Composed by: ( C.R M.

Qasim )
Empedocles
Empedocles was a man of Agrigentum in Sicily. The dates of his birth and death are placed
about 495 and 435 B.C. respectively. Like Pythagoras, he possessed a powerful and magnetic
personality. Hence all kinds of legends quickly grew up and wove themselves round his life and
death. He was credited with the performance of miracles, and romantic stories were circulated
about his death. A man of much persuasive eloquence he raised himself to the leadership of the
Agrigentine democracy, until he was driven out into exile.

Now the Ionic philosophers had taught that all things are composed of some one ultimate
matter. Thales believed it to be water, Anaximenes air. This necessarily involved that the
ultimate kind of matter must be capable of transformation into other kinds of matter. If it is
water, then water must be capable of turning into brass, wood, iron, air, or whatever other kind
of matter exists. And the same thing applies to the air of Anaximenes. Parmenides, however, had
taught that whatever is, remains always the same, no change or transformation being possible.
Empedocles here too follows Parmenides, and interprets his doctrine in his own way. One kind
of matter, he thinks, can never change into another kind of matter; fire never becomes water,
nor does earth ever become air. This leads Empedocles at once to a doctrine of elements. The
word "elements," indeed, is of later invention, and Empedocles speaks of the elements as "the
roots of all." There are four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. Empedocles was therefore the
originator of the familiar classification of the four elements. All other kinds of matter are to be
explained as mixtures, in various proportions, of these four. Thus all origination and decease, as
well as the differential qualities of certain kinds of matter, are now explained by the mixing and
unmixing of the four elements. All becoming is simply composition and decomposition. Empedocles
taught the doctrine of periodic world-cycles. The worldprocess is, therefore, properly speaking,
circular, and has neither beginning nor end. But in describing this process one must begin
somewhere. We will begin, then, with the sphairos (sphere). In the primeval sphere the four
elements are completely mixed, and interpenetrate each other completely. Water is not
separated off from air, nor air from earth. All are chaotically mixed together. In any portion of
the sphere there must be an equal quantity of earth, air, fire and water. The elements are thus
in union, and the sole force operative within the sphere is Love or Harmony. Hence the sphere
is called a "blessed god." Hate, however, exists all round the outside of the sphere. Hate
gradually penetrates from the circumference towards the centre and introduces the process of
separation and disunion of the elements. This process continues till, like coming together with
like, the elements are wholly separated. All the water is together; all the fire is together, and so
on. When this process of disintegration is complete, Hate is supreme and Love is entirely driven
out. But Love again begins to penetrate matter, to cause union and mixture of the elements,
and finally brings the world back to the state of the original sphere. Then the same process
begins again. At what position in this circular movement is our present world to be placed? The
answer is that it is neither in the complete union of the sphere, nor is it completely
disintegrated. It is half-way between the sphere and the stage of total disintegration. It is
proceeding from the former towards the later, and Hate is gradually gaining the upper hand. In
the formation of the present world from the sphere the first element to be separated off was
air, next fire, then the earth. Water is squeezed out of the earth by the rapidity of its rotation.
The sky is composed of two halves. One is of fire, and this is the day. The other is dark matter
with masses of fire scattered about in it, and this is the night.

Empedocles believed in the transmigration of souls. He also put forward a theory of sense-
perception, the essential of which is that like perceives like. The fire in us perceives external fire,
and so with the other elements. Sight is caused by effluences of the fire and water of the eyes
meeting similar effluences from external objects.