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 109 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 18–19
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 208On the Senses 18
ἀτόπως δὲ καὶ ὅτι τὰ μὲν ἡμέρας, τὰ δὲ νύκτωρ μᾶλλον ὁρᾶι. τὸ γὰρ ἔλαττον πῦρ ὑπὸ τοῦ πλείονος φθείρεται, διὸ καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον καὶ ὅλως τὸ καθαρὸν οὐ δυνάμεθ' ἀντιβλέπειν. ὥστε ὅσοις ἐνδεέστερον τὸ φῶς, ἧττον ἐχρῆν ὁρᾶν μεθ' ἡμέραν· ἢ εἴπερ τὸ ὅμοιον συναύξει, καθάπερ φησί, τὸ δὲ ἐναντίον φθείρει καὶ κωλύει, τὰ μὲν λευκὰ μᾶλλον ἐχρῆν ὁρᾶν ἅπαντας μεθ' ἡμέραν καὶ ὅσοις ἔλαττον καὶ ὅσοις πλεῖον τὸ φῶς, τὰ δὲ μέλανα νύκτωρ. νῦν δὲ πάντες ἅπαντα μεθ' ἡμέραν μᾶλλον ὁρῶσι πλὴν ὀλίγων ζώιων. τούτοις δ' εὔλογον τοῦτ' ἰσχύειν τὸ οἰκεῖον πῦρ, ὥσπερ ἔνια καὶ τῆι χρόαι διαλάμπει μᾶλλον τῆς νυκτός.
On the Senses 19
ἔτι δ' οἷς ἡ κρᾶσις ἐξ ἴσων, ἀνάγκη συναύξεσθαι κατὰ μέρος ἑκατέρους· ὥστ' εἰ πλεονάζον κωλύει θάτερον ὁρᾶν, ἁπάντων ἂν εἴη παραπλησία πως ἡ διάθεσις. ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν τῆς ὄψεως πάθη χαλεπώτερον ἔσται διελεῖν. τὰ δὲ περὶ τὰς ἄλλας αἰσθήσεις πῶς κρίνομεν τῶι ὁμοίωι; τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον ἀόριστον. οὔτε γὰρ ψόφωι τὸν ψόφον οὔτ' ὀσμῆι τὴν ὀσμὴν οὔτε τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῖς ὁμογενέσιν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ὡς εἰπεῖν τοῖς ἐναντίοις. ἀπαθῆ γὰρ δεῖ τὴν αἴσθησιν προσάγειν· ἤχου δὲ ἐνόντος ἐν ὠσὶν ἢ χυλῶν ἐν γεύσει καὶ ὀσμῆς ἐν ὀσφρήσει κωφότεραι πᾶσαι γίνονται ⟨καὶ⟩ μᾶλλον ὅσωι ἂν πλήρεις ὦσι τῶν ὁμοίων, εἰ μή τις λεχθείη περὶ τούτων διορισμός.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 209Day and night vision again; and how the other senses could judge by likeness
On the Senses 18
It is absurd, too, that some creatures see better by day and others by night. For the lesser fire is destroyed by the greater — which is why we cannot look straight at the sun, or at pure fire at all. So those whose light is more deficient ought to see less by day; or else, if the like increases the like, as he says, while the opposite destroys and hinders it, then everyone ought to see white things better by day, those with less light and those with more alike, and black things better by night. In fact all creatures see everything better by day, apart from a few animals. In these it is reasonable that their own fire should prevail, just as some of them shine out in their very colour more by night.
On the Senses 19
Further, in those whose blend is of equal parts, both must be increased alternately; so that if an excess of one hinders seeing, the condition of them all would be more or less the same. But the affections of sight will be the harder to settle. As for the other senses — how do we judge by the like? For the like is indefinite. We do not judge a sound by sound, or a smell by smell, or the rest by things of the same kind, but rather, one might say, by their opposites. For the sense must be brought to its object unaffected: when there is a ringing in the ears, or flavours in the tasting, or an odour in the nostrils, all the senses grow duller, and the duller the fuller they are of what is like — unless some distinction were drawn about these cases.
The refutation, continued.
Section 19 states the principle that will govern the theory of perception for the rest of antiquity: a sense-organ must be neutral with respect to what it perceives. An ear already full of sound cannot hear; a tongue already carrying a flavour cannot taste. Aristotle will make this a cornerstone. Empedocles' like-by-like doctrine says the reverse, and Theophrastus has found the place where the two collide.
22 ἀτόπως Diels, understood with λέγει. — 29 διαλάμπειν in the manuscripts: corrected by Stephanus. — 37 the supplement is Diels's.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 §§ 18–19
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.