Note 96 — Chapter XI · THE PHILOSOPHERS

τὸ ὅλον, the whole reality of Being and Becoming in the world, cannot be comprehended by man through his senses nor even with νοῦς: fr. 2 (36-43). But Empedokles has in his own persuasion grasped it; he is situated σοφίης ἐπ’ ἄκροισι (fr. 4, 8), αὐτὴν ἐπαγγέλλεται δώσειν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (Procl., in Ti. 106 E). Proclus declares that the words σοφίης ἐπ’ ἄκροισι—and this is a further point—are meant to apply to Emped. himself. (I do not quite understand Bidez’ doubts about what is said here, and in what follows: see Archiv. f. Gesch. d. Phil. ix, 203, 42.) Whence, then, did the poet obtain this knowledge of the truth since it is revealed neither to the senses nor to the νοῦς? At any rate, the ψυχοπομποὶ δυνάμεις (Porph., Antr. 8), who conducted his soul-daimon out of the region of the gods, say to the soul (fr. 2, 8): σὺ δ’ οὖν ἐπεὶ ὧδ’ ἐλιάσθης (i.e. “since you have been cast up here—on the earth”—not “since you have so desired it”, as Bergk, Opusc. ii, 23, explains: which would be a distorted idea expressed in distorted language)—πεύσεαι οὐ πλέον ἠὲ βροτείη μῆτις ὅπωπεν (thus with Panzerbieter, for ὄρωρε). According to this we must suppose that his more profound knowledge (insight into the μῖξίς τε διάλλαξίς τε μιγέντων of the elements, together with knowledge of the destiny and purpose of the soul-daimones, etc.), which he cannot have got on earth or in his earthly body must have been brought with him out of his divine past-life. This knowledge is then peculiar to the daimon (or ψυχή in the older sense) that is buried in the body; and Emp. presumably owes it to an ἀνάμνησις of his earlier life (a faculty that is only rarely active). From what other source could he have got his knowledge of his previous ἐνσωματώσεις (fr. 117)? He has even farther and more profound knowledge than he dares communicate—fr. 4 (45-51), and says quite plainly that he is keeping back in piety a last remnant of wisdom that is unsuited for human ears (to this extent the authorities—ἄλλοι δ’ ἦσαν οἱ λέγοντες—of S.E., M. vii, 122—have rightly understood him).—The belief in a miraculous power of ἀνάμνησις that goes beyond the present life of the individual may have been derived by Emp. from Pythagorean doctrine or mythology. Emp. himself follows the legend of the Pyth. school and attributes such a power of recollection to Pythagoras: ὅπποτε γὰρ πάσῃσι . . . fr. 129 [430 ff.]. See Append. x. The eager development—indeed, the cult—of the μνήμη in Pythagorean circles is well known. The invention of the myths describing the fountain of Mnemosyne in Hades may also be Pythagorean (see below). Throughout the various ἐνσωματώσεις of the soul it is the undying μνήμη that alone preserves the unity of personality which (as the ψυχή) lives through all these transformations and is bound together in this way. It is evident how important this idea was for the doctrine of transmigration (it occurs also in the teaching of Buddha). Plato, like Empedokles, seems to have got the idea of an ἀνάμνησις reaching beyond the limits of the present life from the Pythagoreans: he, then, it is true, developed the idea in connexion with his own philosophy to unexpected conclusions (cf. further, Dieterich, Nekyia, 122).