y to form the harmony of the world.
Good and evil are principles on the struggle {80} between which the
very existence of things depends. Evil, too, is necessary, has its
place in the world. To see this is to put oneself above pitiful and
futile struggles against the supreme law of the universe.

CHAPTER VI

EMPEDOCLES

Empedocles was a man of Agrigentum in Sicily. The dates of his birth
and death are placed about 495 and 435 B.C. respectively. Like
Pythagoras, he possessed a powerful and magnetic personality. Hence
all kinds of legends quickly grew up and wove themselves round his
life and death. He was credited with the performance of miracles, and
romantic stories were circulated about his death. A man of much
persuasive eloquence he raised himself to the leadership of the
Agrigentine democracy, until he was driven out into exile.

The philosophy of Empedocles is eclectic in character. Greek
philosophy had now developed a variety of conflicting principles, and
the task of Empedocles is to reconcile these, and to weld them
together in a new system, containing however no new thought of its
own. In speaking of Parmenides, I pointed out that his teaching may be
interpreted either in an idealistic or a materialistic sense, and that
these two aspects of thought lie side by side in Parmenides, and that
it is possible to emphasize either the one or the other. Empedocles
seizes upon the materialistic side. The essential thought of
Parmenides was that Being cannot pass into not-being, nor not-being
into Being. Whatever is, remains for ever what it is. {82} If we take
that in a purely material context, what it means is that matter has
neither beginning nor end, is uncreated and indestructible. And this
is the first basic principle of Empedocles. On the other hand,
Heracleitus had shown that becoming and change cannot be denied. This
is the second basic principle of Empedocles. That there is no absolute
becoming, no creation, and utter destruction of things, and yet that
things do somehow arise and pass away, this must be explained, these
contradictory ideas must be reconciled. Now if we assert that matter
is uncreated and indestructible, and yet that things arise and pass
away, there is only one way of explaining this. We must suppose that
objects, as wholes begin and cease to be, but that the material
particles of which they are composed are uncreated and indestructible.
This thought now forms the first principle