Note 113 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.
Reading edition
Emped. Fr. v. 59, Karsten:
Οὕτως ἁρμονίης πυκινῷ κρυφῷ ἐστήρικται σφαίρος κυκλοτέρης, μονιῇ περιηγέϊ γαίων.
Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunæ, c. 12.
About the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sphærus, see Aristot. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. ἅπαντα γὰρ ἐκ τούτου (νείκους) τἄλλά ἐστι πλὴν ὁ θεός (i.e. Sphærus). — Εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἦν τὸ νεῖκος ἐν τοῖς πράγμασι, ἓν ἂν ἦν ἅπαντα, ὡς φησίν (Empedokles). See Preller, Hist. Philos. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3.
The condition of things which Empedokles calls Sphærus may be illustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern phraseology of attraction and repulsion) from an eminent modern work on Physics:— “Were there only atoms and attraction, as now explained, the whole material of creation would rush into close contact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness and death. There is heat or caloric, however, which directly counteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results. It has been described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as water does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among the atoms. The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can study and classify the phenomena of both most accurately.” (Dr. Arnott, Elements of Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)