To know the sun

VISIONS OF SUMMER II
Sheila Hetherington reflects on the wisdom
of Empedocles

Photograph by Islay McLeod

Early June

Today spring has moved seamlessly into summer. Reluctant to move indoors, I lingered in the garden for a while in the early evening sunshine after the family had left, listening to blackbirds and thinking about Empedocles. (This was unintentional: he popped into my mind unexpectedly and without invitation.) I began to consider how many generations separated him from – say – Stephen Hawking, reflecting how well they would have understood each other.
     Empedocles was Greek, though born in Sicily about 492 BC. He was a scientist, poet, philosopher, cosmologist and a doctor/healer. A democrat, too. Of aristocratic birth himself, he believed passionately in the equality of man. From his observation and understanding of nature, he concluded that four elements existed: earth, air, fire, water. Each element was eternal and unchanging. 'Nothing can come from nothing, or be destroyed into nothing'. This led him to a personal belief in the transmigration of souls. He believed in a cosmic cycle of growth and decay, love and war.
     Eighteen centuries before the Black Death swept away 30 or 40% of the population of Europe, Empedocles arrested the progress of a potentially pandemic plague (possibly cholera) by recognising the cause and arranging for the provision of a clean water supply. One of his most prescient pronouncements was his conclusion that the atmosphere is not void. Today's cosmologists now affirm that space is not an empty vacuum as previously believed, but that particles and anti-particles are constantly being produced and disappearing throughout the universe.
     His death, probably about the age of 60, caused great controversy and discussion. There are several accounts of it. The most spectacular of these was that he sought to prove that the upward thrust of gases from within the core of a volcano would sustain an object sufficiently to prevent a body's descent into it. If this account is indeed true, by throwing himself majestically into the fires of Mount Etna he proved that he could sometimes be mistaken.
     I am not ready to follow his example. Sitting in the evening light beneath the fading lilacs, I am content. But perhaps this contentment is what brought Empedocles to mind in the first place, as I recalled his summing-up on life:
     Is it so small a thing to have known the sun,
     To have lived light in the spring,
     To have loved, to have thought,
     To have done,
     To have gathered true friends?