s on to say that one
of the brazen slippers of the philosopher was thrown up by the volcano,
thus revealing his subterfuge. Another tradition of far more credible
aspect asserts that Empedocles retreated from Italy, returning to the
home of his fathers in Peloponnesus to die there obscurely. It seems
odd that the facts regarding the death of so great a man, at so
comparatively late a period, should be obscure; but this, perhaps, is
in keeping with the personality of the man himself. His disciples would
hesitate to ascribe a merely natural death to so inspired a prophet.

Empedocles appears to have been at once an observer and a dreamer. He is
credited with noting that the pressure of air will sustain the weight
of water in an inverted tube; with divining, without the possibility of
proof, that light has actual motion in space; and with asserting that
centrifugal motion must keep the heavens from falling. He is credited
with a great sanitary feat in the draining of a marsh, and his knowledge
of medicine was held to be supernatural. Fortunately, some fragments of
the writings of Empedocles have come down to us, enabling us to judge
at first hand as to part of his doctrines; while still more is known
through the references made to him by Plato, Aristotle, and other
commentators. Empedocles was a poet whose verses stood the test of
criticism. In this regard he is in a like position with Parmenides;
but in neither case are the preserved fragments sufficient to enable us
fully to estimate their author's scientific attainments. Philosophical
writings are obscure enough at the best, and they perforce become doubly
so when expressed in verse. Yet there are certain passages of Empedocles
that are unequivocal and full of interest. Perhaps the most important
conception which the works of Empedocles reveal to us is the denial
of anthropomorphism as applied to deity. We have seen how early the
anthropomorphic conception was developed and how closely it was all
along clung to; to shake the mind free from it then was a remarkable
feat, in accomplishing which Empedocles took a long step in the
direction of rationalism. His conception is paralleled by that of
another physician, Alcmaeon, of Proton, who contended that man's
ideas of the gods amounted to mere suppositions at the very most.
A rationalistic or sceptical tendency has been the accompaniment of
medical training in all ages.

The words in which Empedocles expresses his concepti