These are all of the philosophers that I can think of or find, and correct me if I am wrong on anything.

Confucius:
(551-479 BC)

Heraclitus:
(535-? BC)

Parmenides of Elea:
(515-450 BC)

Socrates:
(469-399 BC)

Plato:
(427-347 BC)

Aristotle:
(384-322 BC)

Marcus Tullius Cicero:
(106-43 BC)

Augustine:
(354-430)

Thomas Aquinas:
(1225-1274)

William of Ockham:
(1285-1349)

Nicolo Machiavelli:
(1469-1527)

Sir Francis Bacon:
(1561-1626)

Thomas Hobbes:
(1588-1679)

Rene Descartes:
(1596-1650)

Confucius:
(551-479 BC)

Heraclitus:
(535-? BC)

Parmenides of Elea:
(515-450 BC)

Socrates:
(469-399 BC)

Plato:
(427-347 BC)

Aristotle:
(384-322 BC)

Marcus Tullius Cicero:
(106-43 BC)

Augustine:
(354-430)

Thomas Aquinas:
(1225-1274)

William of Ockham:
(1285-1349)

Nicolo Machiavelli:
(1469-1527)

Sir Francis Bacon:
(1561-1626)

Thomas Hobbes:
(1588-1679)

Rene Descartes:
(1596-1650)

Baruch Spinoza:
(1632-1677

John Locke:
(1632-1704)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz:
(1646-1716)

Pierre Bayle:
(1647-1706)

George Berkeley:
(1685-175

Voltaire:
(1694-1778)

Thomas Reid:
(1710-1796)

David Hume:
(1711-1776)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
(1712-1778)

Immanuel Kant:
(1724-1804

Jeremy Bentham:
(1748-1832)

Salomon Maimon:
(1753-1800)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel:
(1770-1831)

Arthur Schopenhauer:
(1788-1860)

Auguste Comte:
(1798-1857

John Stuart Mill:
(1806-187

Søren Kierkegaard:
(1813-1855)

Karl Marx:
(1818-1883

Charles S. Peirce:
(1839-1914)

William James:
(1842-1910)

Friedrich Nietzsche:
(1844-1900)

Fritz Mauthner:
(1849-1923

John Dewey:
(1859-1952)

Edmund Husserl:
(1859-1938)

Alfred North Whitehead:
(1861-1947)

George Santayana:
(1863-1952)

Bertrand Russell:
(1872-1970)

Ernst Cassirer:
(1874-1945)

Martin Buber:
(1878-1965)

Jacques Maritain:
(1882-197

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
(1889-1951)

Martin Heidegger:
(1889-1976)

Karl Popper:
(1902-1994)

Jean-Paul Sartre:
(1905-1980)

Willard van Orman Quine:
(1908- ?)

Wilfrid Sellars:
(1912-1989)

Michel Foucault:
(1926-1984)

I am just making a referance thread for the great philosophers, You can add whatever you see fit .
Tim-

Heraclitus
[His Life and Philosophy]
Heraclitus, son of Vloson, was born about 535 BCE in Ephesos, the second great Greek Ionian city. He was a man of strong and independent philosophical spirit. Unlike the Milesian philosophers whose subject was the material beginning of the world, Heraclitus focused instead on the internal rhythm of nature which moves and regulates things, namely, the Logos (Rule). Heraclitus is the philosopher of the eternal change. He expresses the notion of eternal change in terms of the continuous flow of the river which always renews itself. Heraclitus accepted only one material source of natural substances, the Pyr (Fire). This Pyr is the essence of Logos which creates an infinite and uncorrupted world, without beginning. It converts this world into various shapes as a harmony of the opposites. The composition of opposites sustains everything in nature. "Good" and "bad" are simply opposite sides of the same thing.«To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, others just».

[His Death]
Diogenis Laertius (CE. c 200) in his 8th book «Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers» notes that «When somebody asked Heraclitus to decree some rules, he showed no interest because the government of the city was already bad. Instead, he went to the temple of Artemis and played dices with children. Finally he became misanthrope, withdrew from the world , and lived in the mountains feeding on grasses and plants. However, having fallen in this way into dropsy he came down to town and asked the doctors in a riddle if they could make a drought out of rainy weather. When they did not understand he buried himself in a cow-stall, expecting that the dropsy would be evaporated by the heat of the manure; but even so he failed to effect anything, and ended his life at the age of sixty».
Scholars place his death at about 475 BCE.

[The Obscure Philosopher]
Heraclitus is characterized in the history of philosophy as the «obscure» philosopher, because of the difficulty of his works. Timon the Fliasios (satirical poet, c. 300 CE.) called him «Eniktin», that is the one who creates enigmas. Heraclitus wrote a single book, with the title «On Nature», perhaps divided in three sections : cosmology, politics and theology. He dedicated it and placed it in the temple of Artemis, as some say, having purposely written it rather obscurely so that only those of rank and influence should have access to it, and it should not be easily despised by the populace. When Socrates read Heraclitus book said that «The concepts I understand are great, but I believe that the concepts I cant understand are great too. However, the reader needs to be an excellent swimmer like those from Dilos, so not to be drown from his book». (Diogenis Laertius, «Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers», Socrates 22)

Fragments
Fragment 50, Hippolytus Ref. Ix, 9 1 I
Listening not to me but to the Logo's it'is wise to agree that all things are one. (1)

Fragment 1, Sextus, adv.math VII, 132
Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each things according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of the men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.(1)

Fragment 2, Sextus, adv.math VII, 133
Therefore it is necessary to follow the common; but although the Logos is common the many live as though they had a private understanding.(1)

Everything rests by changing.(2)

Plato, Cratylus
All thing are in flux.(1)

Time is a child playing checkers, the kingly power is a child's.(2)

Fragment 126
The hot substance and the cold form what we might call a hot-cold continuum, a single entity.(1)

Fragment 57
Night and day, which Hesiod had made parent and child, are, and must always have been, essentially connected and interdependent.(1)

Fragment 10, Aristotle, de mundo 5, 396b20
Things taken together are wholes and not wholes, something is being brought together and brought apart, which is in tune and out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity, and out of a unity all things.(1)

The bow is called strife, but its work is death.(2)

In the circumference of a circle the beginning and the end common.(2)

Fragment 54, Hippolytus Ref IX, 9,5
An unapparent harmony is stronger than an apparent one.(4)

Fragment 208, Themistius Or. 5,p. 69 D.
Nature loves to hide.(2)

Fragment 209, Hippolytus Ref Ix, 9, I
They do not apprehend how being at variance it agrees with itself: there is a palintonos (counter-stretched) harmony, as in the bow and the lyre.(4)

Fragment 18, Clement Strom. II, 17, 4
If one does not expect the unexpected one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and is difficult to compass.(1)

Fragment 80, Origen c. Celsum VI 442
It is necessary to know that war is common and right, is strife and that all things happens by strife and necessity.(1)

Fragment 12,91 Arius Didymus ap. Eusebium P.E xv.
Fr12: Upon those that step into the same rivers different an different waters flow....
Fr91: They scatter and ... gather ... come together and flow away ... approach and depart.(1)

Plato Cratylus 402a
Heraclitus somewhere says that all things are in process and nothing stays still, and likening existing things to the stream of a river he says that you would not step twice into the same river.(1)

Fragment 30, Clement Strom. V, 104, 1.
This world [the same of all] did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everliving fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.(1)

Fragment 31, Clement Strom. V, 104, 3.
Fire's turning: first sea, and of sea the half is earth, the half 'burner' ... <earth> is dispersed as sea, and is measured so as to form the same proportion as existed before it became earth.(1)

Diogenes Laertius ix, 9-10
He does not reveal the nature of the surrounding; it contains, however, bowls turned with their hollow side towards us, in which the bright exhalations are collected and form flames, which are the heavenly bodies. Brightest and hottest is the flame of the sun ... And sun and moon are eclipsed when the bowls turn upwards; and the monthly phases of the moon occur as is bowl is gradually turned.(1)

One day is like any other.(2)

Fragment 6, Aristotle Metro. B2, 355a13
The sun ... is new each day.(1)

Fragment 94, Plutarch de exil. II, 604a
Sun will not overstep he's measures; otherwise the Erinyes, ministers of Justice, will find him out.(1)

Fragment 41, Diogenes Laertius ix, I
The wise is one thing, to be acquainted with true judgment, haw all things are steered through all.(1)

Fragment 16
Most hard is to apprehend the unaparent measure of judgment, which alone holds the limits of all things.(1)

How can on hide from that which never sets?.(2)

Thales foretold an eclipse.(2)

It is the opposite which is good to us.(2)

Fragment 55, Hippolytus Ref. IX 9,5
The things of which there is seeing and hearing and perception, these do I prefer.(1)

Fragment 107, Sextus, adv.math VII, 126
Evil witnesses are eyes and ears for men, if they have souls that do not understand their language.(1)

Fragment 61, Hippolytus Ref. IX, 10, 5.
Sea is the most pure and the most polluted water; for fishes it is drinkable and salutary, but for men it is undrinkable and deleterious.(1)

Fragment 60, Hippolytus Ref. IX, 10, 4
The path up and down is one and the same(1)

Fragment 111, Stobaeus, Anth. III, I, 177
Disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger satiety, weariness rest.(1)

Fragment 88, ps-Plutarh Cons. Ad Apoll. 10, 106E
And as the same things there exists in us living and dead and the waking and the sleeping and young and old; for these things having changed round are those having changed round are these.(1)

Fragment 13
Pigs like mud <but men do not> (1)

Fragment 9
Donkeys prefer rubbish to gold <men gold to rubbish1)

Dogs bark at every one they do not know.(2)

Fragment 58
Cutting and burning, which are normally bad, call for a fee when done by a surgeon.(1)

Fragment 59
The act of writing combines straight, in the whole line, and crooked, in the shape of each letter.(1)

Fragment 23
There would be not right without wrong.(1)

Fragment 53,Hippolytus Ref. IX, 9, 4
War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves, others free.(1)

Fragment 90, Plutarch de E. 8, 388d
All thing are an equal exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods are for gold and gold for goods.(1)

Sextus adv. Math. VII, 129
According to Heraclitus we become intelligent by drawing in this divine reason [logos] through breathing, and forgetful when asleep, but we regain our senses when we wake up again. For in sleep, when the channels of perception are shut, our mind is sundered from its kinship with the surrounding, and breathing is the only point of attachment to be preserved, like a kind of root; being sundered, our mind casts off its former power of memory. But in the waking state it again peeps out through the channels of perception as though through a kind of window, and meeting with the surrounding it puts on its power of reason...(1)

Fragment 25, Clement Strom. IV, 49,3
For better deaths gain better portions according to Heraclitus.(1)

Fragment 36, Hippolytus Ref. IX, 10,6
To him, being there, they rise up and become guardians, wakefully, of living and dead.(1)

Fragment 62, Hippolytus Ref. Ix, 10,6
Mortal immortals, immortal mortals, living their death and dying their life.(1)

Fragment 26, Clement. Strom. IV,141,2
A man in the night kindles a light for himself when his vision is extinguished; living he is in contact with the dead, when asleep, and with the sleeper, when awake.(1)

Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak.(2)

People that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.(2)

The straight and the crooked path of the fuller's comb is one and the same.(2)

Every beast is driven to pasture with blows.(2)

Fragment 67, Hippolytus Ref. IX, 10, 8
God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger [all the opposites, this is the meaning]; he undergoes alteration in the way that fire when it is mixed with spices, is named according to the scent of each of them.(1)

Fragment 102, Porhyrius I Iliadem IV 4.
To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, other just.(1)

Fragment 64, Clement Strom. V, 10, 6.
Thunderbolt steers all things.(1)

Fragment 32, Clement Strom, V, 115, I
One thing, the only truly wise, does not and does consent to be called by the name of Zeus.(1)

Fragment 5, Aristocritus Theosophia 68
They vainly purify themselves of blood-guilty by defiling themselves with blood, as though one who had stepped into mud were to wash with mud; he would seem to be mad, if any of men noticed him doing this. Further, they pray to these statues, as if one were to carry on a conversation with houses, not recognizing the true nature of gods or demi-gods.(1)

Fragment 14 , Clement Protreptius 22
The secret rites practiced among men are celebrated in an unholy manner.(1)

Fragment 15, Clement Protreptius 34
For if it were not to Dionysus that they made the procession and sung the hymn to the shameful parts, the deed would be most shameless; but Hades and Dionysus, for whom they rave and celebrate Lenaen rites, are the same.(1)

Fragment 93, Plutarch de Pyth. or. 21, 404E
The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks out nor conceals, but gives a sign.(1)

Fragment 92, Plutarch de Pyth.or. 6, 397A
The Sibyl with raving mouth, according to Heraclitus, uttering things mirthless, unadorned and unperformed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice through the god.(1)

Fragment 36, Clement Strom. VI, 17, 2
For souls it is death to became water, for water it is death to became earth; from earth water comes-to-be, and from water, soul.(1)

Fragment 118, Stobaeus. Anth. III,5,8
A dry soul is wisest and best.(1)

Fragment 117, Stobaeus. Anth. III,5,7
A man when he is drunk is led by an unfledged boy, stumbling and not knowing where he goes, having his soul moist.(1)

It is pleasure to souls to become moist.(2)

Fragment 45, Diogenes Laertius ix, 7
You could not find out the boundaries of soul, even by traveling along every path: so deep a measure does it have.(1)

Macrobius S. Scip. 14, 19 (DK 22A15)
Heraclitus said that the soul is a spark of the essential substance of the stars.(1)

Fragment 136, as Epictetum, p.1xxxiii Schenkl
Souls slain in war are purer than those [that perish] in diseases.(1)

Fragment 85, Plutarh Coriol. 22
It is hard to fight with anger; for what it wants it buys as the price of soul.(1)

Fragment 98
Souls using smell in Hades.(1)

Fragment 67a, According to the scholiast on Chalcidius
Heraclitus compared the soul to a spider which rushed to any part of its web which is damaged.(1)

Fragment 101, Plutarch adv. Colotem 20, III8c
I searched out myself, [or I investigate myself].(1)

Fragment 119, Stobaeus Anth. IV, 40, 23
Man's character is his daimon, [or Man's morality is his daimon].(1)
(comm.:The etymology of the word daimon is the daemon, the one with an attendant power of spirit.(See Socrates' daemon). Today's meaning of this word is the evil spirit: devil. We must see the difference between those two ways of thought an explain these fragment.

Fragment 43, Diogenes Laertius IX,2
Insolence is more to be extinguished than a conflagration.(1)

Fragment 44, Diogenes Laertius IX,2
The people must fight on behalf of the law as though for the city wall.(1)

Fragment 114, Stabaeus Anth. III, I, 179.
Those who speak with sense must rely on what is common to all, as a city must rely on its law, and with much greater reliance. For all the laws of men are nourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient for all and still left over.(1)

Fragment 29, Clement Strom. V. 59, 5
Those The best choose one thing in place of all else, 'everlasting' glory among mortals; but the majority are glutted like cattle.(1)

Fragment 49
One man is as ten thousand for me, if he is best.(1)

Fragment 121
... abused the Ephesians for exiling his friend Hermodorus on the ground of his exceptional ability

"It Is"

In the First Part of his poem, we find Parmenides chiefly interested to prove that it is; but it is not quite obvious at first sight what it is precisely that is. He says simply, What is, is. There can be no real doubt that this is what we call body. It is certainly regarded as spatially extended; for it is quite seriously spoken of as a sphere (fr. 8). Moreover, Aristotle tells us that Parmenides believed in none but a sensible reality. Parmenides does not say a word about "Being" anywhere, and it is remarkable that he avoids the term "god," which was so freely used by earlier and later thinkers. The assertion that it is amounts just to this, that the universe is a plenum; and that there is no such thing as empty space, either inside or outside the world. From this it follows that there can be no such thing as motion. Instead of endowing the One with an impulse to change, as Heraclitus had done, and thus making it capable of explaining the world, Parmenides dismissed change as an illusion. He showed once for all that if you take the One seriously you are bound to deny everything else. All previous solutions of the question, therefore, had missed the point. Anaximenes, who thought to save the unity of the primary substance by his theory of rarefaction and condensation, did not observe that, by assuming there was less of what is in one place than another, he virtually affirmed the existence of what is not (fr. 8). The Pythagorean explanation implied that empty space or air existed outside the world, and that it entered into it to separate the units (§ 5. It, too, assumes the existence of what is not. Nor is the theory of Heraclitus any more satisfactory; for it is based on the contradiction that fire both is and is not (fr. 6).

The allusion to Heraclitus in the verses last referred to has been doubted, though upon insufficient grounds. Zeller points out quite rightly that Heraclitus never says Being and not-Being are the same (the old translation of fr. 6); and, were there nothing more than this, the reference might well seem doubtful. The statement, however, that, according to the view in question, "all things travel in opposite directions," can hardly be understood of anything but the "upward and downward path" of Heraclitus (§ 71). And, as we have seen, Parmenides does not attribute the view that Being and not-Being are the same to the philosopher whom he is attacking; he only says that it is and is not the same and not the same. That is the natural meaning of the words; and it furnishes a very accurate description of the theory of Heraclitus.

87. The Method of Parmenides

The great novelty in the poem of Parmenides is the method of argument. He first asks what is the common presupposition of all the views he has to deal with, and he finds that this is the existence of what is not. The next question is whether this can be thought, and the answer is that it cannot. If you think at all, you must think of something. Therefore there is no nothing. Only that can be which can be thought (fr. 5); for thought exists for the sake of what is (fr. 8).

This method Parmenides carries out with the utmost rigor. He will not have us pretend that we think what we must admit to be unthinkable. It is true that if we resolve to allow nothing but what we can understand, we come into direct conflict with our senses, which present us with a world of change and decay. So much the worse for the senses, says Parmenides. That is the inevitable outcome of a corporeal monism, and this bold declaration of it ought to have destroyed that theory for ever. If Parmenides had lacked courage to work out the prevailing views of his time to their logical conclusion, and to accept that conclusion, however paradoxical it might appear, men might have gone on in the endless circle of opposition, rarefaction, and condensation, one and many, for ever. It was the thorough-going dialectic of Parmenides that made progress possible. Philosophy must now cease to be monistic or cease to be corporealist. It could not cease to be corporealist; for the incorporeal was still unknown. It therefore ceased to be monistic, and arrived ultimately at the atomic theory, which, so far as we know, is the last word of the view that the world is body in motion.

88. The Results

Parmenides goes on to develop all the consequences of the admission that it is. It must be uncreated and indestructible. It cannot have arisen out of nothing; for there is no such thing as nothing. Nor can it have arisen from something; for there is no room for anything but itself. What is cannot have beside it any empty space in which something else might arise; for empty space is nothing, nothing cannot be thought, and therefore cannot exist. What is never came into being, nor is anything going to come into being in the future. "Is it or is it not?" If it is, then it is now, all at once.

That this is a denial of the existence of empty space was well known to Plato. He says Parmenides held "all things were one, and that the one remains at rest in itself, having no place in which to move." Aristotle is no less clear. He lays down that Parmenides was driven to take up the position that the One was immovable just because no one had yet imagined there was any reality other than the sensible.

That which is, is; and it cannot be more or less. There is, therefore, as much of it in one place as in another, and the world is a continuous, indivisible plenum. From this it follows at once that it must be immovable. If it moved, it must move into an empty space, and there is no empty space. It is hemmed in by what is, by the real, on every side. For the same reason, it must be finite, and can have nothing beyond it. It is complete in itself, and has no need to stretch out indefinitely into an empty space that does not exist. Hence, too, it is spherical. It is equally real in every direction, and the sphere is the only form that meets this condition. Any other would be in one direction more than in another.

89. Parmenides, the Father of Materialism

To sum up. What is, is a finite, spherical, motionless corporeal plenum, and there is nothing beyond it. The appearances of multiplicity and motion, empty space and time, are illusions. We see from this that the primary substance of which the early cosmologists were in search has now become a sort of "thing in itself." It never quite lost this character again. What appears later as the elements of Empedocles, the so-called "homoeomeries" of Anaxagoras and the atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, is just the Parmenidean "being." Parmenides is not, as some have said, the "father of idealism"; on the contrary, all materialism depends on his view of reality.

90. The Beliefs of "Mortals"

It is commonly held that, in the Second Part of his poem, Parmenides offered a dualistic theory of the origin of things as his own conjectural explanation of the sensible world, or that, as Gomperz says, "What he offered were the Opinions of Mortals; and this description did not merely cover other people's opinions. It included his own as well, as far as they were not confined to the unassailable ground of an apparent philosophical necessity." Now it is true that in one place Aristotle appears to countenance a view of this sort, but nevertheless it is an anachronism. Nor is it really Aristotle's view. He was well aware that Parmenides did not admit the existence of "not-being" in any degree whatever; but it was a natural way of speaking to call the cosmology of the Second Part of the poem that of Parmenides. His hearers would understand in what sense this was meant. At any rate, the Peripatetic tradition was that Parmenides, in the Second Part of the poem, meant to give the belief of "the many." This is how Theophrastus put the matter, and Alexander seems to have spoken of the cosmology as something which Parmenides himself regarded as wholly false. The other view comes from the Neoplatonists, and especially Simplicius, who regarded the Way of Truth as an account of the intelligible world, and the Way of Opinion as a description of the sensible. It need hardly be said that this is almost as great an anachronism as the Kantian parallelism suggested by Gomperz. Parmenides himself tells us in the most unequivocal language that there is no truth at all in the theory which he expounds, and that he gives it merely as the belief of "mortals." It was this that led Theophrastus to speak of it as the opinion of "the many."

His explanation however, though preferable to that of Simplicius, is not convincing either. "The many" are as far as possible from believing in an elaborate dualism such as Parmenides expounded, and it is a highly artificial hypothesis to assume that he wished to show how the popular view of the world could best be systematized. "The many" would hardly be convinced of their error by having their beliefs presented to them in a form they would certainly fail to recognize them in. This, indeed, seems the most incredible interpretation of all. It still, however, finds adherents, so it is necessary to point out that the beliefs in question are only called "the opinions of mortals" for the very simple reason that the speaker is a goddess. Further, we have to note that Parmenides forbids two ways of research, and we have seen that the second of these, which is also expressly ascribed to "mortals," must be the system of Heraclitus. We should expect, then, to find that the other way is also the system of some contemporary school, and it seems hard to discover any of sufficient importance at this date except the Pythagorean. Now it is admitted by every one that there are Pythagorean ideas in the Second Part of the poem, and it is therefore to be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the whole of its cosmology comes from the same source. It does not appear that Parmenides said any more about Heraclitus than the words to which we have just referred, in which he forbids the second way of inquiry. He implies, indeed, that there are really only two ways that can be thought of, and that the attempt of Heraclitus to combine them was futile. In any case, the Pythagoreans were far more serious opponents at that date in Italy, and it is certainly to them that we should expect Parmenides to define his attitude.

It is still not quite clear, however, why he should have thought it worth while to put into hexameters a view he believed to be false. Here it becomes important to remember that he had been a Pythagorean himself, and that the poem is a renunciation of his former beliefs. In the introductory verses, he tells us distinctly that he has passed from darkness into the light. In such cases men commonly feel the necessity of showing where their old views were wrong. The goddess tells him that he must learn of those beliefs also "how one ought to pass right through all things and judge the things that seem to be." We get a further hint in another place. He is to learn these beliefs, and so no opinion of mortals will ever get the better of him (fr. 8). If we remember that the Pythagorean system at this time was handed down by oral tradition alone, we shall see what this may mean. Parmenides was founding a dissident school, and it was necessary for him to instruct his disciples in the system they might be called upon to oppose. In any case, they could not reject it intelligently without a knowledge of it, and this Parmenides had to supply himself.

91. The Dualist Cosmology

The view that the Second Part of the poem of Parmenides was a sketch of contemporary Pythagorean cosmology is, doubtless, incapable of rigorous demonstration, but it can be made extremely probable. The entire history of Pythagoreanism up to the end of the fifth century B.C. is certainly conjectural; but, if we find in Parmenides ideas wholly unconnected with his own view of the world, and if we find precisely the same ideas in later Pythagoreanism, the most natural inference will be that the later Pythagoreans derived these views from their predecessors, and that they formed part of the original stock-in-trade of the society. This will be confirmed if we find that they are developments of certain features in the old Ionian cosmology. Pythagoras came from Samos, and it was not, so far as we can see, in his cosmological views that he chiefly displayed originality. It has been pointed out (§ 5 that the idea of the world breathing came from Anaximenes, and we need not be surprised to find traces of Anaximander too. Now, if we were confined to what Aristotle tells us on this subject, it would be hard to make out a case; but his statements require, as usual, to be examined with care. He says, first of all, that the two elements of Parmenides were the Warm and the Cold. In this he is so far justified by the fragments that, since the Fire of which Parmenides speaks is, of course, warm, the other "form," which has all the opposite qualities, must of necessity be cold. Here, then, we have the traditional "opposites" of the Milesians. Aristotle's identification of these with Fire and Earth is, however, misleading, though Theophrastus followed him in it. Simplicius, who had the poem before him (§ 85), after mentioning Fire and Earth, at once adds "or rather Light and Darkness"; and this is suggestive. Lastly, Aristotle's identification of the dense element with "what is not," the unreal of the First Part of the poem, is not easy to reconcile with the view that it is earth. On the other hand, if we suppose that the second of the two "forms," the one which should not have been "named," is the Pythagorean Air or Void, we get a very good explanation of Aristotle's identification of it with "what is not." We seem, then, to be justified in neglecting the identification of the dense element with earth for the present. At a later stage, we shall be able to see how it may have originated. The further statement of Theophrastus, that the Warm was the efficient cause and the Cold the material or passive, is not, of course, to be regarded as historical.

We have seen that Simplicius, with the poem of Parmenides before him, corrects Aristotle by substituting Light and Darkness for Fire and Earth, and he is amply home out by the fragments he quotes. Parmenides himself calls one "form" Light, Flame, and Fire, and the other Night, and we have now to consider whether these can be identified with the Pythagorean Limit and Unlimited. We have seen good reason to believe (§ 58) that the idea of the world breathing belonged to the earliest form of Pythagoreanism, and there can be no difficulty in identifying this "boundless breath" with Darkness, which stands very well for the Unlimited. "Air" or mist was always regarded as the dark element. And that which gives definiteness to the vague darkness is certainly light or fire, and this may account for the prominence given to that element by Hippasus. We may probably conclude, then, that the Pythagorean distinction between the Limit and the Unlimited, which we shall have to consider later (Chap. VII.), made its first appearance in this crude form. If, on the other hand, we identify darkness with the Limit, and light with the Unlimited, as many critics do, we get into insuperable difficulties.

92. The Heavenly Bodies

We must now look at the general cosmical view expounded in the Second Part of the poem. The fragments are scanty, and the doxographical tradition hard to interpret; but enough remains to show that here, too, we are on Pythagorean ground. Aetius says:

Parmenides held that there were bands crossing one another and encircling one another, formed of the rare and the dense element respectively, and that between these there were other mixed bands made up of light and darkness. That which surrounds them all was solid like a wall, and under it is a fiery band. That which is in the middle of all the bands is also solid, and surrounded in turn by a fiery band. The central circle of the mixed bands is the cause of movement and becoming to all the rest. He calls it "the goddess who directs their course," "the Holder of Lots," and "Necessity." -- Aet. ii. 7. 1 (R. P. 126).

93. The Stephanae

Now it is quite unjustifiable to regard these "bands" as spheres. The word stephanai can mean "rims" or "brims" or anything of that sort, but it seems incredible that it should be used of spheres. It does not appear, either, that the solid circle which surrounds all the crowns is to be regarded as spherical. The expression "like a wall" would be highly inappropriate in that case. We seem, then, to be face to face with something like the "wheels" of Anaximander, and it is highly probable that Pythagoras adopted the theory from him. Nor is evidence lacking that the Pythagoreans did regard the heavenly bodies in this way. In Plato's Myth of Er, which is certainly Pythagorean in its general character, we do not hear of spheres, but of the "lips" of concentric whorls fitted into one another like a nest of boxes. In the Timaeus there are no spheres either, but bands or strips crossing each other at an angle. Lastly, in the Homeric Hymn to Ares, which seems to have been composed under Pythagorean influence, the word used for the orbit of the planet is antux, which must mean "rim."

The fact is, there is no evidence that anyone ever adopted the theory of celestial spheres, till Aristotle turned the geometrical construction which Eudoxus had set up as a hypothesis "to save appearances" (sôzein ta phainomena) into real things. At this date, spheres would not have served to explain anything that could not be explained more simply without them.

We are next told that these "bands" encircle one another or are folded over one another, and that they are made of the rare and the dense element. We also learn that between them are "mixed bands" made up of light and darkness. Now it is to be observed, in the first place, that light and darkness are exactly the same thing as the rare and the dense, and it looks as if there was some confusion here. It may be doubted whether these statements are based on anything else than fr. 12, which might certainly be interpreted to mean that between the bands of fire there were bands of night with a portion of fire in them. That may be right; but I think it rather more natural to understand the passage as saying that the narrower circles are surrounded by wider circles of night, and that each has its portion of fire rushing in the midst of it. These last words would then be a simple repetition of the statement that the narrower circles are filled with unmixed fire, and we should have a fairly exact description of the "wheels" of Anaximander.

94. The Goddess

"In the middle of those," says Parmenides, "is the goddess who steers the course of all things." Aetius explains this to mean in the middle of the "mixed bands," while Simplicius declares that it means in the middle of all the bands, that is to say, in the center of the world. If is not likely that either of them had anything better to go upon than the words of Parmenides himself, and these are ambiguous. Simplicius, as is clear from the language he uses, identified this goddess with the Pythagorean Hestia or central fire, while Theophrastus could not do that, because he knew and stated that Parmenides described the earth as round and in the center of the world. In this very passage we are told that what is in the middle of all the bands is solid. The data furnished by Theophrastus, in fact, exclude the identification of the goddess with the central fire altogether. We cannot say that what is in the middle of all the bands is solid, and that under it there is again a fiery band. Nor does it seem fitting to relegate a goddess to the middle of a solid spherical earth.

We are further told by Aetius that this goddess was called Ananke and the "Holder of Lots." We know already that she "steers the course of all things," that is, that she regulates the motions of the celestial bands. Simplicius adds, unfortunately without quoting the actual words, that she sends souls at one time from the light to the unseen world, at another from the unseen world to the light. It would be difficult to describe more exactly what the goddess does in the Myth of Er, and so here once more we seem to be on Pythagorean ground. It is to be noticed further that in fr. 10 we read how Ananke took the heavens and compelled them to hold fast the fixed courses of the stars, and that in fr. 12 we are told that she is the beginner of all pairing and birth. Lastly, in fr. 13 we hear that she created Eros first of all the gods. So we shall find that in Empedocles it is an ancient oracle or decree of Ananke that causes the gods to fall and become incarnate in a cycle of births.

We should be more certain of the place this goddess occupies in the universe if we could be sure where Ananke is in the Myth of Er. Without, however, raising that vexed question, we may lay down with some confidence that, according to Theophrastus, she occupied a position midway between the earth and the heavens. Whether we believe in the "mixed bands" or not makes no difference in this respect; for the statement of Aetius that she was in the middle of the mixed bands undoubtedly implies that she was between earth and heaven. Now she is identified with one of the bands in a somewhat confused passage of Cicero, and the whole theory of wheels or bands was probably suggested by the Milky Way. It seems to me, therefore, that we must think of the Milky Way as a band intermediate between those of the Sun and the Moon, and this agrees very well with the prominent way in which it is mentioned in fr. 11. It is better not to be too positive about the other details, though it is interesting to notice that according to some it was Pythagoras, and according to others Parmenides, who discovered the identity of the evening and morning star.

Besides all this, it is certain that Parmenides went on to describe how the other gods were born and how they fell, an idea which we know to be Orphic, and which may well have been Pythagorean. We shall come to it again in Empedocles. In Plato's Symposium, Agathon couples Parmenides with Hesiod as a narrator of ancient deeds of violence committed by the gods. If Parmenides was expounding the Pythagorean theology, this is just what we should expect; but it seems hopeless to explain it on any of the other theories which have been advanced on the purpose of the Way of Belief. Such things belong to theological speculation, and not to the beliefs of "the many." Still less can we think it probable that Parmenides made up these stories himself to show what the popular view of the world really implied if properly formulated. We must ask, I think, that any theory shall account for what was evidently no inconsiderable portion of the poem.

95. Physiology

In describing the views of his contemporaries, Parmenides was obliged, as we see from the fragments, to say a good deal about physiological matters. Like everything else, man was composed of the warm and the cold, and death was caused by the removal of the warm. Some curious views with regard to generation were also stated. In the first place, males came from the right side and females from the left. Women had more of the warm and men of the cold, a view we shall find Empedocles contradicting. It is the proportion of the warm and cold in men that determines the character of their thought, so that even corpses, from which the warm has been removed, retain a perception of what is cold and dark. These fragments of information do not tell us much when taken by themselves; but they connect themselves in an interesting way with the history of medicine, and point to the fact that one of its leading schools stood in close relation with the Pythagorean Society. Even before the days of Pythagoras, we know that Croton was famous for its doctors. We also know the name of a very distinguished medical writer who lived at Croton in the days between Pythagoras and Parmenides, and the few facts we are told about him enable us to regard the physiological views described by Parmenides not as isolated curiosities, but as landmarks by which we can trace the origin and growth of one of the most influential of medical theories, that which explains health as a balance of opposites.



Alcmaeon of Croton

Aristotle tells us that Alcmaeon of Croton was a young man in the old age of Pythagoras. He does not actually say, as later writers do, that he was a Pythagorean, though he points out that he seems either to have derived his theory of opposites from the Pythagoreans or they theirs from him. In any case, he was intimately connected with the society, as is proved by one of the scanty fragments of his book. It began as follows: "Alcmaeon of Croton, son of Perithous, spoke these words to Brotinus and Leon and Bathyllus. As to things invisible and things mortal, the gods have certainty; but, so far as men may infer ... " The quotation unfortunately ends in this abrupt way, but we learn two things from it. In the first place, Alcmaeon possessed that reserve which marks all the best Greek medical writers; and in the second place, he dedicated his work to the heads of the Pythagorean Society.

Alcmaeon's importance really lies in the fact that he is the founder of empirical psychology. He regarded the brain as the common sensorium, a view which Hippocrates and Plato adopted from him, though Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics reverted to the more primitive view that the heart is the central organ of sense. There is no reason to doubt that he made this discovery by anatomical means. We have authority for saying that he practiced dissection, and, though the nerves were not yet recognized as such, it was known that there were certain "passages" (poroi) which might be prevented from communicating sensations to the brain by lesions. He also distinguished between sensation and understanding, though we have no means of knowing where he drew the line between them. His theories of the special senses are of great interest. We find in him already, what is characteristic of Greek theories of vision as a whole, the attempt to combine the view of vision as a radiation proceeding from the eye with that which attributes it to an image reflected in the eye. He knew the importance of air for the sense of hearing, though he called it the void, a thoroughly Pythagorean touch. With regard to the other senses, our information is more scanty, but sufficient to show that he treated the subject systematically.

His astronomy seems very crude for one who stood in close relations with the Pythagoreans. We are told that he adopted Anaximenes' theory of the sun and Heraclitus's explanation of eclipses. If, however, we were right in holding that the Second Part of the poem of Parmenides represents the view of Pythagoras, we see that he had not gone very far beyond the Milesians in such matters. His theory of the heavenly bodies was still "meteorological." It is all the more remarkable that Alcmaeon is credited with the view that the planets have an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the diurnal revolution of the heavens. This view, which he may have learnt from Pythagoras, would naturally be suggested by the difficulties we noted in the system of Anaximander. It doubtless stood in close connection with his saying that soul was immortal because it resembled immortal things, and was always in motion like the heavenly bodies. He seems, in fact, to be the author of the curious view Plato put into the mouth of the Pythagorean Timaeus, that the soul has circles in it revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This too seems to be the explanation of his further statement that man dies because he cannot join the beginning to the end. The orbits of the heavenly bodies always come full circle, but the circles in the human head may fail to complete themselves.

Alcmaeon's theory of health as "isonomy" is at once that which most clearly connects him with earlier inquirers like Anaximander, and also that which had the greatest influence on the subsequent development of philosophy. He observed, to begin with, that "most things human were two," and by this he meant that man was made up of the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, and the rest of the opposites. Disease was just the "monarchy" of any one of these -- the same thing that Anaximander had called "injustice" -- while health was the establishment in the body of a free government with equal laws. This was the leading doctrine of the Sicilian school of medicine, and we shall have to consider in the sequel its influence on the development of Pythagoreanism. Taken along with the theory of "pores," it is of the greatest importance for later science



97. Pluralism

The belief that all things are one was common to the early Ionians; but now Parmenides has shown that, if this one thing really is, we must give up the idea that it can take different forms. The senses, which present to us a world of change and multiplicity, are deceitful. There seemed to be no escape from his arguments, and so we find that from this time onwards all the thinkers in whose hands philosophy made progress abandoned the monistic hypothesis. Those who still held by it adopted a critical attitude, and confined themselves to a defense of the theory of Parmenides against the new views. Others taught the doctrine of Heraclitus in an exaggerated form; some continued to expound the systems of the early Milesians; but the leading men are all pluralists. The corporealist hypothesis had proved unable to bear the weight of a monistic structure.

98. Date of Empedocles

Empedocles was a citizen of Acragas in Sicily. He was the only native citizen of a Dorian state who plays an important part in the history of philosophy. His father's name, according to the best accounts, was Meton. His grandfather, also called Empedocles, had won a victory in the horse-race at Olympia in 01. LXXI. (496-95 B.C.), and Apollodorus fixed the floruit of Empedocles himself in 01. LXXXIV. I (444-43 B.C.). That is the date of the foundation of Thourioi; and it appears from the quotation in Diogenes that the fifth-century biographer, Glaucus of Rhegion, said Empedocles visited the new city shortly after its foundation. But we are not bound to believe that he was just forty years old at the time. That is the usual assumption of Apollodorus; but there are reasons for thinking that his date is considerably too late. It is more likely that Empedocles did not go to Thourioi till after his banishment from Acragas, and he may well have been more than forty years old when that happened. All, therefore, we can be said to know is, that his grandfather was still alive in 496 B.C.; that he himself was active at Acragas after 472, the date of Theron's death; and that he died later than 444.

99. Empedocles as a Politician

Empedocles certainly played an important part in the political events which followed the death of Theron. The Sicilian historian Timaeus seems to have treated these fully, and tells some stories which are obviously genuine traditions picked up about a hundred and fifty years afterwards. Like all popular traditions, however, they are a little confused. The picturesque incidents are remembered, but the essential parts of the story are dropped. Still, we may be thankful that the "collector of old wives' tales," as his critics called him, has enabled us to measure the historical importance of Empedocles for ourselves by showing us how he was pictured by the great-grandchildren of his contemporaries. All the tales are intended to show the strength of his democratic convictions, and we are told, in particular, that he broke up the assembly of the Thousand -- perhaps some oligarchical association or club. It may have been for this that he was offered the kingship, which Aristotle tells us he refused. At any rate, we see that Empedocles was the great democratic leader at Acragas in those days, though we have no clear knowledge of what he did.

100. Empedocles as a Religious Teacher

But there is another side to his public character which Timaeus found it hard to reconcile with his political views. He claimed to be a god, and to receive the homage of his fellow-citizens in that capacity. The truth is, Empedocles was not a mere statesman; he had a good deal of the "medicine-man" about him. According to Satyrus, Gorgias affirmed that he had been present when his master was performing sorceries. We can see what this means from the fragments of the Purifications. Empedocles was a preacher of the new religion which sought to secure release from the "wheel of birth" by purity and abstinence. Orphicism seems to have been strong at Acragas in the days of Theron, and there are even some verbal coincidences between the poems of Empedocles and the Orphicising Odes which Pindar addressed to that prince. On the other hand, there is no reason to doubt the statement of Ammonius that fr. 134 refers to Apollo; and, if that is so, it points to his having been an adherent of the Ionic form of the mystic doctrine, as we have seen (§ 39) Pythagoras was. Further, Timaeus already knew the story that Empedocles had been expelled from the Pythagorean Order for "stealing discourses," and it is probable on the whole that fr. 129 refers to Pythagoras. It seems most likely, then, that Empedocles preached a form of Pythagoreanism which was not considered orthodox by the heads of the Society. The actual marvels related of him seem to be mere developments of hints in his poems.

101. Rhetoric and Medicine

Aristotle said that Empedocles was the inventor of Rhetoric; and Galen made him the founder of the Italian school of Medicine, which he puts on a level with those of Kos and Cnidos. Both these statements must be considered in connection with his political and scientific activity. It is probable that Gorgias was his disciple, and also that the speeches, of which he must have made many, were marked by that euphuism which Gorgias introduced to Athens at a later date, and which gave rise to the idea of an artistic prose. His influence on the development of medicine was, however, far more important, as it affected not only medicine itself, but, through it, the whole tendency of scientific thinking. It has been said that Empedocles had no successors, and the remark is true if we confine ourselves strictly to philosophy; but the medical school he founded was still living in the days of Plato, and had considerable influence on him, and still more on Aristotle. Its fundamental doctrine was the identification of the four elements with the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry. It also held that we breathe through all the pores of the body, and that the act of respiration is closely connected with the motion of the blood. The heart, not the brain, was regarded as the organ of consciousness. A more external characteristic of the medicine taught by the followers of Empedocles is that they still clung to ideas of a magical nature. A protest against this by a member of the Koan school has been preserved. He refers to them as "magicians and purifiers and charlatans and quacks, who profess to be very religious."

102. Relation to Predecessors

In the biography of Empedocles, we hear nothing of his theory of nature. The only hints we get are some statements about his teachers. Alcidamas, who had good opportunities of knowing, made him a fellow-student of Zeno under Parmenides. Theophrastus too made him a follower and imitator of Parmenides. But the further statement that he had "heard" Pythagoras cannot be right. No doubt Alcidamas said "Pythagoreans."

Some writers hold that certain parts of the system of Empedocles, in particular the theory of pores and effluvia (§ 118), were due to the influence of Leucippus. We know, however, that Alcmaeon (§ 96) spoke of "pores" in connection with sensation, and it was more probably from him that Empedocles got the theory. Moreover, this is more in accordance with the history of certain other physiological views which are common to Alcmaeon and the later Ionian philosophers. We can generally see that those reached Ionia through the medical school which Empedocles founded.

103. Death

We are told that Empedocles leapt into the crater of Etna that he might be deemed a god. This appears to be a malicious version of a tale set on foot by his adherents that he had been snatched up to heaven in the night. Both stories would easily get accepted; for there was no local tradition. Empedocles did not die in Sicily, but in the Peloponnese, or, perhaps, at Thourioi. It is not at all unlikely that he visited Athens. Plato represents Socrates as familiar with his views in early life, and the elder Critias adopted one of his characteristic theories.

104. Writings

Empedocles was the second philosopher to expound his system in verse, if we leave the satirist Xenophanes out of account. He was also the last among the Greeks; for the forged Pythagorean poems may be neglected. Lucretius imitates Empedocles in this, just as Empedocles imitated Parmenides. Of course, the poetical imagery creates a difficulty for the interpreter; but it cannot be said that it is harder to extract the philosophical kernel from the verses of Empedocles than from the prose of Heraclitus.

105. The Remains

We have more abundant remains of Empedocles than of any other early Greek philosopher. If we may trust our manuscripts of Diogenes and of Souidas, the librarians of Alexandria estimated the Poem on Nature and the Purifications together as 5000 verses, of which about 2000 belonged to the former work. Diels gives about 350 verses and parts of verses from the cosmological poem, or not a fifth of the whole. It is important to remember that, even in this favorable instance, so much has been lost. The other poems ascribed to Empedocles by the Alexandrian scholars were probably not his.

I give the remains as they are arranged by Diels:

(1) And do thou give ear, Pausanias, son of Anchitus the wise!

(2) For straitened are the powers that are spread over their bodily parts, and many are the woes that burst in on them and blunt the edge of their careful thoughts! They behold but a brief span of a life that is no life, and, doomed to swift death, are borne up and fly off like smoke. Each is convinced of that alone which he had chanced upon as he is hurried every way, and idly boasts he has found the whole. So hardly can these things be seen by the eyes or heard by the ears of men, so hardly grasped by their mind! Howbeit, thou, since thou hast found thy way hither, shalt learn no more than mortal mind hath power. R. P. 163.

( ... to keep within thy dumb heart.

(4) But, O ye gods, turn aside from my tongue the madness of those men. Hallow my lips and make a pure strewn flow from them! And thee, much-wooed, white-armed Virgin Muse, do I beseech that I may hear what is lawful for the children of a day! Speed me on my way from the abode of Holiness and drive my willing car! Thee shall no garlands of glory and honor at the hands of mortals constrain to lift them from the ground, on condition of speaking in thy pride beyond that which is lawful and right, and so to gain a seat upon the heights of wisdom.

Go to now, consider with all thy powers in what way each thing is clear. Hold not thy sight in greater credit as compared with thy hearing, nor value thy resounding ear above the clear instructions of thy tongue; and do not withhold thy confidence in any of thy other bodily parts by which there is an opening for understanding, but consider everything in the way it is clear. R. P. 163.

(5) But it is all too much the way of low minds to disbelieve their betters. Do thou learn as the sure testimonies of my Muse bid thee, when my words have been divided in thy heart.

(6) Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, lifebringing Hera, Aidoneus and Nestis whose tear-drops are a well-spring to mortals. R. P. 164.

(7) ... uncreated.

(8) And I shall tell thee another thing. There is no substance of any of all the things that perish, nor any cessation for them of baneful death. They are only a mingling and interchange of what has been mingled. Substance is but a name given to these things by men. R. P. 165.

(9) But they (hold?) that when Light and Air (chance?) to have been mingled in the fashion of a man, or in the fashion of the race of wild beasts or of plants or birds, that that is to be born, and when these things have been separated once more, they call it (wrongly?) woeful death. I follow the custom and call it so myself.

(10) Avenging death.

(11, 12) Fools! -- for they have no far-reaching thoughts -- who deem that what before was not comes into being, or that aught can perish and be utterly destroyed. For it cannot be that aught can arise from what in no way is, and it is impossible and unheard of that what is should perish; for it will always be, wherever one may keep putting it. R. P. 165 a.

(1 And in the All there is naught empty and naught too full.

(14) In the All there is naught empty. Whence, then, could aught come to increase it?

(15) A man who is wise in such matters would never surmise in his heart that as long as mortals live what they call their life, so long they are, and suffer good and ill; while before they were formed and after they have been dissolved they are just nothing at all. R. P. 165 a.

(16) For even as they (Strife and Love) were aforetime, so too they shall be; nor ever, methinks, will boundless time be emptied of that pair. R. P. 166 c.

(17) I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At one time it grew to be one only out of many; at another, it divided up to be many instead of one. There is a double becoming of perishable things and a double passing away. The coming together of all things brings one generation into being and destroys it; the other grows up and is scattered as things become divided. And these things never cease continually changing places, at one time all uniting in one through Love, at another each borne in different directions by the repulsion of Strife. Thus, as far as it is their nature to grow into one out of many, and to become many once more, when the one is parted asunder, so far they come into being and their life abides not. But, inasmuch as they never cease changing their places continually, so far they are ever immovable as they go round the circle of existence.


* * * * *
But come, hearken to my words, for it is learning that increaseth wisdom. As I said before, when I declared the heads of my discourse, I shall tell thee a twofold tale. At one time it grew together to be one only out of many, at another it parted asunder so as to be many instead of one; -- Fire and Water and Earth and the mighty height of Air; dread Strife, too, apart from these, of equal weight to each, and Love in their midst, equal in length and breadth. Her do thou contemplate with thy mind, nor sit with dazed eyes. It is she that is known as being implanted in the frame of mortals. It is she that makes them have thoughts of love and work the works of peace. They call her by the names of joy and Aphrodite. Her has no mortal yet marked moving round among them, but do thou attend to the undeceitful ordering of my discourse.

For all these are equal and alike in age, yet each has a different prerogative and its own peculiar nature, but they gain the upper hand in turn when the time comes round. And nothing comes into being besides these, nor do they pass away; for, if they had been passing away continually, they would not be now, and what could increase this All and whence could it come? How, too, could it perish, since no place is empty of these things? There are these alone; but, running through one another, they become now this, now that and like things evermore. R. P. 166.

(18) Love.

(19) Clinging Love.

(20) This (the contest of Love and Strife) is manifest in the mass of mortal limbs. At one time all the limbs that are the body's portion are brought together by Love in blooming life's high season; at another, severed by cruel Strife, they wander each alone by the breakers of life's sea. It is the same with plants and the fish that make their homes in the waters, with the beasts that have their lairs on the hills and the seabirds that sail on wings. R. P. 173 d.

(21) Come now, look at the things that bear witness to my earlier discourse, if so be that there was any shortcoming as to their form in the earlier list. Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm, and all the immortal things that are bathed in heat and bright radiance. Behold the rain, everywhere dark and cold; and from the earth issue forth things close-pressed and solid. When they are in strife all these are different in form and separated; but they come together in love, and are desired by one another.

For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall be -- trees and men and women, beasts and birds and the fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and the gods that live long lives and are exalted in honor. R. P. 166 i.

For there are these alone; but, running through one another, they take different shapes -- so much does mixture change them. R. P. 166 g.

(22) For all of these -- sun, earth, sky, and sea -- are at one with all their parts that are cast far and wide from them in mortal things. And even so all things that are more adapted for mixture are like to one another and united in love by Aphrodite. Those things, again, that differ most in origin, mixture and the forms imprinted on each, are most hostile, being altogether unaccustomed to unite and very sorry by the bidding of Strife, since it hath wrought their birth.

(2 Just as when painters are elaborating temple-offerings, men whom wisdom hath well taught their art, -- they, when they have taken pigments of many colors with their hands, mix them in due proportion, more of some and less of others, and from them produce shapes like unto all things, making trees and men and women, beasts and birds and fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and gods, that live long lives, and are exalted in honor, -- so let not the error prevail over thy mind, that there is any other source of all the perishable creatures that appear in countless numbers. Know this for sure, for thou hast heard the tale from a goddess.

(24) Stepping from summit to summit, not to travel only one path of words to the end....

(25) What is right may well be said even twice.

(26) For they prevail in turn as the circle comes round, and pass into one another, and grow great in their appointed turn. R. P. 166 c.

There are these alone; but, running through one another, they become men and the tribes of beasts. At one time they are all brought together into one order by Love; at another, they are carried each in different directions by the repulsion of Strife, till they grow once more into one and are wholly subdued. Thus in so far as they are wont to grow into one out of many, and again divided become more than one, so far they come into being and their life is not lasting; but insofar as they never cease changing continually, so far are they evermore, immovable in the circle.

(27) There (in the sphere) are distinguished neither the swift limbs of the sun, no, nor the shaggy earth in its might, nor the sea, -- so fast was the god bound in the close covering of Harmony, spherical and round, rejoicing in his circular solitude. R. P. 167.

(27a) There is no discord and no unseemly strife in his limbs.

(28) But he was equal on every side and quite without end, spherical and round, rejoicing in his circular solitude.

(29) Two branches do not spring from his back, he has no feet, no swift knees, no fruitful parts; but he was spherical and equal on every side.

(30, 31) But when Strife was grown great in the limbs of the god and sprang forth to claim his prerogatives, in the fulness of the alternate time set for them by the mighty oath, ... for all the limbs of the god in turn quaked. R. P. 167.

(32) The joint binds two things.

(3 Even as when fig juice rivets and binds white milk....

(34) Cementing meal with water....

(35, 36) But now I shall retrace my steps over the paths of song that I have traveled before, drawing from my saying a new saying. When Strife was fallen to the lowest depth of the vortex, and Love had reached to the center of the whirl, in it do all things come together so as to be one only; not all at once, but coming together at their will each from different quarters; and, as they mingled, strife began to pass out to the furthest limit. Yet many things remained unmixed, alternating with the things that were being mixed, namely, all that Strife not fallen yet retained; for it had not yet altogether retired perfectly from them to the outermost boundaries of the circle. Some of it still remained within, and some had passed out from the limbs of the All. But in proportion as it kept rushing out, a soft, immortal stream of blameless Love kept running in, and straightway those things became mortal which had been immortal before, those things were mixed that had before been un-mixed, each changing its path. And, as they mingled, countless tribes of mortal creatures were scattered abroad endowed with all manner of forms, a wonder to behold. R. P. 169.

(37) Earth increases its own mass, and Air swells the bulk of Air.

(38) Come, I shall now tell thee first of all the beginning of the sun, and the sources from which have sprung all the things we now behold, the earth and the billowy sea, the damp vapor and the Titan air that binds his circle fast round all things. R. P. 170 a.

(39) If the depths of the earth and the vast air were infinite, a foolish saying which has been vainly dropped from the lips of many mortals, though they have seen but a little of the All.... R. P. 103 b.

(40) The sharp-darting sun and the gentle moon.

(41) But (the sunlight) is gathered together and circles round the mighty heavens.

(42) And she cuts off his rays as he goes above her, and casts a shadow on as much of the earth as is the breadth of the pale-faced moon.

(4 Even so the sunbeam, having struck the broad and mighty circle of the moon, returns at once, running so as to reach the sky.

(44) It flashes back to Olympus with untroubled countenance. R. P. 170 c.

(45, 46) There circles round the earth a round borrowed light, as the nave of the wheel circles round the furthest (goal).

(47) For she gazes at the sacred circle of the lordly sun opposite.

(48) It is the earth that makes night by coming before the lights.

(49) ... of solitary, blind-eyed night.

(50) And Iris bringeth wind or mighty rain from the sea.

(51) (Fire) swiftly rushing upwards ...

(52) And many fires burn beneath the earth. R. P. 171 a.

(5 For so it (the air) chanced to be running at that time, though often otherwise. R. P. 171 a.

(54) But the air sank down upon the earth with its long roots. R. P. 171 a.

(55) Sea the sweat of the earth. R. P. I70 b.

(56) Salt was solidified by the impact of the sun's beams.

(57) On it (the earth) many heads sprung up without necks and arms wandered bare and bereft of shoulders. Eyes strayed up and down in want of foreheads. R. P. 173 a.

(58) Solitary limbs wandered seeking for union.

(59) But, as divinity was mingled still further with divinity, these things joined together as each might chance, and many other things besides them continually arose.

(60) Shambling creatures with countless hands.

(61) Many creatures with faces and breasts looking in different directions were born; some, offspring of oxen with faces of men, while others, again, arose as offspring of men with the heads of oxen, and creatures in whom the nature of women and men was mingled, furnished with sterile parts. R. P. 173 b.

(62) Come now, hear how the Fire as it was separated caused the night-born shoots of men and tearful women to arise; for my tale is not off the point nor uninformed. Whole-natured forms first arose from the earth, having a portion both of water and fire. These did the fire, desirous of reaching its like, send up, showing as yet neither the charming form of the limbs, nor yet the voice and parts that are proper to men. R. P. 173 c.

(6 ... But the substance of (the child's) limbs is divided between them, part of it in men's (and part in women's body).

(64) And upon him came desire reminding him through sight.

(65) ... And it was poured out in the purified parts; and when it met with cold women arose from it.

(66) The divided meadows of Aphrodite.

(67) For in its warmer part the womb brings forth males, and that is why men are dark and more manly and shaggy.

(68) On the tenth day of the eighth month it turns to a white putrefaction.

(69) Double bearings

(70) Sheepskin.

(71) But if thy assurance of these things was in any way deficient as to how, out of Water and Earth and Air and Fire mingled together, arose the forms and colors of all those mortal things that have been fitted together by Aphrodite, and so are now come into being....

(72) How tall trees and the fishes in the sea ...

(7 And even as at that time Cypris, preparing warmth, after she had moistened the Earth in water, gave it to swift fire to harden it.... R. P. 171.

(74) Leading the songless tribe of fertile fish.

(75) All of those which are dense within and rare without, having received a flaccidity of this kind at the hands of Cypris....

(76) This thou mayest see in the heavy-backed shell-fish that dwell in the sea, in sea-snails and the stony-skinned turtles. In them thou mayest see that the earthy part dwells on the uppermost surface of the skin.

(77-78) It is moisture that makes evergreen trees flourish with abundance of fruit the whole year round.

(79) And so first of all tall olive trees bear eggs....

(80) Wherefore pomegranates are late-born and apples succulent.

(81) Wine is the water from the bark, putrefied in the wood.

(82) Hair and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, and the scales that grow on mighty limbs, are the same thing.

(8 But the hair of hedgehogs is sharp-pointed and bristles on their backs.

(84) And even as when a man thinking to sally forth through a stormy night, gets him ready a lantern, a flame of blazing fire, fastening to it horn plates to keep out all manner of winds, and they scatter the blast of the winds that blow, but the light leaping out through them, shines across the threshold with unfailing beams, as much of it as is finer; even so did she (Love) then entrap the elemental fire, the round pupil, confined within membranes and delicate tissues, which are pierced through and through with wondrous passages. They keep out the deep water that surrounds the pupil, but they let through the fire, as much of it as is finer. R. P. 177 h.

(85) But the gentle flame (of the eye) has but a scanty portion of earth.

(86) Out of these divine Aphrodite fashioned unwearying eyes.

(87) Aphrodite fitting these together with rivets of love.

(88) One vision is produced by both the eyes.

(89) Know that effluences flow from all things that have come into being. R. P. 166 h.

(90) So sweet lays hold of sweet, and bitter rushes to bitter; acid comes to acid, and warm couples with warm.

(91) Water fits better into wine, but it will not (mingle) with oil. R. P. 166 h.

(92) Copper mixed with tin.

(9 The bloom of scarlet dye mingles with the grey linen.

(94) And the black color at the bottom of a river arises from the shadow. The same is seen in hollow caves.

(95) Since they (the eyes) first grew together in the hands of Cypris.

(96) The kindly earth received in its broad funnels two parts of gleaming Nestis out of the eight, and four of Hephaestus. So arose white bones divinely fitted together by the cement of proportion. R. P. 175.

(97) The spine (was broken).

(98) And the earth, anchoring in the perfect harbors of Aphrodite, meets with these in nearly equal proportions, with Hephaestus and Water and gleaming Air -- either a little more of it, or less of them and more of it. From these did blood arise and the manifold forms of flesh. R. P. 175 c.

(99) The bell ... the fleshy sprout (of the ear).

(100) Thus do all things draw breath and breathe it out again. All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores closely packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free passage is cut for the air to pass through. Then, when the thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with an impetuous surge; and when the blood runs back it is breathed out again. Just as when a girl, playing with a water-clock of shining brass, puts the orifice of the pipe upon her comely hand, and dips the waterclock into the yielding mass of silvery water -- the stream does not then flow into the vessel, but the bulk of the air inside, pressing upon the close-packed perforations, keeps it out till she uncovers the compressed stream; but then air escapes and an equal volume of water runs in, -- just in the same way, when water occupies the depths of the brazen vessel and the opening and passage is stopped up by the human hand, the air outside, striving to get in, holds the water back at the gates of the ill-sounding neck, pressing upon its surface, till she lets go with her hand. Then, on the contrary, just in the opposite way to what happened before, the wind rushes in and an equal volume of water runs out to make room. Even so, when the thin blood that surges through the limbs rushes backwards to the interior, straightway the stream of air comes in with a rushing swell; but when the blood runs back the air breathes out again in equal quantity.

(101) (The dog) with its nostrils tracking out the fragments of the beast's limbs, and the breath from their feet that they leave in the soft grass.

(102) Thus all things have their share of breath and smell.

(103, 104) Thus have all things thought by fortune's will.... And inasmuch as the rarest things came together in their fall.

(105) (The heart), dwelling in the sea of blood that runs in opposite directions, where chiefly is what men call thought; for the blood round the heart is the thought of men. R. P. 178 a.

(106) For the wisdom of men grows according to what is before them. R. P. 177.

(107) For out of these are all things formed and fitted together, and by these do men think and feel pleasure and pain. R. P. 178.

(108) And just so far as they grow to be different, so far do different thoughts ever present themselves to their minds (in dreams). R. P. 177 a.

(109) For it is with earth that we see Earth, and Water with water; by air we see bright Air, by fire destroying Fire. By love do we see Love, and Hate by grievous hate. R. P. 176.

(110) For if, supported on thy steadfast mind, thou wilt contemplate these things with good intent and faultless care, then shalt thou have all these things in abundance throughout thy life, and thou shalt gain many others from them. For these things grow of themselves into thy heart, where is each man's true nature. But if thou strivest after things of another kind, as it is the way with men that ten thousand sorry matters blunt their careful thoughts, soon will these things desert thee when the time comes round; for they long to return once more to their own kind; for know that all things have wisdom and a share of thought.

(111) And thou shalt learn all the drugs that are a defense against ills and old age; since for thee alone will I accomplish all this. Thou shalt arrest the violence of the weariless winds that arise to sweep the earth and waste the fields; and again, when thou so desirest, thou shalt bring back their blasts in return. Thou shalt cause for men a seasonable drought after the dark rains, and again thou shalt change the summer drought for streams that feed the trees as they pour down from the sky. Thou shalt bring back from Hades the life of a dead man.

Purifications

(112) Friends, that inhabit the great town looking down on the yellow rock of Acragas, up by the citadel, busy in goodly works, harbors of honor for the stranger, men unskilled in meanness, all hail. I go about among you an immortal god, no mortal now, honored among all as is meet, crowned with fillets and flowery garlands. Straightway, whenever I enter with these in my train, both men and women, into the flourishing towns, is reverence done me; they go after me in countless throngs, asking of me what is the way to gain; some desiring oracles, while some, who for many a weary day have been pierced by the grievous pangs of all manner of sickness, beg to hear from me the word of healing. R. P. 162 f.

(11 But why do I harp on these things, as if it were any great matter that I should surpass mortal, perishable men?

(114) Friends, I know indeed that truth is in the words I shall utter, but it is hard for men, and jealous are they of the assault of belief on their souls.

(115) There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient ordinance of the gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that whenever one of the daemons, whose portion is length of days, has sinfully polluted his hands with blood, or followed strife and forsworn himself, he must wander thrice ten thousand seasons from the abodes of the blessed, being born throughout the time in all manners of mortal forms, changing one toilsome path of life for another. For the mighty Air drives him into the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth on the dry Earth; Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from the other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an exile and a wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust in insensate strife. R. P. 181.

(116) Charis loathes intolerable Necessity.

(117) For I have been ere now a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a dumb fish in the sea. R. P. 182.

(118) I wept and I wailed when I saw the unfamiliar land. R. P. 182.

(119) From what honor, from what a height of bliss have I fallen to go about among mortals here on earth.

(120) We have come under this roofed-in cave.

(121) ... the joyless land, where are Death and Wrath and troops of Dooms besides; and parching Plagues and Rottennesses and Floods roam in darkness over the meadow of Ate.

(122, 12 There were Chthonie and far-sighted Heliope, bloody Discord and gentle-visaged Harmony, Callisto and Aischre, Speed and Tarrying, lovely Truth and dark-haired Uncertainty, Birth and Decay, Sleep and Waking, Movement and Immobility, crowned Majesty and Meanness, Silence and Voice. R. P. 182 a.

(124) Alas, O wretched race of mortals, sore unblessed: such are the strifes and groanings from which ye have been born!

(125) From living creatures he made them dead, changing their forms.

(126) (The goddess) clothing them with a strange garment of flesh.

(127) Among beasts they become lions that make their lair on the hills and their couch on the ground; and laurels among trees with goodly foliage. R. P. 181 b.

(128) Nor had they any Ares for a god nor Cydimus, no nor King Zeus nor Kronos nor Poseidon, but Cypris the Queen.... Her did they propitiate with holy gifts, with painted figures and perfumes of cunning fragrancy, with offerings of pure myrrh and sweet-smelling frankincense, casting on the ground libations of brown honey. And the altar did not reek with pure bull's blood, but this was held in the greatest abomination among men, to eat the goodly limbs after tearing out the life. R. P. 184.

(129) And there was among them a man of rare knowledge, most skilled in all manner of wise works, a man who had won the utmost wealth of wisdom; for whensoever he strained with all his mind, he easily saw everything of all the things that are, in ten, yea, twenty lifetimes of men.

(130) For all things were tame and gentle to man, both beasts and birds, and friendly feelings were kindled everywhere. R. P. 184 a.

(131) If ever, as regards the things of a day, immortal Muse, thou didst deign to take thought for my endeavor, then stand by me once more as I pray to thee, O Calliopea, as I utter a pure discourse concerning the blessed gods. R. P. 179.

(132) Blessed is the man who has gained the riches of divine wisdom; wretched he who has a dim opinion of the gods in his heart. R. P. 179.

(13 It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to lay hold of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of persuasion that leads into the heart of man.

(134) For he is not furnished with a human head on his body, two branches do not sprout from his shoulders, he has no feet, no swift knees, nor hairy parts; but he is only a sacred and unutterable mind flashing through the whole world with rapid thoughts. R. P. 180.

(135) (This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others but the law for all extends everywhere, through the wide-ruling air and the infinite light of heaven. R. P. 183.

(136) Will ye not cease from this ill-sounding slaughter? See ye not that ye are devouring one another in the thoughtlessness of your hearts? R. P. 184 b.

(137) And the father lifts up his own son in a changed form and slays him with a prayer. Infatuated fool! And they run up to the sacrificers, begging mercy, while he, deaf to their cries, slaughters them in his halls and gets ready the evil feast. In like manner does the son seize his father, and children their mother, tear out their life and eat the kindred flesh. R. P. 184 b.

(138) Draining their life with bronze.

(139) Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy me ere ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips! R. P. 184 b.

(140) Abstain wholly from laurel leaves.

(141) Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!

(142) Him will the roofed palace of aigis-bearing Zeus never rejoice, nor yet the house of ...

(14 Wash your hands, cutting the water from the five springs in the unyielding bronze R. P. 184 C.

(144) Fast from wickedness! R. P. 184 C.

(145) Therefore are ye distraught by grievous wickednesses, and will not unburden your souls of wretched sorrows.

(146, 147) But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets, song-writers, physicians, and princes; and thence they rise up as gods exalted in honor, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt. R. P. 181 c.

(148) ... Earth that envelops the man.