The Theology of Heraclitus: a Presocratic Pantheism

CIIAPTER 3:NEGATTVE THEOI-OGY ?FroE| !1ne to tine durlng our expos!tlon of Heraclltusrtheology so far we have had occasion to polnt out that hlsviews con!ained eleroents 1n conmon with tradlttonal Greekthought. Such a fact arould scarcely need retel-11n9 eere 1tnot for the fact that there persists the tendercy to inEglnethe presocratic philosophers as falrly burstlng upon the sceneirlth a brand ne\r way of thlnking and set of princlples rhichhad thelr roots solely ln thelr own genluses and not ln anypreexlstent cultural background. I do not meen to bellttIethelr genlus or the grea! lntellectual strldes they took, but,as Corn fordonce sald,uhen ue dlrell upon thls llberty of thought, we nust not be nlsledinto pu!ting another conslruction upon 1t, and imag,lning thatThales or Anaxanaader !,ras llke Mam on the day of h16 creatlon,with no tradilion behlnd hln, no lnherlaed schene of thlngs, opentnghis innocenl eyeg on a oorld of pure sense Lnpresslons not asyet co-ordlnated into aoy conceptual structure.'It nust not be deened a detractlon fron thelr Sreatness toadroit happil.y tha! the presocratlcs r'orked \rlthitl an ilrherltedworfd of beliefs and prlnclples so basic as to go unnotlced'Cornford,Fron Rellgton to Philosophy, (London,19l3),2-3. Cornford'searl"- classic is not oftel read Dow due to it6'runcrltlcalborroqt.iings fron ihe chen fashionable school of lreltch soclologyrr (Vtastos, gE,f/A,I,97 n,f9). Yet ihe dust raised flon this book has yet to settle conpletely(or, for that nalter, from his final thoughts on the subject containedin his Principium Saplentiae,ICambridge,1952]). Not ever the senstblerenark quoted above has co.lvinced everyone; cf. Frgnkel, !!!!,255: "purephilosophy, divorced from all extlaneous associations, cade inlo exlstencesudalenly aod !,iihout visible causerr,t7 6