We have now pretty much completed our presentation of the kinds of bodies that are distinguished by their multifarious shapes, their combinations and their intertransformations. Now we must try to shed some light on what has caused them to come to have the properties they do. First, we need at every step in our discourse to appeal to the existence of sense perception, but we have so far discussed neither the coming to be of flesh, or of what pertains to flesh, nor the part of the soul that is mortal. It so [d] happens, however, that we cannot give an adequate account of these matters without referring to perceptual properties, but neither can we give an account of the latter without referring to the former, and to treat them simultaneously is all but impossible. So we must start by assuming the one or the other, and later revisit what we have assumed. Let’s begin by taking for granted for now the existence of body and soul. This will allow our account of these properties to succeed the account we’ve just given of the elemental kinds.
First, then, let us see what we mean when we call fire hot. Let’s look at it in this way: We notice how fire acts on our bodies by dividing and [e] cutting them. We are all well aware that the experience is a sharp one. The fineness of fire’s edges, the sharpness of its angles, the minuteness of its parts and the swiftness of its motion—all of which make fire severely [62] piercing so that it makes sharp cuts in whatever it encounters—must be taken into consideration as we recall how its shape came to be. It is this substance, more than any other, that divides our bodies throughout and cuts them up into small pieces, thereby giving us the property (as well as the name [kermatizein]) that we now naturally call hot [thermon].
What the opposite property is, is quite obvious; we should not, however, keep anything left out of our account. As the larger parts of the moisture surrounding our bodies penetrate our bodies and push out the smaller parts, but are unable to take up the places vacated by those smaller parts, [b] they compress the moisture within us and congeal it by rendering it in a state of motionlessness in place of a state of moving non-uniformity, by virtue of the uniformity and compression so introduced. But anything which is being unnaturally compressed has a natural tendency to resist such compression, and pushes itself outward, in the opposite direction. This resistance, this shaking is called “shivering” and “chill,” and the experience as a whole, as well as what brings it about, has come to have the name cold.
Hard we call whatever our flesh gives way to; soft, whatever gives way to our flesh. And this is how they are relative to each other. Whatever stands [c] upon a small base tends to give way. The form composed of quadrangles, however, is the least liable to being displaced because its bases are very secure, and that which is compacted to its maximum density is particularly resistant to being displaced.
Heavy and light can be most clearly explained if we examine them in conjunction with what we call above and below. It is entirely wrong to hold that there are by nature two separate regions, divorced from and entirely opposite one another, the one the region “below,” toward which anything that has physical mass tends to move, and the other the region “above” toward which everything makes its way only under force. For given that [d] the whole heaven is spherical, all the points that are situated as extremes at an equal distance from the center must by their nature be extremes of just the same sort, and we must take it that the center, being equidistant from the extremes, is situated at the point that is the opposite to all the extremes. Now if this is the universe’s natural constitution, which of the points just mentioned could you posit as “above” or “below” without justly giving the appearance of using totally inappropriate language? There is no justification for describing the universe’s central region either as a natural “above” or a natural “below,” but just as “at the center.” And the region at the circumference is, to be sure, not the center, but neither is one of its parts so distinguished from any other that it is related to the center in a specific way more so than any of the parts opposite to it. What contrary terms could you apply to something that is by nature all alike in every direction? How could you think to use such terms appropriately? If, further, there is something solid and evenly balanced at the center of the universe, [63] it could not move to any of the extreme points, because these are all alike in all directions. But if you could travel around it in a circle, you would repeatedly take a position at your own antipodes and call the very same part of it now the part “above,” and then the part “below.” For the whole universe, as we have just said, is spherical, and to say that some region of it is its “above,” and another its “below,” makes no sense. The origin of these terms and the subjects to which they really apply, which explain how we have become accustomed to using them in dividing the world as a whole in this way, we must resolve by adopting the following supposition: [b] Imagine a man stepping onto that region of the universe that is the particular province of fire, where the greatest mass of fire is gathered together, and toward which other fire moves. Imagine, further, that he has the power to remove some parts of the fire and place them on scales. When he raises the beam and drags the fire into the alien air, applying force to it, clearly [c] the lesser quantity of fire somehow gives way to his force more easily than the greater. For when two things are raised by one and the same exertion, the lesser quantity will invariably yield more readily and the greater (which offers more resistance) less readily, to the force applied. And so the large quantity will be described as heavy and moving downward, and the small one as light and moving upward. Now this is the very thing we must detect ourselves doing in our own region. When we stand on the earth and weigh out one earth-like thing against another, and sometimes some earth itself, we drag these things by force, contrary to their natural tendency, into the alien air. While both of them tend to cling to [d] what is akin to them, nevertheless the smaller one will yield sooner and more readily than the larger one to the force we apply that introduces it into the alien stuff. Now this is what we call light, and the region into which we force it to go we call above; their opposites we call heavy and below. Now the things [having any of these designations] necessarily differ relatively to one another, because the various masses of the elemental kinds of body occupy opposite regions: what in one region is light, heavy, below or above will all be found to become, or to be, directly opposite to, [e] or at an angle to, or in any and every different direction from, what is light, heavy, below or above in the opposite region. In fact, this is the one thing that should be understood to apply in all these cases: the path towards its own kind is what makes a thing moving along it “heavy” and the region into which it moves, “below,” whereas the other set of terms [“light” and “above”] are for things behaving the other way. This, then, concludes our account of what causes [things to have] these properties.
As for smooth and rough, I take it that anyone could discern the explanation of those properties and communicate it to someone else: roughness results from the combination of hardness with non-uniformity, while [64] smoothness is the result of uniformity’s contribution to density.
The most important point that remains concerning the properties that have a common effect upon the body as a whole, pertains to the causes of pleasures and pains in the cases we have described as well as all cases in which sensations are registered throughout the bodily parts, sensations which are also simultaneously accompanied by pains and pleasures in those parts. With every property, whether perceived or not, let us take up the question of the causes of pleasure or pain in the following way, recalling [b] the distinction made in the foregoing between what is easily moved and what is hard to move. This is the way in which we must pursue all that we intend to comprehend. When even a minor disturbance affects that which is easily moved by nature, the disturbance is passed on in a chain reaction with some parts affecting others in the same way as they were affected, until it reaches the center of consciousness and reports the property that produced the reaction. On the other hand, something that is hard to move remains fixed
and merely experiences the disturbance without [c] passing it on in any chain reaction. It does not disturb any of its neighboring parts, so that in the absence of some parts passing on the disturbance to others, the initial disturbance affecting them fails to move on into the living thing as a whole and renders the disturbance unperceived. This is true of our bones and hair and of the other mostly earth-made parts that we possess. But the former is true of our sight and hearing in particular, and this is due to the fact that their chief inherent power is that of air and of fire.
This, then, is what we should understand about pleasure and pain: an [d] unnatural disturbance that comes upon us with great force and intensity is painful, while its equally intense departure, leading back to the natural state, is pleasant. One that is mild and gradual is not perceived, whereas the opposite is the case with the opposite disturbance. Further, one that occurs readily can be completely perceived, more so than any other, though neither pleasure nor pain is involved. Take, for example, those involved in the act of seeing. Earlier35 we described the ray of sight as a body that comes into being with the daylight as an extension of ourselves. The cuttings, the burnings and whatever else it undergoes don’t cause any [e] pains in it, nor does the return to its former state yield any pleasures. Its perceptions are the more vivid and clear the more it is affected and the greater the number of things it encounters and makes contact with, for there is absolutely no violence involved when it is severed [by the cutting and burning, etc.] and reconstituted. Bodies consisting of larger parts, on the other hand, won’t easily give way to what acts upon them. They pass on the motions they receive to the entire body, and so they do get pleasures and pains—pains when they are alienated from their natural condition and pleasures when they are once again restored to it. All those bodies [65] which experience only gradual departures from their normal state or gradual depletions but whose replenishments are intense and substantial are bodies that are unaware of their depletions but not of their replenishments, and hence they introduce very substantial pleasures in the mortal part of the soul but not any pains. This is clear in the case of fragrances. But all those bodies whose alienations are intense while their restorations to their former states are but gradual and slow, pass on motions that are entirely [b] contrary to those mentioned just before. Again, this clearly turns out to be the case when the body suffers burns or cuts.
We have now pretty much covered those disturbances that affect the whole body in a common way, as well as all the terms that have come to be applied to the agents that produce them. We must now try to discuss, if we can, those that take place in our various particular parts, and, as before, their causes, which lie in the agents that produce them. First, then, [c] we need to shed what light we can on what we left untreated earlier when we talked about tastes, and these are the properties specifically connected to the tongue. It seems that these, too, in common with most other properties, come about as a result of contractions and dilations, but apart from that, these tongue-related properties seem rather more than any of the others to involve roughness and smoothness. Now as earth-like parts penetrate the area around the tiny vessels that act as testers for the tongue and reach down to the heart, they impact upon the moist, soft flesh of the [d] tongue and are melted away. In the process they contract the vessels and dry them up. When they tend to be rather rough, we taste them as sour; when less rough, as tangy. Things that rinse the vessels and wash the entire area around the tongue are all called bitter when they do so to excess and so assault the tongue as to dissolve some of it, as soda actually can do. [e] When they are not as strong as soda and effect only a moderate rinsing, they taste salty to us. They have none of the harsh bitterness, and we find them rather agreeable. Things that absorb the heat of the mouth, by which they are also worn smooth, are ignited and in their turn return their fire to that which made them hot. Their lightness carries them up to the senses in the head, as they cut any and everything they come up against. Because [66] this is what they do, things of this sort have all been called pungent. On the other hand, there are those things which have been refined by the process of decomposition and which then intrude themselves into the narrow vessels. These are proportioned both to the earth parts and those of air that are contained within the vessels, so that they agitate the earth and air parts and cause them to be stirred one around the other. As these are being stirred, they surround one another, and, as parts of one sort intrude themselves into parts of another, they make hollows which envelop [b] the parts that go inside. So when a hollow envelope of moisture, whether earthy or pure, as the case may be, is stretched around air, we get moist vessels of air, hollow spheres of water. Some of these, those that form a transparent enclosure consisting of a pure moisture are called “bubbles”; those, on the other hand, whose moisture is earthy and agitates and rises upward all at once are called by the terms “effervescence” and “fermentation.” That which causes these disturbances is called acid to the taste.
[c] There is a disturbance that is the opposite of all the ones we have just discussed, one that is the effect of an opposite cause. Whenever the composition of the moistened parts that enter the vessels of the tongue is such that it is congruent with the natural condition of the tongue, these entering parts make smooth and lubricate the roughened parts and in some cases constrict while in others they relax the parts that have been abnormally dilated or contracted. They decisively restore all those parts back to their natural position. As such, they prove to be a cure for the violent disturbances [just discussed], being fully pleasant and agreeable to one and all, and are called sweet.
[d] So much for the subject of tastes. As for the power belonging to the nostrils, there are no types within it. This is because a smell is always a “half-breed.” None of the elemental shapes, as it happens, has the proportions required for having any odor. The vessels involved in our sense of smell are too narrow for the varieties of earth and water parts, yet too wide for those of earth and air. Consequently no one has ever perceived any odor coming from these elemental bodies. Things give off odors when they [e] either get damp or decay, or melt or evaporate; for when water changes to air or air to water, odors are given off in the transition. All odors collectively are either vapor or mist, mist being what passes from air to water, and vapor what passes from water to air, and this is why odors as a group turn out to be finer than water, yet grosser than air. Their character becomes clear when one strains to draw one’s breath through something that obstructs one’s breathing. There will be no odor that filters through. All that comes through is just the breath itself, devoid of any odor.
[67] These variations among odors, then, form two sets, neither of which has a name, since they do not consist of a specific number of simple types. Let us draw the only clear distinction we can draw here, that between the pleasant and the offensive. The latter of these irritates and violates the whole upper body from the top of the head to the navel, while the former soothes that area and welcomes it back to its natural state.
[b] A third kind of perception that we want to consider is hearing. We must describe the causes that produce the properties connected with this perception. In general, let us take it that sound is the percussion of air by way of the ears upon the brain and the blood and transmitted to the soul, and that hearing is the motion caused by the percussion that begins in the head and ends in the place where the liver is situated. And let us take it that whenever the percussion is rapid, the sound is high-pitched, and that the slower the percussion, the lower the pitch. A regular percussion produces a uniform, smooth sound, while a contrary one produces one that is rough. A forceful percussion produces a loud sound, while a contrary one produces [c] one that is soft. But we must defer discussion of harmonization in sounds to a later part of our discourse.
The fourth and remaining kind of perception is one that includes a vast number of variations within it, and hence it requires subdivision. Collectively, we call these variations colors. Color is a flame which flows fo
rth from bodies of all sorts, with its parts proportional to our sight so as to produce perception. At an earlier point in our discourse we treated only the causes that led to the origination of the ray of sight;36 now, at this [d] point, it is particularly appropriate to provide a well-reasoned account of colors.
Now the parts that move from the other objects and impinge on the ray of sight are in some cases smaller, in others larger than, and in still other cases equal in size to, the parts of the ray of sight itself. Those that are equal are imperceptible, and these we naturally call transparent. Those that are larger contract the ray of sight while those that are smaller, on the other hand, dilate it, and so are “cousin” to what is cold or hot in the case of the flesh, and, in the case of the tongue, with what is sour, or with all those [e] things that generate heat and that we have therefore called “pungent.” So black and white, it turns out, are properties of contraction and dilation, and are really the same as these other properties, though in a different class, which is why they present a different appearance. This, then, is how we should speak of them: white is what dilates the ray of sight, and black is what does the opposite.
Now when a more penetrating motion of a different type of fire pounces on the ray of sight and dilates it right up to the eyes, and forces its way [68] through the very passages within the eyeballs and melts them, it discharges from those passages a glob of fire and water which we call a tear. The penetrating motion itself consists of fire, and as it encounters fire from the opposite direction, then, as the one fire leaps out from the eyes like a lightning flash and the other enters them but is quenched by the surrounding moisture, the resulting turmoil gives rise to colors of every hue. The disturbance so produced we call “dazzling,” and that which produces it we name bright and brilliant.
Complete Works Page 192