MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 3 



The comparison of this statement, which is mystical, 

 with the one quoted by Plato, which is scientific, shows 

 how intimately the two tendencies are blended in the 

 system of Heraclitus. Mysticism is, in essence, little 

 more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in 

 regard to what is believed about the universe ; and this 

 kind of feeling leads Heraclitus, on the basis of his science, 

 to strangely poignant sayings concerning life and the 

 world, such as : 



" Time is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is 

 a child's." 



It is poetic imagination, not science, which presents 

 Time as despotic lord of the world, with all the irrespon- 

 sible frivolity of a child. It is mysticism, too, which 

 leads Heraclitus to assert the identity of opposites : 

 " Good and ill are one," he says ; and again : " To God 

 all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some 

 things wrong and some right." 



Much of mysticism underlies the ethics of Heraclitus. 

 It is true that a scientific determinism alone might have 

 inspired the statement : " Man's character is his fate " ; 

 but only a mystic would have said : 



" Every beast is driven to the pasture with blows " ; 

 and again : 



"It is hard to fight with one's heart's desire. What- 

 ever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul " ; 

 and again : 



" Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by 

 which all things are steered through all things." 1 



Examples might be multiplied, but those that have 

 been given are enough to show the character of the man : 

 the facts of science, as they appeared to him, fed the 



1 All the above quotations are from Burnet's Early Greek Philo- 

 sophy, (and ed., 1908), pp. 146-156. 



