Chapter 19

CHAPTER VI

EMPEDOCLES

Empedocles was a man of Agrigentum in Sicily. The dates
of his birth and death are placed about 495 and 435 B.C.
respectively. Like Pythagoras, he possessed a powerful and
magnetic personality. Hence all kinds of legends quickly
grew up and wove themselves round his life and death. He
was credited with the performance of miracles, and roman-
tic stories were circulated about his death. A man of much
persuasive eloquence he raised himself to the leadership of
the Agrigentine democracy, until he was driven out into
exile.

The philosophy of Empedocles is eclectic in character.
Greek philosophy had now developed a variety of conflict-
ing principles, and the task of Empedocles is to reconcile
these, and to weld them together in a new system, con-
taining however no new thought of its own. In speaking of

Parmenides, I pointed out that his teaching may be inter-

preted either in an idealistic or a materialistic sense, and

that these two aspects of thought lie side by side in Par-

menides, and that it is possible to emphasize either the one

or the other. Empedocles seizes upon the materialistic side.

The essential thought of Parmenides was that Being cannot

pass into not-being, nor not-being into Being. Whatever

is, remains for ever what it is. {82} If we take that in a

purely material context, what it means is that matter has

neither beginning nor end, is uncreated and indestructible.

And this is the first basic principle of Empedocles. On

the other hand, Heracleitus had shown that becoming and

change cannot be denied. This is the second basic principle

of Empedocles. That there is no absolute becoming, no cre-

ation, and utter destruction of things, and yet that things

do somehow arise and pass away, this must be explained,

these contradictory ideas must be reconciled. Now if we

assert that matter is uncreated and indestructible, and yet