The genuine works of Hippocrates, Vol. 1 · Hippocrates
THE PERIPATETICS.
Aristotle defines the first matter as follows: “I call matter the first subject of everything, all things being formed from it existing in them not accidentally; and when anything is destroyed, it comes to this at last.”[306] In his Logical work he thus defines his ideas regarding the first substances, namely, mind and matter. “The first substances being the subjects of all other things, and as every other thing may be predicated by them and exists in them, are called the prime substances.[307] “We must distinguish the first bodies from matter, for we must suppose concerning them that they have a first principle and origin, namely, matter, which is inseparable from them, and is the subject of the contraries. For heat does not furnish the materials to cold, nor it to heat, but the subject to both. So that we have first the sensible body in potentiality, the first principle; then we have the contraries, I mean cold and heat; and thirdly, fire and water, and the like. These change into one another, and not as Empedocles and others say of them.[308] “The _material_ of all bodies, great and small, is the same. This is apparent; for when air is formed from water, the same matter, when it becomes another thing, acquires nothing new, only that which formerly existed in capacity now exists actually.”[309]
The following extracts will show the opinions of his most celebrated commentators: “Air and fire have one common character, namely, heat; therefore they readily change into one another. Air and water readily change into one another, for they have a common character, namely, moisture. In like manner, water and earth, for they have an alliance, namely, coldness.”[310] “The physical philosophers analyze any substance, as, for example, a man into head, hands, and feet; and these into bones, flesh, and nerves; and these into the four elements; and these again into matter and form.”[311] “Water is formed from air, and air from water, and fire from air, because they all have one common substratum, matter.”[312] The next two extracts will show the opinions entertained by Aristotle’s successor in the Peripatetic school of philosophy. “Of the simple substances, fire has peculiar powers. _For air, water, and earth, admit only of changes into one another_, but none of them can produce itself.”[313] “The nature of those substances called simple is mixed, and existing in one another.”[314] “The Peripatetics divided Nature into two things, the one of which is efficient, and the other that which furnishes it with the materials from which anything is made. Power exists in the one, and matter is the essence of the other.”[315]
“The first principles are air, fire, water, and earth, for from them are formed all living things and the productions of the earth: they are therefore called elements; of these, air and fire have the power of moving and forming the others (I mean water and earth), of receiving or suffering. Besides these, Aristotle thought that there is a fifth element, from which the stars and the souls of individuals are made; but that all these had for a substratum a certain matter devoid of form and quality, from which all things are framed, a substance which has a capacity for all things, and admits of all changes, that when it perishes it is not reduced to nothing, but into its parts, which can be cut and divided infinitely, since there is nothing in Nature that is not divisible.”[316]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.