Book 4
11
For according to that which is present to them doth thought increase in men.Empedocles Fr. 106.
11
And in another passage he says:
11
And as they change into a different nature, so it ever comes to them to think differently.Empedocles Fr. 108.
12
And Parmenides too declares in the same way:
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For as each at any time hath the temperament of his many-jointed limbs, so thought comes to men. For for each and every man the substance of his limbs is that very thing which thinks; for thought is that which preponderates.Empedocles Fr. 16; quoted also (in a slightly different form; see critical notes) by Theophrastus, De Sensu 3.
13
There is also recorded a saying of Anaxagoras to some of his disciples, that things would be for them as they judged them to be.
14
And they say that in Homer too clearly held this view, because he made Hector,The only passage in our text of Homer to which this reference could apply isHom. Il. 23.698; but there the subject is Euryalus, not Hector. when he was stunned by the blow, lie with thoughts deranged—thus implying that even those who are out of their minds still think, although not the same thoughts. Clearly then, if both are kinds of thought, reality also will be both so and not so.
15
It is along this path that the consequences are most difficult; for if those who have the clearest vision of such truth as is possible (and these are they who seek and love it most) hold such opinions and make these pronouncements about the truth, surely those who are trying to be philosophers may well despair; for the pursuit of truth will be chasing birds in the air. Cf. Leutsch and Schneidewin, Paroemiographi Graeci, 2.677.
16
But the reason why these men hold this view is that although they studied the truth about reality, they supposed that reality is confined to sensible things, in which the nature of the Indeterminate, i.e. of Being in the sense which we have explained,Aristot. Met. 4.4.28. is abundantly present. (Thus their statements, though plausible, are not true;
