A History of Greek Philosophy / THE ATOMISTS / EMPEDOCLES

Page 11

He had also a conception of the gradual development on the earth of higher and higher forms of life, the first being rude and imperfect, and a ‘struggle for existence’ ensuing in which the monstrous and the deficient gradually were eliminated—the “two-faced, the double-breasted, the oxen-shaped with human prows, or human-shaped with head of ox, or hemaphrodite,” and so forth. Love and Strife worked out their ends upon these varied forms; some procreated and reproduced after their image, others were incapable of reproduction from mere monstrosity or weakness, and disappeared. Something other than mere chance thus governed the development of things; there was a law, a reason, a Logos governing the process. This law or reason he perhaps fancifully illustrated by attributing the different characters of flesh and sinew and bone to the different numerical proportions, in which they severally contain the different elements.

On this Aristotle, keen-scented critic as he was, has a question, or series of questions, to ask as to the relation between this Logos, or principle of orderly combination, and Love as the ruling force in all unions of things. “Is Love,” he asks, “a cause of mixtures of any sort, or only of such sorts as Logos dictates? And whether then is Love identical with this Logos, or are they separate and distinct; and if so, what settles their separate functions?” Questions which Empedocles did not answer, and perhaps would not have tried to answer had he heard them.

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