The presence of Herakleitean matter in this treatise was pointed out
by Gesner, but Bernays was the first to make any considerable use of
it in reconstructing the system. The older literature of the subject
has been in the main superseded by Carl Fredrichs’ _Hippokratische
Untersuchungen_ (1899), where also a satisfactory text of the sections
which concern us is given for the first time. Fredrichs shows that (as
I said already in the first edition) the work belongs to the period of
eclecticism and reaction which I have briefly characterised in § 184,
and he points out that c 3, which was formerly supposed to be mainly
Herakleitean, is really from some work which was strongly influenced
by Empedokles and Anaxagoras. I think, however, that he goes wrong in
attributing the section to a nameless “Physiker” of the school of
Archelaos, or even to Archelaos himself; it is far more like what we
should expect from the eclectic Herakleiteans whom Plato describes in
_Crat._ 413 c (see p. 161, _n._ 374). He is certainly wrong in holding
the doctrine of the balance of fire and water not to be Herakleitean,
and there is no justification for separating the remark quoted in the
text from its context because it happens to agree almost verbally with
the beginning of c. 3. As we shall see, that passage too is of
Herakleitean origin.
Footnote 384:
Περὶ διαίτης, i. 5. I should read thus: ἡμέρη καὶ εὐφρόνη ἐπὶ τὸ
μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον· ἥλιος, σελήνη ἐπὶ τὸ μήκιστον καὶ ἐλάχιστον·
πυρὸς ἔφοδος καὶ ὕδατος. In any case, the meaning is the same, and the
sentence occurs between χωρεῖ δὲ πάντα καὶ θεῖα καὶ ἀνθρώπινα ἄνω καὶ
κάτω ἀμειβόμενα and πάντα ταὐτὰ καὶ οὐ τὰ αὐτά, which are surely
Herakleitean utterances.
[Sidenote: Man]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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