1. RELATION OF THE HERACLITIC PRINCIPLE TO THE ELEATIC.—Being and existence, the one and the many, could not be united by the principle of the Eleatics; the Monism which they had striven for had resulted in an ill-concealed Dualism. Heraclitus reconciled this contradiction by affirming that being and not-being, the one and the many, existed at the same time as the becoming. While the Eleatics could not extricate themselves from the dilemma that the world is either being or not-being, Heraclitus removes the difficulty by answering—it is neither being nor not-being, because it is both. 2. HISTORICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL.—Heraclitus, surnamed by later writers the mystic, was born at Ephesus, and flourished about 500 B. C. His period was subsequent to that of Xenophanes, though partially cotemporary with that of Parmenides. He laid down his philosophical thoughts in a writing “Concerning Nature,” of which we possess only fragments. Its rapid transitions, its expressions so concise, and full of meaning, the general philosophical peculiarity of Heraclitus, and the antique character of the earliest prose writings, all combine to make this work so difficult to be understood that it has long been a proverb. Socrates said concerning it, that “what he understood of it was excellent, and he had no doubt that what he did not understand was equally good; but the book requires an expert swimmer.” Later Stoics and Academicians have written commentaries upon it. 3. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE BECOMING.—The ancients unite in ascribing to Heraclitus the principle that the totality of things should be conceived in an eternal flow, in an uninterrupted movement and transformation, and that all continuance of things is only appearance. “Into the same stream,” so runs a saying of Heraclitus, “we descend, and at the same time we do not descend; we are, and also we are not. For into the same stream we cannot possibly descend twice, since it is always scattering and collecting itself again, or rather it at the same time flows to us and from us.” There is, therefore, ground for the assertion that Heraclitus had banished all rest and continuance from the totality of things; and it is doubtless in this very respect that he accuses the eye and the ear of deception, because they reveal to men a continuance where there is only an uninterrupted change.