opinions entertained by those living after the time of Thales, and that, furnishing a narrative of these, we should approach the consideration of the ethical and logical philosophy which Socrates and Aristotle originated, the former ethical, and the latter logical. [70]
[69] Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's Timæus, uses almost the same words: "but Heraclitus, in asserting his own universal knowledge, makes out all the rest of mankind ignorant."
[70] Or, "and among these, Socrates a moral philosopher, and Aristotle a logician, originated systems."
Chapter V.--Anaximander; His Theory of the Infinite; His Astronomic Opinions; His Physics.
Anaximander, then, was the hearer of Thales. Anaximander was son of Praxiadas, and a native of Miletus. This man said that the originating principle of existing things is a certain constitution of the Infinite, out of which the heavens are generated, and the worlds therein; and that this principle is eternal and undecaying, and comprising all the worlds. And he speaks of time as something of limited generation, and subsistence, and destruction. This person declared the Infinite to be an originating principle and element of existing things, being the first to employ such a denomination of the originating principle. But, moreover, he asserted that there is an eternal motion, by the agency of which it happens that the heavens [71] are generated; but that the earth is poised aloft, upheld by nothing, continuing (so) on account of its equal distance from all (the heavenly bodies); and that the figure of it is curved, circular, [72] similar to a column of stone. [73] And one of the surfaces we tread upon, but the other is opposite. [74] And that the stars are a circle of fire, separated from the fire which is in the vicinity of the world, and encompassed by air. And that certain atmospheric exhalations arise in places where the stars shine; wherefore, also, when these exhalations are obstructed, that eclipses take place. And that the moon sometimes appears full and sometimes waning, according to the obstruction or opening of its (orbital) paths. But that the circle of the sun is twenty-seven times [75] larger than the moon, and that the sun is situated in the highest (quarter of the firmament); whereas the orbs of the fixed stars in the lowest. And that animals are produced (in moisture [76] ) by evaporation from the sun. And that man was, originally, similar to a different animal, that is, a fish. And that winds are caused by the separation of very rarified exhalations of the atmosphere, and by their motion after they have been condensed. And that rain arises from earth's giving back (the vapours which it receives) from the (clouds [77] ) under the sun. And that there are flashes of lightning when the wind coming down severs the clouds. This person was born in the third year of the xlii. Olympiad.
[71] Or, "men."
[72] Or, "moist."
[73] Or, "congealed snow."
[74] That is, Antipodes. Diogenes Laertius was of the opinion that Plato first indicated by name the Antipodes.
[75] Or, "727 times," an improbable reading.
[76] "In moisture" is properly added, as Plutarch, in his De Placitis, v. xix., remarks that "Anaximander affirms that primary animals were produced in moisture."
[77] This word seems requisite to the sense of the passage.
[78] b.c. 610. On Olympiads, see Jarvis, Introd., p. 21.]