Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
The Greek and Latin of Hermann Diels · New English translation and notes.
Explore the LexiconSwipe or use the arrow keys.
Ancient Greek and Latin Page · Branch 107 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 14–15
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 204On the Senses 14
καίτοι κἂν αὐτὸ τοῦτό τις διαπορήσειεν, εἰ δυνατόν ἐστι τηλικαῦτα μεγέθη γενέσθαι τῶν ἑτερογενῶν, ὥστ' ἐναρμόττειν, ἄλλως τε κἂν συμβαίνηι, καθάπερ φησί, τὰς ὄψεις ὧν ἀσύμμετρος ἡ κρᾶσις ὁτὲ μὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ πυρός, ὁτὲ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀέρος ἐμπλαττομένων τῶν πόρων ἀμαυροῦσθαι. εἰ δ' οὖν ἐστι καὶ τούτων συμμετρία καὶ πλήρεις οἱ πόροι τῶν μὴ συγγενῶν, πῶς, ὅταν αἰσθάνηται, καὶ ποῦ ταῦτα ὑπεξέρχεται; δεῖ γάρ τινα ἀποδοῦναι μεταβολήν. ὥστε πάντως ἔχει δυσκολίαν· ἢ γὰρ κενὸν ἀνάγκη ποιεῖν, ἢ ἀεὶ τὰ ζῶια αἰσθάνεσθαι πάντων, ἢ τὸ μὴ συγγενὲς ἁρμόττειν οὐ ποιοῦν αἴσθησιν οὐδ' ἔχον μεταβολὴν οἰκείαν τοῖς ἐμποιοῦσιν.
On the Senses 15
ἔτι δέ, εἰ καὶ μὴ ἐναρμόττοι τὸ ὅμοιον, ἀλλὰ μόνον ἅπτοιτο, καθ' ὁτιοῦν εὔλογον αἴσθησιν γίνεσθαι· δυοῖν γὰρ τούτοιν ἀποδίδωσι τὴν γνῶσιν τῶι τε ὁμοίωι καὶ τῆι ἁφῆι· διὸ καὶ τὸ ἁρμόττειν εἴρηκεν. ὥστ' εἰ τὸ ἔλαττον ἅψαιτο τῶν μειζόνων, εἴη ἂν αἴσθησις. ὅλως τε κατά γε ἐκεῖνον ἀφαιρεῖται καὶ τὸ ὅμοιον, ἀλλὰ ἡ συμμετρία μόνον ἱκανόν. διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οὐκ αἰσθάνεσθαί φησιν ἀλλήλων, ὅτι τοὺς πόρους ἀσυμμέτρους ἔχουσιν· εἰ δ' ὅμοιον ἢ ἀνόμοιον τὸ ἀπορρέον, οὐδὲν ἔτι προσαφώρισεν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 205Fitting, touching, and whether likeness is doing any work at all
On the Senses 14
And one might raise this very difficulty: whether magnitudes of different kinds can come to be of such a size as to fit at all — the more so if, as he says, eyes whose blend is out of proportion are dimmed, now by fire and now by air, because their passages get stopped up. If, then, there is a commensurability in these cases too, and the passages are full of things not akin to them, how does the eye perceive when it does perceive, and where do those things withdraw to? For some change must be accounted for. So the difficulty is unavoidable: either one must posit a void, or animals must always be perceiving everything, or what is not akin must fit — while producing no perception and undergoing no change proper to the things that fill it.
On the Senses 15
Further: even if the like did not fit but only touched, in whatever manner, it would be reasonable that perception should occur. For he assigns knowledge to two things, likeness and contact — which is why he speaks of fitting. So that if the smaller touched the larger, there would be perception. And on his view likeness is really done away with altogether, and commensurability alone suffices. For he says that things do not perceive one another for just this reason, that their passages are out of proportion; but whether what flows off is like or unlike he laid down nothing further.
The refutation, continued.
The second of these is the deepest criticism in the chapter. Empedocles' explanation, Theophrastus notices, actually rests on two different principles at once — that like knows like, and that a thing fits a passage of the right size — and the second does all the work. If perception is a matter of proportion, likeness has become an idle wheel. That is a purely logical objection, and it is made without a single appeal to observation.
Bearing on Volume I. Bears on B 109, "by earth we see earth" — the doctrine Theophrastus is dismantling here.
35 φασί in the manuscripts: corrected by Schneider. — 37 μή Schneider: μέν in the manuscripts. — 42 ἐναρμόττει in the manuscripts: corrected by Stephanus.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 14–15
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.