things, its
powers for beneficence in the warmth of living bodies and the
life-giving power of the sun,--is seen in the fact that he readily
varies his expression for this principle, calling it at times the
Thunderbolt, at others the eternal Reason, [29] or Law, or Fate. To
his mental view creation was a process eternally in action, the fiery
element descending by the law of its being into the cruder [30] forms
of water and earth, only to be resolved again by upward process into
fire; even as one sees the {18} vapour from the sea ascending and
melting into the [32] aether. As a kindred vapour or exhalation he
recognised the Soul or Breath for a manifestation of the essential
element. It is formless, ever changing with every breath we take, yet
it is the constructive and unifying force which keeps the body
together, and conditions its life and growth. At this point [33]
Heraclitus comes into touch with Anaximenes. In the act of breathing
we draw into our own being a portion of the all-pervading vital element
of all being; in this universal being we thereby live and move and have
our consciousness; the eternal and omnipresent wisdom becomes, through
the channels of our senses, and especially through the eyes, in
fragments at least our wisdom. In sleep we are not indeed cut off
wholly from this wisdom; through our breathing we hold as it were to
its root; but of its flower we are then deprived. On awaking again we
begin once more to partake according to our full measure of the living
thought; even as coals when brought near the fire are themselves made
partakers of it, but when taken away again become quenched.

[34]

Hence, in so far as man is wise, it is because his spirit is kindled by
union with the universal spirit; but there is a baser, or, as
Heraclitus termed it, a moister element also in him, which is the
element of unreason, as in a drunken man. And thus the trustworthiness
or otherwise of the senses, as the {19} channels of communication with
the divine, depends on the _dryness_ or _moistness_,--or, as we should
express it, using, after all, only another metaphor,--on the
_elevation_ or _baseness_ of the spirit that is within. To those whose
souls are base and barbarous, the eternal movement, the living fire, is
invisible; and thus what they do see is nothing but death. Immersed in
the mere appearances of things and their supposed stability, they,
whether sleeping or waking, behold only dead forms;