It can be carried through only by the help of "unlun- ited conjecture." Such conjecture Schuster has used extensively. The necessity of carrying through his plan has led him to find in some passages more mean- ing than they will justly bear, while his apparently preconceived notion as to the wholly empirical charac- ter of the system has led him to distort the meaning of many sentences. We shall see examples of this presently. Incidentally, his method may be illustrated by his connection and use of the two passages: d.'uO pcbnoD^: /lii^ec AnoOavovTa^^ daaa oux SXnovTac obdh doxiouac (Clement of Alex. Strom, iv, 22, p. 630 ; cp. frag. 122), and al (po'^al dajnQjvrae xaO^ ^drjv (Plutarch, de Fac. in orbe lun. 28, p. 943 ; cp. frag. 38). Schuster conjectures that these passages came together in the original work, and he renders and interprets them as follows : " There awaits men in death what they neither hope nor believe," namely, rest and the joy of a sleep-like con- dition (!), so that even instinctively '' souls scent out death," desiring to obtain it (Schuster, p. 190). Not to speak of the forced translation of the latter fragment, only the most vivid imagination would think of using these passages in this way, especially as Clement himself, in his use of the first passage, refers it to the punishments which happen to men after death (see below, frags. 122 and 124, sources), and Plutarch, in respect to the second, uses it as proof that souls in Hades are nourished by vapors (see below, frag. 38, sources). But Schuster's conception of Heraclitus did not admit of belief in a distinct life after death, and it was necessary to make these passages fit in with the plan. The attempt to weave the fragments into a con- nected whole, and their division into the three Logoi, may be regarded on the whole as a decided failure.
Historical Jlnd Critical. 19
Schuster fipds only thirteen fragments for the con-
cluding theological section, although our knowledge
of Heraclitus and his times would rather indicate, as
indeed Teichmiiller thinks probable, that the theo-
logical section was the principal portion of the book.
Turning now to the theory of knowledge, according to Schuster, as we have seen, Heraclitus is an empiri- cist and sensationalist and knows no world but the visible. With this conclusion we cannot agree. Schus- ter's argument that this doctrine must have arisen with Heraclitus since it was held by Protagoras, his disciple, has little weight. The order of development was rather that pointed out by Plato himself in the Theaetetus (p. 151 ff.), namely, that the sensational theory of knowledge was the outcome of the Protagorean doc- trine that man is the measure of all things, and that this in turn grew out of the Heraclitic flux. No doubt the sensational theory was implied by the Sophists, but it was incipient with them and not yet formulated. Much less can it be attributed to Heraclitus, whose contribution to the theory began and ended with the eternal flux. A sensational theory of knowledge, it is quite true, was likely to be an outcome of the Ephe- sian's philosophy, but he did not himself proceed thus far. The question, theoretically considered, was be- yond his time. There are passages which indicate that he held, inconsistently it may be, quite the oppo- site doctrine. ** Eyes and ears," he says, "are bad witnesses to men having rude souls" (Sextus Emp. adv. Math. vii. 126 ;=frag. 4 ; cp. frags. 3, 5, 6, 19, etc., and below (p. 50). The passage which offers Schuster the strongest support for his sensationalism is that noted above (p. 13) from Hippolytus, " Whatever con- cerns seeing, hearing and learning (jiddTjac^, Schuster
20 HERACLITUS.
translates " Erforschung "), I particularly honor '* (frag. 13). Adopting the simplest and most natural meaning of this passage, it has no bearing on any theory of knowledge, but means merely, as Pfleiderer points out (Heraklit, p. 64, note), that Heraclitus prefers the pleasures of the higher senses, as of seeing, hearing, and the knowledge acquired thereby, to the sensual pleasures of the lower senses which the masses pursue. If, however, Schuster will take it in a theoretical sense, then it comes into conflict with the other passage, ** The hidden harmony is better than the visible." The contradiction is foreseen by Schuster, who deliberately changes the latter into a question (see above, p. 13), without a shadow of right, as may be seen by reference to the context in Hippolytus (see below, frag. 47), who expressly states that the two passages seem to conflict. Further support for his interpretation Schuster seeks in the following passage from Hippolytus :
This is the passage of which Schuster says that if
Heraclitus had written nothing mor6 it would have
given him a place of honor in philosophy, for here for
the first time appeared the thought that has inspired
speculation and modern science since the Renaissance,
that truth is to be sought in the observation of Nature.
But we are unable to find here any such meaning.
The sense of the passage depends upon the sense of
Logos. Of course, if Schuster is free to translate this
word in any way he chooses, he can get from the pas-
Historical and Critical. 21
sage almost any meaning. He chooses to render it
the Voice of Nature or the Speech of the visible world.
In this he is not supported by any other critics. By
ancient commentators of Heraclitus the Logos was
understood as Reason, and in this general sense it is
taken by modem commentators including Heinze,
Zeller, Teichmiiller, and Pfleiderer, although more
specifically they see that, in harmony with the whole
Heraclitic philosophy, it is to be taken as Reason
immanent in the world as Order or Law. Schuster
objects that Logos could not mean Reason, since before
the time of Heraclitus it had never been so used, and
no author would venture to introduce at the very
beginning of his work words with new meanings. But
precisely the same objection applies to its meaning the
Speech of Nature, for the whole point in Schuster's
exposition is that this was an original idea with
Heraclitus. If the Logos is conceived as Order, this
objection is met, since this meaning is given in the
derivation of the word. Moreover, if Schuster could
show that the word meant ^' speech " or ** discourse,"
then the discourse referred to must have been not that
of Nature but of the author himself. Finally, if we
adopt Reason as the meaning of Logos here, the
whole passage, so far from supporting, directly refutes
Schuster's sensational theory of knowledge. Another
argument for the empiricism of Heraclitus, Schuster
seeks in his denunciation of the people for their failure
to interest themselves in acquiring knowledge by
empirical investigation of the things that surround
them, which he bases on a couple of passages from
Clement and M. Aurelius (see above, p. 12). Heraclitus,
in fact, said nothing of the kind; but Schuster, by
conjectural reconstruction of the text and an arbitrary
22 HERACLITUS,
translation, extracts a theoretical meaning from simple
sentences which no one who had not a preconceived
theory to support would ever imagine to mean more
than a reproach upon the masses for their superficiality
and neglect of interest in a deeper knowledge of the
world (see Schuster, p. 17, and cp. frags. 5, 93). What
Heraclitus' theory of knowledge really was we shall
see more fully in the examination of Pfleiderer's posi-
tion later. Here it is sufficient to add that, whatever
empirical tendency his philosophy may have had, any
such positive doctrine as that which Schuster ascribes
to him was far beyond the time of Heraclitus.
Historical and Critical. 23
this impulse to change is hardly consistent with a state of perfect " satiety." If now we take ScaxoafxTjaec: in its primary signification denoting the action or pro- cess of arranging, then craving becomes the designa- tion of the world-building process itself. Craving then is nothing but the original impulse to evolve itself, contained in the primitive fire, while the reverse pro- cess, the conflagration, is satiety, or better, the result
of satiety.
Teichmuller.
The work of Teichmtiller (see above, p. 1) does not
profess to be a complete exposition of the philosophy
of Heraclitus, but to indicate rather the direction in
which the interpretation is to be found. Teichmtiller
believes that the philosophy of the ancients is to be
interpreted by their theories of Nature. Physics came
before metaphysics. Particularly does this apply to
Heraclitus of Ephesus. His philosophy of Nature,
therefore, is the key with which Teichmtiller will
unlock the secrets of his system (Teichmtiller, I, p. 3).
But yet Heraclitus was not a naturalist. Of the
sun, moon, eclipses, seasons, or earth, he has little to
say. In the astronomy of Anaximander or the mathe-
matics of Pythagoras he took little interest. On such
polymathy he cast a slur (Diog. Laert. ix. 1; cp. frag. 16).
He went back to Thales and started from his childlike
conception of Nature. To Heraclitus the earth was
flat, extending with its land and sea indefinitely in
each direction. The sun, therefore, describes only a
semicircle, kindled every morning from the sea and
extinguished in it every evening. Moreover, the sun
is no larger than it looks (Diog. Laert. ix. 7). The
sun, therefore, cannot pass his boundaries (of the half-
circle), else the Erinyes (who inhabit the lower world)
24 HERACLITUS.
will find him out (Plutarch, deExil. ii. p. 604 ; = frag. 29).
Up and down are not relative but absolute directions
(Teichmiiller, I, p. 14).
Thus upon physical grounds we may interpret at once some of the aphorisms. For instance, since the sun is a daily exhalation from the earth, sun and earth must have in part a common substance ; hence Diony- sus and Hades are the same (Clement of Alex. Protrept. ii. p. 30 ; cp. frag. 127), since the former stands for the sun and the latter for the lower world. Likewise day and night are the same (Hippoly tus, Ref . haer. ix. 10 ; cp. frag. 35), since they are essentially of the same elements, the difference being only one of degree, the former having a preponderance of the light and dry, the latter of the dark and moist (Teichmiiller, I, pp. "2^6).
The four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, are not,
as with Empedocles, unchangeable elements, but in
ceaseless qualitative change are continually passing
into one another. Experience itself teaches this in
the daily observation of such phenomena as the drying
up of swamps, the melting of solids, and the evapo-
ration of liquids (Id. I, p. 58).
Fire is not a symbol, but is real fire that bums and
crackles. It is the ground principle, the entelechy of
the world, in which reside life, soul, reason. It is God
himself. It is absolute purity. It rules in the pure
upper air, the realm of the sun. Its antithesis is
moisture, absolute impurity, which rules in the lower
regions of the earth. The sun with his clear light
moves in the upper fiery air. The moon with her
dimmed light moves in the lower moister air. The
central thought, therefore, is purification, or **the
way up,'' from the moist and earthy to the dry and
fiery (Id. I, p. 62 ff.).
Historical and Critical. 25
/ The psychology of Heraclitus is not analogous, but I identical with his physics. The soul is the pure, light, fiery, incorporeal principle which burns like the sun. Its degree of life and Intelligence depends upon its purity from moisture. The stupid drunken man has a moist soul (Stobaeus Floril. v. 120 ; cp. frag. 73). ^' The dry soul is the wisest and best " (frag. 74). In sleep the fire principle bums low ; in death it is extinguished, when the soul, like the sun at night, sinks into the dark regions of Hades. Hence it follows that there was with Heraclitus no doctrine of the immortality of the soul (Teichmiiller, I, p. 74 fif.).