Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/169

114 going asunder, it goes together; and in going together, it goes asunder; in short, that separation and union are inseparable, and the same; that separation is union, and union is separation. He says that strife or opposition is the father of all things; and that harmony arises only out of the union of discords. And, finally, giving to his doctrine, which is, that everything consists of antagonistic or heterogeneous elements—giving to this doctrine its highest or most abstract expression, he declares that everything is and is not; a formula which, in modern times, has been adopted by Hegel, and, has proved a stumbling-block and rock of offence to all who have ventured on his pages. Such are some of the chief expressions in which Heraclitus is reported to have embodied the substance of his speculations. They contain the whole of his philosophy, in so far as it has been handed down to us; and it is obvious that they merely repeat the same idea with very slight variations.

7. The one idea of which these varied phrases are the expression is the idea of change. When he says that all things are in a continual state of flux, that a thing agrees with itself, and yet differs from itself; when he says that strife is the father of all things, that everything is its own opposite, and both is and is not, or whatever his phraseology may be; he means that things are continually changing, or that the whole system of the universe is a never-resting process, a Becoming.