about his death. The reason rather
is that life has the germ of death already in it, that life is already
death potentially, that Being has not-being in it. The causation of
death is merely the mechanism, by the instrumentality of which,
through one set of causes or another, the inevitable end is brought
about.

[Footnote 6: Page 64.]

Not only is Being, for Heracleitus, identical with not-being, but
everything in the universe has in it its own opposite. Every existent
thing is a "harmony of opposite tensions." A harmony contains
necessarily two opposite principles which, in spite of their
opposition, reveal an underlying unity. That it is by virtue of this
principle that everything in the universe exists, is the teaching of
Heracleitus. All things contain their own opposites within them. In
the struggle and antagonism between hostile principles consists their
life, their being, their very existence. At the heart of things is
conflict. If there were no conflict in a thing, it would cease to
exist. This idea is expressed by Heracleitus in a variety of ways.
"Strife," he says, "is the father of all things." "The one, sundering
from itself, coalesces with itself, like the harmony of the bow and
the lyre." "God is day and night, summer and winter, war and peace,
satiety and hunger." "Join together whole and unwhole, congruous and
incongruous, accordant and discordant, then comes from one all and
from all one." In this sense, too, he censures Homer for having prayed
that strife might cease from among gods and men. If such a prayer were
granted, the universe itself would pass away.

{78}

Side by side with this metaphysic, Heracleitus lays down a theory of
physics. All things are composed of fire. "This world," he says,
"neither one of the gods nor of the human race has made; but it is, it
was, and ever shall be, an eternally living fire." All comes from
fire, and to fire all returns. "All things are exchanged for fire and
fire for all, as wares for gold and gold for wares." Thus there is
only one ultimate kind of matter, fire, and all other forms of matter
are merely modifications and variations of fire. It is clear for what
reason Heracleitus enunciated this principle. It is an exact physical
parallel to the metaphysical principle of Becoming. Fire is the most
mutable of the elements. It does not remain the same from one moment
to another. It is continually taking up matter in the form of fuel,
and giving off equival