II NOTES. 109 



In fact, it assumes the existence of two worlds, one 

 good and one bad; the latter created by the evil 

 power for the purpose of damaging the former. The 

 existing cosmos is a mere mixture of the two, and 

 the " last judgment " is a root-and-branch extirpa- 

 tion of the work of Ahriman. 



Note 12 (p. 69). 



There is no snare in which the feet of a modern 

 student of ancient lore are more easily entangled, 

 than that which is spread by the similarity of the 

 language of antiquity to modern modes of expres- 

 sion. I do not presume to interpret the obscurest of 

 Greek philosophers; all I wish is to point out, that 

 his words, in the sense accepted by competent inter- 

 preters, fit modern ideas singularly well. 



So far as the general theory of evolution goes 

 there is no difficulty. The aphorism about the river ; 

 the figure of the child playing on the shore; the 

 kingship and fatherhood of strife, seem decisive. 

 The obos ava> Kara) fiirj expresses, with singular apt- 

 ness, the cyclical aspect of the one process of organic 

 evolution in individual plants and animals: yet it 

 may be a question whether the Heracleitean strife 

 included any distinct conception of the struggle for 

 existence. Again, it is tempting to compare the part 

 played by the Heracleitean " fire " with that ascribed 

 by the moderns to heat, or rather to that cause of 

 motion of which heat is one expression ; and a little 

 ingenuity might find a foreshadowing of the doc- 

 trine of the conservation of energy, in the saying 



