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.
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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.
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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.”
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Or,
“and among these, Socrates a moral philosopher, and Aristotle a
logician, originated systems.”