thinker, or to his failure to study his writings. If we had only the data from Aristotle, we should really know more of the significant work of Anaximandros than of Herakleitos. The conception of the earlier Greek thinkers which we obtain from Aristotle's writings is distorted along four lines.

1. Whether or not it was due to his failure to study certain of these thinkers, Aristotle's comparative estimate of them is not one with which we can agree. As for Herakleitos, we can say that Aristotle assigns him a very important place in early thought, even though he gives us but little clue to what his work really was. Perhaps he overestimates the work of Anaximandros and Anaximenes because he finds in them so clear an anticipation of his own thought. Certainly he does not give due weight to the Eleatic school as a whole, and in particular to Melissos. Melissos was not a great original thinker along entirely new lines, but his work in systematising Eleatic thought was very important. Perhaps because he resembled Aristotle in what he sought to do, although from so very different premisses, he is handled with the greater disdain.

2. We may get from Aristotle a slightly distorted view of the earlier thinkers because he stated their views in the terms of his own philosophic system. The commonest philosophical terms, such as ἄπειρον, ἕν, φύσις, κενόν, τὰ ὄντα, στοιχεῖον, σῶμα, οὐσία, πάθη, slightly changed their meanings as they gradually took their place in a definite philosophical terminology. oxy is regularly used by Aristotle to denote the original principle of all things which the early thinkers sought, eidos is used in the statement of Herakleitos' position and of the Pythagorean. philosophy 2: the latter a word introduced into philosophy by Plato, the former probably not used in this sense before Aristotle himself.

1

3. This tendency, however, is not limited to the use of philosophical terms. Aristotle states the general position of earlier thinkers from the standpoint of his own developed system. The arguments of Zeno and Melissos are thrown into logical form that he may the better criticise them. Herakleitean teachings also are stated in Aristotelian logic, and thereby lose the truth they might have had. Aristotle

Meta. 1078 b 12.

2 Meta. 1036 b 18.

finds his own theory of indeterminate potential matter in Anaximandros, and it is no easy task to discern what is due to Aristotle and what to Anaximandros in the Aristotelian account. Again in the case of Parmenides we may well question the statement 1 that his two principles were heat=fire -being, and cold-earth-not-being.

4. Finally Aristotle may be said to give a false impression of his predecessors when he assigns the probable causes for their opinions. Cf. Meta. 983 b 18, supra p. 2; Phys. 204 b 26, supra p. 10 in order that other things may not be blotted out by the infinite;' de anima 405 a 25, supra p. 58.

The mere statement of these lines, along which Aristotle may be said slightly to distort the views of his predecessors, is sufficient to put the reader on his guard; and it is comparatively easy to make allowance for them.

§ 5. The fragments of Theophrastos that remain are sufficient only to show that he studied the work of the pre-Sokratic thinkers even more carefully than Aristotle; to make any exact inferences as to his method of making quotations, however, is impossible on the basis of these fragments. Four of his quotations are also cited by Aristotle, and it is interesting to notice that in the second and the fourth of this list Theophrastos gives a text that is probably more correct than that found in our MSS. of Aristotle. The remaining quotations found in Theophrastos 3 show a familiarity only with Empedokles. Only one of these scans correctly, and that by the change of one word, which probably was erroneously copied. Ll. 191-192 have lost some words, and ll. 423-424 are quite rewritten in prose. Apparently Theophrastos was even more careless of the form of his quotations than Aristotle, though he knows the early thinkers at first hand and can correct Aristotle's quotations. The statement of the opinions of these thinkers by Theophrastos will be considered later in connection with the doxographic tradition.

§ 6. From the time of Aristotle to Plutarch we know comparatively little of the works of the early philosophers, or of the habit of quoting from them. There is abundant evidence,

1 Meta. 987 a 1.

2 Herakl. 46; Parm. 146-149; Emped. 182-183, 219.

3 Herakl. 84; Emped. 191-192, 314-315, 336-337, 423-424.

however, that they were studied; the positions and sayings of Herakleitos especially seem to have attracted much attention. The works extant under the name of Hippokrates are attributed by some writers to a period even before Aristotle. In these works there are allusions to the positions of Empedokles and Anaxagoras, and Book I of the treatise Epì dans contains much Herakleitean material. There is scarcely one direct quotation (cf. Fr. 60), and Bernays cannot be said to be successful in reconstructing phrases of Herakleitos from this source. The book, however, is a comparatively early witness to the work of Herakleitos, and doubly important because it is independent of that Stoic study to which is due most of our knowledge of him.

§ 7. More than the other schools that succeeded Aristotle the Stoics devoted themselves to the history of philosophy, and they were interested in Herakleitos for the same reason that Aristotle had been interested in Anaximandros, because they regarded him as a precursor in their own line of thought. Herakleitean phrases occur already in the hymn of Kleanthes to Zeus, thus showing that they had already been adopted into the Stoic phraseology. Philodemos (vii. 81) quotes Chrysippos also as giving a quotation from Herakleitos.

It is only from later writers, however, that we can ascertain how much Herakleitos was studied in this period. Apparently collections were made of his sayings, which soon displaced the more complete form of his writings. Indeed, it is hard to prove that his book existed at all in later times, although Sextus Empiricus quotes a passage of some length which is considered to be the beginning of the work. Further, the works of at least some Stoic writers must have abounded in quotations from Herakleitos. In the writings of Philo there are numerous allusions to sayings of Herakleitos; and the Stoic context, the connection with Stoic ethics, as well as Philo's general interest in the Stoic school, make it probable that he finds his Herakleitos in his Stoic Sources. But while Philo is thus an important witness to the study of Herakleitos among the Stoics, he is of little value in reconstructing the text of the Ephesian philosopher. The

1 See Index of Sources under Kleanthes.'

carelessness of his method of quotation is shown by the form in which he gives three lines of Empedokles (48-49, 386). То seven fragments of Herakleitos (1, 22, 24, 46, 56, 64, 70) Philo makes a mere allusion; in another series of instances (10, 67, 69, 79, 80, 82) a phrase, often a single word, of Herakleitos is worked into the context. Fr. 68 and 85 are quoted very carelessly, and 76 and 89 have assumed a form very different from that which they originally had. Commonly the name of the author (Herakleitos) is not given.

Cicero quotes Herakleitos 113 in Greek without the author's name, and translates 114 carefully; Bywater, p. x, suggests that he found the latter in somebody's de exilio commentatio. Returning to the Stoic school, we find in Seneca an accurate translation of Herakleitos 77 and 81, so that we are inclined to trust his version of 120. What seems to be Herakleitos 113, however, is assigned to Demokritos in an expanded form. The epistles attributed to Herakleitos belong to approximately this period, and are interesting only as additional evidence to the study of Herakleitos by Stoic philosophers. Stobaeos quotes several Herakleitean phrases from Musonius. Fr. 20 and 69 are given only in substance, a phrase from 114 is worked into the context, and 75 is quoted in a later form. Fr. 75 as well as 27 and 67 is found in the second and third books of Clement's Paedagogos, books which draw largely from Musonius. The use of Herakleitean material by Lucian, especially in his Vitarum auctio, ch. xiv., is doubtless based on a Stoic source, as is indicated by the work ekπúρwσis. We may conclude this survey of Stoic writers with Marcus Aurelius. In his writings we find bare allusion to Herakleitos 2, 5, 20, 73, and perhaps to 97; a word or two of 34, 84, and 98 are worked into the text; while 25, 69, 90, 93, 94 are half quoted in the text. Apparently all are allusions to, or abbreviated citations of, sentences with which the reader was supposed to be familiar. It is wholly improbable that citations made in this manner were drawn from the book itself; rather they seem to point to a collection of sayings' of Herakleitos which must have been quite generally known. Unless such a collection is assumed, they must be regarded as phrases which were familiar to all because they were so often quoted. The former hypothesis seems to me the more tenable.

6

§ 8. We find in Plutarch one of the principal sources of our fragments. Nearly fifty fragments of Herakleitos are quoted more or less fully in his writings. Many of these quotations consist of a single phrase containing perhaps only a word or two of the original writer, so that they are not of much value for purposes of reconstruction. Sometimes the citation is given in Plutarch's own words; sometimes there is only a careless allusion, as to Fr. 41, 43, and 120. Even when we seem to have a real quotation, it may be expanded, as in the case of Fr. 108 ap. Moral. 143 D compared with Moral. 644 F, or Fr. 31 ap. Moral. 98 D as compared with Moral. 957 A. So I am inclined to regard Fr. 11, 22, and 44 as having been expanded by Plutarch. We cannot therefore place much reliance on the form of Plutarch's quotations from Herakleitos. As to the source of these quotations we should notice that two of them (Fr. 41 and 45) had been mentioned by Plato, and others (38, 41, 43, and 105) by Aristotle; it is probable that Plutarch quotes these because they were familiar to the readers of Plato and Aristotle. Fr. 20, 22, 24, 25, 34, 44, 75, and 85 occur in Stoic writers, and Plutarch himself refers 91 to the Stoics. Fr. 45-56 are made Stoic in Plutarch by the addition of the word κόσμου (defining ἁρμονίη) which does not appear e.g. in Plato; and Fr. 19, 20, 74, 75, and 87 have a decided Stoic colouring. Thus we may suspect that about half the quotations from Herakleitos were drawn from Stoic On the other hand 78 with its context seems to be based on a considerable passage of Herakleitos, and 11, 12, and 127 have the appearance of careful quotation.

sources.

Plutarch's method in handling quotations from philosophers who wrote in poetry is more satisfactory. It is only rarely that the thought is put in his own words,2 or that the quotation consists of less than a full line. Sometimes lines are grouped which do not belong together, as ap. Moral. 607 c and 618 B. In some instances the text itself seems to be at fault. In general, however, the poetic form protected such quotations from change, and the poetic form was naturally

1 E.g. 78 ap. Moral. 106 E; 95 ap. 166 c.

E.g. Emped. 272 ap. Moral. 917 c; 369 ap. Moral. 996 B.

3 Emped. 232 ap. Moral. 745 c; 154-155 ap. Moral. 925 B; Parmen. 29-30 ap. Moral. 1114 D.