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The metaphysics of Heraclitus are sufficiently dynamic to satisfy the most hustling of moderns:

'This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures kindling and measures going out.'

'The transformations of Fire are, first of all, sea; and half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind.'

In such a world, perpetual change was to be expected, and perpetual change was what Heraclitus believed in.

He had, however, another doctrine on which he set even more store than on the perpetual flux; this was the doctrine of the mingling of opposites. 'Men do not know,' he says, 'how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.' His belief in strife is connected with this theory, for in strife opposites combine to produce a motion which is a harmony. There is a unity in the world, but it is a unity resulting from diversity:

'Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.'

Sometimes he speaks as if the unity were more fundamental than the diversity:

'Good and ill are one.'

'To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.'

'The way up and the way down is one and the same.'

'God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each.'

Nevertheless there would be no unity if there were not opposites to combine: 'lt is the opposite which is good for us.'

This doctrine contains the germ of Hegel's philosophy, which proceeds by a synthesizing of opposites.

The metaphysics of Heraclitus, like that of Anaximander, is dominated by a conception of cosmic justice, which prevents the strife of opposites from ever issuing in the complete victory of either.

'All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares.'

'Fire lives the death of air, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water.'

'The sun will not overstep his measures; if he does, the Erinyes, the handmaids of Justice, will find him out.'

'We must know that war is common to all, and strife is justice.'

Heraclitus repeatedly speaks of 'God' as distinct from 'the gods'. 'The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has…. Man is called a baby by God, even as a child by a man…. The wisest man is an ape compared to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man.'

God, no doubt, is the embodiment of cosmic justice.

The doctrine that everything is in a state of flux is the most famous of the opinions of Heraclitus, and the one most emphasized by his disciples, as described in Plato's Theaetetus.

'You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.'3

'The sun is new every day.'

His belief in universal change is commonly supposed to have been expressed in the phrase 'all things are flowing', but this is probably apocryphal, like Washington's 'Father, I cannot tell a lie' and Wellington's 'Up Guards and at 'em.' His words, like those of all the philosophers before Plato, are only known through quotations, largely made by Plato and Aristotle for the sake of refutation. When one thinks what would become of any modern philosopher if he were only known through the polemics of his rivals, one can see how admirable the pre-Socratics must have been, since even through the mist of malice spread by their enemies they still appear great. However this may be, Plato and Aristotle agree that Heraclitus taught that 'nothing ever is, everything is becoming' (Plato), and that 'nothing steadfastly is' (Aristotle).

I shall return to the consideration of this doctrine in connection with Plato, who is much concerned to refute it. For the present,