The terms ‘dry’ and ‘moist’ have more senses than one. For ‘the damp’, as well as the moist, is opposed to the dry: and again ‘the solidified’, as well as the dry, is opposed to the moist. But all these qualities derive from the dry and moist we mentioned first.’ For (i) the dry is opposed to the damp: i.e. ‘damp’ is that which has foreign moisture on its surface (’sodden’ being that which is penetrated to its core), while ‘dry’ is that which has lost foreign moisture. Hence it is evident that the damp will derive from the moist, and ‘the dry’ which is opposed to it will derive from the primary dry. Again (ii) the ‘moist’ and the solidified derive in the same way from the primary pair. For ‘moist’ is that which contains moisture of its-own deep within it (’sodden’ being that which is deeply penetrated by foreign mosture), whereas ‘solidigied’ is that which has lost this inner moisture. Hence these too derive from the primary pair, the ‘solidified’ from the dry and the ‘solidified’ from the dry the
‘liquefiable’ from the moist.
It is clear, then, that all the other differences reduce to the first four, but that these admit of no further reduction. For the hot is not essentially moist or dry, nor the moist essentially hot or cold: nor are the cold and the dry derivative forms, either of one another or of the hot and the moist. Hence these must be four.
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div class="section" title="3"> 3
The elementary qualities are four, and any four terms can be combined in six couples. Contraries, however, refuse to be coupled: for it is impossible for the same thing to be hot and cold, or moist and dry. Hence it is evident that the ‘couplings’ of the elementary qualities will be four: hot with dry and moist with hot, and again cold with dry and cold with moist. And these four couples have attached themselves to the apparently ‘simple’ bodies (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth) in a manner consonant with theory. For Fire is hot and dry, whereas Air is hot and moist (Air being a sort of aqueous vapour); and Water is cold and moist, while Earth is cold and dry. Thus the differences are reasonably distributed among the primary bodies, and the number of the latter is consonant with theory. For all who make the simple bodies ‘elements’ postulate either one, or two, or three, or four. Now (i) those who assert there is one only, and then generate everything else by condensation and rarefaction, 723
are in effect making their ‘originative sources’ two, viz. the rare and the dense, or rather the hot and the cold: for it is these which are the moulding forces, while the ‘one’ underlies them as a ‘matter’. But (ii) those who postulate two from the start-as Parmenides postulated Fire and Earth-make the intermediates (e.g. Air and Water) blends of these. The same course is followed (iii) by those who advocate three. (We may compare what Plato does in Me Divisions’: for he makes ‘the middle’ a blend.) Indeed, there is practically no difference between those who postulate two and those who postulate three, except that the former split the middle ‘element’ into two, while the latter treat it as only one. But (iv) some advocate four from the start, e.g. Empedocles: yet he too draws them together so as to reduce them to the two, for he opposes all the others to Fire.
In fact, however, fire and air, and each of the bodies we have mentioned, are not simple, but blended. The ‘simple’ bodies are indeed similar in nature to them, but not identical with them. Thus the ‘simple’ body corresponding to fire is ‘such-as-fire, not fire: that which corresponds to air is ‘such-as-air’: and so on with the rest of them. But fire is an excess of heat, just as ice is an excess of cold. For freezing and boiling are excesses of heat and cold respectively. Assuming, therefore, that ice is a freezing of moist and cold, fire analogously will be a boiling of dry and hot: a fact, by the way, which explains why nothing comes-to-be either out of ice or out of fire.
The ‘simple’ bodies, since they are four, fall into two pairs which belong to the two regions, each to each: for Fire and Air are forms of the body moving towards the ‘limit’, while Earth and Water are forms of the body which moves towards the ‘centre’. Fire and Earth, moreover, are extremes and purest: Water and Air, on the contrary are intermediates and more like blends. And, further, the members of either pair are contrary to those of the other, Water being contrary to Fire and Earth to Air; for the qualities constituting Water and Earth are contrary to those that constitute Fire and Air. Nevertheless, since they are four, each of them is characterized par excellence a single quality: Earth by dry rather than by cold, Water by cold rather than by moist, Air by moist rather than by hot, and Fire by hot rather than by dry.
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div class="section" title="4"> 724
4
It has been established before’ that the coming-to-be of the ‘simple’
bodies is reciprocal. At the same time, it is manifest, even on the evidence of perception, that they do come-to-be: for otherwise there would not have been ‘alteration, since ‘alteration’ is change in respect to the qualities of the objects of touch. Consequently, we must explain (i) what is the manner of their reciprocal transformation, and (ii) whether every one of them can come to-be out of every one-or whether some can do so, but not others.
Now it is evident that all of them are by nature such as to change into one another: for coming-to-be is a change into contraries and out of contraries, and the ‘elements’ all involve a contrariety in their mutual relations because their distinctive qualities are contrary. For in some of them both qualities are contrary-e.g. in Fire and Water, the first of these being dry and hot, and the second moist and cold: while in others one of the qualities (though only one) is contrary-e.g. in Air and Water, the first being moist and hot, and the second moist and cold. It is evident, therefore, if we consider them in general, that every one is by nature such as to come-to-be out of every one: and when we come to consider them severally, it is not difficult to see the manner in which their transformation is effected. For, though all will result from all, both the speed and the facility of their conversion will differ in degree.
Thus (i) the process of conversion will be quick between those which have interchangeable ‘complementary factors’, but slow between those which have none. The reason is that it is easier for a single thing to change than for many. Air, e.g. will result from Fire if a single quality changes: for Fire, as we saw, is hot and dry while Air is hot and moist, so that there will be Air if the dry be overcome by the moist. Again, Water will result from Air if the hot be overcome by the cold: for Air, as we saw, is hot and moist while Water is cold and moist, so that, if the hot changes, there will be Water. So too, in the same manner, Earth will result from Water and Fire from Earth, since the two ‘elements’ in both these couples have interchangeable ‘complementary factors’. For Water is moist and cold while Earth is cold and dry-so that, if the moist be overcome, there will be Earth: and again, since Fire is dry and hot while Earth is cold and dry, Fire will result from Earth if the cold pass-away.
It is evident, therefore, that the coming-to-be of the ‘simple’ bodies will be cyclical; and that this cyclical method of transformation is the easiest, because
the
consecutive
‘clements’
contain
interchangeable
‘complementary factors’. On the other hand (ii) the transformation of 725
Fire into Water and of Air into Earth, and again of Water and Earth into Fire and Air respectively, though possible, is more difficult because it involves the change of more qualities. For if Fire is to result from Water, both the cold and the moist must pass-away: and again, both the cold and the dry must pass-away if Air is to result from Earth. So’ too, if Water and Earth are to result from Fire and Air respectively-both qualities must change.
This second method of coming-to-be, then, takes a longer time. But (iii) if one quality in each of two ‘elements’ pass-away, the transformation, though easier, is not reciprocal. Still, from Fire plus Water there will result Earth and Air, and from Air plus Earth Fire and Water. For there will be Air, when the cold of the Water and the dry of the Fire have passedaway (since the hot of the latter and the moist of the former are left): whereas, when the hot of the Fire and the moist of the Water have passed-away, there will be Earth, owing to the survival of the dry of the Fire and the cold of the Water. So, too, in the same Way, Fire and Water will result from Air plus Earth. For there will be Water, when the hot of the Air and the dry of the Earth have passed-away (since the moist of the former and the cold of the latter are left): whereas, when the moist of the Air and the cold of the Earth have passed-away, there will be Fire, owing to the survival of the hot of the Air and the dry of the Earth-qualities essentially constitutive of Fire. Moreover, this mode of Fire’s coming-to-be is confirmed by perception. For flame is par excellence Fire: but flame is burning smoke, and smoke consists of Air and Earth.
No transformation, however, into any of the ‘simple’ bodies can result from the passingaway of one elementary quality in each of two
‘elements’ when they are taken in their consecutive order, because either identical or contrary qualities are left in the pair: but no ‘simple’ body can be formed either out of identical, or out of contrary, qualities. Thus no ‘simple’ body would result, if the dry of Fire and the moist of Air were to pass-away: for the hot is left in both. On the other hand, if the hot pass-away out both, the contraries-dry and moist-are left. A similar result will occur in all the others too: for all the consecutive ‘elements’
contain one identical, and one contrary, quality. Hence, too, it clearly follows that, when one of the consecutive ‘elements’ is transformed into one, the coming-to-be is effected by the passing-away of a single quality: whereas, when two of them are transformed into a third, more than one quality must have passedaway.
We have stated that all the ‘elements’ come-to-be out of any one of them; and we have explained the manner in which their mutual 726
conversion takes place. Let us nevertheless supplement our theory by the following speculations concerning them.
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div class="section" title="5"> 5
If Water, Air, and the like are a ‘matter’ of which the natural bodies consist, as some thinkers in fact believe, these ‘clements’ must be either one, or two, or more. Now they cannot all of them be one-they cannot, e.g. all be Air or Water or Fire or Earth-because ‘Change is into contraries’. For if they all were Air, then (assuming Air to persist) there will be
‘alteration’ instead of coming-to-be. Besides, nobody supposes a single
‘element’ to persist, as the basis of all, in such a way that it is Water as well as Air (or any other ‘element’) at the same time. So there will be a certain contrariety, i.e. a differentiating quality: and the other member of this contrariety, e.g. heat, will belong to some other ‘element’, e.g. to Fire.
But Fire will certainly not be ‘hot Air’. For a change of that kind (a) is
‘alteration’, and (b) is not what is observed. Moreover (c) if Air is again to result out of the Fire, it will do so by the conversion of the hot into its contrary: this contrary, therefore, will belong to Air, and Air will be a cold something: hence it is impossible for Fire to be ‘hot Air’, since in that case the same thing will be simultaneously hot and cold. Both Fire and Air, therefore, will be something else which is the same; i.e. there will be some ‘matter’, other than either, common to both.
The same argument applies to all the ‘elements’, proving that there is no single one of them out of which they all originate. But neither is there, beside these four, some other body from which they originate-a something intermediate, e.g. between Air and Water (coarser than Air, but finer than Water), or between Air and Fire (coarser than Fire, but finer than Air). For the supposed ‘intermediate’ will be Air and Fire when a pair of contrasted qualities is added to it: but, since one of every two contrary qualities is a ‘privation’, the ‘intermediate’ never can existas some thinkers assert the ‘Boundless’ or the ‘Environing’ exists-in isolation. It is, therefore, equally and indifferently any one of the ‘elements’, or else it is nothing.
Since, then, there is nothing-at least, nothing perceptible-prior to these, they must be all. That being so, either they must always persist and not be transformable into one another: or they must undergo transformation-either all of them, or some only (as Plato wrote in the Timacus).’ Now it has
been
proved
before
that
they
must
undergo
reciprocal
727
transformation. It has also been proved that the speed with which they come-to-be, one out of another, is not uniform-since the process of reciprocal transformation is relatively quick between the ‘elements’ with a
‘complementary factor’, but relatively slow between those which possess no such factor. Assuming, then, that the contrariety, in respect to which they are transformed, is one, the elements’ will inevitably be two: for it is
‘matter’ that is the ‘mean’ between the two contraries, and matter is imperceptible and inseparable from them. Since, however, the ‘elements’
are seen to be more than two, the contrarieties must at the least be two.
But the contrarieties being two, the ‘elements’ must be four (as they evidently are) and cannot be three: for the couplings’ are four, since, though six are possible, the two in which the qualities are contrary to one another cannot occur.
These subjects have been discussed before:’ but the following arguments will make it clear that, since the ‘elements’ are transformed into one another, it is impossible for any one of them-whether it be at the end or in the middle-to be an ‘originative source’ of the rest. There can be no such ‘originative element’ at the ends: for all of them would then be Fire or Earth, and this theory amounts to the assertion that all things are made of Fire or Earth. Nor can a ‘middle-element’ be such an originative source’-as some thinkers suppose that Air is transformed both into Fire and into Water, and Water both into Air and into Earth, while the ‘end-elements’ are not further transformed into one another. For the process must come to a stop, and cannot continue ad infinitum in a straight line in either direction, since otherwise an infinite number of contrarieties would attach to the single ‘element’. Let E stand for Earth, W for Water, A for Air, and F for Fire. Then (i) since A is transformed into F and W, there will be a contrariety belonging to A F. Let these contraries be whiteness and blackness. Again (ii) since A is transformed into W, there will be another contrariety: for W is not the same as F. Let this second contrariety be dryness and moistness, D being dryness and M moistness.
Now if, when A is transformed into W, the ‘white’ persists, Water will be moist and white: but if it does not persist, Water will be black since change is into contraries. Water, therefore, must be either white or black.
Let it then be the first. On similar grounds, therefore, D (dryness) will also belong to F. Consequently F (Fire) as well as Air will be able to be transformed into Water: for it has qualities contrary to those of Water, since Fire was first taken to be black and then to be dry, while Water was moist and then showed itself white. Thus it is evident that all the
‘elements’ will be able to be transformed out of one another; and that, in 728
the instances we have taken, E (Earth) also will contain the remaining two ‘complementary factors’, viz. the black and the moist (for these have not yet been coupled).
We have dealt with this last topic before the thesis we set out to prove.
That thesis-viz. that the process cannot continue ad infinitum-will be clear from the following considerations. If Fire (which is represented by F) is not to revert, but is to be transformed in turn into some other
‘element’ (e.g. into Q), a new contrariety, other than those mentioned, will belong to Fire and Q: for it has been assumed that Q is not the same as any of the four, E W A and F. Let K, then, belong to F and Y to Q.
Then K will belong to all four, E W A and F: for they are transformed in-to one another. This last point, however, we may admit, has not yet been proved: but at any rate it is clear that if Q is to be transformed in turn in-to yet another ‘element’, yet another contrariety will belong not only to Q
but also to F (Fire). And, similarly, every addition of a new ‘element’ will carry with it the attachment of a new contrariety to the preceding elements’. Consequently, if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many, there will also belong to the single ‘element’ an infinite number of contrarieties. But if that be so, it will be impossible to define any ‘element’: impossible also for any to come-to-be. For if one is to result from another, it will have to pass through such a vast number of contrarieties-and indeed even more than any determinate number. Consequently (i) into some ‘elements’
transformation will never be effected-viz. if the intermediates are infinite in number, as they must be if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many: further (ii) there will not even be a transformation of Air into Fire, if the contrarieties are infinitely many: moreover (iii) all the ‘elements’ become one.
For all the contrarieties of the ‘elements’ above F must belong to those below F, and vice versa: hence they will all be one.
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div class="section" title="6"> 6
As for those who agree with Empedocles that the ‘elements’ of body are more than one, so that they are not transformed into one another-one may well wonder in what sense it is open to them to maintain that the
‘elements’ are comparable. Yet Empedocles says ‘For these are all not only equal… ’
If it is meant that they are comparable in their amount, all the
‘comparables’ must possess an identical something whereby they are measured. If, e.g. one pint of Water yields ten of Air, both are measured 729
by the same unit; and therefore both were from the first an identical something. On the other hand, suppose (ii) they are not ‘comparable in their amount’ in the sense that so-much of the one yields so much of the other, but comparable in ‘power of action (a pint of Water, e.g. having a power of cooling equal to that of ten pints of Air); even so, they are
‘comparable in their amount’, though not qua ‘amount’ but qua Iso-much power’. There is also (iii) a third possibility. Instead of comparing their powers by the measure of their amount, they might be compared as terms in a ‘correspondence’: e.g. ‘as x is hot, so correspondingly y is white’. But ‘correspondence’, though it means equality in the quantum, means similarity in a quale. Thus it is manifestly absurd that the ‘simple’
bodies, though they are not transformable, are comparable not merely as
‘corresponding’, but by a measure of their powers; i.e. that so-much Fire is comparable with many times-that-amount of Air, as being ‘equally’ or
‘similarly’ hot. For the same thing, if it be greater in amount, will, since it belongs to the same kind, have its ratio correspondingly increased.
A further objection to the theory of Empedocles is that it makes even growth impossible, unless it be increase by addition. For his Fire increases by Fire: ‘And Earth increases its own frame and Ether increases Ether.” These, however, are cases of addition: but it is not by addition that growing things are believed to increase. And it is far more difficult for him to account for the coming-to-be which occurs in nature. For the things which come-to-be by natural process all exhibit, in their coming-to-be, a uniformity either absolute or highly regular: while any exceptions any results which are in accordance neither with the invariable nor with the general rule are products of chance and luck. Then what is the cause determining that man comes-to-be from man, that wheat (instead of an olive) comes-to-be from wheat, either invariably or generally? Are we to say ‘Bone comes-to-be if the “elements” be put together in such-and such a manner’? For, according to his own estatements, nothing comes-to-be from their ‘fortuitous consilience’, but only from their
‘consilience’ in a certain proportion. What, then, is the cause of this proportional consilience? Presumably not Fire or Earth. But neither is it Love and Strife: for the former is a cause of ‘association’ only, and the latter only of ‘dissociation’. No: the cause in question is the essential nature of each thing-not merely to quote his words) ‘a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled’. And chance, not proportion, ‘is the name given to these occurrences’: for things can be ‘mingled’
fortuitously.
730
The cause, therefore, of the coming-to-be of the things which owe their existence to nature is that they are in such-and-such a determinate condition: and it is this which constitutes, the ‘nature’ of each thing-a ‘nature’
about which he says nothing. What he says, therefore, is no explanation of ‘nature’. Moreover, it is this which is both ‘the excellence’ of each thing and its ‘good’: whereas he assigns the whole credit to the
‘mingling’. (And yet the ‘elements’ at all events are ‘dissociated’ not by Strife, but by Love: since the ‘elements’ are by nature prior to the Deity, and they too are Deities.)
Again, his account of motion is vague. For it is not an adequate explanation to say that ‘Love and Strife set things moving, unless the very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of Strife a movement of that kind. He ought, then, either to have defined or to have postulated these characteristic movements, or to have demonstrated them-whether strictly or laxly or in some other fashion. Moreover, since (a) the ‘simple’ bodies appear to move ‘naturally’ as well as by compulsion, i.e. in a manner contrary to nature (fire, e.g. appears to move upwards without compulsion, though it appears to move by compulsion downwards); and since (b) what is ‘natural’ is contrary to that which is due to compulsion, and movement by compulsion actually occurs; it follows that ‘natural movement’ can also occur in fact. Is this, then, the movement that Love sets going? No: for, on the contrary, the ‘natural movement’ moves Earth downwards and resembles ‘dissociation’, and Strife rather than Love is its cause-so that in general, too, Love rather than Strife would seem to be contrary to nature. And unless Love or Strife is actually setting them in motion, the ‘simple’ bodies themselves have absolutely no movement or rest. But this is paradoxical: and what is more, they do in fact obviously move. For though Strife ‘dissociated’, it was not by Strife that the ‘Ether’ was borne upwards. On the contrary, sometimes he attributes its movement to something like chance (’For thus, as it ran, it happened to meet them then, though often otherwise”), while at other times he says it is the nature of Fire to be borne upwards, but ‘the Ether’ (to quote his words) ‘sank down upon the Earth with long roots’. With such statements, too, he combines the assertion that the Order of the World is the same now, in the reign of Strife, as it was formerly in the reign of Love. What, then, is the ‘first mover’ of the
‘elements’? What causes their motion? Presumably not Love and Strife: on the contrary, these are causes of a particular motion, if at least we assume that ‘first mover’ to be an originative source’.
731
An additional paradox is that the soul should consist of the ‘elements’, or that it should be one of them. How are the soul’s ‘alterations’ to take Place? How, e.g. is the change from being musical to being unmusical, or how is memory or forgetting, to occur? For clearly, if the soul be Fire, only such modifications will happen to it as characterize Fire qua Fire: while if it be compounded out of the elements’, only the corporeal modifications will occur in it. But the changes we have mentioned are none of them corporeal.
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div class="section" title="7"> 7
The discussion of these difficulties, however, is a task appropriate to a different investigation:’ let us return to the ‘elements’ of which bodies are composed. The theories that ‘there is something common to all the
“elements”’, and that they are reciprocally transformed’, are so related that those who accept either are bound to accept the other as well. Those, on the other hand, who do not make their coming-to-be reciprocal-who refuse to suppose that any one of the ‘elements’ comes-to-be out of any other taken singly, except in the sense in which bricks come-to-be out of a wall-are faced with a paradox. How, on their theory, are flesh and bones or any of the other compounds to result from the ‘elements’ taken together?
Indeed, the point we have raised constitutes a problem even for those who generate the ‘elements’ out of one another. In what manner does anything other than, and beside, the ‘elements’ come-to-be out of them?
Let me illustrate my meaning. Water can come-to-be out of Fire and Fire out of Water; for their substralum is something common to them both.
But flesh too, presumably, and marrow come-to-be out of them. How, then, do such things come to-be? For (a) how is the manner of their coming-to-be to be conceived by those who maintain a theory like that of Empedocles? They must conceive it as composition-just as a wall comes-to-be out of bricks and stones: and the ‘Mixture’, of which they speak, will be composed of the ‘elements’, these being preserved in it unaltered but with their small particles juxtaposed each to each. That will be the manner, presumably, in which flesh and every other compound results from the ‘elements’. Consequently, it follows that Fire and Water do not come-to-be ‘out of any and every part of flesh’. For instance, although a sphere might come-to-be out of this part of a lump of wax and a pyramid out of some other part, it was nevertheless possible for either figure to 732
have come-to-be out of either part indifferently: that is the manner of coming-to-be when ‘both Fire and Water come-to-be out of any and every part of flesh’. Those, however, who maintain the theory in question, are not at liberty to conceive that ‘both come-to-be out of flesh’ in that manner, but only as a stone and a brick ‘both come-to-be out of a wall’-viz. each out of a different place or part. Similarly (b) even for those who postulate a single matter of their ‘elements’ there is a certain difficulty in explaining how anything is to result from two of them taken together-e.g. from ‘cold’ and hot’, or from Fire and Earth. For if flesh consists of both and is neither of them, nor again is a ‘composition’ of them in which they are preserved unaltered, what alternative is left except to identify the resultant of the two ‘elements’ with their matter? For the passingaway of either ‘element’ produces either the other or the matter.
Perhaps we may suggest the following solution. (i) There are differences of degree in hot and cold. Although, therefore, when either is fully real without qualification, the other will exist potentially; yet, when neither exists in the full completeness of its being, but both by combining destroy one another’s excesses so that there exist instead a hot which (for a ‘hot’) is cold and a cold which (for a ‘cold’) is hot; then what results from these two contraries will be neither their matter, nor either of them existing in its full reality without qualification. There will result instead an ‘intermediate’: and this ‘intermediate’, according as it is potentially more hot than cold or vice versa, will possess a power-of-heating that is double or triple its power-of-cooling, or otherwise related thereto in some similar ratio. Thus all the other bodies will result from the contraries, or rather from the ‘elements’, in so far as these have been ‘combined’: while the elements’ will result from the contraries, in so far as these ‘exist potentially’ in a special sense-not as matter ‘exists potentially’, but in the sense explained above. And when a thing comes-to-be in this manner, the process is cobination’; whereas what comes-to-be in the other manner is matter. Moreover (ii) contraries also ‘suffer action’, in accordance with the disjunctively-articulated definition established in the early part of this work.’ For the actually-hot is potentially-cold and the actually cold potentially-hot; so that hot and cold, unless they are equally balanced, are transformed into one another (and all the other contraries behave in a similar way). It is thus, then, that in the first place the ‘elements’ are transformed; and that (in the second place) out of the ‘elements’ there