HEIDEL. — LTepl 4>vcrea>s. 107 



produces natural species and legislates language ; 113 in disease she 

 may withhold signs, but may be constrained by art to yield them ; 114 

 the means employed by her are likened to the means in use in the 

 arts. 115 Such is the picture we find drawn of <£vo-is at the close of the 

 pre-Socratic period. In the earlier writers such expressions are rare. 

 Heraclitus 116 says that "nature loves to play at hide-and-seek," and 

 Epicharmus 117 says "Eumaeus, wisdom is not confined to one place, 

 but all living things have intelligence. The tribe of hens, if you will 

 note sharply, does not bring forth living offspring but hatches eggs and 

 causes them to acquire a living soul. This bit of wisdom — how this 

 comes about — Nature alone doth know ; she was self-taught." 



Aside from such utterances as these 118 we are reduced to inferences 

 from the general doctrines of philosophers, but it is not our plan to 

 pursue this subject here. It may not be amiss, however, to remark 

 that the type of pantheism found in Xenophanes, 119 vaguely anticipat- 



113 IT. t^x v V^> 2 (6, 4 Littre) oI/jlcli d' ^yuiye ko.1 rd 6v6p.ara cuVds (sc. rds reacts) 

 5id rd efSea Xaftelv • dXoyov yap a.Trb tuiv ovofxarcov to, eioea rjyelcrOai. fiXaardveiv, nal 

 a8uva.Toi> • to. /jLev yap ofd/j-ara (pvcrios voixoder-qp-ard eari, ra 5e eidea ov vofw6eTi)/j.aTa, 

 d\Ad ^XaaTrifj-ara. Cp. Plato's Cratylus. It is noteworthy that vofios is here de- 

 rived from <pvcris, its products as only in a secondary degree accounted the result of 

 Nature. Alongside this view ran the other which distinguished sharply between 

 <pvcns and v6/jlos, though here also v6/jlos is secondary. Hippocrates, II. Siatrris, A, 11 

 (6, 486 Littre) says : vbp.os yap Kal <f>v<ns, ol<ri iravra §iairp7]<T<rbp*6a, oi>x ofioXoyeerai 

 OfJ.oXoyeofj.eva • v6p.ov yap HOecrav tivdpwwoi avrol euivroiaiv, ov yivuxTKOvres wepl &v tdecrav • 

 <pvaiv 5e irdvTwv (doubtless including man) deoi SieKocrpiTjaav ■ a p.iv odv avOpwwoi Zdeaav, 

 ovd^Kore Kara tu>vt6 $x €l °^ T€ opdios oiirt /xtj 6p6u>s • OKOffa 5e deoi £6eo~av, del opduis ^X". 



114 II. t£x''V s > 12 (6, 24 Littre) tirav 5e ravra firj firjvijwvTai, fxr)b" avrij 7/ cpvcris 

 eKovcra a<f>lri, avdyKas evpTjKev (sc. 77 t^x v v)j V <Ttv V 4>6o~t.S d^rip-ws fiiaaOeiaa fieOLritriv. 



115 II. t^x V7 1S> 8 (6, 14 Littre) &v yap kariv tj/juv rolai re tCiv rex v ^ wv opy&vois 

 i-n-LKparieiv. II. 8ialT7]s is full of comparisons between the operations of nature and 

 those of the arts. 



116 Fr. 123 <pvffis Kptiirreadai 0t\et. I interpret this saying as referring to the 

 game called KpVTrrivda, and regard it as parallel to fr. 52 alwv irais iari waifav, irer- 

 retiwv • traidbs 17 (3a<r<.\r]l7). Bernays (Abh. der Akad. Berl., 1882, p. 43) said of the 

 latter: "H. hatte seinen Zeus, insofern er unablassig Welten baut und Welten 

 zerstort, ein ' spielendes Kind ' genannt ; der tiefsinnige Naturphilosoph wahlte 

 dieses Bild, um das Wirken der Naturkrafte alien menschlichen Fragen nach dem 

 Zwecke zu entriicken." Heraclitus probably had little reason to fear teleological 

 interpretation of nature. Perhaps the alwv is playing a game of solitaire or playing 

 against a dummy, now winning (k6/jos), now losing (\ip.6$). Cp. Stein on Hdt. ir. 

 122, 3. On similar lines one might explain the game of KpuTrrivda. 



117 Fr. 4 (Diels). Cp. n. 109, above, and Ar., Vesp., 1282. The genuineness of 

 the fragment is not above suspicion. 



118 Cp. Eurip. fr. 920 7/ (pvcris e[3ov\e6\ 17 vt>p.&v ovdiv /ii\ei. 



119 Cp. Burnet, 2d ed., p. 141 and Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece, p. 

 209 foil. I incline to think that Adam somewhat overemphasized the degree of 



