THE HELLENIC PERIOD 41 



darkness. These elements have natural attractions or 

 repulsions for each other which cause them to combine 

 or to separate. They float in two surrounding media, 

 which are love and hatred. These media, although 

 invisible to the senses, are material forces just like the 

 ether of the physicists. They act indifferently on all 

 bodies. Love, for example, has the effect of uniting 

 elements whose natural affinities do not impel them to 

 unite ; hatred, on the contrary, separates the bodies 

 which are naturally inclined to combine. The natural 

 affinities of corporeal molecules and the combined 

 action of hatred and love are sufficient to explain the 

 changes and the astonishing diversity of sensible 

 phenomena. In the beginning the four elements 

 formed a harmonious spherical whole, entirely enveloped 

 by love ; around the universe thus constituted ex- 

 tended the finite medium of hatred. This latter, 

 similar to the empty space of the Pythagoreans, at a 

 given moment absorbed the four elements, and taking 

 the place of love, drove the latter to the end of the 

 world, thereby creating a veritable chaos. But this 

 chaos did not last for ever ; a movement of revolution 

 was gradually produced in the universe, at first very 

 slow (nine months instead of a day) then becoming 

 more and more rapid. The central region was but little 

 affected by this movement of universal rotation, and it 

 was into this region where tranquillity reigns that love 

 hastened to build up the world anew. 1 The air escapes 

 first, but compressed by the limits of the universe, it 

 is transformed into a hollow crystalline sphere. Fire 



1 Here we are following the current interpretation, which 

 is also that of 25 Tannery, Science hellene, p. 310, but not of 

 8 Burnet, Aurore, p. 268, who thinks that according to Empe- 

 docles our actual world would be in the cycle of disorganiza- 

 tion due to hatred, and not in the period of organization by 

 love. This difference of opinion is of secondary importance 

 because it does not modify the cosmological conceptions of 

 Empedocles as a whole. 



