Heraclitus the Obscure
The most illustrious son of Ephesus was Heraclitus the Obscure. Born about 530 BCE, he belonged to a noble family, and thought that democracy was a mistake. Dissatisfied with people he went off, like a Chinese sage, to live in the mountains and brood over the idea that would explain all things. Upon his return, he claimed “all things are one”, and believed this “one” was Fire (energy?), explaining many natural cycles with it. Here is a new emphasis in philosophy: Heraclitus does not merely ask what things are, but how they came to be what they are, and suggests that the study of the second question is the best approach to the first. He finds nothing static in the universe, the mind, or the soul. To him we ascribe the famous phrase of “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing on to you”. He was also among the first to talk about the unity of opposites—an idea that was also being taught by Confucius around the same time, later explored by Taoism, Buddhism, and arguably modern psychology and science. One of my favorite phrases of his says that “from things that differ, comes the fairest attunement”. He rebukes those who desire an end of strife in the world; without this tension of opposites there would be no weaving of the living web, no development. His philosophy, concentrated for us now in 130 fragments, is among the major products of the Greek mind. The theory of the Divine fire passed down into Stoicism, the notion of a final conflagration was transmitted through Stoicism to Christianity, the conception of strife and struggle as determining all things reappears in Darwin, Spencer, and Nietzsche—who carries on, after twenty-four centuries, the war of Heraclitus against democracy. We know almost nothing of Heraclitus’ life; and of his death we have only an unsupported story in Diogenes Laertius…
"And at last becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to spend his time walking about the mountains, feeding on grasses and plants; and in consequence of these habits he was attacked by the dropsy, and so he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him by the warmth that this produced. And as he did himself no good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years."
Source: Durant, Will, 1885-1981, The Life of Greece: A history of Greek government, industry, manners, morals, religion, philosophy, science, literature and art from the earliest times to the Roman conquest. Simon and Schuster, 1939.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!