The Biographical History of Philosophy Author:George Henry Lewes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: human knowledge, but the)- denied this on different ground. " Man has no certain knowledge," said Heraclitus, " but God has; and vain man learns from God just as... more » the boy from the man." In his conception, human intelligence was but a portion of the Universal Intelligence; but a part can never be otherwise than imperfect. Hence it is that the opinion of all mankind upon any subject (common sense) must be a nearer approximation to the truth than the opinion of any individual; because it is an accumulation of parts, making a nearer approach to the whole. While therefore he maintained the uncertainty of all knowledge, he also maintained its certainty. Its origin was Sense; being sensuous and individual, it was imperfect, because individual ; but it was true as far as it went. The ass, he scornfully said, prefers thistles to gold. To the ass gold is not so valuable as thistle. The ass is at once right and wrong. Man is equally right and wrong in all positive affirmations; for nothing truly w, about which a positive affirmation can be made. " All is," he said, "and all is not; for though in truth it does come into being, yet it forthwith ceases to be." We are here led to his celebrated doctrine of all things as u " perpetual flux and reflux;" which Hegel declares to be an anticipation of his own celebrated dogma, Seyn und Nkhtseyn ist dasselbe: " Being and Non-Being is the same." Heraclitus conceived the principle—afxy—of all things to be Fire. To him Fire was the type of spontaneous force and activity; not flame, which was only an intensity of Fire, but a warm, dry vapor—an Ether; this was the beginning. He says: "The world was made neither by Godf nor man; and it was, and is,and ever shall be, an ever-living fire in due measure self-enkindled and in due measure self-extinguished....« less