William Wallace

“ We know only in so far as we have within us a nature cognate to the object of knowledge. Like is known by like. The whole body is full of pores, and hence respiration takes place over the whole frame. But in the organs of sense these pores are specially adapted to receive the effluxes which are continually rising from bodies around us; and in this way perception is somewhat obscurely explained. The theory, however unsatisfactory as an explanation, has one great merit, that it recognizes between the eye, for instance, and the object seen an intermediate something. ”

“ As man, animal and plant are composed of the same elements in different proportions, there is an identity of nature in them all. They all have sense and understanding; in man, however, and especially in the blood at his heart, mind has its peculiar seat. But mind is always dependent upon the body, and varies with its changing constitution. Hence the precepts of morality are with Empedocles largely dietetic.
Knowledge is explained by the principle that the several elements in the things outside us are perceived by the corresponding elements in ourselves. ”

“ But the senses cannot lead to truth; thought and reflection must look at the thing on every side. It is the business of a philosopher, while he lays bare the fundamental difference of elements, to display the identity that subsists between what seem unconnected parts of the universe. ”

“ Certain particles go forth from the eye to meet similar particles given forth from the object, and the resultant contact constitutes vision. This idea contains within it the germ of the modern idea of the subjectivity of sense-given data; perception is not merely a passive reflection of external objects. ”

“ The people of Agrigentum have never ceased to honour his name, and even in modern times he has been celebrated by followers of Mazzini as the democrat of antiquity par excellence.
As his history is uncertain, so his doctrines are hard to put together. He does not belong to any one definite school. While, on one hand, he combines much that had been suggested by Parmenides, Pythagoras and the Ionic schools, he has germs of truth that Plato and Aristotle afterwards developed; he is at once a firm believer in Orphic mysteries, and a scientific thinker, precursor of the physical scientists. ”

“ Soon various influences reduced the creatures of double sex to a male and a female, and the world was replenished with organic life. It is impossible not to see in this theory a crude anticipation of the “survival of the fittest” theory of modern evolutionists. ”

“ It is in the aggregation and segregation of elements thus arising that Empedocles, like the atomists, finds the real process which corresponds to what is popularly termed growth, increase or decrease. Nothing new comes or can come into being ”