lause, but that clause is most
essential. The Greek phrase is (gr to gar pleon esti nohma). Ritter,
it will be observed, renders this, "for thought is the fulness." Lewes
paraphrases it, "for the highest degree of organization gives the
highest degree of thought." The difference is intentional, since Lewes
himself criticises the translation of Ritter. Ritter's translation is
certainly the more literal, but the fact that such diversity is possible
suggests one of the chief elements of uncertainty that hamper our
interpretation of the thought of antiquity. Unfortunately, the mind
of the commentator has usually been directed towards such subtleties,
rather than towards the expression of precise knowledge. Hence it is
that the philosophers of Greece are usually thought of as mere dreamers,
and that their true status as scientific discoverers is so often
overlooked. With these intangibilities we have no present concern beyond
this bare mention; for us it suffices to gain as clear an idea as we
may of the really scientific conceptions of these thinkers, leaving the
subtleties of their deductive reasoning for the most part untouched.

EMPEDOCLES

The latest of the important pre-Socratic philosophers of the Italic
school was Empedocles, who was born about 494 B.C. and lived to the
age of sixty. These dates make Empedocles strictly contemporary with
Anaxagoras, a fact which we shall do well to bear in mind when we come
to consider the latter's philosophy in the succeeding chapter. Like
Pythagoras, Empedocles is an imposing figure. Indeed, there is much of
similarity between the personalities, as between the doctrines, of the
two men. Empedocles, like Pythagoras, was a physician; like him also he
was the founder of a cult. As statesman, prophet, physicist, physician,
reformer, and poet he showed a versatility that, coupled with
profundity, marks the highest genius. In point of versatility we
shall perhaps hardly find his equal at a later day--unless, indeed, an
exception be made of Eratosthenes. The myths that have grown about the
name of Empedocles show that he was a remarkable personality. He is
said to have been an awe-inspiring figure, clothing himself in Oriental
splendor and moving among mankind as a superior being. Tradition has it
that he threw himself into the crater of a volcano that his otherwise
unexplained disappearance might lead his disciples to believe that he
had been miraculously translated; but tradition goe