Part IX.

HEKACLITVS.
44?
Ser. 4.
Sir. 5.
pint, de Gurrul.
St oh. Ser. iS.
Ser. 17.
Ser. IC2. Lacrt.
Pint, de Pyth. Crac.
Confel. fid Apollon.
clem. Strom, y.
Strom. 2.
Strom. 6.
Strttn.z. Strom. 5.
Even the Eyes and Ears of Fools that have rude Minds, are tainted with ill.
It concernech every Man to know himfelf, and to govern himfelf prudently.
Being defired by the Citizens, tomakefome difcotirfe concerning Concord, he went up into the Chair, and taking a Cup full of water, fprinkled feme Meal and Penny-royal into it, and liaving drunk it off, went aWay ; giving them to underfland, That Cities might be pre- fervedin Peace and Concord, if the Inhabitants would be content with a little, and, not affect: coftly Superfluities.
It is hard to conceal Rudenefs at any time, but efpecially in Wine.
A Drunken Man reels, and is led by a Child ; his Soul is wet, and knows not whither Ihe go- eth ; a dry Soul is the wifeft and beR.
He faid. That the Wit of a Man is his Geni¬ us.
Being. asked by one, why he held his peace ? heanfwer’d. That you may fpeak.
He faid, That the King to whom the Delphian Oracle belongs, neither fpeaks, nor conceals, but gives figns.
\t is all one to be living and dead, waking and fleeping, young and old j for each of thefe alternately changeth into the other.
Hefeemed toblame Generation, faying, That thofe who are born will live and dye, or rather reft, and leave behind them Children todyealfo.
■ Unlefs a Man hopeth that which is not to be hoped for, he fhall not find that which is inferu- table, and hath no pafiage whereby he may come at it. This, Clemens calls a kind of Paraphrafe upon that of the Prophet, ( Ifa. 6.) Unkf you hclie-ve, you jhall not underjland.
Reproving feme incredulous PeiTons, he faid. They can neither hear nor fpeak.
How can that Light, which never fets, be hid¬ den or obfeured, ( meaning God ? J *
Jufiice fhall feize upon the Framers and Wit- nelfes of falfe things.
Arifio relates , that Euripides brought this Book of Heraclitus to Socrates tO.be read J and asking his opinion of it ; “ The things, faid So- crates^ which I underhand in if, areexcellent, and fo, Ifuppofe, are thofe whichl underfiand ‘^‘notj But they require a Delian Diver, (one that is able to explain Oracles. ) But Seheus the Grammarian, citing ont Croto, faith. That a cer¬ tain perfon, named Crates, brought this Book firh ^mong the Grecians, and faid, It required a De- Itan Diver , for only fuch a one could efcape drowning in it. Some entitle it, 7he Mates ; others. Concerning Nature ; Diodotus, An exa^ rule to fieer Life hy\ others, The Judgment of Man¬ ners, the Ornament of one Inflitation above all.
Yet Laertim gives this judgment of that Trea- tife, that fometimes he writes fo clearly and plainly, that any Man may underhand it, and difceni the height of his Mind ; adding, that his hyle was very fhort and found.
There were many that explain’d and com¬ mented upon his Book : of whom were Antifihe- nes, and Heraclides of Pontus, and Cleanthes of Pontus, and Spharm the Stoick ; as alfo Paujanias, who was firnamed the Herachtu, and Nicomedet^ and Dionijtus ; and, of Grammarians, Diodotus, who denies the Book concerning Nature to be hisj but admits that oi Politick, alledging, that what be faid of Nature, is only brought in by way of example.
Hieronymus faith, that Scythimus, ah lambick Poet, wrote againh him in Verfe.
CHAP. VTI.
His DoBrine.
LAertius faith. That his Writings gained fo great a Reputation, that the Followers of his Se6t were, from him, csMcA HeracUtians. His Afifertions were thefe :
S E C T. I.
CHAP. VI.
iLhat Fire is the Principle of aU ’Things.
His Writings:
THe Treitife ( {sxih Laertius ) which goeth abroad under his Name, is a continued dif- courfe of Nature ; k is divided into three Books ; One, concerning the Umverfe^ the Second, Politick j the Third, Jbeologick. This Book he depofited in the Temple of Diana, and, as fome affirm, he affeded to write obfeurely, (whence called er/.o%vo(, dark ) that he might be read on¬ ly by temptible,- by being read by the Vulgar; which Tmon implies, faying,
^Mcngf thefe thejgreat Confounder did arife,
Dark Heraclitus, he that doth defpije The Multitude - -
And perhaps it conduceth not a little to the obfeurity of his Writings, that, through excefs of Melancholy, as Theophrafius faith, he began many things, and left them unfiniffi’d, and ma¬ ny times wrote contrary things.
He held, that ( a) F^re is the Principle of all things, for of Fire all things are made, and into Fire all things ffiall refolve ; Or, as Laertius, That Fire is the Element, and the viciflitude of Fire generates all things by Rarefa Condenfation, (but he delivers nothing plainly.^ That all things are made by contrariety, and the whole flows like a River. Tltat the Uni- verfe is bounded^ and th^t there is one World, which was made of Fire; And fliall again be fet on Fire by certain Periods for ever, and that this is done by Fate. That, of the Contrarif s, that which conduceth to Generation is nat^d War and Contention; That which to Confia- gration, Concord and Peace. That Mutation is a way up and down, and that the World is made by it ; For the Fire being condehfed, gro w- eth humid, and fettles into Water; the Water condenfed turns into Earth, this is the way down. Again, the Earth is diffufed, of vvhic|i is made Water ; of thh Water, almoft all things elfe, meaning the exhalation out of the Sea, this^ is the way up. That there are made exhalations
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a Plut. plac. j, 3>
444
HEKACLITVS.