# Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Lectures on Greek Philosophy (1888)/Heraclitus

Lectures on Greek Philosophy, Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier (1888 ed., Vol. 2). (E. L. Lushington, & A. Grant, Eds.) Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. pp. 109-146.
HERACLITUS.
1. It may help to keep distinctly before your minds the chief characteristic or distinction of the various systems we have been considering, if we designate by one word the principle for which each of them contends. They are all searching for the common quality or feature, what we call the universal, in all things, something which is true for all minds. If they can attain to this, they conceive that they have reached the ultimately real, the absolutely true. According to Thales, then, water was the universal; according to Anaximander, infinite or indefinite matter was the universal; air was the universal of Anaximenes. According to the Pythagoreans, number was the universal principle; while, with the Eleatics, the universal in all things was being.
2. We now come to a philosopher who inaugurated a new era in speculation. Heraclitus comes upon the scene; and the universal for which he contends is movement, change. This principle is different from all those which have been enumerated. It is indeed ​more distinct from them all than they are distinct from one another. It therefore marks a new crisis in the development of philosophy; so that while we may class the previous systems together under the general title of the philosophy of Being, inasmuch as they all deal in some way or other with Being, we place the system of Heraclitus under a different head, and designate it as the philosophy of Becoming. This is the only word in our language which corresponds to the γιγνόμενον of the Greeks; but it is an unfortunate word in being both inexpressive and ambiguous. It often stands for the proper, the decent. Of course that is not the sense in which it is here used. It is used in some sort of antithetical relation to Being, a relation which we must endeavour to determine. For in these two words, ἔστι and γίγνεται, ὂν and γιγνόμενον, centres the most cardinal distinction in the Greek philosophy, a distinction corresponding in some degree to our substantial and phenomenal. This distinction was mainly due to Heraclitus.
3. It is quite true that in previous systems we frequently encounter the conception of change, or of becoming, so that Heraclitus cannot be said to have been the first who entertained the conception. He was the first, however, who elevated change to the rank of a principle, who made it in fact the principle, the universal in all things. Previous philosophers had made change derivative, and had attempted to ​account for it without much success. Aristotle says, that the Ionic philosophers had failed completely in their attempts to explain change or motion. Nor were the systems of other philosophers more successful. Indeed, we have seen that Zeno, so far from explaining, was compelled to deny it, and declare it to be an impossibility. The difficulty was occasioned by these philosophers having regarded motion as derivative and secondary. Heraclitus made it original and primary. They began with Being, or the fixed. He began with Becoming, or the unfixed. This was with him the first, the principle, the universal, the truth for all. This was, at any rate, a new position in philosophy. We shall return to its consideration when we have made a few remarks on the personal history of Heraclitus.
4. This philosopher was born at Ephesus, one of the chief Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor; and if the dates usually given be correct, he rather preceded Parmenides and Zeno. And on this account he is frequently classed along with the other Ionic philosophers, and placed immediately after Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, and one or two others of that school. Another reason assigned for classing him with the Ionic school is, that he is usually regarded as having fixed on a physical element as his principle. Just as Thales represented water, and Anaximenes air, as the origin of all things, so Heraclitus is reported to have derived all things from fire. ​Fire, it is said, is the element which he regarded as primary. Much stress, however, is not to be laid on this circumstance; and it affords no good reason for classing him with his Ionic predecessors, or for placing him before Parmenides and Zeno. For the fire of which Heraclitus speaks is not to be regarded as itself his principle, but merely as a symbol of his principle, merely as a physical emblem or illustration of that unceasing motion or change which he holds to be the very essence of the universe. Notwithstanding these considerations, therefore, I have thought it right to place him after the Eleatics, for the chronological difference between him and them is but slight. The three philosophers, Parmenides, Zeno, and Heraclitus, were contemporaries during a part, at least, of their lives; and therefore, although the latter may have been rather the oldest of the three, still, as his speculations appear to stand in the order of thought subsequent to those of the Eleatic school, I have thought this consideration a sufficient justification of the arrangement which I have adopted in reference to the philosopher of Ephesus. We hear that, although sprung from a family of repute, and entitled to aspire to the highest offices in the state, Heraclitus refused to have anything to do with the affairs of government. His pride or his patriotism equally prevented him from accepting favours offered by foreign despots. In privacy and independence, prizing his own thoughts above all other possessions, Heraclitus lived and died, the deepest, ​probably, if also the darkest of all the thinkers of antiquity.
5. The researches and meditations of Heraclitus seem to have exercised a very powerful influence on the philosophical spirit of antiquity. Like some fine and subtle essence, his presence may be traced, and has made itself felt, in almost every period of speculation; but corresponding to its fineness and subtlety, has been the difficulty of laying hold of it, and of reducing it to an intelligible form. In modern times his fragmentary and obscure remains have been religiously collected and amply commented on by scholars of distinguished erudition and ability. The chief of these are the Germans, Schleiermacher and Lassalle. The light, however, which these inquirers have thrown on the speculations of Heraclitus seems scarcely proportioned to the diligence with which they have prosecuted their labours.
6. The following are some of the fragmentary utterances of Heraclitus, which have been gleaned from the writings of various ancient authors. Heraclitus says, all things flow (πάντα ῥεῖ) and nothing stays (οὐδὲν μένει). He likens the universe to a river, the waters of which are continually passing away; and he says that no man can bathe twice in the same stream, because a stream is never, even for a single second, the same. He says that a thing, in separating itself from itself, unites itself to itself; that in ​going asunder, it goes together; and in going together, it goes asunder; in short, that separation and union are inseparable, and the same; that separation is union, and union is separation. He says that strife or opposition is the father of all things; and that harmony arises only out of the union of discords. And, finally, giving to his doctrine, which is, that everything consists of antagonistic or heterogeneous elements—giving to this doctrine its highest or most abstract expression, he declares that everything is and is not; a formula which, in modern times, has been adopted by Hegel, and, has proved a stumbling-block and rock of offence to all who have ventured on his pages. Such are some of the chief expressions in which Heraclitus is reported to have embodied the substance of his speculations. They contain the whole of his philosophy, in so far as it has been handed down to us; and it is obvious that they merely repeat the same idea with very slight variations.
​8. We have now to ascertain what Heraclitus precisely means by Becoming. Becoming is a different conception from Being, yet it is not easy to see wherein the difference consists. Let us begin with our ordinary conception of Becoming. We say a thing becomes different from what it was, meaning thereby that it has undergone some change or series of changes. Our meaning here is, if I mistake not, that the thing is first in one definite state of Being, that next it is in another definite state of Being, that then it is in a third definite state of Being, and so on; and these states, though differing from each other, are all of them, in our estimation, states of Being. Our conception, I repeat, is this, that the thing is first in a particular state, and that it rests in that state a longer or a shorter time; that when it changes it passes into another particular state, in which it rests during another period of time longer or shorter. Becoming, then, in our ordinary conception of it, is merely a succession of states of Being, a series of existing changes which any object undergoes, and each of which lasts for some definite period of time.
9. But if this be our conception of Becoming, it is difficult to see wherein that conception differs from the conception of Being. It is merely the conception of a succession of different states, each of which is—is Being; while Being is the conception of one such state. But this seems to be no distinction at all. ​We may be assured, then, that this, our ordinary conception of Becoming (which, in truth, is no adequate conception of it at all, because it confounds Being and Becoming)—we may be assured that this was not the conception entertained by Heraclitus and the other philosophers of antiquity. Their idea of Becoming was not the idea of a series of consecutive states of Being.
10. To get at the conception of Becoming, as entertained by Heraclitus and others, we must not identify, but we rather must contrast it, with that of Being. I do not say that the conception of Becoming excludes that of Being, but it is certainly to some extent opposed to it. What then is the principal feature in the conception of Being? By ascertaining this we shall be able to declare what its opposite is, and thus we shall reach the proper conception of Becoming. The principal feature in the conception of Being is rest, fixedness. Now, the opposite of this is the principal feature in the conception of Becoming. It is unrest, unfixedness. A thing never rests at all in any of the changing states into which it is thrown. It is in the state and out of it in a shorter time than any calculus can measure. In fact, the universe and all that it contains are undergoing a continuous change in which there is no pause; and therefore, since pause or rest is necessary to the conception of Being, the universe cannot be said to be in a state of Being or fixedness, but in a continually fluxional ​condition, to be a process, a becoming, that is, something always changing, and no one of its changes enduring or stopping during any appreciable interval of time. If the change could be arrested for a single instant, that would yield a moment of what might properly be called Being; but inasmuch as no change can be so arrested, the universe is a continual creation, a continually varying process, a Becoming.
11. You will obtain, I think, a distinct conception of Becoming as distinguished from Being, if you will attend to the following illustration. Take the case of a falling body, a stone dropped, let us say, at a distance of one hundred feet from the surface of the earth. It travels, you are aware, with a continually accelerated velocity. Natural philosophers can tell you how long it will take to reach the earth. By artificial contrivances they can calculate the ratio at which its velocity becomes increased. But no natural philosophy can calculate or can tell you what the particular velocity of the falling body is at any given moment, however short. The truth is, that the stone never has any particular, that is, any definite and constant velocity. Its velocity is always changing. It is not as if it had a certain constant velocity for the smallest conceivable time, the 1,000,000th part of a second, and then an increased constant velocity for another 1,000,000th part of a second, and so on. If that were the nature of its velocity, it would serve to illustrate our first and erroneous conception of ​Becoming, but that is not the nature of the velocity. It is continually changing. The velocity, therefore, of the descending stone never is any one velocity; it is always becoming another velocity. Its velocity, therefore, has no Being, because Being implies some continuance or permanence. It is properly called a Becoming. Such is one illustration by means of which you may be aided in familiarising your minds to the conception of Becoming, or process as distinguished from that of Being.
12. The illustration I gave you in the preceding paragraph may aid you in forming a conception of what is signified by the word Becoming, and of what Heraclitus meant by saying that all things are in a state of flux. The velocity of the descending stone is a phenomenon to which the term is cannot be properly, or at least without some qualification, applied at any moment of its transit. Take the smallest period of time you choose, say the one hundred millionth fraction of a second, and the changes in the velocity of the stone within that period are utterly incalculable, they are infinite. It is, I believe, with matters of this kind that the differential calculus deals. You will hear more about that elsewhere. Here we must deal with the question rather metaphysically than mathematically. I say then that the velocity of the stone changes infinitely, undergoes infinitude of changes, within any given time, however short. And this consideration prevents us from ​saying that any of its velocities are, or that they have a Being, that is, a continuance. Each of the velocities in the very act of being that velocity vanishes in another velocity, so that we never can say of it that it is that velocity. In the very act of being what it is, it is not what it is. Such is an illustration of what Heraclitus means when he says, πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει.
13. Take another illustration of this conception of Becoming. Suppose yourselves gazing on a gorgeous sunset. The whole western heavens are glowing with roseate hues. But you are aware that within half an hour all these glorious tints will have faded away into a dull ashen grey. You see them even now melting away before your eyes, although your eyes cannot place before you the conclusion which your reason draws. And what conclusion is that? That conclusion is that you never, even for the shortest time that can be named or conceived, see any abiding colour, any colour which truly is. Within the millionth part of a second the whole glory of the painted heavens has undergone an incalculable series of mutations. One shade is supplanted by another with a rapidity which sets all measurement at defiance, not because our power of measurement is limited, but because the process is one to which no measurement applies. Before any one colour has had time to be that colour, it has melted into another colour, and that other colour has, in like manner, melted ​into a third before it has attained to any degree of fixedness or duration. The eye, indeed, seems to arrest the fleeting pageant, and to give it some continuance. But the senses, says Heraclitus, are very indifferent witnesses of the truth. Reason refuses to lay an arrestment on any period of the passing scene, or to declare that it is, because in the very act of being, it is not; it has given place to something else. It is a series of fleeting colours, no one of which is, because each of them continually vanishes in another.
14. The sunrise furnishes another illustration. The dawn steals gradually over the earth and sky; and never at any moment can we say that the degree of light is definite and fixed. It is continually changing. It is continually becoming stronger and stronger: and yet at no instant can we say or think, here one degree of clearness ends, and here a higher degree of clearness begins. In truth, none of the changes have either any end or any beginning, so imperceptibly are they fined away into each other. Neither here nor in the case of the sunset, nor in that of the falling stone, can we strike in at any point and say, here one change terminates, and here another change commences. The whole series is so close and continuous that the end of one change is the beginning of another change. The end of one change seems to be what Heraclitus calls the ὁδὸς ἅνω, the road upwards; and the beginning of another change is what he calls the ὁδὸς κάτω, the road downwards; and hence he says that these ​two are one and the same, inasmuch as the end of one change is always the beginning of another, just as the beginning of one change is always the end of another. There can be thus no absolute beginning and no absolute end, for every beginning is the end of something else, and every end is the beginning of something else. The variation in the temperature of the day, or of the seasons, may afford another illustration of the conception of Becoming. The temperature is never, I believe, even for the shortest instant, exactly the same; and the reason why it seems to us to be sometimes invariable is, because our feelings and our instruments are not sufficiently fine to measure its incessant and continuous changes. But perhaps the whole phenomena of growth and decay furnish the best examples in illustration of the Heraclitean conception of Becoming. Growth is a continual change. The growing creature, whether animal or vegetable, is continually becoming different from what it is. The process never stops—never stops in such a way as to enable us to say, now the animal or the vegetable is, and has ceased to become. It never truly is, inasmuch as its state is never fixed and permanent. It is always passing on into another state, in which there is no rest or pause any more than there was to the preceding one. We might suppose the oak, the monarch of the woods, to grow up from an acorn into a stately tree, and to go to decay, and all this to take place before our eyes in a few minutes, and the process would not truly be more ​transitional, or more difficult to arrest at any one stage, than it now is, when it occupies a thousand years. As is the growth of the oak tree, so, according to Heraclitus, is the growth of the universe. It is a process which is for ever ending, and for ever being renewed.
15. These considerations lead me to call your attention to some points of contrast between the philosophy of Heraclitus and that of the Eleatic school. In the opinion of the Eleatics, the truth of the universe, in so far as it is true, is Being, fixed and abiding Being. This they say it is in the estimation of reason. To the senses, indeed, it is ever changing. But the report of the senses is not to be trusted. They do not reveal to us the real truth, that is, truth for all, but only the apparent truth, that is, the truth for some intellect. So say the Eleatics.
16. The position of Heraclitus is diametrically the opposite of this. In his opinion, the truth of the universe is not Being but Becoming. It is not a fixed and abiding existence, but a fluxional and ever-changing process. This it is in the estimation of reason. To the senses, indeed, it appears, or much of it appears, to be permanent and at rest. The process of Becoming seems frequently to the senses to have made a pause, and to have subsided into Being. But the report of the senses is not to be trusted, they are bad evidence of the truth. They mistake for Being what ​is merely slow change, just as they might mistake slow motion for rest. Reason alone reveals to us the truth; and this declares, as the truth for all intellect, that the universe is a process of Becoming, and not a system of Being.
17. From these remarks you may perceive in what respect the Eleatics and Heraclitus differed in their opinions as to the senses. They both held that they were untrustworthy, that is to say, that they were not the organs of ultimate and universal truth. So far they agreed. But they differed in this, that whereas the Eleatics discredited the senses because they presented the universe to us in a fluxional or ever-varying condition, and thus deceived us as to its true character, which, according to them, was that of fixedness, Heraclitus, on the contrary, discredited these, because they presented the universe to us, or at least many of its objects, in an apparently fixed and unchanging condition, and thus deceived us as to the true character of sublunary things, which, according to him, was that of fluctuation. According to the one party the senses mislead, because they make us regard the permanent as changeable; and, according to the other party, they mislead, because they make us regard the changeable as permanent. Both parties, however, agree, as I have said, in holding that they do not make known to us the absolute truth; and therefore Mr Lewes, in his 'History of Philosophy,' is certainly mistaken when he says, ​that Heraclitus "maintained that the senses are the sources of all true knowledge, for they drink in the universal intelligence."—P. 57, 2d ed.
​19. This conception of the universe, as both Being and not-Being, is indeed not easy to master. It is, I believe, the hardest in all metaphysics. Yet the conception is, I conceive, both true and intelligible, if the universe be, as Heraclitus says, a Becoming. Let me repeat the explanation. Let us begin by agreeing that the universe is at every instant in a definite state of Being. But at every instant it is out of that definite state of Being, and is in another definite state of Being, because it is continually varying. Now, in virtue of its being always at any given instant in a definite state of Being, we say that it has Being; while, in virtue of its being out of that definite state of Being in the very instant in which it is in it, we say that it has not-Being. I may return to this conception hereafter. Meanwhile, I leave it to your own reflections, and shall abstain from overlaying with a weight of words, which, instead of rendering it clearer, might only have the effect of rendering it more obscure. The result of our analysis is, that Being and not-Being are the two elements, the two abstract factors, into which Becoming resolves itself when analysed.
20. We have seen in the preceding paragraph that Being and not-Being are the elements or moments of Becoming. In all Becoming these two, according to Heraclitus, are involved. Indeed, in his philosophy he seems to have laid the main stress rather on the negative than on the positive factor in the process. ​While the Eleatics exclaimed all is, Heraclitus rejoined that it is truer to say all is not—not meaning, of course, that there is absolutely no universe, but intimating that the universe is not a definite and completed and unchanging existence, but is an ever-varying process, and that in considering the on-goings of nature the negative moment, the moment of disappearance, the moment in which each change vanished, in short, the moment of not-Being, was fully as important as the positive moment, the moment of appearance, the moment in which each change arose, in short, the moment of Being.
21. Being, then, and not-Being are, according to Heraclitus, the elements or moments of Becoming. To understand this, just consider once more what is meant by Becoming. By a process or a becoming is meant continual change, not change by what we may call leaps and starts. In natura nihil fit per saltum; In nature nothing is ever done by a jump. Nature changes not by jerks, but smoothly and continuously. The changing states are so continuous, so finely graduated into each other, so infinitely minute, that each of them passes away in the very instant in which it is. Each of them, in the very act of being, is merged in its successor. Now here we are compelled to say that each of these states is. This our reason necessitates; but then, inasmuch as each state is not stationary, but is ended as soon as it is begun, we are equally compelled by our reason to ​say, each state is not. Each change, we may say, dies in being born, each state is and is not. Yet again we are under the necessity of saying, omnia fiunt per saltum, for we are compelled to hold that each of these states is, is a definite state, otherwise there could be no succession. Now the conception of Becoming is that in which these two opposite determinations of Being and not-Being are conciliated and made one; and we can now understand how the universe, if a process, should at once be and not be. We may not be satisfied with this doctrine, which represents the universe as an existing fluxion, or as a fluxionary existence, that is, as a process, the two essential moments of which are Being and not-Being. We may not agree with this doctrine, but II think that we should now have made some approach towards understanding it, and that we have thus overtaken to some extent the duty incumbent on the historian of philosophy, which is to impart insight rather, than to produce conviction.
22. The conception of the curved line, or circle, as generated by the moving point, affords perhaps another good illustration of Becoming, as involving opposite determinations, that is to say, as made up of the two constituents Being and not-Being. The circle is generated by the motion of a point which is continually changing its direction. That statement, I believe, would be accepted by mathematicians. Now, simple as this statement seems, it is utterly ​unintelligible, unless we are prepared to accept the Heraclitean doctrine of a thing being what it is not, and not being what it is. We say the circle is generated by the motion of a point which is continually changing its direction. Now let us examine this assertion carefully. We observe the fact that the point must have a direction, otherwise it could not continually change it. Now what is the direction which the point has and which it continually changes? The direction obviously is a straight direction, the direction is a straight line, and it is by getting out of this direction continually that it produces the curve or the circle. We must say, then, that when the point first starts it moves in a straight direction. Let it be moved just enough to enable you to conceive motion, and you will find that you must conceive it as moving straight, as moving in a straight line. Having then conceived this first motion in a straight line as something infinitesimally small, you may suppose the point to turn and make an angle, and then to move straight through another space infinitesimally small; you may suppose, I say, the circle to be generated in that way. But is the figure which you have thus generated a circle? It is not a circle: it is a polygon, with sides innumerable and infinitesimally small. If this were a circle, the circle would admit of being squared, and that, you are aware, is a problem which cannot be fully, but only approximately, resolved. This figure, then, I say, is not a circle: it is a polygon, although, from the extreme ​minuteness of its sides, it may seem to be a circle. We have not formed our figure aright; we must try again. But first let us observe how we have blundered in our construction. We supposed the point to move in a straight line, the shortest that can be conceived, and then to change its direction, and move in another straight line, the shortest that can be conceived, and then to change its direction, and move in the direction of a third straight line, the shortest that can be conceived, and so on; and we thus constructed our apparent circle, which turns out to be a polygon. What, then, is our blunder? Our blunder, in one word, is this; that we supposed the point to be moving in a straight line, and then out of that straight line in the direction of another straight line; in short, we supposed the movement in the straight direction, and the movement out of the straight direction, to be successive, and not simultaneous. We must now, then, correct our blunder, and reconstruct our figure. The point at starting must move in a straight direction. There can be no doubt about that, we cannot conceive it otherwise; but it must in that very same movement move out of a straight direction. It must move both in it and out of it. It must travel continually in the direction of a straight line, and at the same time continually out of the direction of a straight line. It must move in a straight direction and out of a straight direction at once. Indeed this is what mathematicians themselves declare when they say that in forming the circle the motion ​of the point is continually changing its direction. The word continually here implies that the point is ever moving out of the direction in which it is moving. It implies that the changes in the point's direction are not successive but simultaneous, that it is moving in a direction in which it is not moving, and not moving in a direction in which it is moving; that the motion in the straight direction both is and is not, and that the motion out of the straight direction both is and is not. The tangent proves that the point's motion is everywhere straight; the circle itself proves that the point's motion is everywhere not straight. The point cannot move entirely in a straight direction, making turns and angles at intervals, otherwise we should obtain, as we have seen, and as is, indeed, quite obvious, a polygon, and not a circle: neither can the point move entirely out of the straight, otherwise the direction which is continually changing would be altogether lost. The conclusion, then, is, that the point at every limit or infinitely in all portions of its transit is moving both in and out of a straight direction, and that these two opposite determinations, or contrary predicates, are conciliated and made one in the movement which generates the curve.
23. This and the other examples which I have adduced have been brought forward as aids by which you may habituate your minds to conception of continuous change, that is, of a series of changes so ​infinitely minute that each of them ends in beginning, at once is and is not. Time is itself an instance of this. The present time is, it is the limit between the past and future; but it has no calculable duration: in being it is not. Its coming is its going. It disappears in appearing. It for ever vanishes in a new present. All present time, then, has Being and not-Being. It is past in the very act of being present. Time seems to have supplied to Heraclitus (according to an expression of Sextus Empiricus) one of the best exemplifications that can be adduced of a process or a Becoming, that is, of a flux in which Being and not-Being are one. Time is perhaps the best symbol by which the conception of Becoming, as the unity of Being and not-Being, can be expressed. The present moment is, otherwise there would be no time at all; the present moment is not, otherwise there would be no past and no future, nothing but an everlasting now.
24. To get some further insight into this rather difficult speculation, and to test Being and not-Being as the necessary moments of one indivisible conception, the conception of change; let us try whether change can be explained when we regard these two not as essential moments of one indivisible conception, but each of them separate conceptions. Let us consider Being and not-Being as two separate conceptions, and let us try whether we can explain change on that supposition. Let us say, then, that a ​thing is in a fixed definite state of being. We want it to change. Now it is obvious that it must change either per continuum, that is, with no intervals between the changes, or per saltum, that is, with intervals between the changes. If it changes per continuum we obtain a series of vanishing states, each of which disappears in appearing; is not, in the very moment that it is; each of these passes at once into another state, and forces us to say of it that in being it ceases to be. In this case, then, we are driven to have recourse to not-Being as an element essential to the conception of change. And we have been forced to regard them not as separate conceptions, but as the necessary moments of one indivisible conception. Suppose the changing states to be represented by the letters A, B, C, D, the state A appears, and in appearing disappears. But A's disappearance is the appearance of B, which in like manner disappears in the very act of appearing; but B's disappearance is the appearance of C, which no sooner appears than it vanishes in D, and so on. Now here the moments of Being and not-Being are inseparable; A's being is A's not-being, A's not-being is B's being, B's being is B's not-being, B's not-being is C's being, C's being is C's not-being, C's not-being is D's being, and so on. Each appearance is a disappearance, and each disappearance is a new appearance, and so the changes proceed, each vanishing in the other in such a way that we may say of them all, they are and are not. Such I believe to be the only true conception which ​we can form of change, the only correct explanation of it which can be given. And such, also, I believe to be the way in which nature works.
25. But let us try the other alternative; let us suppose that change takes place per saltum, or with intervals between each state. This, indeed, is the only way in which we can suppose it to take place, if we hold asunder Being and not-Being, regarding them as separate conceptions, and not as the inseparable elements of one conception. Let us suppose, then, that the thing is in a fixed and definite state of being; and that its changes take place per saltum; that is to say, that the thing is first in the state A, in the state called the appearance of A; that secondly it is in the state in which A disappears—in the state, that is, of A's disappearance; that thirdly it is in the state we call B; fourthly in the state we call B's disappearance; fifthly in the state we call C; sixthly in the state we call C's disappearance, and so on. Now, here it is obvious that just as the appearance or being of A is not the disappearance or not-being of A, so neither is the disappearance or not-being of A the appearance or being of C. What then happens? This happens, that there is an interval between the appearance or being of A, and the appearance or being of B, in which interval the thing is in no state at all. This is the interval between A's disappearance and B's appearance. A's being is not A's not-being, because on this supposition Being and ​not-Being are held asunder as separate conceptions. And neither is A's not-being or disappearance B's being or appearance. Therefore, I say, there is an interval between A the former state of the thing, and B the subsequent state of the thing, an interval in which A is ended and B not begun. In what state is the thing during that interval? The answer is, that it is in no state at all. And this is the ridiculous and contradictory conclusion to which we are driven, if we suppose change to take place by leaps, and that Being and not-Being, instead of being mere elements of one indivisible conception, are themselves distinct and completed conceptions.
26. By way of illustration, take the following example: Let us suppose that water is undergoing the process of freezing, and that it has reached a certain degree of solidity. Call this state of solidity A; and let us say that this state does not disappear in appearing, but that it lasts for some definite period, say a minute. But if A's appearance lasts for a definite time, A's disappearance must also last for a definite time. Because if we suppose that A's disappearance instantly ceases, and is the appearance of a new degree or state of solidity—call it B—we are violating the very terms of our supposition. Our supposition is, that appearance or being, and disappearance or not-being, are separate conceptions, and therefore we must not suppose that the disappearance of A is the appearance of B. We must suppose ​that A, the first degree of solidity, has disappeared, and that B, the second degree of solidity, has not yet come on. In other words, we must suppose that the water has lost one degree of solidity without acquiring any other degree of it; we must suppose that the water in freezing is, at intervals, in no degree of solidity at all; in other words, we must suppose an absurdity.
27. Now, view the freezing process in the way in which I think we ought to view it, and you will perhaps perceive how inseparable Being and not-Being are as the elements in our conception of the process. Let the water be in the degree of solidity A; but A cannot maintain itself. In appearing it disappears; but its disappearance cannot maintain itself. Its disappearance is the appearance of B, a new degree of solidity. In like manner B cannot maintain itself; its appearance is its disappearance; but its disappearance is the appearance of C, a new degree of solidity; and so on the process goes continually and without breaks or intervals until a thaw sets in, and then the process is repeated in an inverse order, fluidity being substituted in the place of solidity.
28. The illustrations I have given you have been drawn from some of the more obvious truths of mathematics, and some of the more obvious and accessible phenomena of nature. In these examples the changes are obtrusive and easily observed, and by ​meditating on these examples, I think you may bring yourselves to understand something of the doctrine of Being and not-Being, as inseparably united in Becoming. You are not, however, to suppose that in cases where the changes are not thus apparent, no changes are taking place. The process may often be imperceptible; yet I believe that change is continually going on everywhere, and in every particle in the universe. If time, in a thousand years, tells perceptibly upon the granite boulder, we may be assured that at every instant it is telling upon it. Every particle of it is continually undergoing some minute change, some change so minute that it vanishes in the very act of being born, and seems to be no change at all. And the whole universe, I am inclined to think, is in this fluxional, this at once existent and non-existent predicament. Such, at least, is the doctrine of Heraclitus. Change is his universal. This conception is, according to him, a necessity of reason, a truth; indeed, the truth for all intellect. And the elements of this conception are Being and not-Being in indissoluble union, not mere Being with the Eleatics, not mere not-Being, for Being cannot be got rid of. Reason must think Being, but in the very same thought reason must think not-Being. The unity of these two is the law of all life and of all nature, and this unity is expressed in the words, a process, a becoming.
29. In connection with this description of the main ​doctrine of Heraclitus, I may remark that the distinction between the universal faculty and the particular faculty in man, is expressed more distinctly in his fragments than in those of any of the philosophers who preceded him. The universal faculty he calls κοινὸς; or ξυνὸς λόγος, the particular he calls ἰδία φρόνησις. The κοινὸς λόγος is evidently the quality or power common to all intelligence, the principle in which they all agree. The ἰδία φρόνησις is evidently the quality or power peculiar to different kinds of intelligence. The one principle, the κοινὸς λόγος, lays hold of absolute truth as it is for all; the other principle, the ἰδία φρόνησις, lays hold of relative truth, truth as it exists for some, that is, for man considered as a peculiar intelligence. It is through the κοινὸς λόγος that we apprehend Becoming as made up of Being and not-Being. The understanding and senses could never make known to us this truth, they lead us away from its recognition. In virtue of sense and understanding, the ἰδία φρόνησις, we regard the universe as a stationary existence, subject, no doubt, to changes; in virtue of reason, the κοινὸς λόγος, we regard it as a continual alternation of Being and not. Being, and we see that the latter no less than the former is essential to the ongoings and constitution of nature, considered as a constantly varying and never resting process.
30. Before offering a summary of the system of Heraclitus, I may say just one word on the scope of ​his ethical speculations. The substance of his ethical doctrine is this, that man lives and acts rightly in so far as he lives and acts in conformity with the κοινὸς λόγος, the universal reason in which he participates, but which does not properly belong to him; and that he lives and acts wrongly in so far as he lives and acts in conformity with the ἰδία φρόνησις, or that part of his nature which is more properly his own. The κοινὸς λόγος, when its behests are obeyed, leads him away from his own private and personal aims; if lifts him above the sphere of his own selfish interests, and teaches him to think of something far greater than himself: the ἰδία φρόνησις, when it is yielded to, binds him down within the sphere of his own selfishness, and makes him regard his own private advantage as the great and sole end of his existence. Thus viewed ethically, the κοινὸς λόγος may be called the great moral law, the ἰδία φρόνησις may be called "man's own conceit." Heraclitus thus seems to have been the first moralist who identified man's true moral nature with the universal faculty in man, and man's wrong and immoral nature with his particular faculty. This ethical doctrine comes much more fully to light under the treatment of subsequent moralists, and therefore I shall content myself at present with having merely broached it for your consideration.
31. In my summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus, I shall endeavour to point out the relation in ​which his system stands to the philosophy of the Eleatics. First, then, the main themes with which both he and they were engaged in their attempts to reach and fix the absolute truth were Being and not-Being. Both parties agreed in fixing their attention on these two; but they differed in this respect, that whereas the Eleatics regarded Being and not-Being as distinct and separate conceptions, and as irreconcilable opposites mutually exclusive of each other, Heraclitus regarded them but as elements or moments of one conception, the conception, namely, of Becoming. Such very shortly, is the fundamental agreement and the fundamental difference between Heraclitus and the Eleatic philosophers. What they regarded as distinct conceptions, he regarded as the factors of one conception.
32. This being understood, the second point to consider is this, that with the Eleatics Being is the truth, Being is the universal principle, Being is the intelligible for all intellect; while, with Heraclitus, Becoming is the truth, Becoming is the universal principle, Becoming is the intelligible for all intellect. Being, say the Eleatics, is a necessary truth, a thought which all intellect must think. Not so, says Heraclitus; it is Becoming which corresponds to this description; and Becoming embraces Being merely as one of its elements, not-Being forming the other moment of that conception. Now, you will observe that Heraclitus, in taking up this position against ​the Eleatics, does not deny altogether the truth of their principle. He does not deny that Being is a necessary truth, a truth for all intellect. He rather admits this. But he holds at the same time that it is only a half thought, and not a whole thought. It is a half conception, which requires to be supplemented by its other half, the factor, namely, called not-Being. The unity of these constitutes the true and total conception; and that true and total conception is expressed by the term Becoming.
33. In the third place, to decide between these conflicting parties, Heraclitus on the one hand, and the Eleatics on the other; to determine the merits of their respective principles, and to get some insight into their systems, we must observe how these principles work, and how far they are explanatory of the changing phenomena of the universe. The Eleatic principle will not work at all. This system comes instantly to a dead-lock; or rather it cannot get under way, for it is impossible to explain change, if we hold asunder Being and not-Being, and regard them as two separate conceptions. The more we reflect on it the more are we convinced of this impossibility. Consider; a thing is in a particular state, which state is its being. Call this state A. I wish it to change; I wish to get it into some other state, call it B. But to get it into the state B, I must get it out of the state A; to put on B it must put off A. I shall suppose, then, that I get it out of the state A, ​that it puts off A. Is it now in the state B? has it put on B or any other state? It certainly has not; for you will observe that, just as the Being of A is a separate conception from the not-Being of A, so the not-Being of A is a separate conception from the Being of B—that is, of any other state. The thing, on the terms of this philosophy, is in no state at all. It has ceased to be A, but it has not got into B. It is an intermediate predicament of pure negation or nonentity, a predicament which we can only characterise by calling it the not-Being of A, and the not-Being of B; B standing for any other positive state. In short, the thing, as I said, is in no state at all, and that is an absurd supposition, an absolute inconceivability. Such is the perplexity in which we are landed if we hold asunder Being and not-Being, and fix them as two separate conceptions. Indeed, so sensible were the Eleatics of the force of such reasonings as that which I have placed before you, that, instead of attempting to explain change, they boldly denied its possibility. They saw that it could not be explained on their principles, and therefore they maintained that all change was mere illusion; that, in fact, there was properly no such thing, and that the universe, according to reason, and in its truth, was immutable and uniform. I have stated that the Eleatics constituted Being and not-Being into two separate conceptions, and that the difficulties which beset their philosophy had their origin in this separation. This statement I ​conceive to be quite correct, although you ought to bear in mind, as some slight qualification of it, that the Eleatics, after having made the separation referred to, put away from them as unworthy of all consideration the conception of not-Being, and confined themselves exclusively to the conception of Being. They discarded not-Being as an overt principle of their philosophy. But from their having fixed Being as a conception by itself, which excluded not-Being, we may fairly infer that they fixed not-Being as a conception by itself, which excluded Being. But however this may be, it is certain that change cannot be explained, cannot even be admitted, on the principles of their philosophy.
34. It is otherwise in the system of Heraclitus. He begins, not with Being or the fixed, but with Becoming or the fluctuating. According to him, the principle, the beginning, the starting- point of all things is change, and therefore he is not under the necessity of explaining it, that is to say, of deducing it from anything anterior. He does explain it, or at least he throws out certain dark and brief words, by pondering over which we are at length able to explain it for ourselves. What, then, do we understand to be Heraclitus's conception of change or Becoming, a conception by means of which he avoids the perplexities in which the Eleatic thinkers got involved? His conception is, that Becoming is a unity which involves the two moments of Being and not-Being. ​I have already illustrated this unity at considerable length, I must now therefore deal with it very shortly. Stated abstractly, the conception is this: According to Heraclitus, a state of being is itself a state of not-being, that is, it is even in being gone as soon as come; which state of not-Being is itself another state of Being, which other state of Being is itself a state of not-Being, which state of not-Being is itself another state of Being; and so on. Viewed in this way, we must say of the universe, that at every instant it both is and is not; it is, there can be no doubt about that; but then the changes in the universe are so continuous that it also is not; that is to say, it is not this definite universe which we conceived we had laid hold of, but another; which other again is not—is not this definite universe, but another; and so on. We can never catch it. Take our former illustration. A thing is in the state A; how is it to come out of that state and get into the state B? We saw that on Eleatic principles that problem admitted of no solution. "What is Heraclitus's answer? Heraclitus's answer is, that the thing is already out of the state A; that in the very act of being in that state it is out of it. The two moments, the moment of being in it and the moment of being out of it, are one, and constitute one indivisible conception, the conception of Becoming; and then, just as the being in the state and the being out of it are one, so the being out of it and being in another state, the state B, is one; and so on the process goes. It is ​infinitely too fine for sense to approach the apprehension of. The changes manifest to the senses might more properly be called catastrophes than changes. Thus, when I place a piece of wax before the fire and it melts, that I perceive is a change from opaque solidity to transparent fluidity. But fluidity is the catastrophe; it is the precipitated result of an accumulated series of changes in the wax, which are no less than infinite. Each of these changes—or call them states, for at each change the wax was in a particular state—each of these states no sooner is than it is not. In appearing it disappears; but the disappearance is the appearance of a new state. The whole process is a series of vanishing fluxions, each of which in being ceases to be. But I have already illustrated this matter in so many ways that I must now desist. What you have to bear in mind as the gist of the Heraclitean solution of the problem of change is this, that the Being of every state in which a thing is, is the not-Being of that state; and that the not-Being of that state is the Being of another state; for that is what is meant by the unity of Being and not-Being, and by these two being elements of one conception, and not each of them a separate conception by itself. Viewed abstractly, the unity of these two contraries, Being and not-Being, may appear a paradox and an absurdity, but from the explanations and illustrations I have given you, perhaps you may be inclined to accept the doctrine as intelligible, if not as convincing. If you accept the doctrine as ​intelligible, you will perceive that it carries with it a solution of the problem of change. How does a thing ever get out of one state into another? Because, says Heraclitus, in being in the state in which it is, it is already out of it. Being in it, is being out of it; and being out of it is being in another state. The two are identical; and therefore I am not called upon to explain any further how the process is brought about. The process, indeed, is its own explanation.
35. Although the utterances of Heraclitus are exceedingly obscure and fragmentary, so fragmentary, indeed, as scarcely to be entitled to the name of remains, and although it is difficult or impossible to bring out the points with all the clearness and cogency that might be desired, I am nevertheless convinced that some great truth lies here: that here, if anywhere, is the embryo of the solution of the enigma of the universe. I am convinced that the unity of contraries is the law of all things; that all life, all nature, all thought, all reason, centres in the oneness or conciliation of Being and not-Being. A firm grasp of this doctrine, a clear insight into its truth, and a vigorous enforcement of it and of its consequences, would lead to the construction of a truer philosophy than that which is at present so much in vogue. That philosophy is founded entirely on the denial of the unity of contrary determinations in the same subject. It takes two opposite conceptions, and ​holding them apart it shows that reason is baffled in its attempts adequately to conceive either of them. It is in this way that Sir W. Hamilton and Mr Mansel achieved what they conceive to be a great triumph in proclaiming, or, as they think, in proving the impotency of human reason. But what if the conceptions thus set in opposition to each other are not conceptions at all, but are mere moments or elements of conception? If they are so—and I believe that they are so—that would make a great difference. The antagonism would no longer exist, or, if it existed, it would be a very different kind of antagonism from that for which Hamilton and Mansel contend. It would be an antagonism building up one indivisible conception, and, therefore, an antagonism essential to the very life and essence of reason itself, and not an antagonism by which reason is placed at variance with itself, and thus confounded, disabled, and paralysed.