Empedocles
He proposed that the universe is made of four elements (earth, air, fire, water) driven by the forces of Love and Strife.
Most quoted
"And as when painters decorate votive offerings, men who, having well learned the art, are skilled by their intelligence, they take many-colored pigments in their hands, and mix them in a harmony, more of some, less of others, and from them they produce forms like to all things, creating trees and men and women, and beasts and birds and water-nurtured fish, and long-lived gods, highest in honor, so too let not error deceive your mind, that there is any other source for the mortals that appear in countless numbers, but know this clearly, having heard the account."
— from On Nature
"There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed fast with broad oaths: but when any one of the daimones, whose portion is length of life, lightens with sin, he straightway forfeits his wits, and for long ages they banish him from the blessed ones, and send him to wander, taking on every sort of mortal form that ever creepeth along the ground."
— from Purifications, -450
"I shall tell you a twofold tale. At one time they grew to be one alone out of many, at another they grew apart to be many out of one. Double is the birth of mortal things, and double their failing; for one is brought to birth and destroyed by the coming together of all things, the other is nurtured and flies apart as they grow apart again."
— from On Nature
All quotes by Empedocles (111)
For he is not furnished with a human head on his body, two branches do not sprout from his shoulders, he has no feet, no swift knees, no shaggy genitals; but he is mind, holy and ineffable, and only mind, which darts through the whole universe with its swift thoughts.
But why do I insist on these matters as if I were achieving something great in speaking more than is fitting about the gods?
The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.
For wisdom grows upwards from the mortal parts.
With earth we see earth, with water water, with air bright air, with fire consuming fire, with love love, and strife with baneful strife.
All things have intelligence and a share of thought.
Hear first the four roots of all things: bright Zeus, and life-bringing Hera, and Aidoneus, and Nestis who with her tears moistens the mortal fountain.
For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall be: trees and men and women, beasts and birds and water-nourished fish, and the long-lived gods too, highest in honor.
For they are as they were before and will be, and never, I think, will endless time be emptied of these two.
But come, observe the following witnesses to my previous discourse, lest in my former words there was any substance lacking of truth.
Thus, in the sense of their nature, they are ever unchanged, but in the sense of their intermixture they are ever changing.
A man who is wise in such matters would not surmise in his mind that men are, and goodly and ill-fated, for as long as they live what men call life, but that before they were formed and after they have dissolved they are really nothing.
There are forces that unite and forces that separate.
The coming together and the separation of what has been mingled.
The sun, bright to look upon and hot everywhere, and all the immortal things that are bathed in heat and bright radiance, and the moon, which scatters its rays abroad and is cold, and the earth, too, and the depths of the sea.
Thus, by the will of Chance, all things think.
For from these (elements) all things are fitted and fixed together, and by means of these they think and feel pleasure and pain.
In the beginning, they were alone, each independent of the other, but later they began to mix.
The gentle flame met with a little earth.
Thus, in so far as they have learned to grow into one from many, and again as the one is divided they become many, in this sense they come into being and have no stable life; but in so far as they never cease their continuous exchange, in this sense they are always unchanged in a cycle.
Contemporaries of Empedocles
Other Philosophys born within 50 years of Empedocles (-494–-434).