Empedocles
(NO WRITTEN BOOK)
The 4 elements
Poem of the four elements
“For by earth we see earth, and by water, either the divine either and by fire destructive fire, By love, and strife by cruel strife” This assumes the principle that the like is known by the like. That is the soul is aware of the object only if they are the same in kind (Aristotle on the soul Oxford p.XXiii)
To Empedocles, he beholds for the theory that there are four elements, that different kinds of things contain distinct proportions of these elements, and the like are affected by the like. (Aristotle on the soul Oxford, p.XXV)
Love & Strife
Things are alternately changing and at rest, changing when love creates unity out of plurality or hatred is creating a plurality out of unity (Aristotle Physics p.185)
Love divides and strife combines. For when the universe is reduced by strife to its elements, fire and each of the other elements is reduced to a single thing. But whenever again through the love they are brought to a single thing, it is a necessity that parts to each thing are again dissolved. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.17)
Now, with love, we come all together as one. (Aristotle on the soul Oxford p.203 29)
Proportions
None has a nature of the things that are; There is but mixture and exchange of things mixed, but nature’s name men fix on them. (Aristotle Metaphysics p.33)
Human
Bone exists by ratio, whereas this is the essence and substance of the things. (Aristotle Metaphysics Penguin p.39)
The flesh will differ from bone because it has a different proportion
(Aristotle on the soul Oxford p.XXiii) Empedocles
Breath
Breathes through vessels. Although they contain blood, they are not filled with it. Breathing(Aristotle on the soul Oxford p.143)
Passivity to proportions
A person’s wisdom alerts as he alerts his state. Men’s cunning grows with what is presented to them. (...) And as they modified, so did their thoughts Come always modified to mind. (Aristotle Metaphysics p.18 1009b 16)
Sagacity grows in humans in relation to what is present to them. And Whence it is perpetually set before them also to understand different things. (Aristotle on the soul Oxford p.52)