Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/200

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HERACLITUS.
145

intelligible, you will perceive that it carries with it a solution of the problem of change. How does a thing ever get out of one state into another? Because, says Heraclitus, in being in the state in which it is, it is already out of it. Being in it, is being out of it; and being out of it is being in another state. The two are identical; and therefore I am not called upon to explain any further how the process is brought about. The process, indeed, is its own explanation.

35. Although the utterances of Heraclitus are exceedingly obscure and fragmentary, so fragmentary, indeed, as scarcely to be entitled to the name of remains, and although it is difficult or impossible to bring out the points with all the clearness and cogency that might be desired, I am nevertheless convinced that some great truth lies here: that here, if anywhere, is the embryo of the solution of the enigma of the universe. I am convinced that the unity of contraries is the law of all things; that all life, all nature, all thought, all reason, centres in the oneness or conciliation of Being and not-Being. A firm grasp of this doctrine, a clear insight into its truth, and a vigorous enforcement of it and of its consequences, would lead to the construction of a truer philosophy than that which is at present so much in vogue. That philosophy is founded entirely on the denial of the unity of contrary determinations in the same subject. It takes two opposite conceptions, and hold-