From the Beginning to Plato

The basis for this apparently strange statement is not only that blood travels
incessantly to and from the organs to the heart and so acts as a conduit (the
‘broadest path of persuasion’ goes from the eyes and hands to the cognitive
centre according to fragment 133), but also because of its physical construction.
It contains all the elements, and in a ratio closer to equal amounts of each than in
any other part of the body; and Empedocles attributed the sophistication of this
compound to the powerful principle of attraction (here personified as the goddess
of love):
And earth, anchored in the perfect harbours of Aphrodite, chanced to come
together with them in almost equal quantities, with Hephaestus and rain
and all-shining air, either a little more, or less where there was more. From
these came blood and the different forms of flesh.
(fr. 98)
Earth here is a crucial ingredient in the formation of the tissues: with less of this
element there is blood, and with more there would be flesh. Aristotle’s pupil
Theophrastus wrote a history of early theories of perception and in it interpreted
Empedocles’ theory as it would be when stripped of its poetic vocabulary:
We think chiefly with the heart-blood, for there the elements are more fully
mingled than in any other part of the body. Those who have an equal or
almost equal mingling of these elements are the most intelligent and have
the keenest sense perceptions, but those whose condition is the reverse are
the most stupid.
(Theophrastus On the Senses 10–11)
The proportion of ingredients (as in any chemical formula) is crucial for the
performance of the compound; here the best intelligence comes from the mixture
most approaching equality as, in other examples cited by Theophrastus, the orator
has a good mixture in his tongue and the craftsman in his hands.
On the mind-body problem all the pre-Socratics were in principle
reductionists, since in Aristotle’s terminology they recognized only ‘material
cause’. In Empedocles’ theory the centre of cognition was explained as
constituted of the same elements as everything else, i.e. of earth, air, fire and
water, but the quality of thought is dependent on their increase and decrease, and
consequent proportion relative to each other. This means, as he says, that
Human wisdom grows according to what is present.
and it is also the case that
EMPEDOCLES 179
(fr. 106)
As one’s constitution changes, so the present thoughts are always changing.