After Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with Parmenides, we arrive at Empedokles (about 500-430 B. C.) and his memorable doctrine of the Four Elements. This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum, and a distinguished as well as popular-minded citizen, expounded his views in poems, of which Lucretius[108] speaks with high admiration, but of which few fragments are preserved. He agreed with Parmenides, and dissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in rejecting all real generation and destruction.[109] That which existed had not been generated and could not be destroyed. Empedokles explained what that was, which men mistook for generation and destruction. There existed four distinct elements--Earth, Water, Air, and Fire--eternal, inexhaustible, simple, homogeneous, equal, and co-ordinate with each other. Besides these four substances, there also existed two moving forces, one contrary to the other--Love or Friendship, which brought the elements into conjunction--Enmity or Contest, which separated them. Here were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing together different portions of the elements to form a new product, or breaking up the product thus formed and separating the constituent elements. Sometimes the Many were combined into One; sometimes the One was decomposed into Many. Generation was simply this combination of elements already existing separately--not the calling into existence of anything new: destruction was in like manner the dissolution of some compound, not the termination of any existent simple substance. The four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles sometimes calls by names of the popular Deities--Zeus, Hêrê, Aidoneus, &c.), were the roots or foundations of everything.[110] [Footnote 108: Lucretius, i. 731. Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus Vociferantur, et exponunt præclara reperta: Ut vix humanâ videatur stirpe creatus.] [Footnote 109: Empedokles, Frag. v. 77-83, ed. Karsten, p. 96: [Greek: phu/sis ou)deno/s e)stin a(pa/ntôn thnêtô=n, ou)de/ tis ou)lome/nou thanatoi=o teleutê\, a)lla\ mo/non mi/xis te dia/llaxi/s te mige/ntôn e)sti, phu/sis d' e)pi\ toi=s o)noma/zetai a)nthrô/poisin. . . . ] [Greek: Phu/sis] here is remarkable, in its primary sense, as derivative from [Greek: phu/omai], equivalent to [Greek: ge/nesis]. Compare Plutarch adv. Koloten, p. 1111, 1112.] [Footnote 110: Emp. Fr. v. 55. [Greek: Te/ssara tô=n pa/ntôn rhizô/mata].] [Side-note: Construction of the Kosmos from these elements and forces--action and counter action of love and enmity. The Kosmos alternately made and unmade.]