ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

PHYSICS • 517
passive principles moisture and dryness, the former is
in its nature the more easily determinable ; moisture,
therefore, must needs determine the characteristics of
dryness and not vice versa ;
neither of the two, however,
can exist without the other, but both (and therefore
also the two elements, whose fundamental qualities they
are) must subsist together in all bodies. 1 This combination
produces the opposition of hard and soft. 2
Every body, again, which has its own definite form 3
must be stiff, and all stiffness is a form of dryness. 4
Consequently, we are next led to treat of the nature and
kinds of drying, melting, and stiffening, together with
the materials subject to these processes. 5 Homogeneous
bodies are formed of earth
and water by the influence
of warmth and cold. 6
Aristotle proceeds at once
as effects of heat, airityia, a>)i6rqs, water in a vessel.
4
ixiiXvais, aT&Ttvais as effects of Ibid. c. 5 init.
cold. Cf. Meteor, iv. 2 sq.
5 Ihid. u. 5-7.
1
Ibid. u. 4 : eio-1 8' al per e Ibid. c. 8 init. c. 10, 388, a,,
dpxpur\x.kvov awna. Aeyfrai Be run posed of the latter. Opposed to
ffToix^W ISiairara |jjpoB fitv 77), the homogeneous is the heteroiypovfihSfiap
[seep. 483, n. 2, swp.~\. geneous (duofioto/xipis), or that
fita ravra airavra to upifffieva which is composed of different
tr&iuvra ivravBa [added because materials mechanically held
the statement does not apply to together, as is the case especially
setherial regions] ovk avev yrjs u.a\ with organic bodies. See, besides
BSotos. the passages referred to above,
2 Ibid. 382, a, 8 sqq. c. 5 init. Meteor, iv. 10, 388, a, 13. c. 12
3
rb &pifffievov irafia oliceicp 8pa init. ; De An. i. 5, 411, a, 16-21,
(cf . p. 480, n. 2), as distinguished cf . b, 24 sqq , where besides
from that which has its form Sfioiofiep^s we have d/wieifiiis,
imposed on it from without, as which is further expanded into -rb
518 ARISTOTLm
to describe their qualities and composition, 1 passing to
the detailed discussion of living beings with the remark
that homogeneous bodies serve as the matter of heterdgeneous
ones, and that the designs of nature are
more
clearly exhibited in the latter than in the former. 2 In
fact, however, everything which we find scattered over
the later writings about the objects of sense-perception,
light, colour, sound, smell, &c, belongs to that portion of
physics which is treated of in the Meteorology. We cannot
therefore here do more than refer to these suggestions, 3
'oKov rots fxopiois 6/ji.oet$es, Part. An.
ii. 9, 655, b, 21, where S/ioiofiepfi
is explained by o-vy&vvfia toTs S\ois
Ttfc /i4p7i ; cf . the Ind. Arist. under
the word. According to Philop.
Aristotle distinguished in his
Eudemvs between elementary
homogeneous and organic bodies.
In a quotation from this dialogue
occur the words (Ar. I'r. 1482,
a, 10, cf. p. 482, supra) : do-v/ifierpia
eot! tuv