"You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." *
"The sun is new every day."
His belief in universal change is commonly supposed to have been expressed in the phrase "all
things are flowing," but this is probably apocryphal, like Washington "Father, I cannot tell a
lie" and Wellington's "Up Guards and at 'em." His works, like those of all the philosophers
before Plato, are only known through quotations, largely made by Plato or Aristotle for the sake
of refutation. When one thinks what would become of any modern philosopher if he were only
known through the polemics of his rivals, one can see how admirable the pre-Socratics must
have been, since even through the mist of malice spread by their enemies they still appear great.
However this may be, Plato and Aristotle agree that Heraclitus taught that "nothing ever is,
everything is becoming" ( Plato), and that "nothing steadfastly is" ( Aristotle).
I shall return to the consideration of this doctrine in connection with Plato, who is much
concerned to refute it. For the present, I shall not investigate what philosophy has to say about
it, but only what the poets have felt and the men of science have taught.
The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to
philosophy. It is derived, no doubt, from love of home and desire for a refuge from danger; we
find, accordingly, that it is most passionate in those whose lives are most exposed to
catastrophe. Religion seeks permanence in two forms, God and immortality. In God is no
variableness neither shadow of turning; the life after death is eternal and unchanging. The
cheerfulness of the nineteenth century turned men against these static conceptions, and modern
liberal theology believes that there is progress in heaven and evolution in the Godhead. But
even in this conception there is something permanent, namely progress itself and its immanent
goal. And a dose of disaster is likely to bring men's hopes back to their older super-terrestrial
forms: if life on earth is despaired of, it is only in heaven that peace can be sought.
The poets have lamented the power of Time to sweep away every object of their love.
* But cf. "We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are, and are not."