^ f. UBBARV - JScholarship - Johns Hopkins University

VISION 17
of earth (in the formation of the eye)^.' The eye was
formed of the elements, for Empedocles further says : ' Of
these (elements) divine Aphrodite made up the fabric of the
tireless eyes-.'
§ 7. In these passages we notice that no reference is Empedomade
by Empedocles to his doctrine of pores and emana- j^^g ^°'^'
tions, so fundamental for perception. Aristotle, too, 'pores'and
observes ^ that Empedocles, while at one time explaining tions' •. its
vision, as we have seen, by means of fire issuine from the ^«"'"g ,
' •' ° upon Visual
lens, at other times explains it by airoppoiai, as if imputing function.
inconsistency to his theory of vision \ It is not easy to
assent to the Suggestion of mere inconsistency; yet on the
other hand it is difficult to reconcile the two Standpoints
here contrasted. There is indeed another record which
seems to bear upon the matter. ' Empedocles mixed the
rays with the images, calling their joint-prbduct by the
Compound term ray-image ^.' But this passage is intrinsically
suspicious. By the eKtoXa would seem to be intended
something between the anöppoiai of Empedocles and the
etScüXa of Democritus and Epicurus; and the theory here
ascribed to Empedocles, of the mixture of the rays with the
airoppoiai to form the äKTivelbaXov, reminds one too much
of the distinctively Piatonic theory known later as the
(Tvvavyeia". Empedocles and Plato both accept the existence
^ Simpl. ad Arist. Pkys. (Diels), p. 331. 3 (Diels, Vors., p. 206).
Simplicius instances this, because of the use of the word Tvxe here, as
illustrating the fortuitousness of the formation of things according to
Empedocles ; in which he overstrains the meaning of this word. The
Position of the adjective is noticeable in the words fj Se cjAo^ IKäeipa: it
seems to give it conditional force, like that given by otrov Tavaärepov,
reducing the