HEIDEL. — n<=p! <f>vcr«os. 85 



offered a like apology, only with larger charity, for the still earlier cosmog- 

 onists. Theophrastus 26 in the same spirit remarked upon the ' poetic ' 

 diction of Anaximander because he referred to the mutual encroach- 

 ment of the elements as ' injustice.' Indeed, the mythical cast of much 

 of the earlier philosophy is so marked as to constitute a serious prob- 

 lem to the historical student, who desires to interpret fairly the thought 

 of the age. This fact, duly considered, throws light in both directions. 

 It shows, on the one hand, that theogonists and cosmogonists em- 

 ployed the names of divinities to designate philosophical, or at any 

 rate, quasi-philosophical concepts ; but it also shows that the philoso- 

 phers were not themselves conscious of a complete break with the past. 

 Thus, while the theogonists pictured the origin and operations of the 

 world in terms of the history and behavior of mythical characters, 

 often so vaguely and imperfectly conceived 27 as at once to betray their 

 factitious nature, the philosophers applied to their principles and ele- 

 ments names and epithets proper to the gods. 28 This course was, 

 indeed, extraordinarily easy and natural to the Greeks, whose religion 

 was in its higher phases essentially a worship of Nature. 29 But this 

 very worship of Nature in her more significant aspects was in itselt 

 one of the chief influences which predisposed the Greeks to a philoso- 

 phy of Nature. 



There are certain picturesque effects of this intimate historical con- 

 nexion of speculation on nature with theology (in the Greek sense), 

 which are perhaps worth noting. Aristotle repeatedly uses the ex- 

 pression koct/xov yewav alongside Kocr/xoTroulv or Koa-fxoTroua in reference 



of his precursors in my study, Qualitative Change in Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Archiv. 

 far Gesch. der Philos., 1906). There seem still to remain a few scholars who, even 

 after the illustrations of this tendency noted by Natorp (e. g., Philos. Monatshefte, 

 xxx. 345) and Burnet, are unaccountably blind to it. 



26 Apud Simpl. In Phys. I. 2, p. 24, 20 (Diels). 



27 See, e.g., Diels, Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 10 ; Rohde, Psyche, II. 114 and 

 115, n. 2; Ed. Meyer, Gesch. des Altcrtums, I, a (2d ed.), p. 100 foil.; Burnet, 

 Early Greek Philosophy, (2d ed.) p. 74 foil. 



28 Cp. Otto Gilbert, Ionier und Eleaten, Rh. M., N. F., 64, p. 189. Empedocles 

 deifies the Sphere, the elements, and the efficient causes, Love and Strife. The practice 

 continues throughout Greek thought. The question is where religious belief ends 

 and metaphor begins : see Millerd, On the Interpretation of Empedocles, p. 34. I do 

 not doubt that Professor Millerd, as well as Gilbert (1. c. and Meteorol. Theorien, etc., 

 p. 110, n. 1) and Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece, pp. 184-190, 248, 250, go 

 too far in accepting as sober belief what was in fact ' poetic ' metaphor. See Burnet, 

 p. 74 foil., p. 288 foil. Rohde says (Psyche II. 2) "Wer unter Griechen unsterblich 

 sagt, sagt Gott : das sind Wechselbegriffe." This statement certainly requires quali- 

 fication ; but this is not the place to discuss the matter at length. 



29 Ed. Meyer, Gesch. des Altertums, I, a (2d ed.), pp. 97-100, distinguishes. — 

 aside from purely magical beings, — two classes of gods : I. universal gods, con- 



