A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

EMPEDOCLES. EMPEDOCLES. 13
KaOapeloi, a poem said to have consisted of 3000 to reduce that which appears to us as a coming into
verses, seems to have recommended particularly a existence to a process of mixture and separation. of
good moral conduct as the means of averting epi- unalterable substances; but for the same reason
demics. and other evils. (See the fragments in they were obliged to give up both, theHeracleitean
Karsten, p. 144, vers. 403, &c.; comp. Aristot. supposition of one original fundamental power, and
El. Vic. vii. 5; Eudem. vi. 3.) Empedocles was the earlier Ionic hypothesis of one original subundoubtedly acquainted with the didactic poems of stance which produced all changes out of itself and
Xenophanes and Parmenides (Hermipp. and Theo- again absorbed them. The supposition of an origiphrast. ap.Diog. Laeirt. viii. 55, 56)-allusions to the nal plurality of unalterable elementary substances
latter can be pointed out in the fragments,-but he was absolutely necessary. And thus we find in
seems to have surpassed them in the animation and the extant fragments of the didactic poem of Emrichness of his style, and in the clearness of his pedocles, the genuineness of which is attested bedescriptions and diction; so that Aristotle, though, yond all doubt by the authority of Aristotle and
oil the one hand, he acknowledged only the metre other ancient writers, the most unequivocal stateas a point of- comparison between the poems of ment, made with an evident regard to the arguEmpedocles and the epics of Homer, yet, on the mentation of Parminenides, that a coming into
other hand, had characterised Empedocles as existence from a non-existence, as well as a complete
Homeric and powerful in his diction. (Poet. 1, ap. death and annihilation, are things impossible; what
Diog. LaErt. viii. 57.) Lucretius, the greatest of all we call coming into existence and death is only
didactic poets, speaks of him with enthusiasm, and mixture and separation of what was mixed, and
evidently marks him as his model. (See especially the expressions of coming into existence and deLucret. i. 727, &c.) We are indebted for the first struction or annihilation are justified only by our
comprehensive collection of the fragments of Em- being obliged to submit to the usus loquendi.
pedocles, and of a careful collection of the testi- (Fragmn. 77, &c., 345, &c.) The original and unmonies of the ancients concerning his doctrines, to alterable substances were termed by Empedocles
Fr. W. Sturz (Empedocles Agyigentinus, Lipsiae, the roots of things ( (rfoapa'crc, rgwtvY prs'apae,
1805), and lately Simon Karsten has greatly dis- Fragm. vers. 55, &c., 74, &c.); and it was he who
tinguished himself for what he has done for the first established the number of four elements, which
criticism and explanation of the text, as well as were afterwards recognized for many centuries,
for the light he has thrown on separate doctrines. and which before Empedocles had been pointed
(Philosophoreum Graecorumn veterumz reliquiae, vol. out one by one, partly as fundamental substances,
ii., containing Empedoclis Agrigentini Caermin. Re- and partly as transition stages of things coming
liquiae, Amstelodami, 1838.) into existence. (Aristot. Metap~hys. i. 4, 7, de
Acquainted as Empedocles was with the theories Generat. et Corr. ii. 1; comp. Ch. A. Brandis,
of the Eleatics and the Pythagoreans, he did not Handbuchi d. Gesch. der G(riech. RMm. Pklilos. i.
adopt the fundamental principles either of the one p. 195, &c.) The mythical names Zeus, Hera,
or the other schools, although he agreed with the Nestis, and Aidoneus, alternate with the common
latter in his belief in the migration of souls (Fraym. terms of fire, air, water, and earth; and it is of
vers. 1, &c., 380, &c., 350-53,- 410, &c.; comp. little importance for the accurate understanding of
Karsten, p. 509, &c.), in the attempt to- reduce his theory, whether the life-giving Hera was meant
the relations of mixture to numbers, and in a few to signify the air and Aidoneus the earth, or
other points. (Karsten, p. 426, 33, 428, &c., Aidoneus the air and Hera the earth, although the
426; compare, however, Ed. Zeller, die Philosophie; former is more probable than the latter. (Freagqm.
der Griech. p. 169, &c., Tiibingen, 1844.) With 55, &c., 74, &c.; comp. Brandis, 1. e. p. 198.) As,
the Eleatics he agreed inl thinking that it was im- however, the elementary substances were simple,
possible to conceive anything arising out of nothing eternal, and unalterable (Karsten, p. 336, &c.),
(Fraogm. vers. 81, &c., 119, &c., 345, &c.; comp. and as change or alteration was merely the collParmenid. Fraym., ed. Karsten, vers. 47, 50, 60, sequence of their mixture and separation, it was
&c., 66, 68, 75), and it is not impossible that he also necessary to conceive them as motionless, and
may have borrowed from them also the distinction consequently to suppose the existence of moving
between knowledge obtained through the senses, powers-the necessary condition of mixture and
anid knowledge obtained through reason. (Fraym. separation-as' distinct from the substances, and
49, &c., 108; Parmenid. Frgm7. 49, 108.) Aris- equally original and eternal. But in this manner
totle with justice mentions him among the Ionic the dynamic explanations which the earlier physiophysiologists, and he places him in very close rela- logists, and especially Heracleitus, had given of
tion to the atomistic philosophers and to Anaxagoras. nature, was changed into a mechanical one.. In
(/l[etap)lys. i. 3, 4, 7, P]sys. i. 4, de Generat. et order here again to avoid the supposition of an
Corr. i. 8, de. Caelo, iii. 7.) All three, like the actual coming into existence, Empedocles assumed
whole Ionic physiology, endeavoured to point out two opposite directions of the moving power, the
that which formed the basis of all changes, and to attractive and repulsive, the uniting and separa-texplain the latter by means of the former; but ing, that is, love and hate (NesKos, AipLs, KoTOsthey could not, like Heracleitus, consider the lc,IXl,'IorloT7C,'ApLLovi, r.'opy1), as equally
coming into existence and motion as the existence original and elementary (Fragm. 88, &c., 138, &c.,
of things, and rest' and tranquillity as the non- 167, &c.; Aristot. Metaphys. i. 4; Karsten, p.
existence, because they had derived from the 346, &c.); whereas with Heracleitus they were
Eleatics the conviction that an existence could only different manifestations of one and the same
just as little pass over into a non-existence, as, vice fundamental power. But is it to be supposed that
versd, the latter into the former. In order, never- those two powers were from the beginning equally
theless, to establish the reality of changes, and active? and is the state of mixture, i. e. the world
consequently the world and its phaenomena, against and its phaenomena, an original one, or was it
the deductions of the Eleatics, they were obliged preceded by a state in which the pure elementary