Primeval Unity was broken up into the four
essences. Therefore this primordial unity was poured into the
elements. Anything confronting us is part of the divinity which was
poured out. But the divinity is hidden in the thing; it first had to
die that things might come into being. And what are these things?
Mixtures of divine constituents effectuated by love and hatred.
Empedocles says this distinctly:

See, for a clear demonstration, how the limbs of
a man are constructed,
All that the body possesses, in beauty and pride
of existence,
All put together by love, are the elements there
forming one.
Afterwards hatred and strife come, and fatally
tear them asunder,
Once more they wander alone, on the desolate
confines of life.
So it is with the bushes and trees, and the
water-inhabiting fishes,
Wild animals roaming the mountains, and ships
swiftly borne by their sails.

Empedocles therefore must come to the conclusion that the sage finds
again the Divine Primordial Unity, hidden in the world by a spell, and
entangled in the meshes of love and hatred. But if man finds the
divine, he must himself be divine, for Empedocles takes the point of
view that a being is only cognised by its equal. This conviction of
his is expressed in Goethe's lines: "If the eye were not of the nature
of the sun, how could we behold light? If divine force were not at
work in us, how could divine things delight us?"

These thoughts about the world and man, which transcend
sense-experience, were found by the Mystic in the myth of Osiris.
Divine creative force has been poured out into the universe; it
appears as the four elements; God (Osiris) is killed. Man is to raise
him from the dead with his cognition, which is of divine nature. He is
to find him again as Horus (the Son of God, the Logos, Wisdom), in the
opposition between Strife (Typhon) and Love (Isis). Empedocles
expresses his fundamental conviction in Greek form by means of images
which border on myth. Love is Aphrodite, and strife is Neikos. They
bind and unbind the elements.

The portrayal of the content of a myth in the manner followed here
must not be confused with a merely symbolical or even allegorical
interpretation of myths. This is not intended. The images forming the
contents of a myth are not invented symbols of abstract truths, but
actual soul-experiences of the initiate. He experiences the images
with