Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
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Ancient Greek and Latin Page · Branch 106 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 12–13
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 202On the Senses 12
Ἐ. μὲν οὖν οὕτως οἴεται καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν γίνεσθαι καὶ τὸ φρονεῖν, ἀπορήσειε δ' ἄν τις ἐξ ὧν λέγει πρῶτον μέν, τί διοίσει τὰ ἔμψυχα πρὸς τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι τῶν ἀψύχων· ἐναρμόττει γὰρ καὶ τοῖς τῶν ἀψύχων πόρος· ὅλως γὰρ ποιεῖ τὴν μίξιν τῆι συμμετρίαι τῶν πόρων· διόπερ ἔλαιον μὲν καὶ ὕδωρ οὐ μείγνυσθαι, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ὑγρὰ καὶ περὶ ὅσων δὴ καταριθμεῖται τὰς ἰδίας κράσεις. ὥστε πάντα τε αἰσθήσεται καὶ ταὐτὸν ἔσται μίξις καὶ αἴσθησις καὶ αὔξησις· πάντα γὰρ ποιεῖ τῆι συμμετρίαι τῶν πόρων, ἐὰν μὴ προσθῆι τινα διαφοράν.
On the Senses 13
ἔπειτα ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἐμψύχοις τί μᾶλλον αἰσθήσεται τὸ ἐν τῶι ζώιωι πῦρ ἢ τὸ ἐκτός, εἴπερ ἐναρμόττουσιν ἀλλήλοις; ὑπάρχει γὰρ καὶ ἡ συμμετρία καὶ τὸ ὅμοιον. ἔτι δὲ ἀνάγκη διαφοράν τινα ἔχειν, εἴπερ αὐτὸ μὲν μὴ δύναται συμπληροῦν τοὺς πόρους, τὸ δ' ἔξωθεν ἐπεισιόν· ὥστ' εἰ ὅμοιον ἦν πάντηι καὶ πάντως, οὐκ ἂν ἦν αἴσθησις. ἔτι δὲ πότερον οἱ πόροι κενοὶ ἢ πλήρεις; εἰ μὲν γὰρ κενοί, συμβαίνει διαφωνεῖν ἑαυτῶι· φησὶ γὰρ ὅλως οὐκ εἶναι κενόν· εἰ δὲ πλήρεις, ἀεὶ ἂν αἰσθάνοιτο τὰ ζῶια· δῆλον γὰρ ὡς ἐναρμόττει, καθάπερ φησί, τὸ ὅμοιον.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 203The first objections: what separates the living from the lifeless, and is there void?
On the Senses 12
This, then, is how Empedocles thinks perception and thinking come about. But one might raise difficulties from his own words. First: what will distinguish living things from lifeless ones, so far as perceiving goes? For a passage fits in lifeless things too, since he makes mixture as such depend on the commensurability of the passages — which is why oil and water do not mix, whereas the other liquids do, and all the cases whose particular blends he enumerates. It will follow that everything perceives, and that mixture and perception and growth are one and the same; for he produces everything by the commensurability of the passages, unless he adds some further difference.
On the Senses 13
Next, within living things themselves: why will the fire inside the animal perceive any more than the fire outside, if they fit one another? For both the commensurability and the likeness are there. Besides, there must be some difference, if the inner fire cannot fill the passages by itself but something must come in from outside — so that if it were alike in every way and altogether, there would be no perception at all. Again: are the passages empty or full? If empty, he contradicts himself, for he says there is no void whatever; if full, animals would always be perceiving, since, as he says, the like plainly fits.
The refutation begins.
Two objections, and the second is the sharper. Empedocles denies the void outright, yet his whole theory requires passages for things to travel through; Theophrastus sees that the passages must be either empty, which contradicts the denial, or full, in which case perception never stops. It is the first recorded instance of a physical theory being caught between two of its own commitments, and the difficulty it raises would not be resolved until the atomists accepted the void that Empedocles refused.
Bearing on Volume I. Bears directly on B 13 and B 14, where the denial of void is stated in verse.
18 πρὸς τῷ in the manuscripts: corrected by Schneider. — 34 καὶ συμβαίνει in the manuscripts: corrected by Schneider.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 12–13
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Empedocles survives not only through his poems but through the ancient writers who described his life, doctrines, medicine, cosmology, and extraordinary reputation. Volume II gathers the testimonia: ninety-nine numbered reports drawn from fifty-two authors across nine centuries. The English introduction appears full width; each Greek or Latin testimony then faces its new English translation.
Historical Text and Translation
The Greek and Latin reading text follows Hermann Diels’s third edition of Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1912), retaining the supplied edition’s Diels-Kranz numbering and editorial signs. These witnesses must be read as a chain of transmission: many preserve valuable evidence, while others summarize, dispute, reshape, or repeat earlier accounts.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared the new English translation, introduction, notes, and reception appendices for this volume. The translation keeps each witness distinct and preserves its technical vocabulary, argumentative posture, and relationship to the surviving poetry in Volume I.
Rights
The ancient source works and Hermann Diels’s 1912 Greek and Latin edition are in the public domain. The 2026 English translation, introduction, notes, and editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.