Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/168

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HERACLITUS.
113

bably, if also the darkest of all the thinkers of antiquity.

5. The researches and meditations of Heraclitus seem to have exercised a very powerful influence on the philosophical spirit of antiquity. Like some fine and subtle essence, his presence may be traced, and has made itself felt, in almost every period of speculation; but corresponding to its fineness and subtlety, has been the difficulty of laying hold of it, and of reducing it to an intelligible form. In modern times his fragmentary and obscure remains have been religiously collected and amply commented on by scholars of distinguished erudition and ability. The chief of these are the Germans, Schleiermacher and Lassalle. The light, however, which these inquirers have thrown on the speculations of Heraclitus seems scarcely proportioned to the diligence with which they have prosecuted their labours.

6. The following are some of the fragmentary utterances of Heraclitus, which have been gleaned from the writings of various ancient authors. Heraclitus says, all things flow (πάντα ῥεῖ) and nothing stays (οὐδὲν μένει). He likens the universe to a river, the waters of which are continually passing away; and he says that no man can bathe twice in the same stream, because a stream is never, even for a single second, the same. He says that a thing, in separating itself from itself, unites itself to itself; that in