On this question, indeed, the early philosophers are divided. Some of them assert that the so-called ‘unqualified coming-to-be’ is ‘alteration’, while others maintain that ‘alteration’ and coming-to-be are distinct. For those who say that the universe is one something (i.e. those who generate all things out of one thing) are bound to assert that coming-to-be is ‘alteration’, and that whatever ‘comes-to-be’ in the proper sense of the term is ‘being altered’: but those who make the matter of things more than one must distinguish coming-to-be from ‘alteration’. To this latter class belong Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus. And yet Anaxagoras himself failed to understand his own utterance1. He says, at all events, that coming-to-be and passing-away are the same as ‘being altered’:’ yet, in common with other thinkers, he affirms that the elements are many. Thus Empedocles holds that the corporeal2 elements are four, while all the elements-including those which initiate3 movement-are six in number; whereas Anaxagoras agrees with Leucippus and Democritus that the elements are infinite.
(Anaxagoras posits4 as elements the ‘homoeomeries’, viz. bone, flesh, marrow6, and everything else which is such that part and whole are the same in name and nature; while Democritus and Leucippus say that there are indivisible bodies, infinite both in number and in the varieties of their shapes, of which everything else is composed-the compounds differing one from another according to the shapes, ‘positions’, and ‘groupings’ of their constituents7.)
For the views of the school of Anaxagoras seem diametrically opposed to those of the followers8 of Empedocles. Empedocles says that Fire, Water, Air, and Earth are four elements, and are thus ‘simple’ rather than flesh, bone, and bodies which, like these, are ‘homoeomeries’. But the followers of Anaxagoras regard the ‘homoeomeries’ as ‘simple’ and elements, whilst they affirm that Earth, Fire, Water, and Air are composite; for each of these is (according to them) a ‘common seminary’ of all the ‘homoeomeries’.
Those, then, who construct all things out of a single element, must maintain that coming-tobe and passing-away are ‘alteration’. For they must affirm that the underlying9 something always remains10 identical and one; and change of such a substratum is what we call ‘altering’ Those, on the other hand, who make the ultimate kinds of things more than one, must maintain that ‘alteration’ is distinct from coming-to-be: for coming-to-be and passingaway result from the consilience and the dissolution of the many kinds. That is why Empedocles too uses language to this effect, when he says ‘There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a mingling11 and a divorce of what has been mingled’. Thus it is clear (i) that to describe coming-to-be and passing-away in these terms is in accordance with their fundamental assumption, and (ii) that they do in fact so describe them: nevertheless, they too must recognize ‘alteration’ as a fact distinct from coming to-be, though it is impossible for them to do so consistently with what they say.
That we are right in this criticism is easy to perceive. For ‘alteration’ is a fact of observation. While the substance of the thing remains unchanged, we see it ‘altering’ just as we see in it the changes of magnitude called ‘growth’ and ‘diminution12’. Nevertheless, the statements of those who posit5 more ‘original reals’ than one make ‘alteration’ impossible. For ‘alteration, as we assert, takes place in respect to certain qualities: and these qualities (I mean, e.g. hot-cold, white-black, dry-moist, soft-hard, and so forth) are, all of them, differences characterizing the ‘elements’. The actual words of Empedocles may be quoted in illustration
The sun everywhere bright to see, and hot,
The rain everywhere dark and cold;
and he distinctively14 characterizes his remaining elements in a similar manner. Since, therefore, it is not possible for Fire to become Water, or Water to become Earth, neither will it be possible for anything white to become black, or anything soft to become hard; and the same argument applies to all the other qualities. Yet this is what ‘alteration’ essentially15 is.
It follows, as an obvious corollary, that a single matter must always be assumed as underlying the contrary ‘poles’ of any change whether change of place, or growth and diminution, or ‘alteration’; further, that the being of this matter and the being of ‘alteration’ stand and fall together. For if the change is ‘alteration’, then the substratum is a single element; i.e. all things which admit of change into one another have a single matter. And, conversely, if the substratum of the changing things is one, there is ‘alteration’.
Empedocles, indeed, seems to contradict his own statements as well as the observed facts. For he denies that any one of his elements comes-to-be out of any other, insisting on the contrary that they are the things out of which everything else comes-to-be; and yet (having brought the entirety of existing things, except Strife16, together into one) he maintains, simultaneously17 with this denial, that each thing once more comes-to-be out of the One. Hence it was clearly out of a One that this came-to-be Water, and that Fire, various portions of it being separated off by certain characteristic differences or qualities-as indeed he calls the sun ‘white and hot’, and the earth ‘heavy and hard’. If, therefore, these characteristic differences be taken away (for they can be taken away, since they came-to-be), it will clearly be inevitable18 for Earth to come to-be out of Water and Water out of Earth, and for each of the other elements to undergo a similar transformation-not only then, but also now-if, and because, they change their qualities. And, to judge by what he says, the qualities are such that they can be ‘attached’ to things and can again be ‘separated’ from them, especially since Strife and Love are still fighting with one another for the mastery. It was owing to this same conflict that the elements were generated from a One at the former period. I say ‘generated’, for presumably Fire, Earth, and Water had no distinctive13 existence at all while merged19 in one.
There is another obscurity in the theory Empedocles. Are we to regard the One as his ‘original real’? Or is it the Many-i.e. Fire and Earth, and the bodies co-ordinate with these? For the One is an ‘element’ in so far as it underlies20 the process as matter-as that out of which Earth and Fire come-to-be through a change of qualities due to ‘the motion’. On the other hand, in so far as the One results from composition (by a consilience of the Many), whereas they result from disintegration21 the Many are more ‘elementary’ than the One, and prior to it in their nature.
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1
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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2
corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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3
initiate
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| vt.开始，创始，发动；启蒙，使入门；引入 | |
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4
posits
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| v.假定，设想，假设( posit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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5
posit
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| v.假定，认为 | |
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6
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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7
constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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8
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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9
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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10
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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11
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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12
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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13
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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14
distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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15
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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16
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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17
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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18
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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19
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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20
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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21
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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