From the Beginning to Plato

180 FROM THE BEGINNING TO PLATO
(fr. 108)
The continual modifications here of incoming and outgoing thoughts are taken to
correspond both to fluctuations in the outside world and to alterations in the
inner condition.
The less intelligent (including in particular those who infer erroneous general
conclusions too quickly from inadequate evidence) quite literally have
inadequate means of ‘grasping’ the truth, whereas a wealth of appropriate thoughts
results in proper understanding (frs 2, 3, 132). Although the medical terminology
of heart and lungs (phrenes), midriff (prapides) and intestines (splangchna) even
in the Homeric poems was losing its literal meaning, Empedocles’ constant use of
it points to a consistent theory of a physical basis for rational activity. In this way
he can envisage a struggle in the phrēn between deceit and persuasion (fr. 23),
introduce evidence to strengthen feeble conviction (fr. 35), speak of thoughts
entering the phrontis of the Muse (fr. 131), and describe a wise man, perhaps
Pythagoras, stretching his prapides when he remembers generations that are past
and makes prophecies for the future (fr. 129).
Similarly Empedocles sees the instruction of his student as a literal transfer via
speech from one to the other. This is shown when he asks that a ‘pure stream’ of
thoughts in the form of the words that express them might pass from his lips to
his pupil (fr. 3), and he advises Pausanias to ensure that his sense-organs are in
their different ways receptive to the transfer of truth:
do not keep back trust from seeing, hearing, taste or any other channel for
thinking, but think each thing in the way in which it is clear.
(fr. 3)
When Pausanias has taken in the account the argument is to be divided into its
component parts and almost literally digested like food in the stomach area (fr. 4.
3). And Empedocles gives a final exhortation:
If you put the words I say firmly into your crowded thoughts, and
contemplate them with clear and constant attention, assuredly they will all
be with you through life, and you will gain much else from them, for of
themselves they will cause each [new thought] to grow into your character,
according to its nature. But if you should reach out for things of a different
kind, for the countless trivialities that dull human meditation, straightaway
they will leave you as the time comes round…
(fr. 110.1–8)
The meaning here would seem to be that the mixture of the bodily components
reflects or represents whatever is thought about in the external world, while the
continual physical changes in the structure of the body alter that mixture, with
corresponding shifts in the nature and range of the thinking. The resulting