On the Nature of Man 1 part 4/9

But even in this mixture their nature is plainly evident.

Each of the elements has, in a pairing, two qualities that give it its specific form.

For earth is dry and cold;

water is cold and moist;

air, according to its own nature, is moist and hot;

and fire is hot and dry.

The qualities, however, cannot be elements by themselves.

For bodies cannot be composed out of incorporeal qualities; nor, again, can the other bodies be elements unless they possess the quality in its extreme form and in actuality.

For all things possess their quality in greater or lesser degree, and it cannot be determined which are the elements of which—so they cannot serve as elements.

It is therefore necessary that an element be a body, and a simple body, possessing in actuality its qualities in the extreme degree—I mean heat, cold, moisture, and dryness.

For these alone among the qualities transform the whole substance through and through;

none of the other qualities does this.

For whiteness, when it approaches a body, does not make it white through and through, as the hot heats and the cold cools; nor does any of the other qualities.

The elements that are opposite in respect of their two qualities are contrary to one another—as water is to fire, being cold and moist, while fire is hot and dry;

and earth is contrary to air, being cold and dry, while air is hot and moist.

But since opposites could not be joined to one another unless some intermediate bond were set between them to bind them together, the Creator placed water in between earth and air, which are opposites, giving it two qualities—coldness and moisture—by which, joined to the extremes, it could bind them together.

For by its coldness it is akin to earth;

and by its moisture it is joined to air.

Again, between water and fire, which are themselves opposites, He placed air, akin to water by its moist quality, and to fire by its hot quality;

and thus He joined the opposites to one another through certain intermediaries that bind both themselves and the things bound together.

For such a bond is the best of all.

Each of them, then, by one quality He joined to the one before it, and by the other quality to the one after it;

for example, water is cold and moist;

but by its coldness it is joined to earth, which is before it in the upward ascent,

and by its moisture to air, which is after it.

Likewise air, by its moisture, is joined to water, which is before it;

and by its heat to fire, which is after it.

And fire, too, by its heat, is joined to air, which is before it;

and by its dryness to earth, by a bending back and turning toward the extreme.

And so earth, too, by its coldness, is joined to water;

and by its dryness to fire, by a bending back.

For in order that the elements might have not only the relation of descent and ascent toward what is below and above, but also a circular relation, He somehow bent back and turned the extremes toward one another—

I mean fire and earth;

for fire, when it loses only its heat, becomes earth.

This is clear from thunderbolts;

for the fire, as it rushes down and is cooled from its excessive burning, turns to stone.

Therefore every thunderbolt is carried down with stone and sulphur;

Sulphur is like fire that has been cooled: no longer hot in actuality but only potentially, while it is dry both potentially and actually.

The elements alone possess their qualities in actuality;

all other things possess them only potentially, unless they come close to an element.

So that neither the elements nor the compounds formed from them should ever fail, the Creator wisely contrived that the elements should change both into one another and into compounds, and that the compounds should again be resolved back into the elements;

and thus, sustained by this perpetual mutual generation, all things are preserved forever.

For earth, when turned to mud, becomes water;

and water, when condensed and compacted, becomes earth;

but when heated and vaporized it becomes air;

and air, when gathered together and condensed, becomes water;

but when dried out it changes into fire;

and likewise fire too, when quenched and having shed its dryness, turns into air.

For air is the quenching of fire and the vapor of heated water.

From both, then, it is clear that its coming-into-being proceeds from heat;

for both heated water and quenched fire become air.

By its own proper nature, then, it is hot;

but it is cooled by its proximity to water and earth,

so that its lower parts, those next to the earth, are cold,

while its upper parts, those next to the fire, are hot.

This happens because of the softness and susceptibility of air;

for it quickly departs from its own nature and is transformed.

Aristotle says that there are two kinds of air:

the one vaporous, arising from the exhalation of water,

the other smoky, arising from the quenching of fire;

and that the smoky kind is hot,

but as it advances it is gradually cooled, and as it goes on it is turned into water.

And in order to escape certain other things that seem absurd, and besides these the fact that the higher regions, far removed from the earth, appear colder, he supposed the nature of air to be twofold.

All bodies, both those of plants and those of animals, have their coming-into-being from the union of these four elements,

since nature draws the purest portions of the elements into the formation of these bodies.

Aristotle calls these bodies natural,

the elements being combined in them not by mere heaping together, but blended whole through whole into a unity, so as to make the body something one and other than themselves;

for they are so united that it is impossible to separate them,

nor to observe the earth on its own, and on its own the water, the air, and the fire, since from the union of the four there has come into being something one and other than these, as in the case of the tetrapharmacum (the four-ingredient salve).

For there too the tetrapharmacum is something other than the ingredients from which it is composed—yet not in the same way.

For the elements do not make bodies by the juxtaposition of their finest particles, as in the tetrapharmacum,

but by transformation and unity.

Again, when the bodies perish they are resolved back into the elements, and in this manner all things endure perpetually and suffice for the generation of beings, never at any time increasing nor diminishing;

whence they also say that the generation of one thing is the destruction of another, and the destruction of one the generation of another—not only with respect to the soul, as has been said before, but also with respect to the body.

Plato, however, holds that the three elements change into one another,

but that earth remains unchangeable.

For likening to each element the solid figures of the rectilinear shapes (to earth the cubic figure, since it is the most immovable of all; to water, of the rest the hardest to move, the icosahedron; to fire the most easily moved, the pyramid; and to air the octahedron, which is more easily moved than water but harder to move than fire), from these figures he constructs his demonstration that the three change into one another, but that earth does not undergo this.

For the three—namely the pyramid, the octahedron, and the icosahedron—are composed of scalene triangles, whereas the cube is composed of equilateral triangles.

Whatever, then, is composed of scalene triangles can, when dissolved and recombined, change into one another;

but a cube, once dissolved, cannot change into any of the other three shapes (for it is composed of equilateral triangles, out of which none of the other three can be constituted), nor again can any of the three shapes change into a cube.

It is necessary, then, that the bodies given form according to these kinds should also stand to one another just as those figures did.

Nevertheless, earth did not remain unaffected, but is divided up by the finer bodies—being broken apart, though indeed not transmuted into elements nor changed into the bodies that divide it.

For coming together again it is restored to itself, as is evident in the case of water.

For if you throw a little earth into water and stir it up, the earth is dissolved into the water;

but if you cease stirring, when the water has come to rest the earth settles to the bottom.

In the same way one must think also concerning the whole earth;

and this is not a transformation but a separating-out of things that had been mixed.

Plato says that the earth too is dissolved by the sharpness of fire;

and once dissolved it is carried about within fire itself, or within a mass of air—evidently when air dissolves it—or within water, when it is dissolved by water.

He also says, dividing them in another way, that each of the elements has three qualities:

fire has sharpness, rarity, and motion; while the other extreme among the elements, that is the earth, has the qualities opposite to these—bluntness, density, and rest—so that with respect to these qualities earth and fire are contraries (which was not the case with the other qualities arranged in pairs). And qualities are taken from each of the two extremes, and thus the intermediate elements come to be:

for two qualities of fire are taken—rarity and motion—and one of earth—rarity—and air is constituted, having as its constitutive qualities bluntness, rarity, and motion.

Again two qualities of earth are taken—bluntness and density;

and water comes to be, itself given form by bluntness, density, and motion.

So then, as sharpness is to bluntness, so is fire to air;

and as rarity is to density, so is air to water;

and as motion is to rest, so is water to earth.

Therefore as fire is to air, so is air to water;

and as air is to water, so is water to earth.

For plane figures are by nature held together by a single mean term, that is, a single proportion;

but solid figures by two mean terms.

In yet another way they say the elements possess qualities:

for earth and water have heaviness, by which they are naturally borne downward, while air and fire have lightness, by which they are naturally borne upward.

The Stoics say that of the elements some are active and some passive:

the active ones being air and fire;

Aristotle, however, introduces a fifth body as well, the aetherial and circularly-moving one, not wishing the heaven to have come to be from the four elements (he calls the fifth body circularly-moving because it is borne in a circle about itself), whereas Plato expressly declares that the heaven is composed of fire and earth.

For that which comes to be must be corporeal, visible, and tangible; but apart from fire nothing could ever be visible, nor anything tangible without some solid thing;

wherefore, in beginning to constitute the body of the universe, God made it out of fire and earth.

But two things alone cannot be well combined without a third, for there must come to be in the midst of both a bond that draws them together;

and the fairest of bonds is that which makes itself and the things it binds together as much one as possible;

and proportion is by nature best fitted to accomplish this.

By 'bond' he means the two intermediate elements, taken according to the proportion mentioned above.

Those who uphold the teachings of the Hebrews differ concerning the heaven and the earth.

For nearly all the others say that the heaven and the earth came to be from no pre-existing matter, since Moses, they say, declares: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth';

but Apollinarius holds that God made the heaven and the earth out of the abyss;

for Moses, in his account of the origin of the world, did not mention the abyss as having come to be;

from this, therefore, as from matter, he holds that all the rest came to be;

yet it is not ungenerated but generated, laid down before all corporeal things by the Creator for the subsistence of the rest;

and the very name of the abyss indicates the boundlessness of matter.

But however this may be, it makes no difference;

for in this way too God is shown to be the Creator of all things, having made all things out of what does not exist.

Against those who say there is but one element—either fire, or air, or water—the words of Hippocrates will suffice:

if man were one, he would never feel pain;

for being one, there would be nothing by which he could be pained;

and even if he did feel pain, the remedy would also be one.

For that which is to feel pain must come to be in a state of change accompanied by sensation;

but if there were only one element, there would be nothing into which it could change;

and not being altered but remaining in itself, it would feel no pain, even if it were endowed with sensation.

Moreover, that which is acted upon must of necessity be acted upon by something;

but if there were only one element, there would be no quality other than that of the one element by which the living being might be affected.

And if it could neither be changed nor acted upon, how could it feel pain? Having shown this to be impossible, he then adds by way of concession:

and even if it did feel pain, the remedy would be one;

but as it is, the remedy is not one but many.

But indeed, from the very arguments by which each of them tries to establish his own doctrine, it is most of all shown that the elements are four.

For Thales, who says that water alone is the element, tries to show that the other three come to be from it:

for its sediment becomes earth;

while its finer part becomes air;

and the more rarefied part of air becomes fire.

Anaximenes, asserting air alone, likewise tries to show that the other elements are produced out of air.

Heraclitus and Hipparchus of Metapontum, asserting fire, employ these same demonstrations.

making it the generator of the other elements; and of the others, one names water, another air. From these it is shown that all the elements change into one another.

But if all things turn into one another, then necessarily all of them are elements.

For whichever of the four you take, this too will be found to come into being from another.

Now the body, being the instrument of the soul, is divided up together with the soul's faculties.

For it has been fashioned suitable and well-adapted to these, so that none of the soul's faculties might be hindered by the body.

To each psychic faculty, then, specific parts of the body have been allotted for its activity, as the argument will show as it proceeds.

For the soul holds the rank of craftsman, and the body that of instrument;

the matter is that about which the action is concerned, and the result is the action itself.

For example: as matter the woman is the underlying subject, for the action is concerned with her;

and the action is adultery, or fornication, or marriage.

The psychic faculties are divided into the imaginative, the discursive (intellectual), and the memorative.

Concerning the imaginative faculty. The imaginative faculty, then, is a power of the irrational soul that operates through the sense organs;

and the imaginable is that which falls under the imagination, just as the sensible is that which falls under sense-perception.

Imagination is an affection of the irrational soul produced by some imaginable object;

a phantasm is an empty affection in the irrational parts of the soul, arising from no imaginable object.

The Stoics speak of these four: imagination, the imaginable, the imaginative, and the phantasm.

By imagination they mean the affection of the soul that exhibits within itself also that which has produced the imaginable.

For when we see something white, an affection arises in the soul from the reception of it.

For just as an affection arises in the sense organs whenever one perceives,

so also it arises in the soul whenever it forms a conception.

For it receives within itself an image of the intelligible object.

The imaginable is the sensible thing that has produced the imagination, such as white and everything that can move the soul;

the imaginative is an empty straining without any imaginable object;

and a phantasm is that which we drag along according to the imaginative empty straining, as in the case of the mad and the melancholic.

The disagreement among these (theorists) has come about merely concerning the interchange of names.

Its instruments are the front ventricles of the brain, the psychic spirit (pneuma) in them, the nerves issuing from them that are saturated with the psychic spirit, and the structure of the sense organs.

There are five sense organs;

but sense-perception is one—the psychic one—which recognizes through the sense organs the affections that occur in them.

And by the most earthy and most corporeal of the sense organs, which is touch, it perceives what belongs to the earthy nature;

by the most luminous, which is sight, it perceives luminous things;

as also by the air-like (organ) it perceives the affections of the air;

for the substance of sound is air, or a striking of air;

and by the spongy and watery (organ), namely that of taste, it apprehends flavors.

For each of the sensible things is naturally recognized through what is akin to it.

By this reasoning, then, since there are four elements, there ought also to be four senses;

but since vapor and the class of odors are intermediate in nature between air and water—

for it is coarser than air, but finer than water—

such a thing becomes evident through the affliction of catarrh (a head-cold);

for those suffering from catarrh do draw in air through their breathing,

but while drawing it in they do not apprehend the vapors;

for because of the obstruction the coarser part does not reach the sense.

For this reason a fifth sense organ, smell, has been devised by nature, so that nothing capable of coming to knowledge might escape sense-perception.

Sense-perception is not alteration, but the discernment of alteration; for the sense organs are altered, while the perception discriminates the alteration.

But often the sense organs too are called 'sense.'

Sense-perception is the apprehension of sensible things.

But this definition seems to pertain not to sense-perception itself, but rather to its operations.

Therefore they also define sense-perception in the following way:

It is an intelligent spirit (pneuma) stretched out from the ruling faculty to the organs of sense.

Plato, however, calls sense-perception a communion of soul and body directed toward external things.

Both are capable, by means of imagination, of apprehending the things that lie without.

Of the faculties of the soul, some are subservient and attendant, like a bodyguard;

while others are commanding and ruling.

The ruling faculties are the discursive reason and the scientific (knowing) faculty;

the subservient are the perceptive faculties, motion by impulse, and the faculty of speech.

For indeed both motion and speech obey the will of reason most swiftly and almost timelessly;

for we will and move at one and the same moment, needing no interval of time between the willing and the movement, as one may observe in the moving of the fingers.

And some even of the natural functions are under the governance of the discursive reason, such as the affections that are so called.

Concerning sight. The word 'sight' (opsis) is used equivocally;

for it means both the sense-organ and the perceptive power.

Hipparchus says that rays extend from the eyes and, fastening onto external bodies with their extremities as though by the touch of hands, convey the apprehension of these bodies back to the visual faculty.

The geometers, for their part, describe certain cones formed from the convergence of the rays emitted through the eyes.

For, they say, the right eye sends its rays to the left, and the left eye to the right;

and from their convergence a cone is produced, whence the sight embraces many visible things at once, but sees accurately only those things where the rays converge.

Thus indeed we often, though looking at the ground, do not see the coin lying on it, even while gazing intently for a long time, until the meeting-points of the rays come to be in that part where the coin lies; and then we chance upon the sight of it, as though only then beginning to attend to it.

The Epicureans hold that images (eidola) of visible objects fall upon the eyes.

Aristotle, however, holds that not a corporeal image but a quality comes, through an alteration of the surrounding air, from the visible objects to the sight.

Plato holds that vision comes about by a coalescence of light: the light flowing out to a certain extent from the eyes into the air of like kind, the light borne back from the bodies, and the light concerning the intervening air—which is easily diffused and easily changed—being extended together with the fiery element of the sight.

Galen, in agreement with Plato concerning vision, speaks in the seventh book of his 'Harmony,' writing somewhat scattered in this manner:

For if some portion, or power, or image, or quality of the bodies seen were to arrive at the eye, we should not be able to know the magnitude of the thing beheld—of a very great mountain, for instance, should it so happen;

for that an image so great should fall upon our eyes is altogether unreasonable.

Nor yet is it possible for the optic spirit (pneuma), when emitted, to receive such great force as to be poured around the whole of what is beheld.

It remains, then, that the surrounding air becomes for us such an instrument, during the time in which we see, as the optic nerve is within the body.

For the air that encompasses us seems to undergo something of this sort;

for the radiance of the sun, touching the upper limit of the air, transmits its power throughout the whole;

and the radiance borne through the optic nerves, having a spiritual (pneumatic) substance, when it falls upon the surrounding air and at its first impact effects an alteration in it, transmits that alteration as far as possible in what is continuous with itself, until it strikes upon a resistant body.

For the air becomes for the eye, in respect of the discernment of visible things, such an instrument as the nerve is for the brain;

so that, as the brain stands in relation to the nerve, so the eye stands in relation to the air that has been ensouled by the solar radiance.

And that the air is by nature disposed to be assimilated to the bodies near it is clear from this: that, when a reddish or dark-blue or bright silver light is carried across, the air is altered by what is thus carried through it.

Porphyry, in his work 'On Sense-Perception,' says that neither a cone, nor an image, nor anything else is the cause of seeing, but rather that the soul itself, encountering visible things, recognizes itself to be those very visible things—inasmuch as the soul holds together all beings, and all things are soul holding together diverse bodies.

He fittingly says that the rational soul of all things recognizes itself in all beings.

Now the sight sees along straight lines, and perceives primarily colors; but along with them it also discerns the colored body, its magnitude, its shape, the place where it is, the distance, the number, motion and rest, roughness and smoothness, evenness and unevenness, sharpness and bluntness, and its consistency—whether it is watery or earthy, as being moist or dry.

Now its proper object of perception is color;

for it is through sight alone that we apprehend colors;

and immediately, along with the color, we also apprehend the colored body, the place in which the thing seen happens to be, and the distance between the seer and the thing seen.

For in whatever senses the body too is manifested, in those the place also is at once discerned along with it, as in touch and taste;

but these perceive only when they draw near to the body, except in the cases to be distinguished hereafter;

and since sight apprehends its proper objects from afar, it necessarily follows that it alone sees the distance as well; but it discerns magnitude only when it is able to embrace the appearing object in a single impact (glance).

But in cases where the thing seen is too great to be embraced in a single glance, in these the sight has need also of memory and of the discursive reason.

For beholding it part by part and not the whole at once, it necessarily passes from one part to another; and that which falls upon it at each transition is always the object of perception;

but the memory preserves the parts that have been seen before.

And the discursive reason brings both together—both the object of perception and that which is remembered.

Of magnitude, then, it apprehends in two ways: sometimes alone, and sometimes together with memory and discursive reason;

but of the number of the things seen—when it is above three or four, and not seen in a single glance—and of motions, and of the shapes of polygons, it never apprehends alone, but always together with memory and discursive reason.

For it cannot gather together five and six and seven and more without memory.

So too neither the hexagonal nor the octagonal nor the many-sided figures.

And motion, since it comes about by transition, has one part first and another second.

And where there is a first and a second and a third, this the memory alone preserves;

but the up and the down, the uneven and the even, and likewise the rough and the smooth, and the sharp and the blunt, are common to touch and sight, since these two alone discern place.

For that alone which falls upon the sense in a single impact is the work of sense alone;

but the things apprehended by several impacts are not the work of sense alone, but also of memory together with the discursive reason, as was shown above.

And through transparent things the sight is by nature able to penetrate even to their depth—through air primarily and most of all;

and secondly through water that is still and clear;

at any rate we see the fishes swimming.

But less so through glass and through the other things of that kind—clearly, that is, when they are illuminated;

and this too is proper to it.

But let it not deceive anyone into thinking that the apprehension of hot things also belongs to sight, on the ground that, seeing fire, we immediately know that it is also hot;

for if you trace the argument back to the first act of seeing, you will find that at the time when the sight first beheld the fire, it had apprehension of the color and shape alone;

but when touch was added, we came to know that it is also hot—which the memory, receiving it from touch, preserved;

now therefore, whenever we behold fire, we see nothing else than the shape and the color of the fire;

but the discursive reason takes up, together with the things seen, also the heat, by means of memory.

The same argument applies also in the case of the apple.

For if the apple is characterized not by color and shape alone, but also by its smell and by the quality pertaining to taste, does not the sight, in apprehending these too, know that it is an apple?

But rather it is the soul that preserves the memory derived from smell and taste, and at the very moment of beholding it thinks these too together with the shape and the color.

It is not the sight that is deceived, but the discursive reason.

For the sight was not led astray in respect of its proper objects of perception;

for it perceived both the color and the shape.

Now three of the senses—sight, hearing, and smell—apprehend things that are external and do not draw near, through the medium of the air;

Taste, however, does not perceive in any other way unless it come into contact with the thing perceived;

for it does so by drawing near to bodies, and sometimes even through a rod alone.

Now sometimes sight has need of the corroborating testimony of the other senses, whenever the thing that appears has been contrived so as to deceive, as in the case of a painting;

for it is the work of the painter's art to deceive the sight with projections and hollows that do not really exist, as though the object had such a nature in reality;

in which case there is need, chiefly of touch, for discernment, and sometimes also of taste or smell, as in the case of a wax apple;

but at other times sight, by itself, presents things that appear clearly, when it does not view them from afar;

at any rate, it sees the tower, which is square, as round when viewed from a distance;

and it is also deceived when we look through mist or smoke or something of the like that clouds the sight,

and likewise when we look through moving water;

for indeed in the sea it sees the oar as though it were broken;

likewise also when it looks through some transparent material, as in the case of mirrors and glass and other things of that kind;

or when the thing seen moves swiftly;

for rapid motion confounds the sight, so that it sees things that are not round as round, and things that are moving as standing still;

or when the understanding is occupied with other matters, as in the case of one who set out to meet a friend and did indeed meet him, but passed him by, because his mind was engaged with other things;

yet this too is not a failing of sight, but of the mind;

for the eye saw and reported,

but the mind did not attend to what was reported.

For clear discernment, sight has need chiefly of four things: an unimpaired organ of sense, a proportionate movement and distance, and air that is pure and bright.