The genuine works of Hippocrates, Vol. 1 · Hippocrates
SECTION III.
ON THE PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE ANCIENTS, AND MORE ESPECIALLY THEIR DOCTRINES WITH REGARD TO THE ELEMENTS. As it is impossible to understand properly the medical theories which occur in the Hippocratic treatises without a competent acquaintance with the Physical Philosophy of the ancients, I have thought it necessary to devote an entire chapter to an exposition of the tenets held by the philosophers regarding the elements of things. I might have been able to dispense with this labor provided there had been any modern publication to which I could refer the reader for the necessary information on the subject in question; but, unfortunately, there is no work in the English language, as far as I am aware, in which the nature of the ancient doctrines is properly described. To give an example in point: Dr. Watson, the bishop of Llandaff, in his essay “On the Transmutability of Water into Earth,” makes the following remarks on the ancient doctrine concerning the elements: “If but one particle of water can, by any means, be changed into a particle of earth, the whole doctrine of the Peripatetic sect concerning the elements of things will be utterly subverted: the diversities of bodies subsisting in the universe will no longer be attributed to the different combinations of earth, air, fire, and water, _as distinct, immutable principles, but to the different magnitudes, figures, and arrangements of particles of matter of the same kind_.”[278]
Now it will at once be perceived by any person who is at all acquainted with modern science, that if the ancient dogmata be as here represented, they are altogether destitute of any solid foundation in truth and nature, and we may well wonder that such a baseless structure should have endured for so long a period. But before passing this severe judgment on the tenets of our great forefathers in philosophy, it will be well to investigate their doctrines more accurately than Dr. Watson appears to have done in this instance. In pursuing the present investigation, I shall, in the first place, give literal translations of extracts from the works of the most celebrated sects of philosophers; namely, the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, and Epicureans. It will, of course, be readily perceived, from what I have now stated, that I do not mean to confine my inquiry to the period of ancient philosophy which preceded Hippocrates, but that I am to bring it down to a pretty late age. This course I find it indispensably necessary to follow, as I could not derive sufficient illustration of the subject were I to restrict myself to the works of the earlier philosophers, who either preceded our author or were his contemporaries. I shall first give the extracts by themselves, and then make some remarks in illustration of the doctrines which they expound. I think it proper to mention further, that I am answerable for the correctness of the translations in all cases, unless where it is otherwise stated.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.