Note 98 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

The passage of Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii. 127-134) is curious and instructive about Herakleitus.

Ἀρέσκει γὰρ τῷ φυσικῷ (Herakleitus) το περιέχον ἡμᾶς λογικόν τε ὂν καὶ φρενῆρες — τοῦτον δὴ τὸν θεῖον λόγον, καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, δι’ ἀναπνοῆς σπάσαντες νοεροὶ γινόμεθα, καὶ ἐν μὲν ὕπνοις ληθαῖοι, κατὰ δὲ ἔγερσιν πάλιν ἔμφρονες. ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ὕπνοις μυσάντων τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πόρων χωρίζεται τῆς πρὸς τὸ περιέχον συμφυΐας ὁ ἐν ἡμῖν νοῦς, μονῆς τῆς κατὰ ἀναπνοὴν προσφύσεως σωζομένης οἱονεί τινος ῥίζης, χωρισθείς τε ἀποβάλλει ἢν πρότερον εἶχε μνημονικὴν δύναμιν. ἐν δὲ ἐγρηγορόσι πάλιν διὰ τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πόρων ὥσπερ διὰ τινῶν θυρίδων προκύψας καὶ τῷ περιέχοντι συμβάλλων λογικὴν ἐνδύεται δύναμιν. Then follows the simile about coals brought near to, or removed away from, the fire.

The Stoic version of this Herakleitean doctrine, is to be seen in Marcus Antoninus, viii. 54. Μηκέτι μόνον συμπνεῖν τῷ περιέχοντι ἀέρι, ἀλλ’ ἤδη καὶ συμφρονεῖν τῷ περιέχοντι πάντα νοερῷ. Οὐ γὰρ ἧττον ἡ νοερὰ δύναμις πάντη κέχυται καὶ διαπεφοίτηκε τῷ σπᾶσαι βουλομένῳ, ἥπερ ἡ ἀερώδης τῷ ἀναπνεῦσαι δυναμένῳ.

The Stoics, who took up the doctrine of Herakleitus with farther abstraction and analysis, distinguished and named separately matters which he conceived in one and named together — the physical inhalation of air — the metaphysical supposed influx of intelligence — inspiration in its literal and metaphorical senses. The word τὸ περιέχον, as he conceives it, seems to denote, not any distinct or fixed local region, but the rotatory movement or circulation of the elements, fire, water, earth, reverting back into each other. Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 119-120; which transition also is denoted by the word ἀναθυμίασις in the Herakleitean sense — cited from Herakleitus by Aristotle. De Animâ, i. 2, 16.