things is declared to be illusory. We all know that everything has its
term, that all things arise and pass away, from the insects who live
an hour to the "eternal" hills. Yet we commonly attribute to these
things at least a relative permanence, a shorter or longer continuance
in the same state. But even this Heracleitus will not allow. Nothing
is ever the same, nothing remains identical from one consecutive
moment to another. The appearance of relative permanence is an
illusion, like that which makes us think that a wave passing over the
surface of the water remains all the time the same identical wave.
Here, as we know, the water of which the wave is composed changes from
moment to moment, only the form remaining the same. Precisely so, for
Heracleitus, the permanent appearance of things results from the
inflow and outflow in them of equivalent quantities of substance. "All
is flux." It is not, for example, the same sun which sets to-day and
rises to-morrow. It is a new sun. For the fire of the sun burns itself
out and is replenished from the vapours of the sea.

Not only do things change from moment to moment. Even in one and the
same moment they are and are not the same. It is not merely that a
thing first is, and then a moment afterwards, is not. It both is and
is not at the same time. The at-onceness of "is" and "is not" {75} is
the meaning of Becoming. We shall understand this better if we
contrast it with the Eleatic principle. The Eleatics described all
things under two concepts, Being and not-being. Being has, for them,
all truth, all reality. Not-being is wholly false and illusory. For
Heracleitus both Being and not-being are equally real. The one is as
true as the other. Both are true, for both are identical. Becoming is
the identity of Being and not-being. For Becoming has only two forms,
namely, the arising of things and their passing away, their beginning
and their end, their origination and their decease. Perhaps you may
think that this is not correct, that there are other forms of change
besides origination and decease. A man is born. That is his
origination. He dies. That is his decease. Between his birth and his
death there are intermediate changes. He grows larger, grows older,
grows wiser or more foolish, his hair turns grey. So also the leaf of
a tree does not merely come into being and pass out of being. It
changes in shape, form, colour. From light green it becomes dark
green, and from dark green