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 113 of 126
Perception and Thought · A 86 § 24
Ancient Greek and Latin
p. 216On the Senses 24
ἄτοπον δὲ καὶ τὸ τὰς δυνάμεις ἑκάστοις ἐγγίνεσθαι διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις τοῦ αἵματος σύγκρασιν, ὡς ἢ τὴν γλῶτταν αἰτίαν τοῦ εὖ λέγειν ⟨οὖσαν ἢ⟩ τὰς χεῖρας τοῦ δημιουργεῖν, ἀλλ' οὐκ ὀργάνου τάξιν ἔχοντα. διὸ καὶ μᾶλλον ἄν τις ἀποδοίη τῆι μορφῆι τὴν αἰτίαν ἢ τῆι κράσει τοῦ αἵματος, ἣ χωρὶς διανοίας ἐστίν· οὕτως γὰρ ἔχει καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων ζώιων. Ἐ. μὲν οὖν ἔοικεν ἐν πολλοῖς διαμαρτάνειν.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II: Perception and Thought
p. 217The last objection: an organ is an instrument, not a cause
On the Senses 24
It is absurd, too, that the faculties should arise in each part through the blending of the blood in it — as though the tongue were the cause of speaking well, ⟨or⟩ the hands the cause of craftsmanship, and not rather that they hold the rank of an instrument. One would do better to assign the cause to the form than to the blend of the blood, which is without intelligence. For so it stands with the other animals too. Empedocles, then, appears to go wrong in a good many places.
The close of the chapter, and Theophrastus's verdict.
The chapter ends on the distinction that divides the whole of Greek natural philosophy: whether the cause of a thing is its matter or its form. Empedocles put it in the matter — the blend of blood in the hand is why the hand can make things — and Theophrastus, standing in Aristotle's tradition, answers that a hand is an instrument and an instrument is not a cause. The verdict in the last sentence is measured rather than dismissive: not that Empedocles was foolish, but that in many places he goes wrong. He had, after all, just spent eighteen sections taking him seriously.
Bearing on Volume I. Closes the theory of perception that A 78 and B 96 begin.
33 ⟨οὖσαν ἢ⟩ supplied by Diels.
Socrates
Reading Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II · Perception and Thought · A 86 § 24
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.