other commentators. Empedocles was a poet whose verses stood the
test of criticism. In this regard he is in a like position with
Parmenides; but in neither case are the preserved fragments
sufficient to enable us fully to estimate their author's
scientific attainments. Philosophical writings are obscure enough
at the best, and they perforce become doubly so when expressed in
verse. Yet there are certain passages of Empedocles that are
unequivocal and full of interest. Perhaps the most important
conception which the works of Empedocles reveal to us is the
denial of anthropomorphism as applied to deity. We have seen how
early the anthropomorphic conception was developed and how
closely it was all along clung to; to shake the mind free from it
then was a remarkable feat, in accomplishing which Empedocles
took a long step in the direction of rationalism. His conception
is paralleled by that of another physician, Alcmaeon, of Proton,
who contended that man's ideas of the gods amounted to mere
suppositions at the very most. A rationalistic or sceptical
tendency has been the accompaniment of medical training in all
ages.

The words in which Empedocles expresses his conception of deity
have been preserved and are well worth quoting: "It is not
impossible," he says, "to draw near (to god) even with the eyes
or to take hold of him with our hands, which in truth is the best
highway of persuasion in the mind of man; for he has no human
head fitted to a body, nor do two shoots branch out from the
trunk, nor has he feet, nor swift legs, nor hairy parts, but he
is sacred and ineffable mind alone, darting through the whole
world with swift thoughts."[8]

How far Empedocles carried his denial of anthropomorphism is
illustrated by a reference of Aristotle, who asserts "that
Empedocles regards god as most lacking in the power of
perception; for he alone does not know one of the elements,
Strife (hence), of perishable things." It is difficult to avoid
the feeling that Empedocles here approaches the modern
philosophical conception that God, however postulated as
immutable, must also be postulated as unconscious, since
intelligence, as we know it, is dependent upon the transmutations
of matter. But to urge this thought would be to yield to that
philosophizing tendency which has been the bane of interpretation
as applied to the ancient thinkers.

Considering for a moment the more tangible accomplishments of
Empedocles, we find it alleged that one of his "miracles"
consisted of the preservation of a dead body without putrefaction
for some weeks after death. We may assume from this that he had
gained in some way a knowledge of embalming. As he was
notoriously fond of experiment, and as the body in question
(assuming for the moment the authenticity of the legend) must
have been preserved without disfigurement, it is conceivable even
that he had hit upon the idea of injecting the arteries. This, of
course, is pure conjecture; yet it finds a certain warrant, both
in the fact that the words of Pythagoras lead us to believe that
the arteries were known and studied, and in the fact that
Empedocles' own words reveal him also as a student of the
vascular system. Thus Plutarch cites Empedocles as believing
"that the ruling part is not in the head or in the breast, but in
the blood; wherefore in whatever part of the body the more of
this is spread in that part men excel."[13] And Empedocles' own
words, as preserved by Stobaeus, assert "(the heart) lies in seas
of blood which dart in opposite directions, and there most of all
intelligence centres for men; for blood about the heart is
intelligence in the case of man." All this implies a really
remarkable appreciation of the dependence of vital activities
upon the blood.

This correct physiological conception, however, was by no means
the most remarkable of the ideas to which Empedoeles was led by
his anatomical studies. His greatest accomplishment was to have
conceived and clearly expressed an idea which the modern
evolutionist connotes when he speaks of homologous parts--an idea
which found a famous modern expositor in Goethe, as we shall see
when we come to deal with eighteenth-century science. Empedocles
expresses the idea in these words: "Hair, and leaves, and thick
feathers of birds, are the same thing in origin, and reptile
scales too on strong limbs. But on hedgehogs sharp-pointed hair
bristles on their backs."[14] That the idea of transmutation of
parts, as well as of mere homology, was in mind is evidenced by a
very remarkable sentence in which Aristotle asserts, "Empedocles
says that fingernails rise from sinew from hardening." Nor is
this quite all, for surely we find the germ of the Lamarckian
conception of evolution through the transmission of acquired
characters in the assertion that "many characteristics appear in
animals because it happened to be thus in their birth, as that
they have such a spine because they happen to be descended from
one that bent itself backward."[15] Aristotle, in quoting this
remark, asserts, with the dogmatism which characterizes the
philosophical commentators of every age, that "Empedocles is
wrong," in making this assertion; but Lamarck, who lived
twenty-three hundred years after Empedocles, is famous in the
history of the doctrine of evolution for elaborating this very
idea.

It is fair to add, however, that the dreamings of Empedocles
regarding the origin of living organisms led him to some
conceptions that were much less luminous. On occasion, Empedocles
the poet got the better of Empedocles the scientist, and we are
presented with a conception of creation as grotesque as that
which delighted the readers of Paradise Lost at a later day.


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