ay about our daily life, 'We
are,' when from the standpoint of the eternal we know that 'We are and
are not?'" (Cf. _Fragments of Heraclitus_, No. 81.) "Hades and
Dionysos are one and the same," says one of the _Fragments_. Dionysos,
the god of joy in life, of germination and growth, to whom the
Dionysiac festivals are dedicated is, for Heraclitus, the same as
Hades, the god of destruction and annihilation. Only one who sees
death in life and life in death, and in both the eternal, high above
life and death, can view the merits and demerits of existence in the
right light. Then even imperfections become justified, for in them too
lives the eternal. What they are from the standpoint of the limited
lower life, they are only in appearance,--"The gratification of men's
wishes is not necessarily a happiness for them. Illness makes health
sweet and good, hunger makes food appreciated, and toil rest." "The
sea contains the purest and impurest water, drinkable and wholesome
for fishes, it is undrinkable and injurious to human beings." Here
Heraclitus is not primarily drawing attention to the transitoriness of
earthly things, but to the splendour and majesty of the eternal.

Heraclitus speaks vehemently against Homer and Hesiod, and the learned
men of his day. He wished to show up their way of thinking, which
clings to the transitory only. He did not desire gods endowed with
qualities taken from a perishable world, and he could not regard as a
supreme science, that science which investigates the growth and decay
of things. For him, the eternal speaks out of the perishable, and for
this eternal he has a profound symbol. "The harmony of the world
returns upon itself, like that of the lyre and the bow." What depths
are hidden in this image! By the pressing asunder of forces, and again
by the harmonising of these divergent forces, unity is attained. How
one sound contradicts another, and yet, together, they produce
harmony. If we apply this to the Spiritual world, we have the thought
of Heraclitus, "Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living the
death of mortals, dying the life of the Immortals."

It is man's original fault to direct his cognition to the transitory.
Thereby he turns away from the eternal, and life becomes a danger to
him. What happens to him, comes to him through life, but its events
lose their sting if he ceases to set unconditioned value on life. In
that case his innocence is restored to him. It is as though