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Art. XXIX.—Zarathushtra and Heraclitus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Before the Lógos of Heraclitus, as is usual in the cases of all originators, the thing ‘originated’ was already present in its germ for his use in the half-formed surmises of his predecessors.

For it was none other than Hesiod who used a word and expressed an idea which, together with the hints of other schemes, led up to the early concept. The first Greek naturalists believed, indeed, in an original substance of the universe, out of which everything arose and in which everything consisted; they also attributed to it life and motion, and gave it different names. One thought it was ‘water.’ Another called it the infinite (sic), as undefined substance matter. At other times they thought it was ‘air.’

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1902

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References

page 897 note 1 Op. 692, μέτρα Φυλάσσɛσθαι, 718: “the abundant loveliness of the tongue that moves in rhythmic order.”

page 897 note 2 Cf. the Avesta conception of infinite time.

page 897 note 3 Flourished in the 69th Olympiade, 504–500 b.c.

page 897 note 4 See Heinze, p. 59, and Zeller, pt. i, pp. 553–584.

page 898 note 1 Died about 470–478 b.c. For his fragments see Bywater's masterly edition quoted by Zeller, , etc. (Clarendon Press, Oxford)Google Scholar. Bernays, , “Gesammelte Abhandl.,” i, 1108Google Scholar. Bernays, , “Heraklitisehen Briefe,” 1869Google Scholar. Lassalle, , “Die Philosophie des Herakleitos des Dukeln,” 1858Google Scholar. Gladisch, , “Herakleitos und Zoroaster” (1859, antiquated)Google Scholar. Schuster, , “H. von Ephesus,” 1873Google Scholar. Teichmüller, , “Neue Stud. z. Gesch. d. Begrifle,” i, 1876Google Scholar. Pfleiderer, E., “Die Philosophie des Heraklit,” 1886Google Scholar. Patrick, , “Heraklitus,” Baltimore, 1889, etcGoogle Scholar.

page 899 note 1 See Martyr, Justin, Apol., i, 85Google Scholar.

page 899 note 2 See Lassalle.

page 899 note 3 Recall Hegel's remark to the effect “that there is no sentence of Heraclitus which he had not embodied in his Logik”; see Patrick upon this.

page 899 note 4 The word naturally grates upon our ears and upon our feelings. But, after all, not a single item in the myriad experiences of sentiment is denied by any of the so-called materialists. All must concede that if everything is material, then material also is everything, honour, mercy, devotion, everything arises from it, and intellect the first of all.

page 901 note 1 Surely the progress of development by the supercession of ideas through their opposites applies to natural phenomena as well as to ideas. In so far Hegel most certainly was right in speaking of Heraclitus as he did.

page 902 note 1 See Yt.22, Westergaard.

page 903 note 1 Properly, as I would suggest, arshavan.

page 904 note 1 Here Zeller is correct, though his source of information was at that time naturally so imperfect and now completely antiquated.

page 904 note 2 Really in form adverbial.

page 906 note 1 Recall his saying “that none of the gods or men had made the world.”

page 906 note 2 Recollect that Persia was on the way from India to Greece (on one way at least), and that the vast Indian philosophies and worship are actually parts of the identical lore reached by Persian sages. The Indians having positively once lived in the primæval Iran or near it, and formed one identical race with the authors of the pre-Gāthie Gāthas, if such a turn of speech may be allowed.