<Dd> Another of the fragments of the dialogue On the Poets (Aristotle) treats more fully what is said in Poetics ch . i about Empedocles, for though clearly implying that he was not a poet, Aristotle there says he is Homeric, and an artist in language, skilled in metaphor and in the other devices of poetry . </Dd> <P> Empedocles, like the Ionian philosophers and the atomists, continued the tradition of tragic thought which tried to find the basis of the relationship of the one and many . Each of the various philosophers, following Parmenides, derived from the Eleatics, the conviction that an existence could not pass into non-existence, and vice versa . Yet, each one had his peculiar way of describing this relation of Divine and mortal thought and thus of the relation of the One and the Many . In order to account for change in the world, in accordance with the ontological requirements of the Eleatics, they viewed changes as the result of mixture and separation of unalterable fundamental realities . Empedocles held that the four elements (Water, Air, Earth, and Fire) were those unchangeable fundamental realities, which were themselves transfigured into successive worlds by the powers of Love and Strife (Heraclitus had explicated the Logos or the "unity of opposites"). </P> <P> Empedocles established four ultimate elements which make all the structures in the world--fire, air, water, earth--in other words, the several states of matter are represented, being energies, gasses, liquids, and solids . Empedocles called these four elements "roots", which he also identified with the mythical names of Zeus, Hera, Nestis, and Aidoneus (e.g., "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus . And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears .") Empedocles never used the term "element" (Greek: στοιχεῖον, stoicheion), which seems to have been first used by Plato . According to the different proportions in which these four indestructible and unchangeable elements are combined with each other the difference of the structure is produced . It is in the aggregation and segregation of elements thus arising, that Empedocles, like the atomists, found the real process which corresponds to what is popularly termed growth, increase or decrease . Nothing new comes or can come into being; the only change that can occur is a change in the juxtaposition of element with element . This theory of the four elements became the standard dogma for the next two thousand years . </P> <P> The four elements, however, are simple, eternal, and unalterable, and as change is the consequence of their mixture and separation, it was also necessary to suppose the existence of moving powers that bring about mixture and separation . The four elements are both eternally brought into union and parted from one another by two divine powers, Love and Strife . Love (φιλότης) is responsible for the attraction of different forms of matter, and Strife (νεῖκος) is the cause of their separation . If the four elements make up the universe, then Love and Strife explain their variation and harmony . Love and Strife are attractive and repulsive forces, respectively, which are plainly observable in human behavior, but also pervade the universe . The two forces wax and wane in their dominance, but neither force ever wholly escapes the imposition of the other . </P>

Who said matter was made of fire earth air and water