HEIDEL. — ON FRAGMENTS OF THE PRE-SOCR\TICS. 703 



Kal vts, ov KaOapai to aihixa, xo-ipovcn ti2 toiovtc*), ()l)\iou.sly glancing at Ir. 

 13, suggests the possibility that Ilerachtiis used the words in connec- 

 tion with a discussion of the mysteries, with the intent of which he 

 seems to have been satisfied, while he denounced their forms. Thus, 

 fr. 5, KadaipouraL 5' aXXcos aifxarL jJnaLvdjjLevoi. olov €t tls irrjXou e/i/Sdy 

 TTTjXiS awouii^oLTo, \\v find a context in which he may have distin- 

 guished between the form and the substance, the ouoida and the 

 epyop. Be that as it may, there is abundant evidence that Heraclitus 

 had grasped the fruitful principle that the true nature of a thing is 

 to be understood in relation to its function or epyov. We are familiar 

 enough with his interest in etymologies, which reveals the desire to 

 detect the true meaning of ol)jects in the derivation of their names; 

 but the study of homonyms, which our fragment reveals, ahnost 

 necessarily involved a corresponding attention to synonyms, in which 

 words of very different origin and etymology are shown to have a 

 common meaning. The test of identity or difference of meaning 

 Heraclitus found in the epyov of the thing. Plato, in a passage clearly 

 under tiie influence of Heraclitus, Crat. 394 A sq., develops this two- 

 fold principle, which underlies the study of homonyms and synonyms, 

 refen-ing to the law of uniformity in nature, in accordance with which 

 like begets like, and concludes therefrom that, as the physician recog- 

 nizes drugs by their physiological action (5iVa^tts = epyov\ not allowing 

 himself to be deceived by their several disguises, so the philosopher 

 must apply the same name to parent and offspring, or at any rate he 

 must learn to detect the identity of concepts by whatever names they 

 may go. Plato is obviously developing ideas derived from Heraclitus, 

 partly such as are expressed in the fragments above cited, partly 

 those of fr. 67, which we shall piesently discuss more at length. In 

 Tim. 50 A-51 B Plato combines in a highly suggestive way Heracli- 

 tean and Eleatic concepts, very much as he develops the law of 

 uniformity, mentioned in the Cratylus, into the principle of interac- 

 tion (ivoLtlv Kai Traax^i-v) in Gorg. 476 B sq. In the living tissue of so 

 vital a tradition as Greek philosophy presents we expect to find con- 

 tinuous developments of this kind, ^^hat is more difficult is the task 

 of discriminating the stages marked by the individuals who contributed 

 to the total result. In regard to the particular question with which 

 we are now concerned, it is clear that Heraclitus and the Heracliteans 

 laid the foundations for the Socratic procedure of definition by noting 

 the essential importance of the 'ipyou in determining the meaning of 

 a concept. It was Socrates, howe\er, who elaborated the method of 

 definition on the basis of dialectic, thus in turn laying the foundations 

 of the science of logic. 



