The style of Herakleitos is proverbially obscure, and, at a later date, got him the nickname of “the Dark.”[327] Now the fragments about the Delphic god and the Sibyl (frs. 11 and 12) seem to show that he was quite conscious of writing an oracular style, and we have to ask why he did so. In the first place, it was the manner of the time.[328] The stirring events of the age, and the influence of the religious revival, gave something of a prophetic tone to all the leaders of thought. Pindar and Aischylos have it too. They all feel that they are in some measure inspired. It is also the age of great individualities, who are apt to be solitary and disdainful. Herakleitos at least was so. If men cared to dig for the gold they might find it (fr. 8); if not, they must be content with straw (fr. 51). This seems to have been the view taken by Theophrastos, who said that the headstrong temperament of Herakleitos sometimes led him into incompleteness and inconsistencies of statement.[329] But that is a very different thing from studied obscurity and the _disciplina arcani_ sometimes attributed to him; if Herakleitos does not go out of his way to make his meaning clear, neither does he hide it (fr. 11). Footnote 327: R. P. 30 a. The epithet ὁ σκοτεινός is of late date, but Timon of Phleious already called him αἰνικτής (fr. 43, Diels). Footnote 328: See the valuable observations of Diels in the Introduction to his _Herakleitos von Ephesos_, pp. iv. sqq. Footnote 329: Cf. Diog. ix. 6 (R. P. 31). [Sidenote: The fragments.] 65. I give a version of the fragments according to the arrangement of Mr. Bywater’s exemplary edition.[330] (1) It is wise to hearken, not to me, but to my Word, and to confess that all things are one.[331] R. P. 40. (2) Though this Word[332] is true evermore, yet men are as unable to understand it when they hear it for the first time as before they have heard it at all. For, though all things come to pass in accordance with this Word, men seem as if they had no experience of them, when they make trial of words and deeds such as I set forth, dividing each thing according to its nature and showing how it truly is. But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget what they do in sleep. R. P. 32. (3) Fools when they do hear are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present. R. P. 31 a. (4) Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have souls that understand not their language. R. P. 42. (5) The many do not take heed of such things as those they meet with, nor do they mark them when they are taught, though they think they do. (6) Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak. (7) If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.[333] (8) Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a little. R. P. 44 b. (10) Nature loves to hide. R. P. 34 f.