PHILOSOPHERS - EMPEDOCLES

<BODY> <CENTER><FONT SIZE=5><B><FONT SIZE=6>EMPEDOCLES</FONT><BR> (495-35 BC)</B></FONT></CENTER><P> <BLOCKQUOTE>"Happy is he who has gained the wealth of divine thoughts, wretched is he whose beliefs about the gods are dark"<P> (Quoted in "Clement Miscellanies" V xiv 140.5)</BLOCKQUOTE> From a wealthy and distinguished family in Sicily, Empedocles was apparently a person of some political importance and may have worked as a doctor. He wrote in verse and significant fragments of <I>On Nature</I> and <I>Purifications </I> survive. His philosophy is an attempted synthesis of <A HREF="../01/01f01.html" TARGET="_top">Parmenides</A>, <A HREF="t06f23.html" TARGET="_top">Pythagoras</A> and <A HREF="../02/02f01.html" TARGET="_top">Heracleitus</A>. He thought of himself as one whose wheels of incarnations had turned circle. Legend has it that his final immortality-winning act was to leap into Mt Etna. A more likely story is that he died in exile, a victim of political enemies.<P> Empedocles' philosophy abandoned the Monism of Parmenides in favour of four "roots of all things" or elements - earth, air, fire and water. Two forces, Love and Strife motivate the "roots" to combine (Love) or separate (Strife). Empedocles still clung to the principle that something cannot arise out of nothing or perish into nothing but sought to explain the generation and destruction of everyday things as is witnessed by our senses. The apparent coming-to-be of something is the combination of portions of the elements. His general idea seems to be that, inspired by Love or Strife, portions of the elements flow into or out of one another. The ease or difficulty of this depends on their pore structure, combination only taking place between "bodies whose pores are in reciprocal sympathy". An appropriate flowing-in constitutes the coming-to-be of something, a flowing-out, its destruction.<P> <CENTER><IMG SRC="t0609a.jpg" WIDTH="250" HEIGHT="240" ALT="THE FOUR ELEMENTS"></CENTER><P> This medieval illuminated manuscript illustrates a long term recognition of the importance of earth air fire and water as the four elements. <BR clear=left><BR> <HR width=100%> <A HREF="http://www.creatorix.com.au"><IMG SRC="../creatorix.gif" WIDTH="85" HEIGHT="40" BORDER="0" ALT="Creatorix" align=right></A> </BODY>