Note 107 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Many references to Herakleitus are found in the recently published books of the Refutatio Hæresium by Pseudo-Origen or Hippolytus — especially Book ix. p. 279-283, ed. Miller. To judge by various specimens there given, it would appear that his juxta-positions of contradictory predicates, with the same subject, would be recognised as paradoxes merely in appearance, and not in reality, if we had his own explanation. Thus he says (p. 282) “the pure and the corrupt, the drinkable and the undrinkable, are one and the same.” Which is explained as follows: “The sea is most pure and most corrupt: to fish, it is drinkable and nutritive; to men, it is undrinkable and destructive.” This explanation appears to have been given by Herakleitus himself, θάλασσα, φησὶν, &c.

These are only paradoxes in appearance — the relative predicate being affirmed without mention of its correlate. When you supply the correlate to each predicate, there remains no contradiction at all.