正是基于这样的理由，那些认为事物的材料是火，宇宙的总和是由火形成的人，被认为从真正的理性中严重地迷失了方向。赫拉克利特就是其中之一，他以在愚蠢而不严肃的希腊人中间发表阴暗言论而闻名，他们在寻找真理。因为孩子们总是倾向于把惊奇和爱慕隐藏在扭曲的言语之下，把那在他们愚蠢的耳朵里甜蜜地搔痒的真理，或者用精致的词句涂上胭脂粉。因为，我问，事物何以如此多样，如果是由火构成的，单一而纯净?如果火的所有部分仍然保留着火的本性，那么任何白色都不能帮助火的浓缩或稀释。当部分被压缩时，热量更强烈，而当部分被分离或分散时，热量又更温和——你无法想象从这些原因中产生的任何东西;更不可能从任何密集或稀少的火焰中产生地球上的各种事物。还有一件事:如果他们假设事物中有空隙，那么火可以凝结而仍然稀少;但是，既然他们看到思想的对立面与他们对立，又不愿在事物中留下纯粹的空白，他们就害怕走上陡峭的道路，迷失了真理之路。他们也看不见，如果我们把虚空从万物中抽走，万物便浓缩起来，由万物组成一个躯体，而这个躯体没有能力迅速地从它自己中射出，而不是任何东西——就像火焰把它的光和热抛向四周，向你证明它的部分是不紧密的。 But if perhaps they think, in other wise, Fires through their combinations can be quenched And change their substance, very well: behold, If fire shall spare to do so in no part, Then heat will perish utterly and all, And out of nothing would the world be formed. For change in anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before; And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed Amid the world, lest all return to naught, And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew. Now since indeed there are those surest bodies Which keep their nature evermore the same, Upon whose going out and coming in And changed order things their nature change, And all corporeal substances transformed, 'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then, Are not of fire. For 'twere of no avail Should some depart and go away, and some Be added new, and some be changed in order, If still all kept their nature of old heat: For whatsoever they created then Would still in any case be only fire. The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are Whose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes Produce the fire and which, by order changed, Do change the nature of the thing produced, And are thereafter nothing like to fire Nor whatso else has power to send its bodies With impact touching on the senses' touch. Again, to say that all things are but fire And no true thing in number of all things Exists but fire, as this same fellow says, Seems crazed folly. For the man himself Against the senses by the senses fights, And hews at that through which is all belief, Through which indeed unto himself is known The thing he calls the fire. For, though he thinks The senses truly can perceive the fire, He thinks they cannot as regards all else, Which still are palpably as clear to sense- To me a thought inept and crazy too. For whither shall we make appeal? for what More certain than our senses can there be Whereby to mark asunder error and truth? Besides, why rather do away with all, And wish to allow heat only, then deny The fire and still allow all else to be?- Alike the madness either way it seems. Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things To be but fire, and out of fire the sum, And whosoever have constituted air As first beginning of begotten things, And all whoever have held that of itself Water alone contrives things, or that earth Createth all and changes things anew To divers natures, mightily they seem A long way to have wandered from the truth. Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth To water; add who deem that things can grow Out of the four- fire, earth, and breath, and rain; As first Empedocles of Acragas, Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas, Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves. Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits, Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores Of the Italic mainland. Here the waste Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats