Читать книгу A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy онлайн

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2. The single cosmic substance below the changes of nature is unchangeable. To the Milesians the more moving is matter, the more alive is it. Life and activity are the same thing. To Xenophanes this is not the case, but, on the contrary, the opposite is true. He conceives God to be a definite sphere that is unchangeable and homogeneous. The material substance, God, always remains the same. “He has no need of going about, now hither, now thither, in order to carry out his wishes; but he governs all men without toil.” Xenophanes thus becomes the forerunner of the Eleatic school.

3. Heracleitus, “the Misanthropist” and “the Obscure”

Heracleitus’ Doctrine of Absolute and Universal Change.

Fire is the Cosmic Substance.

The Definite Changes of Fire.

In general, there are two characteristics to be noted with reference to Heracleitus’ conception of a definite succession of changes: (1)the changes are always a harmony of opposites; (2)and the changes are in a closed circuit. The process of change is not a flow in one direction like a river over its bed, but it is a movement in two opposite directions. By change Heracleitus means not only a passing into something else but a passing into the opposite. Everything is the union of opposites, and everything is the transition point of opposites about to separate. The flux of things is thus poetically conceived as a war of things, and this war is “the father of all things.” This unity of opposites has an equilibrium that illudes us into thinking it is permanent. The universe is an invisible harmony, divided into itself and again united. Investigate life and there are antitheses everywhere. War is life. The second general characteristic of the succession of changes is their closed circuit. Fire changes into all things, and all things are changing back into fire. These two movements are called the “Upward Way” and the “Downward Way.” Downward, fire changes through air and water into earth. Upward, earth changes back to water, air, and fire. With every change, there is counter-change, action is accompanied by a reaction. “Men do not know how that which is drawn in opposite directions harmonizes with itself. The harmonious structure of the world depends upon opposite tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.”