Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/181

Rh "one wise," there 'is no doubt Herakleitos meant Fire. There can hardly be any question that what he meant to say was that in it the opposition and relativity universal in the world disappear. It is doubtless to this that frs. 96, 97, and 98 refer.

81. Herakleitos speaks of "wisdom" or the "wise" in two senses. We have seen already that he said wisdom was "something apart from everything else" (fr. 18), meaning by it the perception of the unity of the many; and he also applies the term to that unity itself regarded as the "thought that directs the course of all things." This is synonymous with the pure fire which is not differentiated into two parts, one taking the upward and the other the downward path. That alone has wisdom; the partial things we see have not. We ourselves are only wise in so far as we are fiery (fr. 74).

82. With certain reservations, Herakleitos was prepared to call the one Wisdom by the name of Zeus. Such, at least, appears to be the meaning of fr. 65. What these reservations were, it is easy to guess. It is not, of course, to be pictured in the form of a man. In saying this, Herakleitos would only have been repeating what had already been said by Xenophanes. He agrees further with Xenophanes in holding that this "god," if it is to be called so, is one; but his polemic against popular religion was directed rather against the rites and ceremonies themselves than their mythological outgrowth. He gives a list (fr. 124) of some of the religious figures of his time, and the context in which the fragment is quoted shows that he in some way threatened them with the wrath to come. He comments on the absurdity of praying to images (fr.126), and the strange idea that blood-guiltiness can be washed out by the shedding of blood (fr.130). He seems also to have said that it was absurd to celebrate the worship of Dionysos by cheerful and licentious ceremonies, while Hades was propitiated by gloomy rites (fr. 127). According to the mystic