9 780198 238645

ARISTOTLE'S THEORY
OF MATERIAL SUBSTANCE
Heat and Pneuma, Form and Soul

GAD FREUDENTHAL

CLARENDON PRESS ' OXFORD

 This book has been printed digitally ami produced in (I standard spedJu:atiol1 This book is dedicated with affection
in order to ensure its continuing uvailability
to the beloved memory of my father,
Heinz Freudenthal 7"T, and of my mother,
Renate Freudenthal, nee Engel 7"T,
OXFORD
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 Acknowledgements vii
colleague at the CNRS, for having provided this book with a
Acknowledgernen ts very beautiful and fitting cover-illustration.
The substance of this book was written between 1987 and 1989,
but I have selectively taken into account subsequent bibliogra-
phy. A final revision was made in September-October 1993.
G.P.
My foremost debt is to an institution. The enquiry that has led December 1993
up to this book followed a long and occasionally tortuous path
whose telos was not always within sight. As a piece of research
whose outcome was uncertain, it required suitable, secure
institutional conditions. In France, the government-sponsored
Centre national de La recherche scientifique (CNRS), which I joined
in 1982 as a Permanent Research Fellow, affords precisely such
conditions: a tenure position and the possibility of pursuing re-
search as an exclusive activity, even in the absence of immedi-
ately tangible results. This is a privileged situation-nowadays
most younger scholars have to devise their research programmes
according to the narrow timetable imposed by the constraints of
tenure renewal-which I appreciate and for which I am very
grateful. My sense of gratitude for having had the possibility of
pursuing a professional activity guided only by a 'desire to know'
is heightened by the painful awareness that outside the ivory tower
of academia, in France alone, more than three million persons
are unemployed. To Monsieur Roshdi Rashed (Paris), my former
directeur de recherche at the CNRS, I am much indebted for his
constant and unfailing support, despite his preference for me to
follow him to his own chosen fields of study.
Amos Funkenstein (The University of California at Berkeley
and Tel-Aviv University) persuaded me to cast the results of my
research on Aristotle into book-form. I express to him my warm-
est thanks for the friendly impulse and the encouragement he
gave me, without which this book would not have passed from
potentiality into actuality.
As a manuscript, this book was read by several anonymous
referees (one of whom later revealed herself as Mary Louise Gill
of the University of Pittsburgh), almost all of whom made
constructive criticisms and very helpful suggestions. I am greatly
indebted to them for their selfless labours, and hope that they
will find them rewarded by improvements in my arguments.
Last but not least, I am very grateful to Barbara Obrist, my
 A NOTE ON THE COVER ILLUSTRATION Table of Contents

The portraits of Roman philosophers are used to represent the Abbreviations xii
four seasons, which the central caption, STlHfA fD EST TEMf'ORA VEL
ELEMENTA, identifies with the elements ('stihia' is a corruption of Introduction 1
'stoicheia'). The diagram thus conveys the idea that nature con-
sists of opposites-listed along the periphery of the circle are the 1. VITAL HEAT IN THE PHYSICO-PHYSIOLOGICAL
combinations of the elementary qualities-among which an over- THEORY OF PERSISTENCE AND OF HIGHER
arching harmony yet prevails: the ongoing mutual transforma- SOUL-FUNCTIONS 7
tion of the four elements results in the regular cycle of the sea- 1. Vital Heat as a Cause of Persistence (of Species and
sons. Individual Composite Substances) 7
The diagram is found in a manuscript of Bede's De ratione tel/l-
1.1. The Problem: Persistence in the World of
porum, which was produced in southern Italy in the eleventh cen-
Generation and Corruption Within Aristotle's
tury and which appears to go back to an original which was either
Theory of Matter 7
a stone disc or a floor mosaic. Since no diagram from Roman
1.2. Nutritive Soul and Vital Heat as Equivalent
times combining the elementary qualities, the elements, and the
Concepts 19
seasons has survived, this diagram may reflect the earliest-known
1.3. Natural and Vital Heat as a Cause of
pictorial representation of these notions. It deviates from the
more usual, Isidorian, abstract qualities-seasons diagrams found Persistence 36
in manuscripts of Isidore of Seville's Oe rerum natura. 2. Vital Heat and Cognition 47
Barbara Obrist 2.1. Psychological Effects of the Constitution of
Blood 48
2.2. Vital Heat as the Cause of Intelligence and
Divinity: The Cosmological Dimension 56
2.:'\ Vital Heat and the Scale of Being: The Hierarchy
of Forms 65
Appendix: The Vital Heat in Plants 70

II. THE ROOTS OF ARISTOTLE'S VITAL HEAT:

THE DE PHILOSOPHIA AND KINDRED
PRESOCRATIC DOCTRINES 74
1. The Problem: Unintegrated Presocratic Motifs in
Aristotle's Psycho-Physiology 74
1.1. Why Does Vital Heat Go Up? 74
1.2. Uneasy Appropriations: Presocratic Accounts
of Cognition Within Aristotle's biology 79
x Table of Contents Table of Contents xi
2. Recovering the Lost Foundations: The Cosmology '1.3. An Excursus: Non-Destructive Drying-
and Psychology of De philosophia-A New Solidification 157
Interpretation . 84
2. Resisting Decay: Fatty Moisture and Oil 160
3. Aristotle's Hot Ether in Context: Theology, 2.1. Aqueous Moisture and Fatty Moisture in
Cosmology, and Physiology 93 Aristotle 161
3.1. Theological Cosmology and Physiology (1): 2.2. The Cohesiveness of Fatty Moisture: Causes
The 'Pythagorean Notebooks' 93 and Consequences 164
3.2. Theological Cosmology and Physiology (2): 2.3. Fatty Moisture: Conceptual Sources 169
0/1 Fleshes 95
Appendix A: Aristotle's Two Theories of Solidification
4. Conclusion: Ether, Heat, and Soul from the De by Cold 172
philosophia to Aristotle's Biological Treatises 97 Appendix B: The Chemistry of Oil 175
4.1. Motifs from Presocratic Heat-Theologies in Appendix C: Oil-The Social Dimensions of a
Aristotle's Psycho-Physiology 97 Persistent Concept 178
4.2. Redistributing the Roles: From the Hot Ether
to 'First Body', Vital Heat, and Fire 101 Conclusion 181

106 Bibliography 208

III. SOUL, VITAL HEAT, AND CONNATE PNEUMA

1. Aristotle's Theory of connate pneuma: Desiderata Index of Aristotelian Passages 222

for an Interpretation 106
General Index 225
2. The connate pnellma: Aristotle's Research
Programme 114
2.1. A Role for Vital Heat 114
2.2. The Basic Postulate and Its Implications 119
2.3. Material Persistence Revisited: Connate Pneuma
and the Functions of Nutritive Soul 137
2.4. Conclusion: Aristotle's Theory of Connate
Pneuma as a Synthesis of Earlier Views-a
Historical Perspective 144

IV. THE CHEMISTRY OF COHESION AND DECAY 149

1. Aristotle's General Theory of the Cohesion of
Substances, Animate and Inanimate 150
1.1. The Dry and the Moist: The Topological and
the Physical Meanings 150
1.2. Moisture and Natural Heat As the Causes of Cohesion;
Decay as a Form of Drying 151
 Abbreviations

DA On the 50111 Introduction

DC On the Heavens
De long. et brev. vito On Length and Shortness of Life
De illsomll. On Dreams
De iuv. On Youth and Old Age
EE Elldemian Ethics The following enquiry aims to provide new perspectives on the
EN Nicomachean Ethics relationships between form and matter in Aristotle's thought.
GA Generation of Animals Specifically, I examine Aristotle's accounts of the coming-to-be
GC On Generation and Corruption and functioning of substances consisting of informed matter,
HA History of Allimals notably living beings, and highlight the role Aristotle ascribes in
MA On the Movement of Animals
these accounts to the operations of heat, primarily vital heat. The
Metaph. Metaphysics
Meteorology notion of vital heat is not unknown to students of Aristotle's
Meteor.
PA Parts of Animals biology, but I believe its systematical import and significance
Phys. Physics have not as yet been appreciated adequately: it will indeed be
Pol. Politics my thesis that the theory of vital heat is a central building block
Rhet. Rhetoric in Aristotle's account of the organization of matter into structured,
Prob. Ps. Aristotle, Prob/ellls specifically living, substances and of the subsequent functioning
of such organized substances (namely of their soul-functions). In
Texts and translations: The volumes of the Loeb Series were used for DC the extant treatises Aristotle nowhere gives a systematic exposi-
(Guthrie), GA (Peck), and Meteor. (Lee). For MA the text and the trans- tion of this theory: to show that he none the less had such a
lation by M. Nussbaum were used; for the fragments those of D. Ross.
theory, at least in outline, to recover it from scattered accounts of
Quotations from other treatises of Aristotle are given according to the
Revised Oxford Translation in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of
limited scope, to bring out its explanatory roles, and to make
Aristotle. (Full bibliographical references for these works can be found some suggestions concerning its origin in Presocratic thought
in the first section of the Bibliography.) Except for capital letters, I fol- and in Aristotle's own early theology-this is my aim in the
lowed the spelling of the quoted translations. present book.
My point of departure is at the most basic level at which matter
Cross references within the book: a Roman numeral refers to a chapter, a and form interact, namely in (i) the formation and (ii) the persistence
decimal Arabic number preceded by the sign § indicates a section within of individual composite substances, notably living beings (plants
that chapter. Where no Roman numeral is given, the reference is to a and animals). I will argue that Aristotle's 'canonical' theory of
section within the same chapter. matter, the theory of the four elements and four qualities or
powers, falls short of accounting for these two clusters of major
phenomena:
(i) As many scholars have stressed, in Aristotle's theory of
matter there is no 'necessitation from below': Aristotle's matter
does not organize itself spontaneously into structured substances
such as living beings. But, obviously, forms do emerge in matter-
living beings come to be. Moreover, because Aristotle's world is
2 Introduction
eternal, the plant and animal species are eternal too, so that the
living beings which come to be have ever the same essential
features: the very self-same structures recurrently arise within
matter. It follows that the account of structures existing in the
material world cannot be given within the framework of Aristo-
tle's sole theory of matter, and so must involve additional ex-
planatory postulates.
(ii) Much the same conclusion follows when we consider
another problem of Aristotle's theory of matter: How diq Aristotle
account for the paramount fact that already existing individual
composite substances persist, i.e. that they do not fall apart into
their components? What allows substances to maintain their
physical unity at any time and over stretches of time? The question
has more to it than meets the eye. For the premisses of Aristotle's
theory of matter in fact positively imply that composite substances
should disintegrate rather rapidly. For one thing, a composite
substance is compounded of the four opposing powers which
maintain an inherently unstable equilibrium, with the implication
that any composite substance should disintegrate before long.
Again, it is an essential postulate of Aristotle's physics that each
element has a natural movement toward its natural place: on
these premisses, too, any composite substance should instantly
disintegrate, with its components flying off upward or downward.
This corollary is underpinned by Aristotle's metaphysics: as Mary
Louise Gill has recently emphasized, the four elements' achieve.
their fullest being when they are separate in a state of uncombined
simplicity', with the consequence that at any given time the unity
of a composite substance 'is fragile and is easily destroyed'.
Therefore, 'what needs to be explained is why the unity lasts,
given the fact that the lower materials tend to disperse,.l
There are thus two areas of phenomena for which Aristotle's
theory of matter provides no accounts of its own. Consequently,
if Aristotle wished to explain these phenomena, he had to
introduce additional postulates complementing the theory of the
four elements and four qualities. Scholars have indeed identified
these complements: natural teleology is held to explain the genesis
of living substances within matter; form (or soul) is affirmed to
be an 'active cause' which endows a substance with its material
persistence and unity, allowing it to persevere in its this-ness.
I Gill, Aristotle 01/ Substallce, 166-7.
Introduction 3
It will be my claim that, partly in parallel to these accounts in
terms of forms and partly as an alternative to them, Aristotle
also had a theory accounting both for the coming-to-be and for
the persistence of composite substances, at the centre of which is
the notion of heat, specifically vital heat. To recover this physical-
cum-biological theory, to reveal the unity underlying the various
accounts in terms of vital heat, and to identify the sources of
Aristotle's view of heat, are the aims of Chapter I. It will become
clear, I hope, that the notion of heat is central to Aristotle's account
of the material world, animate and inanimate.
I will begin with an attempt to elucidate the role of vital heat
in giving rise to the functions which on the level of the theory of
soul are ascribed to the nutritive soul. It will turn out that these
functions-namely informing matter, Le. producing and endowing
with persistence the homoeomerous parts in the living body and
effectuating sexual generation-Aristotle considers in his
physiological theory to be brought about by vital heat. It is
erroneous to think of Aristotle's vital heat as merely an efficient
cause used by the soul as an 'instrument'. Aristotle, I will argue,
rather construes vital heat as formative: where vital heat acts on
suitable matter, it endows it with forms; it warms and at the
same time also informs. Specifically, in Aristotle's theory, vital
heat is the physiological agent bringing about plant and animal
reproduction, so that the eternity of species hinges on it. In
Aristotle's theory, matter is structured not by extraneous Forms,
but rather by the vital heat that is immanent to the substances
existing at any given moment. Furthermore and consistently, it
is vital heat that also allows already constituted animate homo~
eomerous substances to persist. An excursus into Aristotle's
chemistry 2 of inanimate composite substances will confirm this
claim: Aristotle had a theory according to which the cohesion of
inanimate substances depends upon heat which inheres in them
(namely the heat which entered them when they came to be
through concoction).
Not only the nutritive soul, but higher soul-capacities too in~
volve, and to some extent are determined by, vital heat. Aristotle
. 2 The legitimacy of applying the term 'chemistry' to Aristotle's theories is
disputed; d. e.g. During, Aristotle's Chemical Treatise, 9-10; Furley, 'The Mechan-
ics of Meteorologica IV', 90 (= Cosmic Problems, 145); Strohm, 'Beobachtungen',
94 ff. I trust, though, that my use of the anachronistic, but convenient, term does
not involve any conceptual anachronism, presentism, or Whiggishness.
4 Introduction
holds that the vital heat is involved in determining the per-
ceptive and intellective capacities of living beings (the uniquely
human no us alone excepted). This doctrine, it will be seen, rests
on the theory of vital heat in conjunction with Aristotle's chem-
istry, which specifies the differential effects of heat on substances
with different compositions. Vital heat will thus emerge as what,
on the physiological level, underlies the functioning of the entire
soul (the intellect excluded). Indeed, it will emerge that vital heat
defines the scala naturae, i.e. the scale of being as an o,ntological
hierarchy. Since heat has a cosmological reference (a natural
motion upward), the scala naturae has such a reference too: spe-
cifically, the upright position of the most intelligent animal, man,
conforms to nature. The role of vital heat in bringing about the
functions of nutritive soul-informing matter and allowing sub-
stances to persist-thus appears as a part of a more comprehen-
sive physiological theory of soul-functions. Our enquiry will be
limited to identifying that physiological theory, and will avoid
going into its philosophical implications, i.e. into questions relat-
ing to Aristotle's views on the 'mind-body' problem.
In Chapter II I suggest that Aristotle's theory of vital heat has
to be viewed against the background of earlier doctrines, and
specifically against that of Aristotle's own early philosophy. We
will in fact see that Aristotle's accounts of the dependence of
soul-faculties upon physiological factors have striking similarities
with certain Presocratic theories. Also, the assumption that the
vital heat has a natural upward motion is common stock of
Presocratic thought. Such affinities, the observation that some of
Aristotle's affirmations which have parallels in Presocratic thought
cannot be properly grounded within his framework, and lastly
the very fact that Aristotle ascribes to heat so central a role in his
physio-psychology, call for a further look into the presuppositions
underlying his physiology.
New light on these presuppositions is indeed shed by what I
think was Aristotle's early theological cosmology. I put forward
a new interpretation of Aristotle's cosmology and metaphysics
as they can be recovered from, notably, the fragments of the
dialogue De philosophia, and suggest that it centred around the
notion of heat: Aristotle there held heat (thermon) to be the fourth
and uppermost element, which he construed as a divine,
pervasive, life-endowing substance, which is at once the sub-
stance of the gods and of man's mind. I further suggest that the
Introduction 5
physiological notion of vital heat as it can be recovered from the
biological treatises grew out of this early concept once Aristotle
introduced into his physics the idea of the supralunar inert 'first
body' (what later became known as 'ether'): vital heat took over
some of the roles of the former divine heat. Aristotle's physio-
logical concept of vital heat emerged, as it were, from the de-
theologization of a Presocratic-type cosmology and metaphysicS.
One important result of this reconstruction of the development
of Aristotle's thinking is that it shows that the cosmological views
of De philosophia are not-as is often assumed--entirely dissoci-
ated from those we find in the acroamatic treatises.
The improved insight (or so I hope) into Aristotle's ideas on
vital heat opens the way to a new interpretation of Aristotle's
notoriously enigmatic theory of connate pneuma. This is the subject
of Chapter III. My point of departure is the attempt to under-
stand what were the problems that Aristotle might have wished
to solve by introducing the notion of pneuma. I suggest, first, that
Aristotle wished vital heat-the central explanatory concept of
his physiology-to be a substance (which can e.g. be assumed to
have a natural motion upward) and that he construed the connate
pneuma as its substrate. Second, I argue that at certain crucial
spots the account of soul-functions in terms of vital heat was
inherently deficient and that the complete theory of connate
pneuma (presumably the theory was never completed) was to
account for those soul-capacities for which the accounts in terms
of vital heat broke down.
In the last chapter I follow Aristotle in exchanging the phy-
siologist's vantage point for that of the chemist, who considers
substances without regard to whether or not they belong to living
beings, trying to figure out what in the composition of these
clumps of matter determines their properties, specifically their
capacity to resist disintegration. The systematic reconstruction of
Aristotle's theory of the disruption of cohesion-discussed nota-
bly in book 4 of the Meteorologica-allows us to gain inSight into
how Aristotle construed its causes. Our investigation will un-
cover a general theory on which the cause of cohesion is the heat
inhering in a composite substance: this theory is in continuity
with the theory of vital heat as reconstructed in Chapter I and so
Aristotle's thinking on the chemistry of animate and of inanimate
substances seems to form a unity. (This unity in tum confirms
our interpretation of the theories.) We further encounter the idea
6 Introd uction
(whose origin is traced back to the ps.-Hippocratic treatise On
Fleshes) that fat substances are particularly cohesive and this
provides the basis for a chemical theory (of limited scope), which
Aristotle adduces in some contexts, accounting for resistance to
d~cay in terms of specifically fat moisture.
The Conclusion raises the question why Aristotle chose to draw
in parallel on his theory of nutritive soul and on the corresponding
physiological theory in terms of vital heat and pneuma. I suggest
that the reason may be that the two theories had different scopes-
none of them could account for all the relevant phenomena-
and that, moreover, with respect to the central fact of life they
were incompatible: the psychological theory construes life as an
'either or' phenomenon, the physiological theory as a gradual
process of decrease of vital heat.
The Conclusion then briefly reviews how the main problems
with which we have been concerned were tackled after Aristotle.
My aim is systematic rather than historical. Aristotle's theories of
vital heat and of connate pneuma as here reconstructed were of
course unknown to later generations, who took over Aristotle's
four-element theory in its canonical' form. By showing that
I
thinkers who adopted that theory were preoccupied by the theor-
etical problems posed by the coming-to-be and the persistence
of material substances, I wish to confirm my contention that this
was indeed a 'blind spot' in that theory. Thus, the cosmic and
divine pneuma of the Stoics was charged inter alia with informing
matter and giving persistence to substances. Similarly, as from
late Antiquity and particularly in the Middle Ages, philosophers
of the Peripatetic school posited a transcendent active intellect (a
Neoplatonically coloured notion), that was held to endow the
amorphous sublunar matter with forms and to maintain those
forms. The fact that the Stoics and the medieval Aristotelians felt
that in order to account for the existence in our world of organ-
ized substances it was necessary to complement Aristotle's theory
of matter with the concepts of pneuma or active intellect again
points to the blank in Aristotle's scheme, a blank these notions
were intended to fill. The gist of this book is the thesis that
Aristotle too had recognized this blank and tried to meet it not
only by drawing on metaphysical notions such as form or soul,
but also with the help of the concepts of heat and pneuma.
I
Vital Heat in the Physico-Physiological
Theory of Persistence and of Higher
Soul-Functions
1. VITAL HEAT AS A CAUSE OF PERSISTENCE (OF
SPECIES AND INDIVIDUAL COMPOSITE SUBSTANCES)
1.1. The Problem: Persistence in the World of Generation and
Corruption Within Aristotle's Theory of Matter
Aristotle thought that 'being is better than not-being, and living
than not living' (GA 2. I, 731 b30 f.; similarly GC 2. 10, 336b29). In
this section we will be concerned with the question: How do
existence and life within the sublunar world of generation and
corruption, and therefore the good that they embody, fit into
Aristotle's theory of matter?
Being belongs primarily to individual substances such as, most
notably, living beings (plants and animals), and it obviously pre-
supposes their coming-to-be. Now coming-to-be is not haphazard,
with. plants and anir;nals Of ever new types appearing and disap-
pearmg. Rather, ArIstotle s stance that the world, including all
plant and animal species, is eternaP implies that only individuals
sharing the essential features of one of the eternal life-forms
come to be. For Aristotle, therefore, existence within the sub lunar
world embraces two distinct phenomena: the eternal persistence
of plant and animal species; and the passing material persistence
of their instantiations, the individual plants and animals. 2 The
1 Aristotle'.s belief ~ the eternity of the world comprises the tenet that all its
plant and arumal species are eternal. Aristotle may have held some species to be
mutable; ~. Granger, 'Deformed Kinds'; yet this has no bearing on the status of
those speCIes-the very great majOrity-that are eternal.
2 The term 'persistence' is thus used to denote two different things but I trust
that no confusion will result. Cf. also below, n. 29 on the meaning 0/ Gill's term
'material persistence' as applied to individual substances.
8 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
two phenomena are importantly related: by belonging to a spe-
cies which exists eternally, the transient individual living being
partakes of eternity 3 and, conversely, contributes to perpetuating
the species' features. The two phenomena denoted by the term
'persistence' are thus in fact two aspects of the continued exist-
ence within matter of order and structure, specifically of eter-
nally recurring structures. For Aristotle, these phenomena are
not indifferent contingent facts of nature, but rather a good.
My aim in what follows is to highlight that neither kind of
persistence can be accounted for within the framework of Aris-
totle's theory of the four elements and qualities; the existence of
good in the sublunar, material world of generation and corrup-
tion constitutes a challenge to Aristotle's theory of matter. It will
follow that the accounts of persistence-of individual composite
substances and of species-call for the introduction of additional
explanatory premisses.
1.1.1. The Persistence of Species Within Aristotle's Theory of Matter
A number of scholars have emphasized that Aristotle's theory of
matter, the theory of the four 'so-called elements', rules out an
explanation of the coming-to-be of living beings with reference
only to the properties of those elements. Allan Gotthelf has con-
vincingly argued that, on Aristotle's view, 'the development of a
living organism is not the result of a sum of actualizations of
element-potentials the identification of which includes no men-
tion of the form of the mature organism.'4 Similarly, Montgomery
Furth has forcefully urged that the logic of Aristotle's four
sublunar elements 'is inescapably mass logic'; these elements 'can
mingle and merge, but of itself, on its own (kath' hauten), the
nature of this basic matter is not to build up into complex struc-
s
tures and superstructures', such as, notably, living beings. The
3 And, hence, of divinity too; d. below § 1.3.l.
4 Gotthelf, 'Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality', 213 and passim. Simi-
larly: Balme, 'Teleology and Necessity', 276.
5 Furth, Substance, Forlll alld Psyche, 69 (also, with minor differences, in his
'Transtemporal Stability', 633 and' Aristotle's Biological Universe', 24). Cf. also
Furth's following, very eloquent exposition of the problem: 'In the light of this,
the occurrence in the megascopic world of these endlessly repeated, specifically
identical, highly organized, sharply demarcated, integral structures or systems
( ... )-the biological objects which are the substantial individuals, each one a
unitary individual entity or "this", each one exemplifying over its temporal span
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 9
sar;ne ~~i~t emerges ~rom John M. Cooper's analysis of Aristo-
tle s cntlclsm of the VIews of his materialist predecessors: accord-
ing to A~istotle, 'Democritean necessity does not suffice to explain
the commg to be of any fully-developed plant or animal: you
cannot start from the presence of certain materials and trace a
connected series of changes, resulting from nothing but necessi-
ties belonging to the natures and powers of the materials present,
that leads up to the fully-formed living thing as its outcome.'6
!here is no. necessitation 'from below'/ then, that would organ-
Ize matter mto such structured individual substances as plants
or animals.
A fortiori Aristotle's theory of matter does not allow for a
nece~sitation which would account for the persistence of the
specIes. If matt~r does not on its own organize itself into just
any, perhaps umque, well-structured individuals, still less can it
be assumed to form itself into individuals of precisely one of
those eternal structures we identify as plant or animal species.
Aristotle's theory cannot account for the fact that individual
substances come to be within matter, which always are those of
all the eternally existing plant and animal species and only of
those species.
Aristotle's theory of the four elements and four qualities, then,
falls short of accounting for a fundamental fact of Aristotle's
eternal. world: ~t cannot explain the posited fact of the persistence
of speCIes, nor Indeed even the coming-to-be of individual organ-
ized (living) beings.
Cooper has recently argued that the bridge over this hiatus
~etwee~ Aristotle's theory of matter and his biological universe'
IS proVIded by the principle of natural teleology.s Put briefly,
a sharply defined complete specific nature or substantial kind-stands out as a
ren:~rkable fact that invites explanation. "Invites", not "defies"-how do such
entitie~ come to take shape, out of the Empedoclean swirl of mixing and unmixing,
clumpmg and unclumping?' (ibid. 70 and cf. also 172-3).
: Cooper, 'Hypothetical Necessity', 161.
Cf· Cooper, .' Aristotle ~n Natural Teleology', 205. Frank A. Lewis (,Tele-
ology.' 56) has .glVen a preCise formulation to the claim that is denied here: 'For
any give!' part.lc.ular effect subject to final cause, there exists at least one chain
of materl~l/ effiCIent .causes that fully necessitates that effect, such that the chain
does not Itself contam the formal/ final cause of the effect as a member and no
relevant extension of that chain has the form as member.' '
8 Cooper, 'Aristotle on Natural Teleology'.
10 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
his reasoning is this: Aristotle's assumption that all species are
eternal implies that the natural world is a self-maint~ining sys-
tem, containing nothing that might cause the destruction of even
a single species. This means that the essential features o~ the li~e­
forms that have existed since eternity are suitable to then contin-
ued harmonious existence. It is this conception that makes the
characteristic features of every plant and animal species-their
'ends' or 'formal causes'-into the primary explanandum of bio-
logical science, whose importance Aristotle emphasiz~s:time ~nd
again (e.g. PA 1. 1; Meteor. 4. 12). Now every single I~Vl~g.bemg
is perishable, and the species persist because the new mdlVldua~s
which come to be have ever the same essential features as theIr
progenitors, so that the equilibrium between the speci~s is ~er­
petuated. To explain the fact that matter is always orgarozed lI~to
precisely these structures and not others is the onus of the prm-
ciple of natural teleology. Aristotle must suppose, Cooper urges,
that 'there is inherent in the world a fundamental tendency to
preserve permanently the species of living things it contains .
. . . This tendency, which is not ultimately reducible to the pow-
ers and properties of matter-kinds, is irreducibly teleological.,9 It
is a basic factual characteristic of nature that processes of plant
or animal generation are goal-directed-they usually result in an
individual of one of the eternal species.
The crucial question now is: what brings about this teleology
in nature? Cooper thinks that 'on Aristotle's view, certain goals
actually exist in rerum natura; there are in reality those plants and
animal forms that he argues are natural goals. Their existence
there is what controls and directs those aspects of the processes
of generation that need to be explained by reference to them.,lo
(This goal-directedness of natural processes pro:ide~ t~e th~or­
etical justification for Aristotle's appeal to goals m hIS bIologIcal
science.) I will later (§ 1.3.1) criticize Cooper's thesis concerning
the' actually existing' forms whose existence is supposed to 'c~n­
trol and direct' natural processes. At present, however, the SIg-
nificant point to be retained is that a supplementary principle,
complementing the theory describing the material ne~ess!ties, is
required if the basic fact of the persistence of the speCIes IS to be
accounted for.
9 Cooper, 'Aristotle on Natural Teleology', 213-14.
10 Ibid. 215 (italics in the original).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 11
1.1.2. The Material Persistence and the Decay of Individual Composite
Substances Within Aristotle's Theory of Matter
We now come to another shortcoming of Aristotle's theory of
matter, one that has not as yet been sufficiently appreciated. For
not only does Aristotle's theory of matter not account for the
emergence within matter of substances having forms, but it in
fact positively implies that already existing composite substances
should not persist. In fact, not only the genesis of organized
substances such as living beings out of the amorphous matter
(and a fortiori the persistence of species) poses a challenge to
Aristotle's scheme, but also, and no less so, the continued exist-
ence over periods of time of already constituted individual sub-
stances, both animate and inanimate. Consider why.
Take the most simple composite substances, namely homo-
eomerous bodies. As is well known, these are substances, either
(in our terms) organic (e.g. wood, olive oil, flesh, bone) or inor-
ganic (e.g. water, metal, stone) characterized by that 'part and
whole are synonymous' (GC 1. 1,3143 20; 1. 10,3283 10 f.; DA 1. 4,
4083 15). The homoeomerous body is thoroughly homogeneous, a
substance throughout which the constituting four elements pre-
serve a certain constant logos. For instance, 'the mixture of the
elements which makes flesh has a different ratio (logos) from that
which makes bone' (VA 1. 4,408 14). Alternatively (but equiva-
3
lently), one may consider a homoeomerous substance as a 'com-
bination', mixis, of the hot, the cold, the moist, and the dry,u
Unlike mere 'mixture', sunthesis, in which parts are simply jux-
taposed but keep their identity, the substance resulting from mixis
is thoroughly uniform: 'if combination has taken place, the com-
pound must be uniform-any part of such a compound being the
same as the whole, just as any part of water is water' (GC 1. 10,
3283 10 f.; cf. also De sensu 3, 440"31 f.). This means that the oppo-
site constituents of a combination undergo alteration; were they
to persevere unaltered, this would be mixture, not combina-
tion. Indeed, Aristotle characterizes combination as the 'unification
of the combinables, resulting from their alteration' (GC 1. 10,
:1 Cf. e.g. Joachim's classical paper 'Aristotle's Conception'; Solmsen, Aristo-
tle s System, 368-78; Waterlow, Nature, Change, and Agency, 83-7. That the notion
?f f~ixisis mor~ probl;matic than it appears has been pointed out in Sharvy,
ArIstotle on MIxtures. Cf. also Mourelatos, 'Aristotle's Rationalist Account'·
Kullmann, 'Aristoteles' Grunclgedanken'. '
 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
12
328b22). Now such an alteration obviously implies that each of
the constituents 'changes out of its own nature towards the domin-
ant; yet [and this must be particularly stressed] neither becomes
the other, but both become an intermediate with properties com-
mon to both' (GC 1. 10, 328"29-31): this, of course, is precisely
the basic postulate of the 'Doctrine of the mean' .12 The crucial
point now is that such a 'mean' state in which the cons~tuents
are modified and combined in a certain logos is stable-l.e. the
homoeomerous body exists qua this or that homoeomer-only as
long as prevails 'a certain equilibrium between their [the con-
stituents'] powers' (GC 1. 10,328"28 f.).13 But what does Aristotle's
theory imply concerning the perdurability of this equilibrium?
The received Presocratic and medical picture of the four14
elementary constituents of substances is one of endemic strife.
Plato's account too (Tim. 56c) introduces us, in Solmsen's ima-
ginative words, into 'the midst of a violent battle. An element is
pictured as surrounded by others; it fights, it is defeated and
overcome, and when this happens it may either flee to its kin-
dred or be dissolved, broken up, and transformed into the victor-
ious element.,15 Can such domineering contrary components end
up in, and maintain, an equilibrium? They can, but only under
very specific conditions. For both in its cosmological versions (as
in Anaximander) and in its medical versions (as in Alcmaeon)
the theory of the opposite powers construes a substance such as,
say, a healthy individual as consisting of contrary powers hold-
ing each other in check. But this equilibrium between the oppo-
sites is conceived as highly precarious: it can endure only in a
balanced environment in which no power is reinforced from
outside; and once out of balance, the equilibrium can be restored
only through a counterbalancing intervention from outside (as
by the apeiron or by the physician). 16 The gist of this doctrine is
12 Cf. Tracy, Physiological Theon), 157-333; Clark, Aristotle's Man, 84-95.
13 Tracy, Physiological Theon), esp. 163-74; d. also Joachim, 'Aristotle's Concep-
tion'; Mourelatos, 'Aristotle's Rationalist Account', esp. p. 12.
14 For references d. Solmsen Aristotle's System, 356 f.; Happ, Hyle, 537 f., n. 82;
Gottschalk, 'Strato of Lampsacus', 150.
15 Solmsen, Aristotle's System, 356; Solmsen traces this 'imagery of warfare'
back to Anaximander (357 n. 16). Cf. also Tracy, Physiological Theory, 83 £f., 142 H.;
Gill, Aristotle 011 SlIbstallce, 75-7.
16 Cf. Freudenthal, 'The Theory of the Opposites', where further relevant lit-
erature is mentioned ..
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 13
that 'in t~e conflict of opposites-and of the elements which they
charactenze-the weaker power will require succor or support if
it is ~ot tO,meet destruction at the hands of the stronger'.17
Anst?t1e s theory of. the four qualities-as expounded in De
generatlOne et corruptlOne and, notably, in book 4 of the
Meteorologica l8-is in direct continuity with these Presocratic and
medical tr~~iti.onsI9 and the postulate of the intrinsic instability
of t.he equihbnum .of powers within all composite substances is
an mteg~al part ~f It too: 'opposites destroy each other' (De long.
et brev. Vlt. 3, 465 3), and so 'hot and cold, unless they are equally
balanced, are transformed into one another (and all the other
contraries behave in a similar way)' (GC 2. 7, 334b23-4). For
Aristotle too, then, the change of one element into another 'is a
victory of t~e ele?,ent ~nto which the other passes'.20 This postu-
late underlIes Anstotle s account of the destruction of composite
substances: from the notion that 'a thing's nature is maintained'
precisely 'as long as the determining proportion fof the master-
ing heat and the constituent moisture] holds' (Meteor. 4. 2, 379b35),
it ~ollows that 'destruction takes place when what is being deter-
ml~ed g;ts the better of what is determining it' (4. 1, 379"11 f.).
Anstotle s theory thus construes destruction as the inevitable
outcome of material necessities: 'since fire and water and what-
soe.ver is akin thereto, do not possess identical pow~rs they are
~eClprocal causes ~f generation and decay. Hence it is natural to
mfer that everythl~g else arising from them and composed of
them sho~.lld share m the same nature, in all cases where things
are not, like a house, a composite unity formed [merely] by the
synthesis of many things' (De long. et brev. vito 2,465"12 ff.). There-
fore, 'from the existen~e of the four elements it clearly follows
that there must be commg-to-be [and passing-away], for the rea-
son that none of them is eternal, since contraries act upon each
17 Kahn, Allaximallder, 130.
•18 Which, in agreem~nt with what now seems to be the prevailing opinion, I
~Il~ take to ~e authen~Ic. For an overview of the state of the question d. Flashar,
ArIstoteles, 26~. ThIS stance is also confirmed by Kullmann, 'Aristoteles'
~rundgedanken an? Furle~, 'The Mechanics', by showing that 'chemical' views
m Mete?r. 4 are. cons~stent ~l.th, and indeed are presupposed by, theoretical state-
ment~ In the blO\o?lCal. wntmgs. I hope that the present study makes a further
s~ep m the sa~e dJreC~lOn; Even ~h?se den~ing the authenticity believe the trea-
~lse to be a r;workmg of on gina I ArIstotelian material; d. e.g. Strohm
. Beobachtungen, and Gaiser, Theopllrast ill Assos 61 ff.
19 Ci. e.g. Happ, Hyle, 528. 20 Solmsen, Aristotle's System, 357.
14 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
other reciprocally, and are destmctive of each other' (DC 2. 3,
286"32 ff.). And in a word: 'never are [composite substances]
eternal when they contain contrary qualities' (De long. et brev. vito
3, 46sb29 f.)?l
Where the opposite powers or elements have established a
(precarious) equilibrium, the celerity of the destruction will de-
pend on whether or not one of the opposites is .reinforced from
outside: 'the environment acts on [substancesl eIther favourably
or antagonistically, and, owing to this, things ... b,ecome mo~e
or less enduring than their nature warrants' (De long. et brev. Vlt.
3, 46sb270. In most cases, therefore, the destruction of a sub-
stance will occur 'with the help of its environment' (Meteor. 4. I,
379"12). Indeed, from the theory it follows precisely that 'the
reason why any animal is long-lived really is that its "blend" is
about the same in comparison with the air which is around it'
(GA 4. 10, 777b7-8).22
Aristotle applies the very same reasoning also to the universe
as a whole. To establish the existence of the celestial 'first body'
not involved in the cycle of transformation of the opposite ele-
ments, he argues that if the world had consisted of. t~e four
elements alone, then the celestial element (ex hypotheSI fne), be-
ing of the greatest quantity, would have over?ower~d th~ others,
transforming the substance of the entire UnIverse mto Itself (as
happens to a drop of wine in a great quantity of water). Beca~se
this has not happened since all eternity, it follows necessanly
that the four elements are all of roughly equal 'powers'. This
consideration establishes for Aristotle the reality of the celestial
'first body' as a substance which has no contrary and which,
therefore, is not involved in the strife of the four sublunar ele-
ments. 23 The 'first body' provides the sublunar world with the
21 Similarly: 'Opposites destroy each other, and hence, accidentally, by the~r
destruction, whatsoever is attributed to them is destroyed' (De long. et brev. Vlt.
3, 465b3 f.). I .
22 Cf. Peck's note b ad loc. and the 'Introduction' to his Aristotle, GA, pp. Vl-
Ivii (§ 40); Tracy, Physiological Theory, 174-8; and below, the Conclusion.
23 For the equal powers of the elements d. GC 2. 6; for the change. of ~ubstance
(or form) in a great, therefore overwhelming, bulk (e.g. a drop of wme m a great
quantity of water) d. GC 1. 10,328'25 H.; the sun's motion as the. mov!ng cause
of the elements and change in general GC 2. 10 and Solmsen, Artstotle s System,
379 ff. Cf. also Joachim, 'Aristotle's Conception', 81 if.
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 15
perfectly neutral environment necessary to its continued existence
Whys. 3. 5, 204 b22 ff.; Meteor. 1. 3, 340a l ff. and below, II § 4.2).
The very existence and (limited) material persistence of com-
posite substances, then, poses a challenge to the theory constm-
ing them as compounded of four contrary qualities or elements:
how do these substances survive the constant conflict of the four
opposing constituents? Moreover, it is obvious that not any slight
imbalance of the environment disrupts the equilibrium existing
within a given composite substance: otherwise there would be no
life, indeed no order at all in the world. But how does Aristotle
explain the existence of stability in environments which are not
perfectly balanced?24
That composite substances should not persist follows from
Aristotle's theory of matter on other grounds as well. The four
elements have each a natural motion: downward for water and
earth, upward for air and fire. How is it then that composite
substances do not disintegrate instantly, with their elementary
constituents seeking each its natural place? Take a plant: 'we must
ask what is the force that holds together the earth and the fire
which tend to travel in contrary directions; if there is no counter-
acting force, they will be torn asunder' (DA 2. 4, 416 a6-9). Again,
in old age, Aristotle says, animals decay and gradually lose their
capacities. Just as in other instances of 'loss of power' the cause
of this is 'probably that the whole stmcture of an animal is com-
posed of elements whose proper places are different; none of its
parts is occupying its own place' (DC 2.6, 288b16-18). What then
binds the elements together over more or less long, yet invari-
ably limited, spans of time to form fairly self-same structured
substances?25
To be sure, Aristotle holds that in a composite substance which
is a genuine mixis (and not mere sun thesis, juxtaposition) the ele-
ments making it up exist only potentially and not (any longer)
actually. The question whether and to what extent the elements
then none the less preserve their original powers is notoriously
difficult,26 In the present context, however, it is sufficient to note
2( Cf. Peck's note on slImmetria in the 'Introduction' to his Aristotle GA pp.lv-
lvii; and Tracy, Physiological Theory, 163-73. ' ,
15 The problem is similarly put in Gill, Aristotle 011 Substallce, 212-13.
16 For an analysis d. e.g. Sorabji, Matter, Space and Motioll, 66-71.
16 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
that the two last-quoted passages unambiguously demonstrate
that Aristotle takes the elements that have gone into a mixis (i.e.
those making up the homoeomerous parts of plants and animals)
to preserve their original tendencies to move upward and down-
ward to their natural places?7 This view underlies also Aristo-
tle's remark to the effect that in a living being 'the natural bodies
[i.e. the elements] overcome one another according to their pre-
dominance: the light is overcome and kept down by the heavier,
and the heavy kept up by the lighter' (MA 10, 703a25-~): obvi-
ously each element retains its natural tendency to move to its
natural place and must be hindered from doing so by a' contrary'
element. (We will come back to this passage below, III § 2.3.)
Aristotle's doctrine of the four 'so-called elements' thus entails
that composite substances should disintegrate. This conclusion is
corroborated by considerations following a very different line of
reasoning. Mary Louise Gill has shown that in Aristotle's meta-
physics the four elements' achieve their fullest being when they
are separate in a state of uncombined simplicity', with the ~ol­
lowing corollary: 'Given the behavior of the elemental constitu-
ents, a product once generated cannot quietly enjoy the unity it
has achieved, and no external destroyer is needed to bring about
its destruction. Instead, composites are always on the verge of
annihilation on account of their own lower material properties,
and the project of remaining the same and avoiding decay is one
that demands considerable exertion.'28
l7 This point is overlooked in Sorabji's study referred to in the previous note.
On Aristotle's criticism of Empedoc\es d. also below, § 1.2.3 and esp. 11 .§ 1.~,
where I show that the criticism proceeds on shared premisses, one of which IS
that the light elements in a living body push it upward. Gill (Aristotle 011 Sub·
stance, 156-7) makes the point that in a composite substance 'the matter below
contributes certain properties to the entity above it', so that some of the proper-
ties of matter present in the compound potentially only still 'survive in the.prod-
uct'. In the present context, however, the crucial poi?t is that some pr?perti es are
preserved not qua properties of the compound entity (say, the heavmess o~ th:
plant as a whole; d. Gill, ibid. 160), but as the original pr?perties of the IndI-
vidual elements making it up (the fire in the plant preserves Its tendency to move
upward, contrary to the tendency of the entire plant). Aristotle's view on this
point as it comes to the fore in the acroamatic treatises is in continuity with the
one he had propounded in the early De philosophia, although, as I will suggest,
the context there was partially different; d. II § 2.
2B Gill, Aristotle on Substallce, 166, 213; d. also above, Introduction, p. 2. Simi·
larly: 'organisms suffer from weariness on account of their generic matter'
(ibid. 234). Cf. also Gill, 'Aristotle on Matters of Life and Death'.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 17
The foregoing analyses have shown the material persistence
of individual composite sublunar substances to be an 'anomaly'
within Aristotle's theory of matter in its 'canonical' form. 29 In
fact, on the premisses of Aristotle's theory, all equilibria within
composite substances-and this means: all forms-must be ephem-
eral. Decay, waning, growing feeble with age, death, disintegra-
tion into the components-Leo all those processes leading away
from a thing's most perfect state-are not only all-too-obvious
(unfortunate) empirical facts of life,30 but they belong to the neces-
sary natural order of things as postulated in Aristotle's theory of
matter. 31 There is thus a discrepancy between the natural neces-
sities posited by the theory and reality-the (limited) material
persistence observable in the world of generation and corrup-
tion. To meet this discrepancy-i.e. to explain why substances
are not immediately disrupted following the natural necessities
of their constituents-an additional explanatory principle is ne-
cessary. As Gill has also concluded: 'Since exertion is essential
to avoid degeneration, an active cause is required not only in
contexts of becoming but also in contexts of persistence. 132
This active cause is, to be sure, the substance's form or sou1. 33
In fact, Aristotle in so many words states that living beings per-
sist by virtue of their vegetative, or nutritive soul. In the course
29 I hope that the discussion of the difficulties of accounting for the material
persistence of composite substances within the framework of Aristotle's theory
of matter has made clear what exactly I wish to denote by the term 'material
persistence'; a substance persists at any given instant and over a time interval.
Therefore, the ~erm 'persistence', as used by Gill in Aristotle on Substance, seems
more appropriate to denote the problematiqlle I have in mind than Furth's
:transtemporal stability' (which tends to occult the first component of the mean-
Ing).. I am !Srate~l to Mary Louise Gill for having drawn my attention to this
t~rmln~log1cal pomt. I~ hardly needs to be emphasized that in the context of the
diSCUSSion of the persIStence of species the term has a different meaning.
30 Furth's 'Fact 7' in Substance, Form and Psyche, 74; d. also Gill, Aristotle 011
Substallce, 234.
31 .'To put it metaphorically, the elements do not "strive" upward toward com-
pleXity but downward toward simplicity' (Gill, Aristotle on Substallce 166).
n Ibid. 213. '
33 Thus Furth writes: 'Aristotle thinks the "principle" he calls "form" must be
brought in on top of t~~ Empedodean basis, to explain the stability of the knots
and t~e complex speCific character that they manifest as long as they last'; 'it is
by bemg form~d, folded, and twisted by specific form into semi-stable "knots",
that the matenals of the lo~er stage, whose own nature is to ebb and flow,
agglomerate and separate, give rise to persistent individuals having traceable
histories' (Substance, Fonll and Psyche, 172-3, 179; d. also 164, 177, 181, 276).
18 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
of his criticism of Empedoeles' account of the growth of plants,
he explicitly raises the problem of the growth and cohesion of
34
(ensouled) substances and answers it in terms of his novel theory
of (nutritive) soul. To the question: 'what is the force that holds
together the earth and the fire which tend to travel in contrary
directions?' Aristotle replies that this counteracting force 'must
be the soul and the cause of nutrition and growth' (DA 2. 4,
416a 6-9). Indeed, the fact that growth is always structured-that
'in the case of all complex wholes formed in the course of nature
there is a limit or ratio which determines their size and increase'-
shows that nutrition and growth do not depend on mere matter,
such as-according to Aristotle--Empedoeles' fire, but rather are
controlled by soul (DA 2.4, 416a9-18). In brief: 'it seems ... to be
the soul that holds the body together; at any rate when the soul
b
departs the body disintegrates and decays' (DA 1. 5, 411 7 f.; cf.
also 41Ob12 f.).
Whether or not this account is Aristotle's only solution to the
material persistence problem is a question that will be at the
centre of our enquiry later. In this section my intention was only
to highlight that if material persistence is to be accounted fo:,
then Aristotle's theory of matter makes it indispensable to pOSIt
an additional factor-an 'active cause'--over and above the four
elements and qualities.
1.1.3. Conclusion: The II/capacity of Aristotle's Canonical Theory of Matter
to Account for Persistence Within the Sublunar World
The above discussion allowed us to recognize that Aristotle'S
theory of matter fails to account for the entire range of phenom-
ena involving persistence within the sublunar world of genera-
tion and corruption. It can explain neither the persistence of
species, nor the coming-to-be of individual living beings, ~or
even the fact that existing individual composite substances, m-
eluding living beings, endure for a while before succumbing to
the impact of the natural necessities of their constituents. Had
the sublunar world behaved according only to the necessities
posited by Aristotle's theory of matter, there would be nothing
good in it. We saw that, in order to integrate into his theoretical
34 Solmsen, 'Antecedents of Aristotle's Psychology', esp. p. 160; Sorabji, 'Body
and Soul in Aristotle', 44-5.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 19
the persistence of species, the generation of animals
and plants, and the (limited) material persistence of individual
liv.in~ beings, Aristotle had to introduce additional explanatory
prmClples.
What. are these princ~ples? We have encountered two parallel
suggestIons:, C~oper thInks that in Aristotle's view the persist-
ence of speCIes IS due to really existing forms which 'control and
direct' the processes of generation; and Gill ascribes to Aristotle
the view that the temporary material persistence of individual
composite substances is due to an 'active cause'-the substance's
form or soul. In the next section I will suggest a partly contradic-
tory, partly complementary view. I will identify in Aristotle a
chemical-physiological theory at the core of which is the notion
of heat, specifically vital heat, and which bears both on the persist-
ence of species and on the material persistence of individual
composite substances.
1.2. Nutritive Soul and Vital Heat as Equivalent Concepts
The 'blind spots' we have identified in Aristotle's theory of matter
direct o~r attention to. A~istotle's theory of soul: animal or plant
generation, and a fortIOri the persistence of species, involve the
coming-to-be within matter of (at least) nutritive soul; and, as we
saw, Aristotle affirms the nutritive soul to be also the cause of
the material persistence of animate individual substances. In what
follows I will argue that to understand how Aristotle takes soul
~o ~~ction !n. matt~r-producing persistence of species and of
mdlvldual hvmg bemgs-we should take note of his theory of
vital heat.
1.2.1. Vital Heat the Instrument of the Nutritive SOIlI?
It ~s well known that Aristotle postulates a very close relation-
s~p between. ~oul-for the moment we will be concerned only
~lth the nutrttIve soul-and vital (or natural, innate soul-) heat:
hfe and the presence of soul involve a certain heat. Not even the
digesting process to which is due the nutrition of animals occurs
apart from soul and warmth, for it is fire that in all cases does the
work' (De iuv. 14, 47~a25 ff.). In a living being, the departure of
soul. and the q~enchmg of heat are therefore necessarily con-
comItant, mearung death (e.g. De iuv. 23, 478b32 f.). In fact, soul
20 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
and vital heat both depend upon one and the same archi, the
heart, which is the first part to be formed and the last to fail
when the animal dies (GA 2. 5, 741 b17-22): the heart, indeed, is
the 'citadel' (akropolis) of the body, that part which 'like a hearth,
shall hold the kindling fire' of the organism (PA 3. 7, 670"24-6).
The following well-known passage gives a resume of Aristotle's
views on the matter:35
In animals all the members and the whole body possess some connate
natural heat, and hence when alive they are observed to be warm, but
when dead and deprived of life they are the opposite. Indeed, the source
of this warmth must be the heart in sanguineous animals ... Hence,
even when the other members become cold, life remains; but when the
warmth here is quenched, death always ensues, because the source of
heat in all the other members depends on this, and the soul is, as it
were, set aglow with fire in this part, which in sanguineous animals is
the heart ... Hence, of necessity, life must be simultaneous with the
maintenance of heat, and what we call death is its destruction. (De iuv.
4, 469h6-20)
The soul, then, 'is, as it were, set aglow with fire' in the heart.
Heat and soul are necessarily concomitant: the living, ensouled,
organism, possesses heat; and a body devoid of heat does not
possess soul. But what is the precise relationship of nutritive
soul and vital heat in Aristotle's view? Their concomitance ob-
scures this important question.
Aristotle's views of the relationship between 'soul' and 'body'
have been intensely discussed in recent years with respect to the
higher faculties of soul. However, although it is now largely
agreed that the hylomorphic and the physiological accounts of
soul in Aristotle are complementary rather than contradictory,36
35 Numerous other pertinent passages are indicated in Ross, Aristotle, Paroa
natIJralia, 6 if.
36 Nuyens' and Ross's opinion, according to which the two accounts of soul
are incompatible and must belong to different periods in Aristotle's life, has now
largely been discarded. Cf. Nuyens, L'Evollition de la psyclwlogie d'Aristote; Ross,
Aristotle, Paroa natllralia, 'Introduction', 1-18. For an overview of the debate d.
Tracy, 'Heart and Soul'. Today most students of Aristotle seem to concur with
During's (later) view that the hylomorphic and the biological notions of soul are
complementary rather than mutually exclusive: 'Er fiihlt, daB man das. Prob~em
der Seele auf zwei Wegen angehen kann, als Naturforscher oder als Dlalektiker
und Philosoph', so that 'faIlle diese Definitionen reprasentieren Versuche, das
ratselhafte Phiinomen der Seele zu prazisieren, indem er sie aus immer wieder
neuen Blickwinkeln betrachtet'; consequently, 'der Widerspruch ist nur scheinbar'
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 21
and although it has occasionally been observed that the context
most pertinent to an adequate understanding of Aristotle's no-
tion of soul is the biological,37 the relationship of the nutritive
soul to the physiological workings of the living body has es-
caped careful explication, perhaps because it does not involve
mental states and is therefore of little philosophical interest. Still,
it would seem that most authors share the view of During who
explicitly contends that the vital heat, all its variegated functions
notwithstanding, 'remains merely the instrument of the [nutri-
tive] soul,.38 Indeed, in a well-known passage Aristotle explicitly
states: 'By some the element of fire is held to be the cause of
nutrition and growth ... A concurrent cause [sunaition] in a sense
it certainly is, but not the principal cause; that is rather the soul'
(DA 2. 4, 416"9-15). But this still leaves us in the dark concerning
the precise modus operandi of the soul and how it uses its
'instrument' .
An implicit answer to this question is afforded in modem
studies tracing Aristotle's ideas on the vital heat's role in nutri~
tion back to the Timaeus. 39 Now in the Timaeus, the internal fire-
particles act as a sort of food processor: by virtue of the sharpness
~f their geometric form ~hey penetrate and cut up the food par-
hcles, thereby transfornung them into blood. 40 They are indeed
in the strict sense of the word an 'instrument' and nothing more
(and indee~ Plato .cons~ues. them as 'c~-causes', sunaitia, only).
By c?nn~c~mg Anstotle s VItal heat WIth Plato's fire-particles,
one ImphClt1y suggests that their roles are similar, i.e. that in
and by itself the vital heat has nothing to do with forms, which
(Aristoteles, 559; 561); d. also Aubenque, 'Sur la definition aristotelicienne de la
coler~'; ~ahn, 'Sensa~on, an~ Con,sciousness', 17 ff.; Barnes, 'Aristotle's Concept
of Mmd , 32 ff.; HardIe, Aristotle s Treatment'; Nussbaum, Aristotle's MA, 146-
?8; Hartman, SlIbst~lIce, Body and Soul, 137 ff. The most recent discussions of the
Issue c~n.be found m Nussbaum and Rorty (eds.), Essays 011 Aristotle's De anima.
Tracy (IbId.) has advanced a strong thesis, according to which the physiological
ap~roach is a theore?ca~ly necessary complement of the hylomorphic one, so that
theIr compl.ementanty IS not merely epistemological; d. § 1.2.3 below. In what
follows I will. assume o~l~ that the hylomorphic and the physiological views of
soul are not m contradiction; d. also below, § 2.3 ill fi"e, and the Conclusion.
37 Cf. ~.g. Kahn, 'Sensation and Consciousness', esp. pp. 3-4; Sorabji, 'Body
and Soul, esp. pp. 44-5.
, 38 DUring, Aristoteles, 540; my emphasis. For a similar statement d. Solmsen,
A~tecedents of A~stotle'.s Psychology', 156 n. 29.
'" e.? Solmsen, The VItal Heat', 119; id., 'Cleanthes or Posidonius?' 275.
TIm. 80d ff.; d. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, 327-9.
 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
22
consequently must somehow derive from the soul. Thi~ conclu-
sion is explicitly formulated by David M. Balme: 'the chIef factor
he [Aristotle] invokes to explain biological phenomena is "vital
heat", which he does not distinguish from the action of fire (o~e
of the ordinary four elements) except when it is associated wIth
pneuma in effecting reproduction.'41 . then acquired a proper form (eidos) or nature (phusis) (Meteor. 4.
This view of vital heat is wrong, I think. In what follows, 1 WIll
try to show that Aristotle construes vital heat itself as capable of
informing matter and thus as capable of effecting the operations
in which we are interested: the generation of structured compos-
ite substances, specifically of en souled substances, and their sub-
sequent transient material persistence.
4Z
1.2.2. Vital Heat as t111 It/formillg Power
We begin by briefly reviewing the operations of ~eat in gene:al.
Aristotle considers heat (along with cold) as an actIve factor whIch,
acting on the passive ones (the moist and the dry, d. GC 2: 2,
329b24-31; Meteor. 4. 1, 378 b10-25), brings about concoctIOn
(pepsis). All processes of concoction, natural or artificial, ha~e in
common that they bring together 'things of the same kllld',
thereby producing homogeneous bodies; concomitantly, 'what is
foreign' (ashes, residues, etc.) is eliminated (GC 2. 2, 329~6 ff.;
Meteor. 2. 3, 3583 12 ff.; GA 1. 18, 724b26 ff.).43 In other words:
concoction results in combination, mixis; it leads up to a
homoeomerous substance whose texture is uniform throughout
and which has a characteristic logos of its components (above,
§ 1.1.2). Thus, the general definition of concoction is 'what hap-
pens to everything when its constituent moisture is mastered'
(Meteor. 4. 2, 379b32 f.): the heat acts on moisture, the 'indetermin-
ate matter', making it denser, compacter, and drier (Meteor. 4. 2,
380"4 £.). In other words: some moisture evaporates, or (if you
41 Balme, Aristotle's PA I, 71; similarly: 'animal heat need not be an altogether
different element from other heat'; ibid. 164.
42 Throughout this chapter I use the term 'power' loosely;. the problems. in-
volved in the ontological nature of vital heat will be discussed In Ch. III (particu-
larlv § 2.2.2).
{j' For Aristotle the operation of heat is essentially association; the fact that Its
action separates off something foreign is only an 'accidental' by-product of the
association of 'things of the same class' (GA 2. 1, 329b27). Consequently he op-
poses the widespread opinion that the function of fire is dissociation (DC 3. 8,
307'34 if.).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 23
wish) . some dry is admixed to the moisture (Meteor. 4.3,
380?~ £.), and so the emerging substance gradually acquires a
defimt~ shape. Eventually the process attains a telos, namely when
a certalll stable logos has been established between the moist and
the dry (Meteor. 4. 1, 378b32-379a2; 4. 2, 379 b35): the substance has
2, 379b25 ff.). Concoction thus results in a well-delimited substance
whose moisture has been 'mastered' by the dry in a characteris-
~ic.way: further heating will destroy it, at times by transforming
It mto another substance (sc. one characterized by a different
log~s).44 Generally s~eaking, concoction is the process through
WhICh a loose heap IS 'worked up' into a unified and organized
whole (Metaph. 7. 16, 1040b8-10).45
Aristotle's paradigmatic instances of concoction are, of course,
those produced in the living body:46 successive concoctions by
vital heat (in the heart, the stomach, and elsewhere) transform
food first into blood, and then into some of the animal's homo-
eomerous parts, e.g. flesh or sinews; similarly, the 'surplus' blood
undergoes further concoction, which turns it into milk fat men~
strual fl~i~, semen, etc. Thus, concoction by the innate; vit~l heat
o~ the hVIllg body transforms all variegated kinds of food into
dIfferent homoeomerous substances, each of which has its own
distinctive form and nature. Much the same occurs in the ripen-
ing of a fruit (pepansis) (Meteor. 4. 3, 380"11-26), for plants too
make use of heat. 47 The 'mastering' of moisture by the dry can be
brought about by artificial processes too. Instances are: boiling in
whi:~ 'th,e undete~ined, material' undergoes concoction through
the fire III the mOIsture (e.g. in hot water or oil) and roasting
(Meteor. 4.3, 380b16 f., 381 a23 f.). A well-done steak or a success-
ful cake, therefore, are also instances of homoeomers resulting
from concoction.
This. brief ape:(u allows us to sharpen our question: whence,
accordI.n~.to ArIstotle, come the forms produced in both natural
and artifiCIal processes? Is there a fundamental difference between
ordinary heat (Le. fire) and vital heat, or are they essentially
. « For a detailed analysis d. Happ Hyle 536 ff
: Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 112.' , .
For what follows d. e.g. Peck's Introduction to his Aristotle, GA, pp.
Ixiii-Ixvii.
47 Cf. Appendix to this chapter.
24 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
identical? Specifically, in the case of concoction in the living body,
does the (vital) heat only warm (being used by the nutritive soul
as a mere instrument), or are the forms due to the vital heat
itself? The role Aristotle ascribes to the vital heat within his theory
of animal reproduction allows us to obtain a clear answer to this
question.
The action by which matter is informed-'the first impact of
form upon matter'-is often referred to by Aristotle as 'setting'
(stmistanai).48 'Setting' is most typically brought about,by semen
when it acts on menses (catamenia). According to Adstotle, we
know,49 the offspring receives its form 50 from the male parent:
the male semen, by virtue of the vital heat it had received during
concoction in the sire's body, informs the matter supplied by the
female (the menses). The ideal-type case is that in which the
male semen informs the female matter into its like: the offspring
is then a male closely resembling the male parent. The condition
for this to happen is that the semen carry sufficient vital heat as
to 'enable it to master thoroughly the (relatively cold) female
matter (d. GA 4. 3, 767b21 ff.; 768"22 ff.): the greatest vital heat
thus generates in the matter the most perfect form, that of the
sire. A very slight diminution of the vital heat already has un-
toward repercussions on the form of the resulting offspring. For
instance, it will still be a male, but resemble the grandfather
rather than the father (4. 3, 768"31). A greater deviation from the
ideal-type case already qualifies as a 'monstrosity', indeed 'any-
one who does not take after his parents is really in a way a
monstrosity' (4. 3, 767b 6 f.; cf. also 4. 4, 770b5). The first grade of
monstrosity is, pardon, the female (76r8):51 females result when
the semen is deficient in heat and thus fails to impose its own
48 Cf. Peck's note on this term in the Introduction to his Aristotle, GA, pp.
Ixi-Ixii.
49 For what follows I largely draw on the exposition in Lesky, Die Zeuglmgs-
und Vererbungsleitren, 1349-83; cf. also Balme, 'Aristotle's Biology waS not Essen-
tialist', 292-3; id., 'Human is Generated by Human'; Cooper, 'Metaphysics in
Aristotle's Embryology'; Furth, Substance, Form and Psyche, 115-17.
>0 The precise 'identity' of the form transmitted to the offspring by the sire
(individual or specific) is controversial. For an overview d. Lloyd, 'Aristotle's
Zoology and his Metaphysics', 16-24; Gill, Aristotle 011 Subs/alice, 32-3; it is the
focus of Cooper, 'Metaphysics in Aristotle's Embryology'. This question has no
direct bearing on the issue discussed here, however, and I will leave it open.
51 Cf. Lloyd, Science, Folklore and Ideolog1j, 94 ff.
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 25
a
(male) form upon the matter (menses) (4. I, 766 l ff.). 'If [the
male semen] gains the mastery, it brings [the material] over to
itself; but if it gets mastered, it changes over either into its oppo-
site [i.e. female] or else into extinction' (4. I, 766b16 f.). Hence,
better concocted, hotter,52 and therefore 'more compacted' semen
produces males, i.e. more perfect forms; less concocted, therefore
more fluid semen engenders females, i.e. deficient forms (4. I,
76Sb2 f.; 766b31 f.).
The postulated causal dependence of the form of the offspring
on the vital heat of the male parent makes all factors influencing
the latter into factors going into the determination of the former,
notably of the offspring's sex. For instance, in both young and
old people the vital heat is not yet, or no longer, perfected, with
the result that both tend to produce females (4. 2, 766b28 ff.).
Similarly, by cooling down the vital heat of a body, 'hard, cold
water in some cases causes barrenness, in others the birth of
females' (4. 2, 767a34).
Successive decreases of the male parent's vital heat, we see,
result in a qualitatively descending series of forms of offsprings,
stretching from the most perfect form (that of a male resembling
the sire) to the lowest (those of monstrosities, beginning with
that of a female of the corresponding species). The vital heat thus
emerges as the physiological factor underlying the forms of liv-
ing beings: more vital heat produces 'more' form. In Aristotle's
view, variations of the vital heat carried by the male semen produce
corresponding variations in the perfection the forms of the resulting
offsprings. This covariance is stated by Aristotle in so many words:
'as the varieties of soul differ from one another in the scale of
value, so do the various substances concerned with them [namely
the various 'kinds' of vital heat] differ in their nature' (GA 2. 3,
736b33; cf. below III § 2.1). We will further corroborate below the
thesis concerning the role which Aristotle ascribes to vital heat in
bringing about the 'scale of being' (notably § 2.3).
That Aristotle construes vital heat as an informing power
is confirmed by his accounts of the so-called 'spontaneous
.52 The term 't~mpe~ature' is oft~n used in discussions of Aristotle's concept of
vltal heat, especlally In comparatlve contexts. I prefer to avoid it, for Aristotle's
'hotter' evidently refers to a qualitative, not a quantitative, difference. (Preus'
remarks to this effect ('Man and Cosmos', 471-2, 476-7, 482-3) seem to indicate
that what should have been a matter of course still needs to be stated explicitly.)
 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
26
generation', i.e. of generation in the absence of semen. The gen-
53
eration of animals within putrefying animal matter (HA 5. 1,
539'23; 5. 19, 551"1 f.) is ascribed to the vital heat which that
matter contained by virtue of having been produced through
concoction (GA 3. 9, 762"10 ff.): that rudimentary vital heat suf-
fices to endow matter with form, just as the vital heat carried by
semen. More striking is Aristotle's account of spontaneous gen-
eration within matter that had no prior history in a living being
and was thus initially devoid of any vital heat. A,:istotle de-
54
scribes this process as two-staged: first, the sun's heat warms
up matter-an enclosed quantity of water and earth-thereby
endowing it with vital heat (and ipso facto with pneuma; d. below
III § 2.2.2); that vital heat then in turn brings about the formation
of plants and animals (GA 3. 9, 762"18 ff.). Vital heat of whatever
origin (semen, putrefying matter, the heat of the sun), then, has
the capacity to generate souls-it is formative: 'the heat of the
sun does effect generation, and so does the heat of animals, and
not only the heat of animals which operates through the semen,
but also any other natural residue which there may be has within
it a principle of life [namely vital heat]' (GA 2. 3, 737"3 ff.).
Formative processes which Aristotle describes as 'setting'
occur also in contexts other than those of animal generation and
in these accounts too Aristotle construes vital heat as producing
the ensuing forms. Take the coagulation of milk by rennet or
fig-juice. Each of these substances 'contains the principle (arc1te)
which causes [the milk] to set' (GA 1. 20, 729'13). This 'principle'
is precisely the vital heat. Indeed, rennet is made out of milk
(itself produced through the concoction of blood; d. e.g. GA 4. 8,
53 On the notion of SpOlltalleous generation, d. Balme, 'Development of Biol-
ogy'; Lennox, 'Teleology'. The following brief remarks avoid going into many
problems having no direct bearing on my argument. For a discussion of some of
them d. Gotthelf, 'Teleology and Spontaneous Generation'.
54 In one way or another, Aristotle always insists that the heat required for
'spontaneous' generation is that of the sun (or 'seasonal heat'); d. Louis, 'La
generation spontanee', 301-2. The fact that a celestial body, ex hypothesi consist-
ing of the quality-less 'fifth element', warms is an anomaly within Aristotle's
mature cosmology. Aristotle tried to integrate this fact into his scheme, but his
attempts are unconvincing. Still less did he succeed in accommodating the as-
sumption that the sun is the source of vital heat. Cf. below II § 4.2, and 1II § 2.1
(including n. 25). For our present purposes, however, the significant point is that
Aristotle assumes the sun's heat to be generative, and not whether and how he
reconciles this tenet with other views of his.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 27
777"4-20) and it in fact is 'milk which contains fire, which comes
from the heat of the animal while the milk is undergoing concoc-
tion' (HA 3. 21, 522b8 f.). The action of rennet on milk is forma-
tive-it consists in a 'setting', analogous to the action of semen
on menses: 'rennet is milk which contains vital heat as semen
does, and this integrates the homogeneous substan~e [i.e. the
milk] al~d makes it "set'" (GA 2. 4, 739 b23; d. also 1. 20, 729'10 f.;
~,.4, 771 24 !.;
Meteor, 4,.7,384"21 f.). Much the same holds of fig-
JUICe and mdeed frUIts result from concoction just as the
homoe~m~rs in animal ~odies.5s As in the case of 'spontaneous
generation from put:efymg matter, then, rennet and fig-juice are
substances that havmg been concocted in the living body (ani-
mal or p~ant), co~ta~n vi~al heat which is the 'principle' allowing
them to mform ( set) SUItable matter on which they come to act.
Vital heat thus unambiguously emerges as a formative power; it
not o~y warms, but also informs appropriate matter; where vital
heat IS at work on adequate matter, invariably forms result, more
and better vital heat giving rise to more perfect forms.
To understand how Aristotle fathoms that remarkable capa-
city of vital heat to inform matter we should take note of his
idea that the concocted bodily fluids (notably blood, menses, and
semen) carry certain specific movements. 56 Aristotle holds that
by virtue of the concoction from which it resulted (from nutri-
ment), the blood is charged with characteristic movements, such
that when it reaches its final destination in the body it becomes
the homoeomer proper for that part of the body. In other words:
these movements, which inhere in the blood while it still is in the
blood vessels, are responsible for the forms which the blood, qua
matter, takes on when it turns into a homoeomerous part. The
semen carries the same movements as the blood from which it is
formed through further concoction, and it is by virtue of these
movements that it is capable of informing menstrual fluid on
: Cf.. §.1.2.2 and th~ Apl?endix to this chapter.
. This Idea ~~s recelv~d 1O~rea.sing attention in recent work on the metaphys-
Ical presuppo~ltions a,:d Imp!tcations of Aristotle's biology, especially his theory
~f t~e ger.'eratI~n of animals. The most thorough treatment is Cooper, 'Metaphys-
ICS 10 Anst.otle s .Embryol?gy'. Cf. also Furth, Substallce, Form a/ld Psyche, 117 f.
The followmg bne.£ overvIew abstracts away from some important components
of the ~heory, which d? not ?ear on my argument, e.g. those relating to the
respective roles of the 1Oformmg movements deriving from the male and the
female.
28 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
which it acts into a 'fetation'. The gist of the idea is well captured
by the following, anachronistic yet not misleading, metaphors:
the movements inhering in blood, semen, etc. embed the program
for all the distinctive parts of the animal in question; specifically,
by virtue of these movements the semen has an, informat~o~al
power allowing it to transmit to the offspring the program 10-
scribed in the sire's blood. 57
We thus have two accounts on the locus of forms in semen and
the other bodily fluids: Aristotle construes vital heat ~s format~ve
and indeed holds that the degree of perfection of the ensu10g
forms depends on the quality and quantity of the acting v~t~l
heat; and he takes blood, semen and their like to carry specIfIc
movements endowing them with an 'informational power'. The
two ideas should be viewed as components of a single coherent
theory. Combining them we can conclude th~t vital hea~ is heat
camjing informing movements. Concoction by VItal heat gIVes ~he
concocted matter its own share of vital heat, thereby endow1Og
it with characteristic movements. The movements which inhere
in the concocted matter, notably in the bodily fluids (beginning
with the blood), in due course inform that matter into the
homoeomerous parts. The movements in the semen are, more-
over, capable of 'setting' appropriate female ~aterial, ,:ith the
resulting forms depending on the degree to whIch the VItal h~at
'masters' that matter by transmitting to it the movements WIth
which it is charged. It is by virtue of these movements, then, that
vital heat is an informing power.
A comparison of Aristotle's accounts of natural an? artificial
concoctions highlights the view of vital heat as a formatIv~ power,
specifically the idea that the informative capacity of the VItal heat
resides in the movements it carries. Aristotle naturally holds that
by virtue of their very hotness, all kinds of he~t-ordinary fire
no less than vital heat-can operate concoctions and master
moisture. Insofar as heat is considered as the efficient or moving
cause of concoction, therefore, 'it makes no difference whether
57 For the program metaphor d. e.g. Cooper, 'Metaphysics in ~~stotle's. Em-
bryology', a, 58 = b, 16; Furth, Substance, Form and Psyche, 118; informational
power': ibid. 117. Before our imagination was informed by co~~~ter~, G,?tthelf
had expressed much the same idea with the words: 'the semen s moti0r: mu~t
be identified by reference to the form it is transmitting' (Gotthelf, 'Anstotle s
Conception of Final Causality', 217).
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 29
[concoction] takes place in an artificial or a natural vessel, for the
cause [i.e. the efficient cause] is the same in all cases' (Meteor. 4.
3, 381"10 ff.; d. also 381 b4 ff.). Qua efficient cause, then, all heat
warms, and from this vantage point all kinds of heat are on a
par. Things are crucially different, however, when we interest
ourselves in the formative capacities of heat manifested in con-
coctions leading up to substances with a definite logos. In the
living body, and specifically in blood and semen, the vital heat
'and the movement and the activity which it possesses are in
amount and character correctly proportioned to suit each several
part [that is about to be formed], (GA 2.6,743"27 ff.). In a natural
process such as reproduction, therefore, the correct proportion of
heat and the right movements-and this implies: the fonn-are
'supplied by the nature of the generating parent'. In the kitchen,
by contrast, 'the correct proportion of heat to suit the movement
is supplied by us' (GA 2.6,743"32 ff.), who move the instruments
and who derive the logos of the movements from 'the art' (GA 2.
I, 735"1). Consequently, where ordinary heat is used 'by us' to
supply form, 'human operations imitate natural' (Meteor. 4. 3,
b
381 6; ct. also GA 2. 1,7353 1 ff. and 4. 2, 767"14 ff.). The upshot of
the comparison is thus that the vital heat by its very nature
carries movements with a characteristic logos, whereas in artifi-
cial processes leading up to forms the logos derives from the art
(d. GA 2. 1, 734b36 ff.). We can thus conclude that in Aristotle's
theoretical framework vital heat is heat charged with specific, forma-
tive movements, which are precisely what makes it into soul-heat.
There is therefore no reason to accept the resigned view (advo-
cated e.g. by Diiring and Wieland) that accounts in terms of matter
and in terms of forms and ends are entirely dissociated in Aris-
totle's mind. 58
1.2.3. Vital Heat and the Operations of the Nutritive Soul
Let us now reconsider the relationship between the nutritive soul
and the vital heat as construed by Aristotle (§ 1.2.1): how does
the physiological account in terms of vital heat qua informing
power relate to the psychological one in terms of nutritive soul?
58 During, Aristoteles, 552: 'Sobald Bedingungszusammenhiinge Yorliegen, betont
er~ daB das Natu~geschehen yon teleologischer Formbestimmtheit gesteuert wird;
Wle es gestellert wlrd, sagt er nie' (my italics); Wieland, Die aristotelische Physik, 268
276-7. '
30 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
It would seem that where both accounts are applicable/ Aris-
9 then immediately the need arises to identify a physical agent
totle holds an identity theory: Aristotle's physiological theory
assigns to the vital heat the role of producing the forms of
homoeomerous parts, a role which the psychological theory at-
tributes to the working of the nutritive soul. One and the same
state of affairs thus receives descriptions in the languages of two
sciences: to say of a living body that it 'has vital heat' (using the
theoretical vocabulary of biology) or that it 'has nutritive soul'
(psychological idiom) are two ways to refer to its capacity to
transform matter into substances having a characteristic logos
(homoeomerous parts). This indeed is what Aristotle means when
he says that 'the soul is incorporate in some substance of a fiery
character' (PA 2. 7, 652b l0 f.). And more explicitly still: the 'hot
substance [thermon] is the place where the soul-principle is to be
found' (GA 3. I, 751 b6; similarly De iuv. 27, 480"16). It is clear
now why for Aristotle soul and vital heat must be concomitant.
This view of vital heat as incorporating the formative power
which from the psychological vantage point appertains to the
nutritive soul agrees particularly well with Tracy's thesis on the
relationship between the soul and the heart in Aristotle. Aristo-
tle, Tracy suggests, 'not only thought of them [the hylomorphic
and the biological notions of soul] as compatible, but even as
joined by necessity': the notion of soul as developed in De anima
'made it necessary, in his eyes, to postulate a single dominant
organ in which the soul functions primarily in animals and in
man'.60 The soul is 'present in' the heart primarily, and it is by
virtue of the control it exercises over the rest of the body that it
61
is also (but secondarily) 'present in' the body as a whole. Now
by establishing a close association, almost an identity, between
the heart qua informing organ and the soul, Tracy's interpreta-
tion highlights Aristotle's need to posit a biological link between
the heart and the rest of the body: for if, as Tracy maintains, the
hylomorphic concept of soul, on which the soul is everywhere in
the body, implies the existence of a physical controlling organ,
5. i.e. with reference to homoeomerous parts of living beings. As will be noted
below (§§ 1.3.2 and 1.3.3), the domains of application of the accounts in terms of
nutritive soul and of vital heat are not identical.
60 Tracy, 'Heart and Soul', 328.
61 The meaning of 'being in' in this context is discussed by Tracy, ibid.
334-7.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 31
through which this control is ubiquitously exercised. Tracy,
however, does not ask how, physiologically speaking, the
heart controls the entire body, specifically, how the heart in-
forms the nutriment into the multitude of homoeomerous (and
anhomoeomerous) parts and how it causes those parts to persist.
It should now be plain that this is the role of the vital heat: the
vital heat is produced in the heart, where it concocts the nutri-
ment into blood; vital heat thus inheres in the blood, and with it
it reaches the entire body: Aristotle in fact refers to the heart as
'the source of the creature's essential nature' (De iuv. 23, 478b33).
It is 'with' the vital heat in the blood, then, that the soul, al-
though primarily located at the heart, can yet be in the entire
body. T~us, in eac~ a~d every spot within the body 'soul' is
present.lf a.nd only ~f VItal heat is present: bodily parts that have
lost thel.r vltal heat lpSO fact? lose also their forms (their capacity
to function as parts of the lIVing body), for then 'all that is left is
their material factors' (Meteor. 4. 11, 3891>12); they are then those
parts by homonymy only. Similar considerations apply to the
heart as the organ controlling the higher soul-functions; we will
come back to this subject in Chapter III.
How, then, should we interpret Aristotle's statement that
'the element of fire' is a 'concurrent cause [sunaition]' of nutrition
and growth, but that 'the principal cause ... is rather the soul'
(DA 2. 4, 416"9-15; above, § 1.1,2)? And how does our interpre-
tation tally with statements to the effect that the soul 'uses' heat
(and cold) as an instrument (e.g. GA 2.4, 740b30)? The answer is
the follo,":ing. ':"it~ regard to the operations of heat in the living
body, Anstotle s VIew was that one may use either or both of
two equivalent descriptions. One may draw on the notion of
vital heat ~s at once. an efficient and a formal cause; or one may
~ttend .to Its w~rmtng effect only, abstracting away from the
tnf~rmtng capaCIty of the movements inhering in the vital heat,
which must then be ascribed to a distinct, 'formal' entity (namely
~oul). In the latter ~ase, indeed, the heat (it is then obviously
lmp.roper to talk of VItal heat) functions as an efficient cause (only),
eq~lValent to 'the element fire' which 'does not generate any
anlmal' (GA 2. 3, 737"1); the informing processes taking place
within t~~ body must con~equently be construed as governed by
the nutntIve soul, of whlch the heat is then indeed merely a
32 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
co-cause or an instrument. In other words: just as, when consid-
ering a material substance, one may either choose the metapht
sician's perspective and separate in one's mind its form fr?m ~ts
matter, or else opt for the vantage point of the natural SCIentist
and consider it as a whole consisting of informed matter (phys.
2. 2, 193b31 ff.; Metaph. 6. I, 102Sb3 ff.), so also with regard to the
vital heat two tantamount accounts are possible: one in which
the formal and the efficient causes are separate in the mind, and
one in which they are u n i t e d . ,
That Aristotle indeed viewed the descriptions in terms of vital
heat and in terms of nutritive soul as equivalent becomes clear
when we compare the following two accounts of a key biological
phenomenon involved here, namely that growth is structured
and not indefinite:
(i) In Generation of Animals the structured growth of living beings
is accounted for in terms of vital heat. As we already noted
(§ 1.2.2), Aristotle there affirms that in the living body, and spe-
cifically in semen, the vital heat and with it 'the movement and
the activity which it possesses are in amount and character cor-
rectly proportioned to suit each several part [that is about to be
formed], (GA 2. 6, 743"27 ff.). Even when there is an excess or a
deficiency of vital heat, still forms result, albeit inferior or de-
formed ones (ibid.). Aristotle thus holds that in a living being the
correct amount of heat is supplied naturally, e.g. (in the case of
reproduction) by 'the nature of the generating parent' (GA 2. 6,
743"34).
(ii) Consider now the account of an analogous phenomenon as
given in De anima (above, § 1.1.2). 'By some', Aristotle says, 'the
element of fire is held to be the cause of nutrition and growth,
for it alone of the elements is observed to feed and increase itself'
(DA 2. 4, 416"10 f.). Aristotle rebukes this view: 'while the growth
of fire goes on without limit so long as there is a supply of fuel,
in the case of all complex wholes formed in the course of nature
there is a limit or ratio which determines their size and increase,
and limit and ratio are marks of soul but not of fire' (2. 4, 416"15-
19). Aristotle concludes that it is soul which is the principal cause
of the phenomenon, fire being only a 'co-cause'. Thus, the phe-
nomenon of delimited, structured growth which in the Genera-
tion of Animals Aristotle ascribed to the operation of vita.l ~eat
is here explained as the conjoined operation of two dlstmct
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 33
entities~soul and heat-the former directing the latter and us-
ing it as an instrument. (For Aristotle, to say that nutritive soul
uses vital heat as its instrument62 would be an incorrect usage of
mixed language, for vital heat already carries forms.)
But the two accounts are obviously equivalent: the operations
of vital heat as construed in the Generation of Animals are by their
very nature constrained by 'limit and ratio', precisely the distinc-
tive marks of processes governed by soul according to the De
anima. The use of one theoretical vocabulary rather than the other
depends on the context. Being devoted to a discussion of soul,
the De anima is not the appropriate context in which to draw on
the biological notion of vital heat, which fuses together the for-
mal and the efficient causes. Consequently, the two functions-
that of warming and that of informing-are considered as
separate.
In the De anima the tendency to consider apart the efficient and
the formal cause is enhanced by the fact that Aristotle there seeks
to rebut Empedocles' theory, and so, by the very negating of his
opponent's stance, is led to take over the latter's concepts.
Empedocles' view as described by Aristotle ascribes growth to
'the element of fire'. Aristotle therefore formulates both his refu-
tation and his own alternative view using the notion of fire,
construed in Empedoclean fashion as an efficient cause. To bring
in the fact that unlike consumption by fire, nutrition and growth
are structured and limited, Aristotle must then ascribe the regu-
lation of growth to a formal cause, 'soul'. This move necessarily
makes 'fire', the efficient cause, into a mere 'co-cause', an instru-
ment in a process governed by the soul. Aristotle's accounts in
terms of vital heat on the one hand, and in terms of soul and fire
on the other are perfectly compatible, then, and his statement
that fire is a co-cause of growth and an instrument of the soul
does not conflict with the view of vital heat suggested here. 63
The above discussion, let me note in passing, may supply us
62 e,g. Tracy, ibid. 325,
63 I advisedly avoid taking a stand on the question whether for Aristotle psy-
chology and biology are two parallel, independent enquiries or whether, where
they account for the same phenomena, one explanation is necessarily more fun-
damental than the other; this is the notorious question (which need not concern
us here) of the 'separability of the sciences', on which d. e.g. Nussbaum, Aris/ot/e,
MA, Essays 2 and 3; Kung, 'Aristotle's "De Motu Animalium"'.
34 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
with a clue to the understanding of Aristotle's oft-noted (but
never explained) inconsistency in his treatment of cold. For al-
though qua active quality cold has a status equal to that of heat,
Aristotle none the less often says that it is (only) its privation (d.
e.g. DC 2.3,286"25 f.; GC 1. 3, 318 b 16 f.; GA 2. 6, 743"36 f.; Metaph.
12. 4, 1070b ll f.; but d. also PA 2. 2, 649"18 f.). The reason for the
inconsistency may lie in the two possible concepts of heat. Where
heat is viewed as merely an instrument, i.e. as an efficient cause,
it is indeed on a par with cold (d. e.g. GA 2. 4, 740b30). By contrast,
when one thinks of heat~and this now refers to vital heat-as at
once an efficient and a formal cause, it is not on a par with cold,
which must then be construed as a privation of heat.
1.2.4. Conclusioll: Vital Heat and Necessitation
Aristotle thus considers vital heat as a power which, by virtue of
the specific movements it carries, as a rule leads up to forms:
where it acts on suitable matter, usually informed substances
(homoeomers) come to be. Does this mean that Aristotle views
the forms of living beings as resulting from a physical
necessitation 'from below'? Should we consider his accounts in
terms of vital heat as 'materialist', his biology as reducible to
physics? The answer to these questions depends on a termino-
logical decision, specifically on the meaning we ascribe to the
term 'physical'. If vital heat, including its formative capacities, is
reckoned to be a 'physical' power, then Aristotle obviously up-
holds physical necessitation 'from below' and reductionism in
the sense that all that is required to inform suitable matter into
homoeomerous or living substances-namely the efficient cause
(the warmth) and the form (the 'program')-is 'in' the substance
carrying the vital heat (blood, semen, putrefying matter, rennet,
etc.). In fact, when, say, the vital heat in semen acts on suitable
female matter, an offspring usually results by necessity. If, by
contrast, we choose to use the term 'physical' in the more cus-
tomary narrower sense, namely as referring only to those capa-
cities which matter has by virtue of the natural necessities
appertaining to the four elements or elementary powers, then, of
course, there is no physical necessitation from below, and the
form must be considered as coming in from elsewhere, namely
from the non-'physical', formative, component of vital heat, i.e.
Vital Heat: Persistel1ce and Soul-Fullctions 35
soul. To argue over the question whether the necessitation ob-
servable in biology is physical is therefore merely a quibble over
terms. The really important point is the one already repeatedly
emphasized, namely that the four elements do not out of them-
selves bring about forms, which thus are necessarily imposed
upon the purely material constituents of the world by an exter-
nal agent-which may alternatively and equivalently be construed
as the vital heat or as the nutritive soul using heat or fire as an
instrument. 64
64 Since for Aristotle the movements carried by, say, the vital heat of semen,
embed the 'program' for the embryo, it is pointless to indulge in musings pro-
c~eding on the ~remiss t~at these movements can be construed as a purely effi-
cIent cause, havmg nothmg to do with form. To say that 'We can in principle
specify the requisite movements without reference to the form typifying the kind
to whIch both male parent and offspring belong (LewiS, 'Teleology', 62) and then
coneiude that. th~ generation of an embryo can be described as resulting from a
'ful~y necessltat.mg causal chain that is potentially form-free' (ibid. 56), or that
,Anstotle supplies a thoroughly materialist mechanism for transmitting form via
the .seme~ to the offspring'. (ibid. 66), comes close to a tautology. At the very least
a d,scusslo~ alo~g these lInes sheds no light on Aristotle's thought. (This was
alr~a~y noticed m 1976 b~ Gotthelf; d. his' Aristotle's Conception of Final Cau-
salIty ,21~-19.) An a~a!ogl~al flaw undermines Charles's analysis in 'Aristotle on
Hrpoth~tic~l ~ec~sslty . I-!IS argument hinges entirely on the notion of 'materials
With theIr dlstmctive phYSIcal constituents', and he tries hard (pp. 25-30) to show
that co~a~e pneuma (or vi.tal heat) can be 'characterised in terms of physical
properties tndependent of Its connexion with soul' (p. 2.9). His arguments are,
however, all equally mistaken. Charles supposes that 'the element found in the
stars, ar:'d t~e heat of the sun [to which, according to his view, the connate
pneuma IS saId to be ?nalogousl, are independent physical phenomena which can
be und~rstood : . ; WIthout refe,rence to soul' (p. 29), entirely ignoring the role of
the sun s heat m spontaneous generation and thus unable to make sense of the
comparison (on which d. below, III § 2.1). The fact that Aristotle ascribes to the
ftleum.a phys~cal capacities, such as weight, surely does not exclude the possibil-
Ity o~ Its havmg a.lso other.pr~perties, which cannot be described in independent
phYSIcal terms. FIve cryptIc Im~s (p. 30) on the spent/a's being 'potentially soul'
do not ~a~e clear. why he thl.oks that .its not quite. insignificant capacity 'to
r.roduce lIfe whe.n 1Il conta<;t Wlt~ the sUl~able matter IS also a physical property
md~pend.ent of Its c?nnexlon WIth soul. When one posits (drawing on very
partial eVIdence that m fact presupposes the conclusion) that for Aristotle heat
ha~ only p~ysica! properti~s (p. 25); it is not really difficult to demonstrate that
Anstotle gives a full physlcal story of animal generation. I concur with Charles
in thinking that when Aristotl~ 'find~ specifi.c limitations in the four-element physical
theory, he ex~ends and modIfies hiS phYSIcal theory' (p. 31) by introducing the
concepts of VItal h~at ~~ of connat~ p"eullla, but think he is wrong in construing
thes~ as (merely) addItional phySICal elements' (ibid.): they are precisely the
carners of the formal cause. (Also to refer to them as 'physical elemel1ts is
infelicitous. )
36 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
1.3. Natural and Vital Heat as a Cause of Persistence
We set out to understand how, according to Aristotle, the good
embodied in persistence within the sublunar world of generation
and corruption is brought about. The question split into two: the
eternal persistence of species (this comprises the coming-to-be
of individual living beings) and the temporary persistence of
sublunar composite substances. We noted that Aristotle's theory
of the four elements cannot account for the persistence of species
and, as far as the transient persistence of sublunar substances is
concerned, it even positively implies that it is against nature. It
followed that to account for persistence within the sub lunar world
Aristotle must introduce additional explanatory principles. It
seemed reasonable to surmise that these additional premisses
draw on the notion of (nutritive) soul: soul is involved in repro-
duction and thus obviously has a role in bringing about the
persistence of species, and it is explicitly said by Aristotle to
bestow persistence upon the animate individual substances. Tak-
ing note of the close connection which Aristotle stresses time and
again between nutritive soul and vital heat, we tried to make
explicit their relationship. Our analysis suggested the conclusion
that on the physiological level of analysis, Aristotle attributes to
the vital heat the informing of matter, which on the level of the
theory of soul he ascribes to the nutritive soul. Vital heat thus
emerged as a power that Aristotle construes as both efficient
(in that it warms) and formative.
Now the process of informing matter is obviously only one
among the natural processes involved in bringing about the two
kinds of persistence. Therefore, the line of enquiry we have
pursued will prove its mettle if it can be shown that Aristotle
assigns to vital heat a role in bringing about persistence of what-
ever kind-of species and/ or of individual composite substances.
To argue that this is the case is my aim in this section.
1.3.1. Vital Heat and the Persistence of Species
Our interpretation of Aristotle's theory of vital heat indeed has
immediate consequences for our understanding of his view of the
eternity of species. In § 1.1.1 we noted (following Cooper) that
the fundamental explanandum of Aristotle's biology is the fact, as
Aristotle thought of it, that there are in nature uninterrupted
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 37
chains of parents and offsprings which belong to the same species
and thus have ever the same essential features, through which
the world as a self-maintaining system is perpetuated. Given
that matter as Aristotle construed it does not organize itself spon-
taneously into living beings, let alone into individuals belonging
to one of the eternal species, Aristotle was confronted with the
problem of explaining how those uninterrupted chains of living
beings belonging to self-identical species none the less emerge in
matter. It should now be clear, I think, that in Aristotle's view
what informs matter so as to perpetuate the species is precisely the vital
hea~. We have!n fact seen that vital heat is an informing power,
whIch transmIts forms from the sire to the offspring, the fidelity
of the replication depending on the quality and quantity of the
vital heat of the semen. In Aristotle's scheme, therefore, the chains
of living beings resembling one another in their essential fea-
tures are produced through the vital heat, specifically that which
is operative in the male semen. 65 In brief, it is the theory of vital
heat whi~h ac~ounts for the persistence of species and, ipso facto,
for t~e bIOlogIcal phenomena exhibiting natural teleology.
ThIS may appear to be a strong thesis on behalf of (Aristotle's
view of) vital heat. That it none the less does not overstate the
case .is confirmed by. a well-known remark of Aristotle apropos
of VItal heat, made 111 the context of his discussion of animal
reproduction. Aristotle there states that 'as far as we can see, the
faculty of soul of every kind has to do with some phYSical sub-
stance which is different from the so-called "elements" and more
~ivi~e than ~hey are'JGA ~. 3, 7~6b30 f.). The substance in ques-
tion IS the VItal heat, whIch AnstotIe considers as more divine
~han the fou~ element~ precisely because of its role in perpetuat-
l~g the srecl~s. In An.stotle's thinking the divine is closely as so-
~lated wI.th tmmo~taltty and eternity: 'the activity of a god is
ImmortalIty, that IS, eternal life' (DC 2. 3, 286"9) and what is
divine acts always' and does not admit of being and not-being
I
(GA 2. I, 731 b25 f.). This notion of the divine leads Aristotle to
cons~~er biological processes which contribute to persistence,
speCIfically to the eternal persistence of species, as partaking of
6S This point is perceived by Webb: 'Internal heat is traceable back continu-
ously ~hrough e~bryo and seed to the heat of the parent, and since Aristotle
....believed s.pecles to be eternal, the heat of any ZOOIl is derived from an infinite
senes of earlIer members of the species' (,Bodily Structure', 32).
66 Or the connate plleuma in which it inheres; d. III § 2.1.
38 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
67
the divine. Thus Aristotle states that, although sublunar indi-
viduals are perishable, they can yet participate in the divine,
namely via the transmission of the form of the species from parent
to offspring, whereby the eternity of the biological form is en-
sured (DA 2. 4, 415"26 ff.; GA 2. 1, 731 b23 ff.; d. also GC 2. 10,
336b27 ff.). Similarly, the fact that the male principle informs the
matter supplied by the female makes it, Aristotle says, 'more
divine' (GA 2. 1, 732'4): it is the male form, not the female matt~r,
that is perpetuated and which therefore has a greater share m
divinity.6S That Aristotle holds the vital heat to be 'more divine'
than the four elements thus confirms that he views it as pro-
ducing persistence in the fluctuating world of generation and
corruption, namely by eternalizing the species through the trans-
mission of forms from parent to offspring. (We briefly come back
to the divine character of vital heat in III § 2.1.)
A related consideration further corroborates the view that in
Aristotle's theory, the persistence of species is produced through
the vital heat. In a highly illuminating paper, Klaus Oehler has
shown that Aristotle's oft-repeated utterance 'man begets man'
is a battle-cry directed against Plato's theory Of. Ideas. Its m~s­
sage is that the phusis of each species (on whIch depends Its
eternity) is within each and every (male) individual of that spe-
69 , h .
cies, and not in the realm of transcendent Forms: t ere IS no
Cf. Gotthelf, 'The Place of the Good', 128-31.
67 . .
The male is also connected to persistence, and hence to the diVine, because
6$
b help us to see where Cooper's interpretation fails. What would have been Aris-
it is hotter and lives longer than the female (e.g. De 101lg. e/ brev. vito 5, 466 14 ff.;
GA 4. 1, 765 16 f.; HA 4. 11, 538'23 f.; 6. 2, 575'4 f.). In Aristotle's theory all these
b
factors are necessarily correlated. . in the sublunar world (but without modifying its physical conditions)? It seems
69 Oehler, 'Ein Mensch zeugt einen Menschen': 'So gesehe~ 1st der Wes~ns­
oder Artbegriff nicht bloB noetisch, in der Weise, daB er nur I~ Denken semen
Ort hatte, sondern er ist zugleich in den Dingen selbst eXlst.en!, u~.d def
Wesensbegriff als noetische Einheit im Denken i~t n';lr s~me adaq~ate
Entsprechung' (p. 122); 'Der allgemeine Gattungsbegnff wl:kt 1m Lebendlg~n
von innen heraus konstant weiler' (p. 126); 'Die Form, das Eldos, das W~sen 1St
im ProzeB des Lebens selbst genenwartig und wirklich als der K~lm d.es
Lebendigen, als die Idee in der Realitat' (p. 144). Oehler does not examme Ans-
totle's biology-the theory through which Aristotle .operates what he. s? well
describes as 'die Reduktion der transzendenten Platonlschen Ideen auf die In den
Dingen und Lebewesen immanenten Wesensformen'-and ~oes not ev~n men-
tion the vital heat which is yet precisely the concept bearing 'die durch Anstoteles
sakularisierte Platonische Idee' (p. 138). It is fair to record that Oehler acknow-
ledges that for the central idea of his interpretation he is indebte? to Frank, 'Das
Problem des Lebens'. Cf. also During, Aristoteles, 531 f.; Peck, Arts to tie, GA, App.
A, 575; Pepin, Idees grecq!les, 228.
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 39
riecessity ... for the existence of Ideas. For man is begotten by
man, each individual by an individual' (Metaph. 12. 3, 1070"28).
But this phusis, we saw, is carried by the vital heat: 'man begets
man'-and not a Form-because the semen contains vital heat
capable of informing the female matter into the sire's like. Aris-
totle's slogan 'man begets man', let us note, hits not only Plato's
theory of Ideas, but also Cooper's interpretation mentioned above,
which ascribes to Aristotle the view that in the absence of
necessitation 'from below', it is the existence in reality of goals
(plant and animal forms) that 'controls and directs those aspects
of the processes of generation that need to be explained by ref-
erence to them',7° But for Aristotle the cause of the eternity of the
species is immanent in each and every individual plant or animal:
what really exists at any time is only a finite number of individu-
als of every species, each of which carries the form of that species
inscribed in the vital heat of its seed. The theory of vital heat
allowed Aristotle to give an account of the sublunar world which
does not posit any entities existing independently of the indi-
vidual material substances. 71
In Aristotle's biology, then, the persistence of species is ex-
plained as due to the operation of the semi-divine vital heat. The
70 Cooper, 'Aristotle on Natural Teleology', 215; above, § 1.1.1.
71 Counterfactual considerations of the type 'what would Aristotle have said if
pressed?' are usually a-historical. The following is perhaps an exception and can
totle's stance on the eternity of the species had he been able to imagine (as we,
alas, do all too easily) the possibility of a cosmic catastrophe annihilating all life
to me beyond doubt that Aristotle would have held that only species which can
reproduce by 'spontaneous generation' would reappear: 'Man generates man'-
and so if all men disappear, no new individuals of mankind will be generated
again. It is difficult to believe that Aristotle would have held-as Cooper's inter-
pretation implies that he should-that all plant and animal species would re-
appear. The medieval Aristotelians, by contrast, would certainly have upheld
precisely this view, but their theoretical framework differed from Aristotle's in a
crucial respect: the medievals held all plant and animal reproduction to depend
upon the assistance of the active intellect, a transcendent entity of Neoplatonic
descent which was taken to suffuse all the forms into the sublunar world. (The
active intellect is, so to say, a treasure-house in which all the possible fonns are
stored.) This is precisely the kind of theory which Aristotle rebutted: 'man begets
man'-and he does so on his own. Thus vital heat, as an entity immanent to the
individual living being, assumes for Aristotle precisely the explanatory role which
the medieval Peripatetics were to ascribe to the active intellect. I come back to
this in the Conclusion.
40 Vital Heat: Persistence and SOIlI-FlInctions
more humble, passing persistence of individual composite sub-
stances, animate and inanimate, is considered in the next section.
1.3.2. Heat and the Persistence of Individual Composite Substances,
Inanimate and Animate
For Aristotle, I argued, heat generally, and vital heat in particu-
lar, is an informing power: concoction as a rule leads up to forms,
whose logos is supplied either by nature or 'by us'; it is the action
of heat on a 'heap' that transforms it into a uniform 'whole'
(Metaph. 7. 16, 1040b8-10). On this view, we should expect Aris-
totle to hold that where a homoeomerous substance has come to
be, the same power that has produced it in the first place by
informing the heterogeneous and recalcitrant matter ('heap')
thereafter somehow also continues to hold in check the opposing
constituents of the substance, temporarily protecting it against
its intrinsic tendency to decay. We are led to this expectation also
by what we know of the relations between vital heat and nutri-
tive soul in Aristotle's thought: since on the level of the physio-
logical theory vital heat is held to inform matter, a role which the
psychological theory attributes to the nutritive soul, a~d. since
according to the De anima (2. 4, 416'6-9; above, § 1.1.2) 1t 1S nu-
tritive soul that 'holds together the earth and the fire which tend
to travel in contrary directions', it seems reasonable to expect
that in his physiological theory Aristotle will ascribe this opera-
tion too to vital heat. Our interpretation of Aristotle's theory of
heat would thus be further strengthened should we find that
Aristotle has a theory affirming that during concoction, heat some-
how goes into the matter of the emerging substance, and that
this heat is then involved in giving it material persistence, with
the implication that the disintegration of composite substances
is attributable to processes in which their heat is eliminated.
Precisely such a theory (hitherto little noticed) in fact underlies
Aristotle's elaborate discussions of the decay of composite sub-
stances, inanimate and animate, in book 4 of the Meteorologica.
Aristotle's theoretical view of the coming-to-be of a substance
as a process in which moisture is 'mastered' by the active quali-
ties hot and cold (Meteor. 4. 1, 379·1; above, § 1.1.2) naturally
entails the converse notion of destruction. Aristotle thus con-
strues destruction as a process in which 'what is being deter-
mined [the moisture] gets the better of what is determining it'
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 41
(Meteor. 4. 1,379"11-12; above § 1.1.2). The moisture of a decay-
ing substance, then, no longer 'mastered' by the dry, ceases to be
connatural (sumphutorz) moisture (GC 2. 2, 330"21); it becomes
'separated' from the dry, and as extraneous or foreign (allotrias
epaktosj GC 2. 2, 330"17 f.; Meteor. 4. 5, 382b11, 19) moisture it i~
free to evaporate. This is why Aristotle describes decay as a two-
phase process: 'things ... that are decaying become first moist
and then in the end dry' (Meteor. 4. I, 379'8-9). Now it is an
important postulate of Aristotle's theory of matter that the ma-
teri~l persistence (the cohesion) of a substance depends upon its
mOlsture: 'earth has no power of cohesion without the moist. On
the contrary, the moist is what holds it together; for it would fall to
pieces if the moist were eliminated from it completely' (GC 2.8,
3~5"1 f.; d ..below, IV § 1.2, for a fuller discussion). Consequently,
dlsmtegratlOn and decay presuppose desiccation, the elimination
of.the connatural moisture. The process, therefore, is this: 'every-
thmg that decays gets drier, until it ends as earth or dung'
(Meteor. 4. 1, 379'22-3). This, however, is not the full story.
Decay, Aristotle holds, just as any other motion, requires an
external mover: this moving agent he identifies as 'the heat of
[the] environment' (Meteor. 4. 1,379'16-17, cf. also 11-12; GA 5.
4, 784b7~8 and above § 1.1.2). This seems reasonable: it is plausi-
ble .to t~lflk of external heat as causing evaporation, followed by
deslcca~lOn, ~nd consequently by decay. Aristotle, however, says
somethmg dIfferent: 'Decay is the destruction of a moist body's
own natural heat by heat external to it' (Meteor. 4. 1,379"16 f.). This
statement should make us pause: does it mean that composite
s.ubstances ~ave 'natural heat' as a further component, in addi-
hon to the mastered' moisture? But what is the natural heat of
substances, in particular of inanimate ones, and how is its de-
struction related to desiccation and to decay? How, in short,
does ~he m~terial pe:sistence of a composite substance-the pres-
ervatIon of Its coheslOn and logos-depend upon its natural heat?
Aristotle in fact maintains that 'things composed of more than
one element contain heat, having most of them been formed by
con~oction by heat' (Meteor. 4. 11, 389b7 f.; cf. also Meteor. 2. 3,
358.7 f.; 4. 8, 384b27 f.; PA 2. 2, 649"24 ff.; PA 3. 9, 672a5-9 [on
whIch d. IV § 2.2.1J; Metaph. 7. 16, 1040b8 f.). Aristotle thus holds
precisely as our .former analyses led us to expect that he should:
that all composlte substances, animate and inanimate, having
42 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
come to be through concoction, in some sense 'contain' heat of
their own. This idea, however, still does not explain why their
decay should depend on the destruction of that natural heat. To
understand this, we must take into consideration the following
further and (I take it) crucial theoretical premiss of Aristotle's
account of cohesion: this premiss states that it is a thing's 'own
heat, which attracts and draws moisture in' (Meteor. 4. 1,
379 3 24).72 On this premiss the central role of natural heat in con-
ferring cohesion immediately becomes apparent: the destruction
of the natural heat of a substance can now be recognized as
being a prerequisite condition for the 'separation', and hence for
the evaporation, of its moisture, a process resulting in the de-
struction of its cohesion. Aristotle says it in so many words: 'as
[a thing's] own heat leaves it its natural moisture evaporates', for
then-and this is the underlying theoretical assumption-'there
is nothing to suck moisture into it' (Meteor. 4. 1, 379a23 f.). This
theory obviously implies that the more heat a substance con-
tains, the greater its persistence. Aristotle in fact holds precisely
this. For instance, 'fat things are not liable to decay' (De long. et
brev. vito 5,4663 23; similarly HA 3. 19, 521 3 1) and indeed, as we
should now expect, 'fat is hot' (PA 4. 3, 677b33; 2. 7,6523 27). We
will come back to the 'chemistry' of fats in IV § 2.
We may thus conclude, I submit, that Aristotle accounts for
the material persistence, or cohesion, of composite substances by
the following theory. During concoction, a process in which heat
'masters' and informs the moisture, some heat goes into the re-
sulting substance, in whose mastered moisture it continues to
inhere. That this connatural moisture continues to be 'mastered',
and thus to be maintained in the substance, is due precisely to
the inhering natural heat. Since the immediate cause of the cohe-
sion of a substance is its moisture, it follows that a substance
becomes dry (whereupon it looses its cohesion) if and only if it
loses its natural heat. On Aristotle's theory, a composite substance
maintains its form over a span of time by virtue of its natural heat. A
substance decays if the heat in the surrounding air-by virtue of
72 As far as I see, the only modem interpreter to have taken cognizance of this
theory is Purley in his 'The Mechanics', 80, 88 if. (= Cosmic Problems, 137, 144 if.).
It is briefly reported also in Joachim, Aristotle on Coming-to-Be, 206. Furley ('The
Mechanics', 89) points out that the idea that heat 'draws in' moisture is to be
found in the Hippocratic corpus.
Vital Heat:· Persistence and Soul-Functions 43
its 'motive force' (Meteor. 4. 1, 379a35)-masters the substance's
own heat (eventually cold) (4. 1, 379 a26-b6).
In the special case of animate substances, the concoction is
obviously operated by the vital heat, and so the theory implies
that the material persistence of the homoeomerous parts of liv-
ing beings should depend upon their vital heat. This is obviously
the case, because the extinction of vital heat in a living being is
the cause of its death and of the subsequent disintegration of the
body (d. De iuv. 23, 478 b32 ff.). Thus, on the physiological level
of analysis, Aristotle considers the material persistence of
homoeomers, which his psychological theory ascribes to nutritive
soul, to be produced by their vital heat. (This is little surprising
if one reflects that the 'hot substance [thermon] is the place where
the soul-principle is to be found' [CA 3. I, 751 b6].) Again, then,
capacities which the theory of soul ascribes to nutritive soul are
described by the biolOgical theory as being brought about by
vital heat.
The theory we have just considered is general in that it applies
to both animate and inanimate substances by the sole virtue of
their having been generated through concoction, a process in
which matter is mastered, or informed, by the active qualities.
But the scope of the theory is also limited, inasmuch as it applies
to homoeomerous substances only. Concoction, let us recall, leads
up to a mixis, i.e. to the formation of homoeomerous substances.
It follows that the material persistence of anhomoeomerous sub-
stances cannot be accounted for by this theory, so that a central
phenomenon of the world, namely the material persistence and
unity over time of entire living beings, falls outside the scope of
the physiological theory considered so far. Consequently, the
parallelism noted above (§ 1.2.3) between the physiological
account of material persistence in terms of vital heat and the
psychological account in terms of nutritive soul holds for
homoeomerous substances, but it is unclear whether and how it
encompasses anhomoeomerous parts as well. There is thus a
desideratum, within Aristotle's framework, for a theory extend-
ing the physiological account beyond the level of homoeomerous
substances to comprise higher forms of organization of matter. 73
n It has often been noticed that Aristotle's notion of the soul as the form of a
p~tentially Iivin.g body has affinities with the theory which identified the soul
WIth the harmoma of the body's opposite constituents. Aristotle rejects the harmollia
 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
44
We will come back to this problem more than once below (II
§ 4.1; III §§ 2.3 and 2.4).
We have thus identified in Aristotle a general theory of mater-
ial persistence of homoeomerous substances: the heat, whose
action on matter informs it into a substance in the first place, for
varying spans of time continues to inhere in the substance and
to maintain its form against the turbulent resistance of its oppo-
site constituents. In the special case of substances which are liv-
ing beings, the heat is vital heat and the sum-total of its operations,
including the maintaining of material persistence, can be sub-
sumed under the notion of 'nutritive soul'. The natural heat of
inanimate composite substances corresponds, so to say, to 'de-
gree zero' of (nutritive) soul-the first level of the organization
of matter?4
1.3.3. Conclllsion: Heat alld Persistence in the World of
Gelleration and Corruption
Our discussion in § 1.1 allowed us to perceive, as others had
before but on the basis of partly different considerations, that a
theory because, among other things, it implies. that a li~ing being pos~esses as
many souls as it has homoeomerous parts havmg each Its own harmOnia (DA 1.
4, 408'13 ff.; d. Gottschalk, 'Soul as Harmonia'; Charlton, 'Aristotle and the
Harmollia Theory'). Aristotle's solution to the problem is obtained through a sort
of generalization of the /I~m/~/l!a theory: within Ari~totle's theory, on which the
soul is the form of the entire hvmg body, the IIarmoma of each of the homoeomers
becomes so to say a part of (it is subsumed under) the general and comprehen-
sive form of the body. This form Aristotle then takes to account illter alia for the
generation and material persistence of the entire living being. We c~ now real-
ize that Aristotle's physiological theory of vital heat accounts precisely for the
//armollia of the homoeomerous parts and for nothing beyond. It fails precisely at
the same point as the harmollia theory: neither theory accounts for the coming-to-
be and the material persistence of anhomoeomerous substances-organs and
living beings. The situation is therefore the following. As far as homoeomers--:-
their generation and material persistence-are concerned, we h~ve a psychologt-
cal account which is paralleled In physiology. But the parallehsm breaks down
once we come to anhomoeomerous substances: Aristotle's theory of vital heat
gives no answer to the question, what is the biological counterpart ~f the form
of a hand or a horse, comparable to what vital heat is to the harmoma, or logos,
of a homoeomerous substance? Aristotle presumably tried hard to extend the
biological theory so that it would provide a foundation for his general p.sychC;
logy on all levels: this, as I will argue in Ch. III, is one of the motives behmd his
theory of connate p"el/ma.
74 That order dwells in inanimate substances too is affirmed e.g. Pol. 1. 5, 1254'31;
to be sure, 'the final cause is least obvious where matter predominates most'
(Meteor. 4. 12, 390'3 f.).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 45
gulf separates Aristotle's canonical theory of matter, the theory
of the four elements and powers, and the existence of isles of
persist:~ce in t~e w?rld of generation of corruption. The natural
neceSSIties pOSIted m the theory of matter do not give rise to
order, and in fact tend to subvert whatever order and structure
there may be. Now since Aristotle held the universe to be eter-
nal, .he ha~ to account not only for the coming-to-be and the
passmg eXlstenc~ of unique individual organized substances, but
also for. the perSIstence of species, i.e. for the supposed fact that
matter IS recurrently informed into substances of essentially the
same structures. The obvious conclusion was that Aristotle had
to introduce some further explanatory principles.
This view, as we saw, is shared by other students of Aristotle
too. T~e questio~ is: what are those additional principles? What,
~ccor~mg to ~nstotle, produces order in matter that in and by
Itself IS ~ot. dIsposed to organize itself, nor even to preserve al-
ready eXIsting patches of order? Concerning the persistence of
speCles, we saw (above, § 1.1.1) that Cooper ascribes to Aristotle
the view that certain goals 'really exist' out there in nature, which
control the dev~lopment of living beings so as to produce in
~atter ev~r agam t~e same life-forms. With respect to the tran-
SIent perSIstence of mdividualliving beings, the standard view is
the one expressed by Gill who wrote that '[s]ince exertion is
essen.Hal to avoid degene~ation, an active cause is required not
o~ly m .contexts of ~ecommg but also in contexts of persistence',
thIS achve cause bemg the substance's form (its soul in the case
of a living being).75
Our discussion in this section sheds, I think, new light on the
pr~blem. Its .crucial ~nsight is that in his physiological theory
Anstotle ascnbes to VItal heat, which he construes as a formative
power, precisely the roles which Cooper and Gill ascribe to forms
(or Forms):
(i) In his theory of animal reproduction, Aristotle holds vital
heat to carry the form of the species over the generations from
progenitor to offspring. Therefore, 'man begets man'-and he
does so without the assistance of transcendent Forms. In believ-
ing th~t Aristotle operates what Oehler has aptly described as 'a
reduction of the transcendent Platonic Ideas to the essential forms
75 Gill, Aristotle 01/ Substallce, 213; d. above, § 1.1.2.
46 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
that are immanent to the things and living beings,/6 and that
Aristotle did this through his theory of vital heat, my view of
Aristotle is in opposition to Cooper's.
(ii) Aristotle's view is that once a living individual has come
to be, its vital heat for a while maintains the material persistence
of its homoeomerous parts by holding in check the destructive
tendencies of their constituents and by continually metabolizing
new nutriment. As we noted, this account parallels the one in
terms of form and (nutritive) soul, as in general whe,re the ac-
counts in terms of vital heat and in terms of soul both apply they
are equivalent. Thus, with respect to the material persistence of
homoeomerous parts of individual living beings, the account in
terms of vital heat parallels or complements (rather than contra-
dicts) the one given in terms of a formal 'active cause,.77
As was pointed out above, the scope of Aristotle's theory of
vital heat does not coincide with that of the account in terms of
forms and souls. On the one hand, the theory of heat accounts
for the material persistence, or cohesion, of all composite
homoeomerous substances, including inanimate ones which fall
outside the scope of the 'psychological' account. (The explana-
tion of the persistence of the homoeomerous parts of living be-
ings in terms of their vital heat is a special case of Aristotle's
general theory according to which any substance that has come
to be through concoction persists for some time by virtue of the
natural heat that has gone into it.) On the other hand, the account
in terms of forms and souls applies the material persistence of
entire living beings, whereas the physiologico-chemical account
in terms of heat applies to homoeomerous substances only.
76 Cf. above n. 69.
77 It is surprising that Furth, whose problematique largely overlaps mine, has
not paid more attention to the role of vital heat in Aristotle's physiol~gy. Furth
is interested in a metaphysical analysis of transtemporality, ~~ose eXistence .he
presupposes. The capacity of substances having at least a nutr,-ttive soul to main-
tain their identity over time he identifies with their 'metabohc exchange of ma-
terial with the environment' (Substallce, Form and psyche, 161). Alth~ugh he
cursorily touches upon Aristotle's account of the physiology of .metabohsm (pp,
117-18), he does not seem to draw the conclusion tha.t the e~tire ~etaphys.lcal
question of what a substance is and how it preserves lts self-~dentity ove~ time
in the last analysis depends upon the biological agent effecting the continued
transformation of intaken matter into informed homoeomerous substances. He
shows no awareness of the fact that 'diachronic individuation' thus poses first of
all a problem in natural science, at least as important as the metaphysical one he
seeks to resolve with the notion of form (p. 181).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 47
Heat, specifically vital heat, as Aristotle construes it in his
chemistry and biology, is what introduces and maintains order
i~ this l?wer unstable world. In particular, the formative capaci-
tIes of ~Ital ~ea~ ~llow for th.e recurrent and regular informing of
matter Into indIVIduals haVing ever the same essential features:
vital heat plays an essential role in maintaining the eternity of
the world and thus qualifies for its characterization as 'more
divine' than mere matter. Wherever it operates, heat (especially
vital heat) brings about persistence-the limited material persist-
ence of individual substances, and the eternal persistence of
species. Without heat, Aristotle's world would be devoid of all
good.
2. VITAL HEAT AND COGNITION
In the previous sections 'we identified in Aristotle a physiological
account of some soul functions in terms of heat, specifically vital
heat. We considered essentially two sorts of substances. The low-
est kind is that of substances which were formed through a con-
coction in which the adequate amount of heat was supplied 'by
us'; these substances are necessarily inanimate and their heat
endows them with transient material persistence (cohesion) only.
Substances of the second sort have acquired, in addition to cohe-
sio~, ~n i~te~rated s~urce of (vital) heat, making them capable of
aSSImIlating Into theIr own body certain kinds of matter ('nutri-
ment') and, furthermore, of producing homoeomerous substances
('semen' ?r 'grain') having the impressive capacity to give rise,
,,:,hen acting on suitable matter, to a new substance very much
lIke the one from which they issued. (Plants are a somewhat
deviant special case within this class.) We may now ask whether
t~s upgrad~g contin~es: is heat-and this now necessarily means
v.lt.al ~eat-Involved. In the production of further, higher, capa-
CIties In the composlte substances in which it inheres? In other
words: does the parallelism of the accounts in terms of vital heat
and in terms of soul extend beyond the level of the nutritive
soul? In the present section I will argue that for Aristotle vital
heat is involved in almost all the faculties of soul and in fact
und~rlies the scala naturae. Vital heat will thus emerge as a the-
oretical concept of great importance in Aristotle's physiological
48 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
accounts of all soul functions. Let us therefore delve into new
aspects of Aristotle's theory of vital heat.
2.1. Psychological Effects of the Constitution of Blood
2.1.1. Theoretical Premisses: Perceptioll and the Constitution of Blood
It has often been noted that Aristotle connects the psychological
differences among animals with physiological factors, notably
characteristics of the blood: its thickness or thinness; the amount
of fibres it contains; and its being hot or cold. Factors relating to
the heart-e.g. its size or hardness-are also invoked by Aristo-
tle in this context. 78 Aristotle's statements have occasionally
aroused a sense of puzzlement: it has not sufficiently been real-
ized that they are theoretically and consistently interrelated. To
show that all of Aristotle's statements on the physiological fac-
tors affecting soul-functions derive from the theoretical premisses
of his chemistry in conjunction with his theory of vital heat is my
aim in what follows.
For Aristotle, the thinness or thickness of blood is a function
of the amount of fibres in it. This idea is grounded in his theory
of matter, in terms of which fibres are earthy matter, as is shown
by the fact that once removed from the blood, it no longer coa~­
lates, Le. does not change from its liquid (watery) state to a sohd
(earthy) one (PA 2. 4, 650 b14 ££.).79 Now according to Aristotle's
chemistry, a fluid containing earthy matter (i) beco~es de~se~,
or thicker, through heating (Meteor. 4. 6, 383"15 ff.), and (11) IS
more easily and more durably heated than a watery liquid .(PA
2.4, 650b34 ff.). The chemical theory thus implies that (for a gIVen
source of vital heat) the more fibres the blood contains, the thicker
and hotter it will be. This explains why Aristotle usually associ-
ates the qualities thick and hot, thin and cold.
Now the blood of different animals is different and also blood
in different parts of one animal can be different (PA 2. 2, 647b31 ff.).
We will in the sequel see that the earthiness of the blood of an
animal in fine depends upon the amount of vital heat that animal
78 Solmsen, 'Tissues and Soul', 464-8; During, Aristoteles, 529 H., 536 ff.
79 Cf. IV § 1.1 on Aristotle's theory of how the solid state of a substance de-
pends upon its mate~ial constitution. . • .
60 For the application to blood of thiS theory d. Meteor. 4. 7, 384 16 f., 4. 11,
389b7 ff.
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 49
possesses. At the present stage we look into the consequences of
these differences on the psychological plane. Aristotle holds that
differences in the composition of blood determine differences
both among animals and between parts of one animal. 'The char-
acter of the blood affects both the temperament and the sensory
faculties of animals in many ways' (PA 2. 4, 651"13 f.). Consider
first Aristotle's views on the causal relationship between the
constitution of blood and the psychological qualities of the ani-
mal. His statements follow from two premisses: first, that the
soul has its seat in the heart, and second, that feelings and emo-
tions of an animal involve affections of the blood. The physio-
logical aspect of outbursts of passions such as anger is a sudden
excess of heat in the blood near the heart (DA 1. 1,403"31 ff.; MA
b
7, 701 28 ff.).81 An animal's emotivity will therefore depend upon
the amount of fibres in its blood: since, according to Aristotle's
chemistry, blood rich in fibres is easier heated than watery blood,
it follows that animals which 'have thick and abundant fibres in
their blood are ... of a choleric temperament, and liable to bursts
of passion' (PA 2. 4, 6S0b33 f.). Correlatively, animals whose blood
is thick and heats easily are also courageous (2. 2, 648"10),82
whereas those whose blood is watery and more difficult to heat
tend to be timorous (2. 4, 650 b27 ff.), for 'fear is a refrigeration,
and results from deficiency of natural heat and scantiness of blood'
(PA 4.11,692"23-4; cf. also GA 3. 1,750·11 ff.; Rhet. 2.13, 1389b32).
Aristotle concludes that the best possible blood is at once hot
and thin, conferring as it does not only courage, but (for reasons
we shall consider below) intelligence as well (PA 2. 2, 648"9).
Aristotle's remarks on the dependence of psychological quali-
ties upon the size of the heart are a corollary of the above theory.
A given source of vital heat warms a large heart less than a small
one, because 'the effect of the same-sized fire is less in a large
81 Aristotle's psycho-physiological theory to which I refer is that changes in the
'fonnulae in matter' (OA 1. I, 403'25) are the physiological aspect of emotions.
This part of the theory is compatible both with a strong and with a weak
physicalism as discussed in Barnes, 'Aristotle's Concept of Mind'. Here, and
throughout this work, my interpretation does not require taking position on the
much debated philosophical question whether or not in Aristotle's view mental
states are identical with the corresponding physiological states. Cf. also above
n. 36 and below n. 84, and § 2.3 in fine.
82 Aristotle also remarks that hot blood is conducive to strength (648'2 ff.), but
this is not a psychological quality and the observation is out of context here.
50 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
room than in a small one' (3. 4, 667"25). For a given source of
vital heat, therefore, a large heart tends to be cold, a small heart
warm, with the blood issuing from them being, accordingly, cold
or warm, respectively. This is why the large heart will belong
to timorous animals, the small to courageous ones (P A 3. 4,
667"11 ff.).83 . depends upon the 'purity' of the corresponding sense-organ and
On Aristotle's physiological theory, then, the fundamental and
crucial characteristic of blood, on which depend the psychical
characteristics of the animal, is whether it is thin (clear) or thick
(turbid): the amount of earthy matter (fibres) in the blood deter-
mines its proneness to be heated or cooled and thereby the ani-
mal's affectability by emotions involving heating or cooling, It would
thus seem that the material constitution of the blood provides a
physiological basis for what Aristotle calls the 'faculties' of soul:
'By faculty I mean that in virtue of which men who act from
their passions are called after them, e.g. are called irascible, in-
sensible, amorous, bashful, shameless' (EE 2. 2, 1220b16 f.).84 Simi-
larly, as we saw, differences relating to the size of the heart
'somehow extend their influence to the temperaments of the
animals'(PA 3. 4, 667a12 f.), determining e.g, whether it will be
courageous or timorous.
Aristotle's physiology of blood underlies also his account of
differences in the sensitivity of sense-organs. Two considerations
are involved. (i) To begin with, since sensation involves a sort of
'imprint' upon the sense organ, it follows that the softer the m~tter
of the organ, the greater its precision (d, below). Now Since,
according to Aristotle, blood is the matter out of which all parts
of the body are formed (PA 2. 3, 650"33 H.; 2, 4, 651 a14 f,; 3, 5,
668"4 f.), and since the hardness of a composite substance is due
to its earthy component (Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b29-382a22), it follows
that the softness or hardness of any part of the body depends on
'3 It is therefore not only misguided (because anachronistic and 'Whiggish'),
but also straightforwardly erroneous to try and sav~ Aristotle' s sci~ntific r~puta­
tion by postulating that he was here merely reporting popular behefs which he
did not himself endorse; d. Shaw, 'Models for Cardiac Structure', 371 f.
M Cf. Sorabji, 'Body and Soul in Aristotle', 47, with n. 13. The above analysis
shows that an individual's propensity toward certain psychical states (i.e. his.'p.as-
sions') are (at least partially) determined by certain physiological charactenstics.
This should be borne in mind in discussions of the relationship between psycho-
logical states and their physiological aspects, an issue on which I do not take a
stand (above n. 81).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 51
the composition of the blood of which it has been constituted.
Concerning the sense-organs, therefore, the theory implies that
the purer the blood going into a given organ, the purer (less
earthy) and hence softer will that organ be, allowing for greater
sensitivity. Aristotle in fact says that the accuracy of perception
of the membrane around it (GA 5. 2, 781"18-20; bl-5) and that
(felicitously) 'Nature ... constructs flesh and the bodily parts of
the other sense-organs out of the purest of the material, whereas
out of the residues [which are earthier] she constructs bones and
sinews and hair, and also nails and hoofs and all such things'
(GA 2. 6, 744 23-6; d. also 74Sb19 f.). The latter, as also plants
b
(which are earthy too), are indeed incapable of sensation (DA 3.
12, 435"21 ff.). (ii) Furthermore, since 'instruments of sensation
are blood-containing parts' (PA 2.10, 6S6b26 £.), it follows that 'it
cannot but necessarily be that the more precise senses will have
their precision rendered still greater if ministered to by parts that
have the purest blood. For the motion of the heat of blood de-
stroys sensory activity' (2. 10, 656b3-6)-and pure blood, poor in
fibres, is not easily heated. This consideration leads Aristotle to
the view that to function adequately, the sense organs must be
shielded off from heating from outside. Thus the function of the
midriff (diaphragm, phrenes) is to keep off the heat rising (as a
hot exhalation) from the stomach during digestion; were it not
there, the heat would disturb sensation and intelligence (P A 3.
b
10, 672 8-33). (We will shortly see, however, that the screening
is not totat with the consequence that an excess of heat rising
from the stomach regularly causes a state in which most senses
cease to function, namely sleep; d, § 2.2.2.)
In sum, then, the precision of perception depends upon the
composition of blood both as a fluid permanently present in the
sense organs (which it also links to the central organ of percep-
tion; d. §§ 1.2.3, 2.1.2, and III 2.2) and in its 'solidified' form (as
flesh). The sensory organs, which are the most noble ones, are
indeed constructed out of the purest blood (GA 2. 6, 744b11 ff.).
This theory also provides the foundation for Aristotle's view that
the differences in quality of the blood establish a scale of value
of the respective sensory organs. 8S Specifically, the basis for
85 During, Aristoteles, 536 f.
52 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
Aristotle's claim that although the degrees of precision of the
various senses cannot be directly compared, sight must yet be
considered the most accurate sense (EN 10. 5, 1175b36 f.), is pre-
cisely the physiological theory of the relative purity of the matter
of the sense organs. 86 The same theory also grounds the state-
ments on the dependence of the faculties of the soul upon the
hardness or softness of the heart, the central sensorium (PA 3. 4,
667all f.).
2.1.2. Theoretical COl/sequences: Intelligellce- Animal and Hutnan - and
the Constitution of Blood
We have now the basis on which to understand the ideas lurking
behind Aristotle's most striking statement in this context, namely
that thin and pure blood gives rise to a keen intellect (dianoia, PA
2. 4, 650b 18 if.). Aristotle in fact holds that some animals are in-
telligent (pl1ronimos) and that some are more intel1ig~nt t~an
others.87 These differences he holds to result from phySIOlogIcal
differences:
,
The thicker and the hotter blood is, the more conducive it is to strength,
while in proportion to its thinness and its coldness is its suita~ility ~or
sensation and intelligence. A like distinction exists also in the flUId which
is analogous to blood. This explains how it is that bees and o~er simil~r
creatures are of a more intelligent nature than many sangumeous anI-
mals' and that of sanguineous animals, those are the most intelligent
, , b 2)
whose blood is thin and cold. (P A 2. 2, 648'2-8; d. also 2. 4, 650 18- 7
In order to see what underlies these statements, we must first
find out what Aristotle means by the 'intelligence' of animals. A
convincing interpretation has been put forward by Urs Dierauer.~
Aristotle, he argues, is here thinking mainly of practical intelh-
gence, the capacity to learn from experience: animal phronesis gives
rise to 'trial and error' knowledge. This knowledge allows some
Cf. the careful and undeservedly neglected study in Stigen, 'On the Alleged
86
Primacy of Sight'. . 90 References to HA books 7, 8, and 9 follow Balmei d, his Introduction to his
87 Cf. Dierauer, Tier und Mellsch, 145 n. 37 where the followmg passages are
b b
indicated: Intelligent-HA 1. I, 488 15; Metapll. 1. 1, 980 22; EN 6. 7, 1141'26 if.
More intelligent-HA 8. 1, 589'1 f.; PA 2. 2, 648'6 f.; 2. 4, 650b24 f.; GA 3. 2, 753'10 f.;
Melapir. 1. 1, 980b21 f.
88 For what follows, d. Dierauer, Tier ulld Mensc/!, notably pp. 122-3, 135-7,
145-8. Labarriere, 'Imagination humaine et imagination animale' and 'De la
pirronesis animale' give a similar, if more elaborate, interpretation.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 53
animalS to behave intelligently in that they use appropriate means
in order to realize their biological aims: 'some even of the lower
animals have practical wisdom, viz those which are found to
have a power of foresight with regard to their own life' (EN 6.
7, 1141"26 f.). It must be stressed that in Aristotle's view, animals
cannot properly be said to plan ahead, or compare different pos-
sible means, for this involves reflection upon the means (cf. EN
3. 3, 1112bl1 ff.; 6. 12, 1144"6 ff.).89 The knowledge animals ac-
quire is comparable to that of the physician who may cure on the
basis of accumulated experience, without having knowledge of
universals and of the essences of things (d. Metaph. 1. 1, 981"S ff.).
The latter kind of knowledge belongs to man alone (not to all
men, though!); when man is planning ahead on the basis of the
knowledge of causes, his and the animals' planning are only
analogous (d. HA 7(8). I, 588a28 f.),90 The intelligent animals are
thus those that live not only according to their natural, innate,
dispositions, but that acquire habits too (d. Pol. 7. 13, 1332b3-S).
Limiting ourselves now to that kind of intelligence common to
man and to some animals, let us see why Aristotle holds it to
depend upon the physiological constitution of blood. 91 This de-
pendence is situated on two levels:
(i) Learning from experience depends upon the senses, with
greater intelligence presupposing keener senses. Aristotle in fact
holds that intelligence depends specifically on the sense of touch:
While in respect of all the other senses we [men] fall below
many species of animals, in respect of touch we far excel all
other species in exactness of discrimination. That is why man
is the most intelligent of all animals' (DA 2. 9, 421 a21 f.). Man
indeed has the softest flesh of all animals and therefore has the
'most delicate sense of h:mch' (FA 2, 16, 660"12 f.), hard flesh
being little suited as an organ of touch (DA 2, 9, 421"24 f.),92 Now
89 Cf. Dierauer, Tier und Mensch, 136 n. 5 for passages in which animals are
denied the capacity to deliberate.
edition a~d translation, p. 30. Thus 'HA 7(8), refers to book 7 of HA according to
the ordermg suggested by Balme, corresponding to book 8 in the traditional
arrangement of HA.
91 This part of the subject has been completely misconstrued by Dierauer (Tier
lind Mensch, 148-50.)
'12 On the dependence of intelligence on the sense of touch d. Brague, Aristote,
257-61.
54 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
we have already seen (§ 2.1.1) that in Aristotle's view the soft-
and consequently exact-senses are those constituted out of pure
(non-earthy) blood. The very same sense-organs are suitable for
sensation also because, on Aristotle's chemistry, earthy matter is
heated more easily than non-earthy matter, with the consequence
that the sense-organs constituted out of pure blood are more
resistant to incidental, disturbing heatings and hence are more
precise (§ 2.1.1).93 The thesis concerning the 'suitability' of pure
blood for intelligence thus is an immediate corollary of the state-
ments concerning the dependence of intelligence upon the senses
and of the physiological theory of the dependence of the preci-
sion of the senses upon the purity of the blood. Aristotle in fact
speaks in one breath of the blood's 'suitability for sensation and
intelligence' (PA 2. 2, 648"4).
(ii) Learning from past experience, and therefore intelligence,
obviously also requires that the sense perceptions be 'synthe-
sized' and stored in memory (d. Metaph. 1. 1, 980"27 f.). Very
briefly stated, Aristotle holds that the aisthemata ('sense-images,94)
give rise to phantasmata, which are motions more durably affect-
ing the corresponding sensory organ and which, in the absence
of disturbances, are propagated to the heart, the central organ of
perception,95 where they can form an image. The capability of an
animal to form such an image depends on the constitution of
its heart: Aristotle in fact holds that 'in animals of low sensibility
the heart is hard and dense in texture, while it is softer in such
as are endowed with keener feeling' (PA 3. 4, 667"14 ff.): the
psychological qualities of an animal thus depend upon the
affectability of its central sense organ, which Aristotle indeed
associates primarily with the faculty of touch (De somno 2,
455"22 f.).96 Concerning the next stage, memory, the pertinent point
for our purposes is that on Aristotle's theory, memory on all its
93 This indeed is why Aristotle takes care to specify that keen intelligence of
some animals whose blood is watery 'is due not to the coldness of their blood,
but rather to its thinness and purity' (PA 2. 4, 650b20 ff.): the heat itself is less
consequential than the heatability. Cf. also below, n. 108.
'14 Cf. Sorabji, Aristotle On Memory, 82. . .
95 For Aristotle, the heart is the central sensorium-the 'source or prmclple of
sensation', the 'common sense organ'; cf. Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary Cog-
nition, 295 if.; Kahn, 'Sensation and Consciousness in Aristotle's Psychology', 14,
17 ff.; and below, III § 2.2.
96 Cf. also Tracy, The Doctrine of the Mean, 220.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 55
levels requires an appropriate physical constitution of the heart,
the or?"an in which Aristotle holds memory to take place (De
memoria 1~ 450"20 ff.). Now remembering in the sense of having
the cap~Clty to r~call sup~oses an affection (produced e.g. by
perception, leammg, experIence), namely, in Sorabji's formula-
tion, 'a sort of imprint stamped in to a bodily organ'.97 In order
that such imprints be produced and last, Aristotle maintains, the
surfaces in the body must be neither too hard nor too soft (De
memoria 1,450"32 ff.).98 The softness or hardness of the heart thus
determines its capacity both to receive sense perceptions and to
store them. This is how the physiological constitution of the heart
is involved in determining the intelligence of the animal.
Sensation and memory thus depend upon the softness or hard-
ness of the ~~nse organs and of the heart, which in tum hinge on
the compOSItion of the blood. Intelligence, therefore, in the sense
of the c~~acity to learn from past experience, depends upon the
compOSItIon of the blood because both the precision of the senses
~nd the possibility of retaining past experience in memory are
Inversely proportional to the quantity of earthy matter in the
blood itself and in the organs to which it gives rise. The univer-
sal statement adduced by Aristotle to the effect that the intellec-
tual capacities of an animal increase as the quantity of its earthy
matter decreases (PA 4.10,686 3 25-6873 1) is therefore a corollary
of his theory.
The chemical constitution of the blood, and consequently of
the organs, of animals in terms of their earthiness thus deter-
mines a scale of being in respect to sensation and intelligence.
Now in Aristotle's theoretical framework the earthiness of the
blood in tum depends upon the vital heat of the animal. For we
will shortly see (§ 2.2.1) that according to Aristotle the greater
~he ~ital heat of an animal, or of a sense organ, the less earthy it
IS, WIth the consequence that the earthiness of any animal and of
each sense-organ is determined by their respective vital heat.
Cons~quently,. the sensi?vi.ty of the various sense-organs of any
(specl~s of). arumal and ItS. Intelligence turn out to depend in fine
upon ItS Vital heat. ApplIed to man, Aristotle's theory of the
causal chain linking vital heat, the earthiness or the purity of the
97 Sorabji, Aristotle on Memory, 2.
98 Cf. also Sorabji, Aristotle 011 Memory, 14-15, 83.
56 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
blood, and intellectual capacity, entails that man is the hottest
animal and (therefore) the least earthy (GA 2.6, 745b18 ff.), i.e. the
one whose blood is the 'finest and purest' (HA 3. 19, 521"3; also
GA 2.6,744"29), with the consequence that man is also the most
intelligent of, all animals (d. § 2.2.1 below).
Man, then, shares with some animals a kind of intelligence
which is physiologically conditioned. It is with respect to this
kind of intelligence that Aristotle occasionally speaks of man as
being the most intelligent among the animals, implying that the
difference is only gradual (e.g. GA 2.6,744"30; DA 2. 9, 421"21 ff.).
From the foregoing discussion it should be clear, however, that
the intelligence in question is merely practical-'vernunftlose
Form der Intelligenz', in Dierauer's apt phrase: 99 it stops at the
threshold of concept formation, which remains the exclusive
prerogative of man.100 We will briefly come back to this question
below (§ 2.3).
2.2. Vital Heat as the Cause of Intelligence and Divinity:
The Cosmological Dimension
2.2,1, The Dependence of the Scale of Psychical Functions Upon the
Body's Spatial Orientation
Aristotle's theory we have considered so far was purely physio-
logical: psychical capacities were explained in terms of earthi-
ness, one of the material components of the involved bodily parts.
We will now see that this physiology has a further, and crucial,
namely cosmological dimension. For Aristotle holds that the vital
heat of animals determines at once their erectness and (con-
comitantly) their earthiness, and so indirectly determines their
psychical qualities too. Indeed, Aristotle, as we will see, takes
the vital heat to have a natural upward motion and he maintains
that the greater its quantity in an animal, the more it can lift that
animal into an upright position, so that an animal which has
more vital heat will have a more erect position. Since Aristotle
also affirms that the more an animal is erect the less earthy it is,
it follows that the earthiness of an animal, and with it its psychical
Dierauer, Tier lind Mense/I, 153; cf. also p. 148.
99
This demarcation is more problematic than it may appear for, as Dierauer
100
points out (Tier lind Mensch, 121 ff.), on Aristotle's account I?ercepti~n itself al-
ready involves recognizing a universal of the perceived particular thing; cf. At/.
post. 2, 19, 100'16 ff.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Sou/-Functions 57
capacities, in fact depends upon its vital heat. Similarly, the higher
up a sensory organ is located within an animal, the lesser its
earthiness and the greater its sensitivity. It follows that an ani-
mal's psychical capacities necessarily correlate with its spatial ori-
entation. Specifically, man, by virtue of his singularly great vital
heat, is the only animal with an upright position and he enjoys
unique thinking capacities which make him participate in the
divine. The significant point thus is that vital heat again emerges
as the ultimate explanatory principle in Aristotle's psycho-
physiology and, moreover, that it has a cosmological reference:
the soul-functions depend not only on what goes on within the
body-rather, their analysis must include in its purview the
body's position in relation to the rest of the universe toO. 101
We take our cue from Aristotle's statements concerning man's
upright position, which he connects with three distinct notions:
vital heat, intellect, and divinity. Aristotle explains the different
spatial orientations of animal bodies, specifically man's upright
position, as being caused by their vital heat:
All animals, man alone excepted, are dwarf-like in form. For the dwarf-
like is that in which the upper part is large, while that which bears the
weight and is used in progression is small. ... In man [the upper part]
is duly proportionate to the part below, and diminishes much in its
comparative size as the man attains to full growth .... [Dwarf-like] is
every animal that has blood. This is the reason why no other animal is
so intelligent as man. For even among men themselves if we compare
children [who are all dwarfs; 686 b lO] with adults, or such adults as are
of dwarf-like shape with such as are not, we find that ... [the former]
are at any rate deficient as compared with the latter in intelligence.
The explanation ... is that in many their psychical principle is corporeal
and impeded in its motions, Let now a further decrease occur in the
elevating heat, and a further increase in the earthly matter, and the
animals become smaller in bulk, and their feet more numerous, until at
101 The crucial importance of the cosmological dimension of Aristotle's notion
of vital heat has generally gone unnoticed, As far as I can see, the only work to
take it seriously, is the recent Rem! Brague, Aristote et III question dll mOllde, a work
which appeared a few months after the first draft of this chapter was written
(May-June 1987). In view of the great dissimilarity between Brague's and my
own prohltmlltiqlles, the considerable overlap of our independently reached con-
clusions is reassuring. In Ch, II I suggest that Aristotle's notion of vital heat, and
specifically its cosmological dimension, have their roots in Aristotle's early the-
ology. This thesis is, I am afraid, at cross purposes with the aims of Brague's
philosophical enterprise. The subject has since been touched upon also in Preus,
'Man and Cosmos', esp. pp. 47:>-8.
 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
58
a later stage they become footless and extended full length on the groun~.
Then, by further small successions of change, they come to have thetr
principal organ below; and at last the part which answers to a head
becomes motionless and destitute of sensation. Thus the animal becomes
a plant, that has its upper parts downwards and its lower parts above.
(PA 4. 10, 686bz-36)
Another passage affords some further insight into this account:
that animal in which the blood in the lung is purest and most/plentiful
is the most erect, namely man; and the reason why he alone has his
upper part directed to the upper part of the universe is that he possesses
such a part. (De it/v. 19, 477"20 ff.)
Bearing in mind that the lung's function is to refrigerate th~ vital
heat, with the hotter animals necessarily needing more refngera-
tion and hence a greater lung than the others (De resp. 9,475"3 f.),
it follows again that man owes his erect position to his vital heat:
'in every animal the hot naturally tends to move upwards' (De
somno 3, 456b21 f.), so that, when it is abundant and pure, the
elevating heat (PA 4. la, 686b29) overcomes the downward motion
of the heavy earthy matter thereby redressing the body: 'For the
heat, overcoming any opposite inclination, makes growth take
its own line of direction, which is from the centre of the body
upwards' (PA 2. 7, 6538 31 f.). Again, heat 'tends to make the
body erect; and thus it is [namely because man has the greatest
b
vital heat) that man is the most erect of animals' (PA 3.6, 669 4 ff.).
It is the variations of the vital heat among the species, then,
that determine the scala naturae. Starting from man, the most
perfect-because hottest-animal as the norm,102 we observe that
as the 'elevating heat' decreases, the increasingly earthy and
(therefore) heavy bodies bend down, get closer to the earth which
is ever more their natural place, and become less mobile until,
finally, the plants' spatial orientation, the inverse of the natural
one (De iuv. 1,468"4 ff.), is reached. 103 In parallel, the intelligence
102 We have already come across the Aristotelian view that man is the norm
defining the scale of beings; cf. above, § 1.2.2. Brague, Aristote, 224 ft. shows well
that for Aristotle man, the most perfect animal, is also the one best known, so
that enquiry concerning the other animals must begin with .him.
103 This, incidentally, has a felicitous consequence: the frUlts .of plants c~nslst
mainly of the light and warm elements and are therefore espeCially benefiCial to
man. Cf. Preus, 'Man and Cosmos', 475 and the Appendix to this chapter (with
n. 133).
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 59
decreases too, because the body and the vital heat become more
'earthy' or, in other terms, because the 'psychical principle' (PA
4. la, 686b28) becomes more corporeal: the spatial descent neces-
sarily goes hand in hand with the descent on the psychical-
cognitive plane. 104 Some of the characteristic features of man's
body, specifically such that are immediately related to his intel-
ligence, are indeed consequences of his upright position. Because
man is erect and thus relatively little earthy, he is the most naked
among the animals, and therefore has the best sense of touch
b
(GA 2.6, 745 18 ff.; 5.2, 781 b20 f.).105 Similarly, by giving man, the
most intelligent of all animals, an upright position, Nature has
provided him with hands, the 'general instrument', i.e. the in-
strument which is at once many different instruments (PA 4. 10,
687"5-24).106 Again, as Remi Brague has convincingly argued, the
uniquely human logos, inasmuch as it is intrinsically bound up
with speech, which in tum presupposes adequate lungs, is also
directly related to man's great vital heat and so to his upright
position.107
The vital heat, in sum, is the fundamental underlying explana-
tory factor in Aristotle's physio-psychology: (i) The upward
moving, elevating vital heat tends to uplift the body. Hence, the
greater it is, the more erect the animal's position. (ii) With a more
erect spatial position, the distance of animals' bodies from the
earth's centre increases, so that their earthiness decreases. (iii) As
a result, since sensibility and intelligence are both inversely pro-
portional to earthiness, the greater vital heat produces greater
psychical capacities too: the higher up the location of a sensory
organ, the keener its perception (§ 2.1.1);108 and the more erect an
~04 ~t Pol. 1. 5, 1254b25 ff. Aristotle acknowledges a disturbing anomaly to this
pnnclple; 'Nature would like to distinguish between the bodies of freemen and
slaves, making ~he or;e stro~g for servile labour, the other upright.' Indeed, slaves
are on a par With arumals m that they have 'no deliberative faculty at all' (Pol.
1. 12, 1260'12 f.). Most unfortunately, 'the opposite often happens-that some
h~ve ~he souls and others have the bodies of freemen'. This is a pity, for other-
wise It would have been possible to measure the relative value of men's souls
with a protractor.
105 Cf. Brague, Aristote, 256-61.
106 Cf. ibid. 234 ff., 256 ff. \07 Ibid. 261-6.
108 In view of the ca~sal relationship between earthiness and heatability dis-
. cussed above (§ 2.1.1), It follows that the vital heat of an animal also determines
the heatabi/ity of its parts-Leo their proneness to change momentarily their hot-
ness or coldness. Structurally, but only structurally, the first concept corresponds
to our 'temperature', the second to 'specific heat'; d. n. 52.
60 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
animal's position, the greater its intelligence (§ 2.1.2). These causal
dependencies are highlighted by Aristotle's view of the midriff,
whose end, he holds, is to separate the upper and nobler from
the lower and less noble parts. The fonner, the various sense
organs, as we already noticed, are formed out of the most com-
pletely concocted, purest, blood (§ 2.1.1) and consequently are
particularly sensitive: indeed, the sensory organs are located in
the head, because it is up there that they receive the purest blood
requisite for their precision (PA 3. 10, 672b9 ff.; 2. 10/ 656b3 ff.).
2.2.2. The Dependence of SOIiI-Functions Upon Vital Heat:
An Experiment
To see how directly the spatial orientation of the body and the
corresponding soul capacities depend upon vital heat we fortun-
ately can conduct an experiment: switch off for a moment the
elevating vital heat and see what happens. This is indeed pre-
cisely how Aristotle construes sleep. We consider it from the
physiological perspective first. According to Aristotle,t09 sleep is
caused by the evaporation of food. (This characterization allows
him to think of sleep as natural, in contrast to other, superficially
similar states, e.g. fainting.) Aristotle holds that 'sleep is a sort of
concentration, or natural recoil, of the hot matter (thermon) in-
wards' (De somno 3, 457b l). After a meal, the quantity of the
'corporeal element' exhaled from the nutrition becomes too great
to be carried upwards by the rising vital heat (457b20 ff.); the
exhalation sinks back down, thereby interrupting the vital heat's
ascent to the head. At first the rising vital heat only 'comes to a
stand', whereupon the person begins to nod; but then, when the
vital heat 'has actually sunk downwards, and by its return has
repulsed the hot (thermon), sleeps comes on' (456b25 ff.). As a
result, the state of sleep is one in which 'the upper and outward
parts are cool, but the inward and lower, Le. the parts at the feet
and in the interior of the body, are hot' (457b4 ff.): physiologic-
ally, sleep is the inverse of wakening, and indeed a person awakes
once the heat prevails again in the head and when again 'the
109 The following sketch of the theory is just as much as we need in the present
context; it does not go into controversial details on which see e.g. Wiesner, 'The
Unity of the Treatise De 50m/lO', esp. pp. 251-71.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 61
finest and purest blood is that contained in the head, while the
thickest and most turbid is that in the lower parts' (458"13 f.).n o
Sleep, moreover, is not without consequences for the animal's
spatial orientation. It is caused when the vital heat, being forced
back, descends instead of following its natural movement up-
ward (De somno 3, 456b21): 'Hence it is that men sink down when
the heat which tends to keep them erect (man alone, among
animals, being naturally erect) is withdrawn' (45r23 ff.).
Consider now the effects on the psychological plane of this
inversion of the distribution of vital heat in the body.lIl Sensa-
tion is the most affected capacity of soul: indeed sleep is defined
with reference to an incapacity for sensation (De somno 1,
454b24 f. ).112 Since the capacity of perception is one of the marks
of life (of living beings other than plants), it follows that sleep is
'as it ~ere a border-land between living and not living: a person
who IS asleep would appear to be neither completely non-
existent nor completely existent: for of course it is to the waking
state par excellence that life pertains, and that in virtue of sensa-
tion' (GA 5. I, 778b29 ff.). The sleeping animal of course still has
soul in the general sense of the term (DA 2. 1, 412"23 ff.), but as
compared with the animal awake its soul 'is more nearly poten-
tial than actual'.l13 Indeed, 'sleep is an inactivity, not an activity
of the soul' (EE 2. I, 1219b19).
. ~uch the ~ame ~olds of the intellect. Knowledge is a 'dispo-
SItion of soul (TOpICS, 6. 6, 145"36), and man, Aristotle holds, can
p?SS~SS it in di~ferent degrees of actuality: the sleeping geometer
still possesses knowledge, but only potentially, whereas the
waking one exercising his art possesses it in the highest degree
?f actua1i~y (with the waking geometer not doing geometry as an
mtermedlate case; GA 2. I, 735"9 fl.). Again, then, sleep in a sense
is a state in which soul recedes from actuality to potentiality.
110 The claim that Aristotle at different periods invoked two distinct causes of
~leeJr-tJ:te distribution ~f the vital heat and the 'mixed state of the blood' (Wiesner,
The Umty of the Treatise De SOlllllo')-seems to me unwarranted: in Aristotle's
framework, the second follows upon the first
111· •
. For the follOWing two paragraphs cf. Sprague, 'Aristotle and the Metaphys-
ICS of Sleep'.
112 Cf. Ross, Aristotle, Paroa Naturalia, 43. Note that sleep is not identical with
that incapacity; d. Topics 6. 6, 145b l ff.
113 Sprague, 'Aristotle and the Metaphysics of Sleep', 231.
62 Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions
Indeed, those beings whose state of actuality does not admit of
change do not sleep: the gods and the Prime Mover.
Sleep, in sum, is particularly revelatory of the vital heat's roles:
when the distribution of heat is 'against nature' -i.e. the purest
blood and heat are forced downward into the lower parts and
prevented from rising to the sense organs-all soul functions
(except those of the vegetative soul) change into a state ~f re-
duced actuality: perception, locomotion, and intellect go lOto a
standby. In man, the privileged upright position, the I;:orrelate of
the highest soul functions, also temporarily passes off. Indeed,
Aristotle interchangeably ascribes the upright position to 'soul'
(psuche) and to the vital heat (compare PA 4. 10, 686 2 and ~8
b
with e.g. b29).
2.2.3. Man: The COI1COlllitallce of Upright Position, Thought, and Divillity
The fact that man's position is upright is of no little significance
to Aristotle. He in fact holds that this is the position which is in
greatest conformity with nature. This claim has two aspects, one
pertaining to man qua body, the other to man qua intellect. The
first part is fairly trivial. It is well known that Aristotle's space is
not isotropic: above and below, right and left, front and back are
not relative to us, but have real physical existence. Nor are the
six spatial directions of equal importance: above is more honour-
able and prior to below, right to left, front to back. We n~w see
1I4
that Aristotle's scale of being is theoretically related to thIs con-
ception of space: because the vital heat has an upward motion,
the scale of being to which it gives rise will have the very same
cosmological reference. Therefore, the higher a living being is on
the scala naturae, the greater will be the conformity of its body
with nature. Indeed, in man alone 'the natural parts hold the
natural position; his upper part being turned towards that which
is upper in the universe. For, of all animals, man alone stands
erect' (P A 2. 10 656"11 ff. ).1l5 It follows that the spatial position of
plants, the inverse of that of man, is 'contrary to nature'.
Cf. notably DC 2. 2, 284b6 ff.; also: Physics 3. 5, 206'6 f. and 4. 1, 208 13 f.;
114
De ilJcessu alJimaliunl 2, 704b 18 f. and 4, 705'26 f. Cf. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy,
52-3.
1I5Man's conformity with the cosmos is discussed in detail by.Bra~e (Amtote,
223 H.), for whose philosophical argument it is of cruCIal Importan~e;
'I' anthropologie d' Aristote est cosmologique, elle est une anthropo-cosmologle
Vital Heat; Persistence and Soul-Functions 63
We now come to the second, and more fundamental, aspect of
the conformity with nature of man's erect position. Aristotle in
fact ties together man's unique upright position and intelligence
with his (relative) divinity. Two reasons are given for this asso-
ciation: man is divine because he has intellect and because of
his erect position. Thus 'of all animals man alone stands erect,
in accordance with his god-like nature and substance. For it is
the function of the god-like to think and to be wise' (PA 4. 10,
686a26 f.). The latter part of the statement needs little comment:
inasmuch as it connects man's divinity with his thinking, it re-
flects the well-known Aristotelian doctrine, expounded notably
in book 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics, according to which intellect
is that within man which is divine par excellence, as is also the life
in accordance with the intellect. 1l6 But in the first part of the
passage Aristotle intimates that there is also a more direct link
between man's upright position and his divinity. The same idea
is found elsewhere too:
... man alone partakes of the divine, or at any rate partakes of it in a
fuller measure than the rest. ... In him alone do the natural parts hold
the natural position; his upper part being turned towards that which
is upper in the universe. For, of all animals, man alone stands erect.
(PA 2. 10, 656"7 ff.)
To be sure, man's intellectual capacities by virtue of which he is
divine and his upright position are concomitant anyway: both
are consequences of man's uniquely great vital heat. But in both
quoted passages Aristotle seems to insinuate that the relation-
ship between upright position and divinity has more to it than
mere concomitance: he seems to suggest that man's divinity is
not a consequence of his intellectual capacities alone, but has
in the sense that 'elle definit l'homme par sa conformite maximale au cosmos' (p.
224). Brague stresses the role of vital heat in bringing about this conformity:
'~'e~t la 0a}eur ~e l'organism~ ~umain qui est la cause de ce que j'ai appete
I uruversahte de I homme: elle I onente vers ce que l'univers a de plus universel,
I~ sphere celeste qui englobe I'univers en sa totalite' (p. 240). There is a decisive
difference, ho~ever, between Brague's and my views of vital heat: Brague (p.
b
239) coru:trues It ~s (r,n~r~ly) the material cause of man's upright position (its final
cause ~etng ma;" s dlvlru.ty); by contrast, my endeavour all along is to show that
for Anstotle, Vital heat IS a power whose workings on the physiological level
. give rise to phenomena which on another level of analYSis (e.g. the theory of
soul) can be described as due to a formal cause.
116 Pepin, Idees grecques, 223 ff.; Brague, Aristote, 234 ff.
64 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
something to do also with his spatial orientation in relation to
the cosmos (d. also HA 1. 15, 494~26-b1). We will now see that
this conception is in fact consistent with-indeed is part and
parcel of-an essential characteristic of Aristotle's cosmology and
theology. . .
The association of the divine with a favoured spatIal onenta-
tion is surely surprising if one has in mind Aristotle's notion ?f
God in terms of intellect and thought as expounded notably m
Metaphysics A. But we must here take into ~ccount a non-explicit
crucial trait underlying Aristotle's theologIcal thought, one th~t
Heinz Happ has well described as the 'spatialization of the noetic
substance' by Aristotle. ll7 Happ points out that the substances
inhabiting Aristotle's three realms-the sublunar ones, the
celestial ones consisting of the 'first body' (ether), ~d the. Un-
moved Mover 'outside' the material cosmos-have mcreasmgly
more reality: the ontological hierarchy of being corresponds to a
topological-cosmological vertical ordering. Moreover, the fac~ ~hat
Aristotle construes the stars and the Unmoved Mover as dIVme,
and that his discussion in DC 1. 9 suggests a spatial localization
for the latter 'beyond' the sphere of the fixed stars, allow one to
conclude that divinity is associated in Aristotle's mind with a
specific spatial localization' up there'. It thus appears that even
after Aristotle introduced the transcendent Unmoved Mover, the
traditional association of divinity with a spatial localization was
not severed in his mind: consciously or not, Aristotle thinks ~f
God whose essence is thought, as being located 'up there'. This
expl~ins, I believe, why in Aristotle's thought. man's divinity is
related not only to his intelligence, but also, .md~penden:ly, to
his upper part being 'turned towards that which IS upper m th.e
universe'. In God, being 'up', in the most noble part of the uru-
verse, and thought, the most noble activity, are concomit~nt; and
man to some extent shares this concomitance of topological po-
sition and thought. The conformity with natur~ of man's.body
thus means that man's erect position is one by Virtue of which he
partakes of this divine concomitance of the .spatial and the ~oetic. The
plants are again at the extreme OppOSIte of the scale. they are
excluded from all sorts of knowledge, even perception (GA 2. 23,
731 "30 £t.), and indeed have a spatial position which is 'contrary
117 For what follows d. Happ, 'Kosmologie und Metaphysik'.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 65
to nature< In Chapter II I will argue that the 'spatialization of the
noetic substance' in Aristotle, as well as the significance Aristotle
ascribes to man's upright position, are to be understood as ideas
which Aristotle propounded in his early philosophy and which
survived in his mature system, although they were in part in-
compatible with it.
2.3. Vital Heat and the Scale of Being: The Hierarchy of Forms
Students of Aristotle's biology have often noticed that Aristotle
construes vital heat as a 'critical index of the differences between
higher and lower animals'.lJS Aristotle explicitly establishes a close
relationship between the vital heat in animals and the scale of
being and indeed he founds the latter notion upon the former,
thereby theoretically tying together a number of otherwise unre-
lated features of living creaturesY9 Aristotle in fact makes the
general statement that 'the more perfect animals are those which
are by their nature hotter and more fluid and are not earthy' (GA
b
2. 1, 732 31-2).12O Specifically, more vital heat brings about greater
perfection, greater motive power and (accordingly) larger size
and mobility (GA 2. 1, 732"18 ff.), greater strength (GA 1. 19,
b
726 34), and fuller developed offsprings (GA 2. I, 732"25-733°16).
This general claim gets substance from our preceding analyses
which in fact reveal Aristotle's theoretical grounds for holding
that the scale of being-and this means: the scale of soul functions
-depends upon vital heat as the fundamental underlying factor.
At the bottom of the scala naturae are the inanimate substances,
whose inhering natural heat, which they acquired during their
initial concoction, just holds them together, giving them material
persistence (§ 1.3.2). Next come the plants, which already have at
their disposaJ'a natural source of heat' (PA 2. 3, 650·5 £., "20 f.):
their vital heat is supplied by the earth, which is thus the origin
of what, on the psychological plane, is their 'nutritive soul' (d.
U8 Balme, 'The Place of Biology', 10.
119 Ross, Aristotle, 114-17; Diiring, Aristoteies, 528 ff., 536 ff., 540 ff.; Solmsen,
'Antecedents'; Lloyd, 'The Development'; Peck, Introduction to his Aristotle, HA,
pp. xxii-xxxii.
120 In fact, as we saw (above, § 2.1.1), these are not independent factors: ani-
mals having greater vital heat are, for that reason, less earthy; since it is the
earthy component that endows substances with dryness, the hotter animals are
necessarily also 'more fluid'.
66 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
the Appendix to this chapter). Henceforth the source of vital heat
is located in the substance itself (the heart or its analogue), with
successive increases of the vital heat gradually redressing the
living beings, until man's upright position is reached. As we
have seen, more vital heat gives rise to a more erect position and
hence to diminished earthiness and to purer blood, which in
tum produces keener perception and intelligence; concomitantly,
certain physical capacities-e.g. for locomotion-also increase.
In sum, then, an animal is more perfect-it has a 'higher' soul-
when it has 'a greater proportion of heat' (De iuv. 19,477"15 ff.).121
The view that an animal which has more vital heat has a 'higher'
soul and is placed 'higher' up on the scala naturae implies that
differences of vital heat establish a hierarchy of souls. Happ has
pointed out that this bio-psychological scala naturae has an onto-
logical significance, with the consequence that more or purer
vital heat produces ontologically higher forms. 122 The very same
conclusion, let us recall, followed also from our brief analysis of
the effects of variations of the vital heat of the semen on the
ensuing offspring (above, § 1.2.2): there too the greatest vital heat
produced the most perfect form (a male resembling the male
parent), with successive decreases of the vital heat resulting in
decreases of the perfectness of the forms of the offsprings. The
convergence of the two analyses again corroborates our view
that in Aristotle's biology, vital heat is aformative agent: all forms
of natural sublunar substances, beginning with those of inani-
mate substance and up to those subsumed under the various
levels of soul, ultimately depend upon heat, specifically vital heat,
with the greater and purer heat giving rise to a more perfect and
higher form (soul).
This physiologically-grounded construal of the scala naturae
implies that the living realm is continuous: plot the scale of being
against the vital heat, and you get a continuous curve. As is well
known, Aristotle in fact repeatedly and explicitly states that the
121 For a discussion of what it means that one soul is 'better' than another, or
that one organ is 'more honourable' or more 'valuable' than another, ct. Gotthelf,
'The Place of Good'.
J22 Happ ('Die Scala naturae') shows that the scala Hatllrae corresponds to a
Schichtung des Seelichen. However, he makes no reference whatsoever to the vital
heat as its underlying cause. Conversely, the authors who discussed the vital
heat as an 'index' of the scala lIatllrae have not, it seems, noticed that this logical
'classification' has an ontological significance.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 67
scale of being is continuous throughout, from the inanimate to
the highest forms of life. l23
Quite obviously, however, this continualist vision of the scala
naturae cannot easily be reconciled with the psychological van-
tage point, for distinguishing living beings according to their
souls (vegetative, locomotive, perceptive, imaginative, etc.) im-
plies that the scale of being is discrete. A particularly interesting
aspect of this question concerns man's place on the scale of be-
ing: did Aristotle consider man as unique or as (only) the most
perfect of the animals? The question concerns primarily man's
intelligence and in fact Aristotle's statements on this are not quite
consistent: at times he says of man that he is the most intelligent
among the animals, whereas at other times he stresses that man
is the only animal haVing an intellect. For our purposes we need
not go into Aristotle's views on the differences between man and
the animals, with their manifold repercussions in ethical and
political theory.124 Here I wish only to suggest that Aristotle's
premisses include so to speak a systematic built-in tension, not
to say contradiction. On the one hand, Aristotle holds, in con-
formity with his biological tenets and with the continuity-thesis
they imply, that certain animals, being intelligent, to some extent
partake of the divine too (d. e.g. GA 3. 10, 761"5 on the divine in
bees); indeed, the construal of the scala naturae as continuous is
the basis even for the radical thesis that' all things have by na-
ture something divine in them' (EN 7. 13, 1153b33). On the other
~and, from Aristotle's psychological or noetical set of premisses
It follows that man is unique in having an intellect (e.g. PA 1. 1,
641 b7; Pol. 7. 13, 1332b3 £.), so that he alone is divine. Aristotle
himself may well have been aware of this problem: it would
seem that some hesitation is perceptible in such a qualified state-
ment as: 'man alone partakes of the divine, or at any rate par-
takes of it in a fuller measure than the rest' (PA 2. 10, 656"7 f.).
What then, at bottom, was Aristotle's view? A very plausible
interpretation, as it seems to me, has been put forward by
Dierauer,125 who argues that the specifically human intellect
b
123 Cf. e.g. HA 8. I, 588 4-589'9; PA 2. 10, 656'7 f.; 4. 5, 681'12-28; Happ, 'Die
Scala natllrae', 234; During, Ari:>/oteies, 529. .
124 It has been dealt with in detail by Dierauer, Tier lind Mensch, 121 ft., 147 H.
and Brague, Aristote, 242-71.
125 Dierauer, Tier fwd Mensch, 149-50. Cf. also Barnes, 'Aristotle's Concept of
Mind', 39 ft.; During, Aristaldes, 579 ff.
68 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
begins just where biology ends. In so far as man has a unique
capacity of thought, this is due to the no us which comes from
without and which alone is divine (GA 2. 3, 736b27 ff.), immortal
and eternal (DA 1. 4, 408b18 f.; 3. 5, 430'22 f.), and separable from
the body (DA 2. 2, 413b24 f.). This intellect, Dierauer further sug-
gests, is the 'productive' intellect of DA 3. 5, whereas the passive
intellect consists of the enmattered soul capacities, whose func-
tioning depends on the bodily constitution. On this interpreta-
tion, it is by virtue of the transcendent productive inteUect that
man's passive intellect, which by itself differs from that of ani-
mals only by degree, is able to acquire the knowledge of essences
and to plan rationally. Thus Aristotle's biological premisses in-
deed imply a continuity between man and the rest of the living
realm, and it is only by virtue of the additional premiss concern-
ing an intellect with no corporeal embodiment that Aristotle can
uplift man to a higher and unique position. We may thus be
reassured: Friedrich Solmsen's indignant (rhetorical) question-
'How could a philosopher of Aristotle's standing and outlook
sponsor a "materialistic" doctrine which made man's ethos and
mind dependent on the composition of the blood-a doctrine on
which Plato would not even waste a word of refutation?"26-in
fact proceeds on erroneous premisses: Aristotle was aware of the
problem and sought to complement his physio-psychology with
a theory which would have allowed him-had he elaborated it
in full-to ascribe to man thinking capacities partly independent
of the body.127
Throughout this chapter I have avoided addressing the follow-
ing important question: how does the biological account of soul-
functions as described above fit in with Aristotle's theory of soul?
What, in other words, does the interpretation of Aristotle's theory
of vital heat suggested here imply with respect to Aristotle's
philosophy of mind, i.e. with regard to his view of the relation
126Solmsen, 'Tissues and the Soul', 467.
127 Directly related to our subject is the problem of reconciling the bipartite
soul-division, adequate for moral philosophy, with the psychological soul-divi-
sion and with the scala lIatllrae to which it gives rise, a problem which indeed
preoccupied Aristotle: d. Vander Waerdt, 'Aristotle's Criticism'. On the distinc-
tion between theoretical and practical knowledge d. Owens, 'Aristotle's Notion
of Wisdom'.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 69
between soul and body? As already noted above, most scholars
assume today that Aristotle's biological account of soul-functions
and his hylomorphic notion of soul are integral parts of a unitary
and congruent theory.128 This view gives rise to the question how
Aristotle construes the relationship of the two accounts of soul-
functions, a question that is at the centre of the intensive recent
discussions of Aristotle's philosophy of mind. 129 One is thus
naturally led to ask what the interpretation of Aristotle's theory
of vital heat as suggested here implies for our understanding of
Aristotle's view of the relationships between 'soul' and 'body'
and between psychology and biology.
This is certainly a highly interesting question, the discussion of
which is valuable for an adequate understanding of Aristotle's
philosophy of mind. In the present context, however, I chose to
sidestep it. In the preceding pages, I have identified in Aristotle's
writings a biological theory of psychical functions. Aristotle, we
saw, believes all soul-functions (except that of the nous) to hinge
on vital heat as the underlying factor, with their excellence de-
pending on the quality of that heat. To bring out and unfold this
hitherto insufficiently recognized theory, which coherently
encompasses almost all soul-functions and which, as we have
noticed, is consistently extended to the inanimate realm, was my
limited goal here. I leave it to others to decide how this chemical
and biological theory should be philosophically construed, i.e. what
it implies with respect to Aristotle's theory of mind. I tried, qua
historian of biology and chemistry, to follow in the footsteps of
Aristotle qua phusikos who is concerned with the body and its
states; I refrained from following him also in his investigations
qua dialektikos who is concerned with psychical states. How the
biological theory I have described fits in with the rest of Aris-
totle's views is a philosophical question I have deliberately
excluded from my discussion. l30
Heat, particularly vital heat, emerged as a central explanatory
concept in Aristotle's economy of the material sublunar world.
In Aristotle's scheme, it is heat that in fine determines the extent
UB Cf. n. 36 above.
129 For a brief overview d. Modrak, Aristotle: The Power of Perception, 4-10; d.
esp. the discussions in Nussbaum and Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle's De anima.
130 Cf. also nn. 81 and 84 above, as well as the Conclusion.
70 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions
to which matter will be organized into structures, inanimate and
animate. Heat in fact produces whatever persistence there is to
be found in the world of generation and corruption: it underlies
the transient material persistence of individual composite sub-
stances and also the permanent persistence of certain eternally
reproduced structures. Heat thus gives rise to whatever 'good'
the sublunar world contains. Vital heat, specifically, determines
the 'level' of soul-functions in an individual and, moreover, the
entire scale of being. It is thus not a mere pun to say that within
Aristotle's theoretical system, the notion of vital heat plays a
vital role.l3I But to see Aristotle ascribing such an important role
to the notion of vital heat is surprising: what are Aristotle's
grounds for his strong claims on behalf of vital heat? And why
are these claims not stated explicitly and made the object of a
full~fledged theory? I will attempt an answer to these questions
in the next chapter.
APPENDIX: THE VITAL HEAT IN PLANTS
Plants exhibit structured growth and hence have a nutritive soul. The
posited concomitance of nutritive soul and vital heat132 commits Aristo-
tle to the view that plants too dispose of vital heat concocting the intaken
nutriment into the plant's homoeomerous parts. But do plants really
have vital heat, and if so, what is its source? Aristotle formulates the
problem explicitly:
Since everything that grows must take nourishment, and nutriment in
all cases consists of moist and dry substances, and since it is by force
of heat that these are concocted and changed, it follows that aU living
things, animals and plal/ts alike, /IIust . .. have a natilral source a/heat. (PA
2. 3, 650"2-7)
Now theoretical considerations imply that the arche of heat, or of the
nutritive soul, must be situated in the middle of the body (De iuv. 2,
131 Aristotle, Everett Mendelsohn wrote, 'has found in the innate heat an in-
strument through which he can explain the myriad of functions in the living
organism, from its very generation to its passing away'. Mendelsohn, Heat and
Life, 13 f. This doctrine also had a momentous historical importance throughout
many centuries: 'Aristotle's views on the innate heat are important, for together
with later contributions of Galen, they formed part of the doctrine of the strong-
est-lived biological-medical tradition that man has known' (ibid. 13).
b
132 'Life must be simultaneous with the maintenance of heat' (De iuv. 4,469 19);
d. § 1.2.1 for the entire passage.
Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 71
468"21). In sanguineous animals this is the heart, and in plants too,
felicitously, 'the point of origin in growth is intermediate between stem
and root' (De iI/V. 3, 468~7). But plants obviously do not themselves
produce vital heat. Consequently the analogy between the role of the
heart and that of the plant's centre is not entire. This difficulty comes to
the fore between the lines of the following passage:
It is always to some lack of heat that death is due, and in perfect [i.e.
sanguineous] creatures the cause is the failure in the organ containing
the source of the creature's essential nature. This member is sited, as
has been said, at the junction of the upper and lower parts; in plants
it is intermediate between the root and the stem, in sanguineous
animals it is the heart, and in those that are bloodless the correspond-
ing part of their body. (De iI/V. 23, 478i>J2-479"1)
The theoretical premiss stated in the first sentence leads one to expect
that the part in plants which is analogous to the heart produces vital
heat too. Since this is not the case, Aristotle refers to it by the periphrasis
'organ containing the source of the creature's essential nature' and leaves
unexplained what causes death in plants. Thus, the 'central organ' in
plants does not supply them with the vital heat which any living being
yet needs. Whence, then, in Aristotle's view, do plants derive their vital
heat?
'Plants', Aristotle replies, 'get their food from the earth by means of
their roots; and this food is already elaborated when taken in, which is
the reason why plants produce no excrement [residue], the earth and its
heat serving them in the place of a stomach ... ' (PA 2. 3, 650"21-3; cf.
also 4. 4, 678'13). In other words: the earth has some internal heat by
virtue of which it concocts the nutriment to be used by plants; plants
thus take in nutriment which is already concocted, and this is why they
produce no residual excrement. 133 The earth thus does for plants what
the stomach does for animals/ 34 conversely, Aristotle says the stomach
in animals is 'as it were an internal substitute for the earth' (PA 2. 3,
650'24). Elsewhere, Aristotle specifies that the vital heat in plants
derives not only from the nutriment drawn from the earth, but from the
'surrounding air' too: this obviously allows him to account for the influ-
ence of the climate and the weather on the persistence of plants (De iuv.
6, 470'20 ff.).
It remains to be asked what Aristotle means when he says that the
133 It is therefore mistaken to think of fruits as being the residue produced by
plants; d. Preus, 'Man and Cosmos', 475.
134 The roots in plants therefore correspond to the mouth in animals; De ii/v. 1,
468'10.
72 Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions Vital Heat: Persistence and Soul-Functions 73
earth has heat by virtue of which it concocts the matter to be taken in rise to geological phenomena like earthquakes. At the same time it
by plants, thereby becoming analog9us to the stomach in animals. Aris- apparently also heats the interior of the earth. According to a well-
totle in fact holds that 'there is in the earth a large amount of fire and known thesis put forward by D. E. Eichholz, Aristotle takes the dry and
heat' (Meteor. 2. 4, 360'5) and he occasionally alludes to its 'internal hot exhalation to supply the heat which, qua efficient cause, forms min-
[own] heat' (Meteor. 2. 4, 360b 32) or 'internal [own] fire' (2.8, 365b 26). At erals, Aristotle's' fossils'.137 It thus seems possible that Aristotle's view
least three interpretations concerning the nature of thjs internal heat are was that the hot exhalation circulating in the bowels of the earth sup-
possible. plies the heat allOWing it to function as a surrogate stomach. On this
(i) Aristotle may have held the earth to possess some inherent, prime- interpretation, then, the internal heat of the earth is not inherent to it,
val internal heat, which is coeval with it. His occasional allusions to an and it indirectly derives from the sun.
analogy between the living animal body and the earth (e.g. Meteor. 1. 14, (iii) Lastly, Aristotle's view of the internal heat of the earth may be
351"26 £.)135 may be taken to lend some support to this view: Aristotle traditional heritage. In Chapter II we will indeed see that definite marks
may have thought that the earth possesses an internal source of heat, in were left on Aristotle's thought by the Presocratic idea according to
analogy with the heart, the source of vital heat in sanguineous animals. which bits and pieces of a primeval divine heat remained behind in the
On this view, the internal heat of the earth would be co-eternal with it earth after a posited initial separation through which the world became
(only parts of the earth decay at any time; ct. Meteor. 1. 14, 351'27 f.).I36 constituted: this notion presumably provided one of the basic
(ii) Alternatively, it is possible that Aristotle thought that the internal cosmological ideas of Aristotle's early De philosophia, echoes of which
heat of the earth is not primal, and that it ultimately derives from the can be identified in Aristotle's mature thought too. It is possible that
sun. In Aristotle's view, the action of the sun's heat on the surface of the Aristotle's early theological'cosmology provides the background for the
earth produces a double effect: its action on moisture gives rise to a notion of the earth's internal fire (ct. below II § 4.1). This interpretation
moist exhalation, its action on dry land to a dry exhalation (see below, III would allow us to understand why Aristotle assumes that the earth's
§ 2.2.2 for a brief summary of the theory): 'the sun not only draws up internal fire is on a par with vital heat in that it concocts the nourish-
the moisture on the earth's surface, but also heats and so dries the earth ment of plants, so well indeed that plants produce no residue. Aristotle
itself' (Meteor. 2. 4, 360'6). The dry exhalation is hot and easily inflam- mayor may not have sought to integrate this idea into the theoretical
mable. Above the surface of the earth it produces e.g. winds, comets, framework of his mature system through either of the ideas described
thunder and lightning. Its motion under the surface of the earth gives above. Needless to say, in the absence of any evidence, all this must
remain conjectural.
13> Cf. also Lloyd, Polarity and Alla/ogy, 263, 362 f.
130 In his discussion of saltiness, Aristotle makes the following remark: 'Most 137 Eichholz, 'Aristotle's Theory'.
salt rivers and springs must be considered to have been once hot; subsequently
the fiery principle in them was extinguished, but the earth through which they
filter retains qualities like those of ash and cinders' (Meteor. 2. 3, 350/'4-7). Aris-
totle here posits a unidirectional cooling process occurring at some places. This
could be taken to suggest the possibility that he thought of the earth as contain-
ing some primal, albeit constantly diminishing, 'inner fire'. Aristotle's postulate
of the eternity of the world obviously excludes this version of the interpretation.
Within Aristotle's framework, just as it is impossible that the sea has been con-
stantly drying up since all eternity (Meleor. 2. 2-3), so also it is impossible that
an eventual internal fire of the earth would be cooling down continually. Aris-
totle could have drawn here on the cyclical model he applied elsewhere in order
to account for unidirectional processes, which must necessarily be assumed to be
local only and to be compensated by contrary processes. He thus holds that
evaporation is counterbalanced by rainfall (Meteor. 2. 3, 356b22-357'3), and the
drying up of some land to be compensated by the immersion in the sea of other
stretches of land (Meteor. 1. 14). He could similarly maintain that the cooling
down of some parts of the earth is counterbalanced by heating of other places,
with the internal heat remaining constant. I am, however, unaware of any dIscus-
sion of this topic.

II
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat:
The De philosophia and Kindred
Presocratic Doctrines
1. THE PROBLEM: UNINTEGRATED PRESOCRA TIC
MOTIFS IN ARISTOTLE'S PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGY
1.1. Why Does Vital Heat Go Up?
Chapter I was devoted to an analysis of Aristotle's theory of vital
heat in its own terms. We have seen, notably, that for A~istotle
vital heat is the physiological factor underlying all operations of
soul-nutritive, perceptive, locomotive, imaginative, to a great
extent even intellective. Vital heat establishes the scala natu:ae,
with more vital heat giving rise to more perfect forms-:physlc~l
and psychical. A crucial premiss of this psycho-physIOlogy. IS
that vital heat has a natural upward motion, by virtue of which
what is higher up is also purer (less earthy) ~d. hence ~apa~le
of giving rise to keener cognition. This premiss mdeed Imphes
that the more perfect forms (souls), because they bel.ong to the
warmer substances (bodies), are those that are more distant from
the earthy centre, i.e. more erect. In s.hort: ~he qualitative-~orm­
ative gradient of Aristotle's vital heat IS vertical; the ontoiogically
high is also topologically elevated. . .
I have tried hard in Chapter I to show that thIS t~eory-w~ch
integrates chemical, physiological, and psy~hologlCal doctrines
into an impressive whole-is perfectly conSIstent. Now, ~~ con-
trast, I wish to question it from outside, so to speak. ~peclfically,
I will (i) inquire how Aristotle's fundamental premISS .th~t t~e
vital heat has a natural upward motion is grounded WIthin hIS
framework, and (ii) signal some striking similari~ies between
certain views of Aristotle and some Pre socratic doctnnes account-
ing for the forms of living beings and for thought. It will tum out
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 75
that the two points are related: the premiss that vital heat has an
upward motion is a Presocratic legacy, and indeed underlies
Presocratic ideas which have parallels in Aristotle's framework.
We begin by asking: why should vital heat have a 'natural
tendency' to move upward? The question has more to it than
may be apparent. It is well known that one of the great innova-
tions of Aristotle's physics was the doctrine of natural places,
which provided the notions of heavy and light with a new, ob-
jective, meaning and with a new theoretical foundation. But in
this scheme, only the four simple bodies and their composites
have natural places, and vital heat is not one of them: the up-
ward rectilinear motion is the distinguishing mark of air and fire
only, i.e. of the two elements sharing the quality 'hot'. We should
thus ask: what in fact is vital heat (or the hot, thermon, generally)
and on what grounds does Aristotle ascribe to it a natural up-
ward motion?
Aristotle's four qualities, as is well known, are a Presocratic
and medical heritage, which have undergone, however, a thor-
ough reinterpretation.! To put it in a nutshell: traditionally, the
'powers' hot, cold, moist, and dry had been thought of as the
constituent substances of the cosmOSi this view Aristotle integrated
with Empedocles' theory of the four elements, and thereby
created a new theory of matter within which the ancient four
powers were preserved, albeit with a new status. Or rather sta-
tuses: for in fact, no less than three construals of the status of the
four qualities can be discerned in Aristotle's writings.
In De generatione et corruptione the qualities, as also the first
matter in which they inhere, are, in H. H. Joachim's words, just
'''moments'' abstracted by logical analysis': they are 'couples of
contrasted qualities, not of contrasted qua/ia'. Although 'the neu-
ter adjectives, especially when the article is prefixed, suggest the
concretely qualified matter which alone has actual existence ... i.e.
the qualia instead of the abstract qualities', Aristotle is in fact' at-
tending to the qualities and trying to determine these in abstrac-
tion from the stuff which they qualify'? Specifically, the two
pairs of contrary qualities were defined by their capacity to act
and to be acted upon and were distributed among the four
I This integration has been analysed in detail in Solmsen, Aristotle's System,
342-78i d. also Happ, Hy/e, 525 ff.
2 Joachim, Aristotle 011 Comillg-Io-Be, 200-1.
76 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
sublunar elements. This indeed allowed Aristotle to think of the
four elements as susceptible to being transformed into one an-
other/ and also provided him with an adequate theoretical basis
for his account of mixture and homoeomerous substances, which
rests on the idea of an interaction between qualities. 4 Inasmuch,
therefore, as Aristotle's four qualities no longer 'enjoy the same
independent existence as formerly',S none of them can be attrib-
uted a natural movement.
In book 4 of the Meteorologica and in the biologiqtl treatises,
the hot, the cold, the moist, and the dry are treated differently:
they are (again) construed as substances. 6 Indeed, to explain gen-
eration and corruption, Aristotle invokes the four powers-as
we should here call them-and posits them, rather than the four
'simple bodies', as the proximate matter of the homoeomerous
parts (e.g. FA 2. I, 646"14 ff.)? The reason for this change surely
lies in the constraints of the subject-matter: 'it would be an in-
tolerably awkward complication if the powers were merely
qualities of the elements.'s Indeed, in these treatises Aristotle
goes beyond De generatione et corruptione also in associating
each of the four qualities with a single element: the hot is taken
to be equivalent with fire, the moist with water, the dry with
earth. 9 There is, however, one noteworthy difference between
Meteorologica 4 and the biological treatises in the treatment of the
powers. In Meteorologica 4, the four powers are taken to interact
among themselves, thereby giving rise to the homoeomerous bod-
ies: the active pair-the hot and the cold-is supposed to act on
the passive one-the dry and the moist. The four powers thus
have no cosmological reference: they are strictly internal to the com-
posite substances and none of them has any natural motion
upward or downward. In the biological treatises, this kind of
3 Cf. De gel!. et corr. 2. 2-3; Joachim, Aristotle 011 Coming-Io-Be, 204-7; Solrnsen,
Aristotle's System, 347.
4 Solmsen Aristotle's System, 374 f.; Sorabji, Matter, Space alld Motioll, 66 ff.
5 Solmsen, Aristotle's System, 348.
6 Cf. however the qualification in Happ, Hyle, 530-l.
7 Happ, Hyle, 522.
6 Solmsen, Aristotle's System, 347; cf. also Happ, Hyle, 523 ff. and Longngg,
'Elementary Physics', 216.
9 Cf. Melear. 4. 5, 382 3 ff.; De gen. et corr. 2. 3, 331'4 ff.; Happ, Hyle, 523-4, 528-
b
9; Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 216-17.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 77
internal interaction is presupposed too, of course; however, as
we have seen, the additional idea that the hot has a natural
upward motion occurs repeatedly and is a fundamental premiss
of Aristotle's physiology. 10
What then are Aristotle's grourtds for this premiss? The ques-
tion cannot be answered with reference to the postulated iden-
tity between the powers and the elements: if these were Aristotle's
grounds, he would have had to ascribe a natural motion to
all four powers, which is patently absurd; and indeed, in
Meteorologica 4, that identification notwithstanding, the hot, no
more than the other three powers, is not ascribed any natural
movement. Moreover, in his more formal moments, Aristotle is
intent upon avoiding a too substantial construal of heat even in
a biological context: 'Heat and straightness can be present in
every part of a thing, but it is impossible that the thing should
be nothing but hot or white or straight; for, if that were so, at-
tributes would have separate existence' (De long. et brev. vito 3,
465b I3). What, then, are the grounds for the de facto special status
of the heat in the biological treatises?l1 And on what basis, in
particular, does Aristotle ascribe to heat an upward natural
movement? My answer will have two components:
(i) Aristotle's phYSiology integrates reinterpreted versions of
traditional well-entrenched views, views to which Aristotle him-
self had at some point subscribed (they can be identified in his
early dialogue De philosophia). Specifically, the prevalent
Presocratic notion that the constituted cosmos came to be through
an initial separation founded the idea that down here, bits of the
celestial divine arche remained behind, which give rise to life and
thought down here, but tend to travel upwards, towards their
celestial abode. In point of fact, in De philosophia, as I will try to
show (§ 2), Aristotle exposed precisely such a Presocratic-type
theologico-metaphysical cosmology, centred aro~nd the notion
of a divine hot substance. Within this scheme, sublunar heat
10 Althoff's Warm, knit, fliissig und feucht bei Aristoteles provides a systematic
survey of all the passages in Aristotle's biological writings bearing on the four
. qualities. Unfortunately it appeared too late to be taken into account here.
11 That the status of the heat is singular in comparison with that of the other
three powers has been perceived by Solmsen: in the biological treatises, he writes,
'''the hot" in particular is treated as an entity in its own right-without being
tied to either substratum or element' (Aristotle's System, 361).
78 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
indeed has a natural tendency to go upwards, to its divine like,
with the perfection and cognition of the sublunar living beings
depending on their share of the hot, and thus on their distance
from the earthy centre. Even after Aristotle abandoned this early
framework, I will argue, he continued to uphold some of its
more specific tenets, among them the notion that heat naturally
travels upward. More generally, the hypothesis that Aristotle
once subscribed to a theological metaphysics of heat accounts for
the central role which the notion of vital heat qua formative soul-
principle plays in his framework.
(ii) Aristotle was in fact alert to the fact that within his phys-
ical framework (that of the acroamatic treatises) vital heat cannot
be treated as a substance with a natural movement of its own.
He sought to remedy the difficulty, and this indeed is one of the
objectives of his theory of connate pneuma: within this theory-.
which apparently was never elaborated in full-the pneuma was
to be the material substratum in which vital heat inheres and
which transports it to all parts of the body. In this framework, to
say that vital heat has a natural upward motion is a shorthand
for saying that the hotter pneuma-the pneuma carrying more
vital heat-goes up, a statement perfectly well grounded within
Aristotle's physics.
The situation will therefore turn out to be this: Aristotle's
phYSiology expounded in the biological treatises contains tenets
relating to vital heat, which have their origin in the early theo-
logical cosmology of De philosophia. When Aristotle came to re-
ject this framework, some of these tenets were deprived of their
original grounding. Since these tenets were indispensable to his
physiology, Aristotle continued to draw on them, independently
of whether and how they could be founded; in parallel, however,
he sought to provide them with an alternative new foundation
through the theory of connate pneuma.
In the next few pages (§ 1.2), I will point out some similarities
between Aristotle's physiology and traditional, notably Presocratic
tenets: this should give an initial plausibility to the thesis that
some of Aristotle's claims have in fact been taken over from
earlier doctrines. The thesis that Aristotle himself once held a
very similar doctrine is the subject of the subsequent sections
(§§ 2-4) of this chapter. Aristotle's attempt at a synthesis, the
theory of connate pneuma, will be taken up in Chapter III.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 79
1.2. Uneasy Appropriations: Presocratic Accounts of Cognition
Within Aristotle's BiologtJ
Aristotle's view of vital heat as establishing a sort of vertical
qualit~tive-formative gradient depends on three premisses: (i)
that VItal heat has a natural tendency to rise; (ii) that the heat
going up is purer than that which stays back down; (iii) and that
purer heat brings about keener cognition. All three premisses
have parallels in Presocratic thought, where they hinge upon the
prevalent Presocratic notion of an original separation. And this
parallelism accounts for similarities in points of physio-psycho-
logical doctrine between Aristotle and some Presocratic accounts.
As long as the world was not thought of as having existed
since all eternity, cosmogony was a constant preoccupation of
natural philosophy. The idea that the present cosmos came into
being when the primevally uniform matter was separated out
into what now are the earthy region at the centre and the celes-
tial circumference about it was a recurrent theme in Presocratic
thought. As Friedrich Solmsen has observed, 'the modus and the
agents of this separation, its causes and circumstances, vary from
~yst~m to system. However, these details, while highly interest-
mg m themselves, are secondary in importance to the idea of
separation as such. 112 Underlying this notion of separation was
the idea that the primeval matter at the centre was constituted of
pairs of opposite powers which, through the separation, came to
occupy their present distinct spatial regions. In this scheme, what
is ~right warm, dry, and in motion is assigned to the upper
reglOn, the dark, cold, moist, and inert to the lower. The gist of
the view is concisely summarized in the following passage from
Plutarch's De primo frigido (955 B-C):
We must recognise that the wise men and intellectuals of old set a gulf
between terrestrial and celestial bodies: they did so however not be-
cause of the different places [that those bodies occupy], as though [weigh-
ing them] on a balance, and examining [their movements] up and down;
on the contrary, [in ancient times they distinguished the two kinds of
element] by the difference in their [intrinsic] powers. Bodies that are hot
~nd shining, and swift and light, they assign to the being (phusei) that
IS deathless and endless.
Bodies that are murky and cold, and slow [and heavy], they declare
lZ Solmsen, 'Aristotle and Presocratic Cosmogony', 267.
80 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
to be the hapless lot of creatures who dwell in the shadow of death
belowY
Fortunately, the separation was not entirely thorough. Rather,
bits and pieces of what became the pure celestial matter were left
behind, intermingled with the earthy matter. This idea allowed
one to think of a scale of purity extending from the centre to the
circumference. Consequently, phenomena-physical, biological,
psychical-observed down here could be explained with refer~
ence to what was supposed to be the case in the heavens, which
more often than not were construed as divine. This theoretical
model underlies some Presocratic accounts which have parallels
in Aristotle.
Take Empedocles' explanation of man's upright position.
Empedocle~ holds that fire, or the hot, pushes, as it were, man-
whose matter is earthy-upwards. Indeed, within Empedocles'
cosmology, the fire that has remained behind after the initial
separation has an upward motion by virtue of its desire to join
its Iike. 14 This account obviously recalls the One offered by Aris-
totle, who indeed shares the premisses underlying it. For con-
sider Aristotle's criticism of Empedocles' related account of the
growth of plants (DA 2. 4, 41Sb28 ff.): Empedocles, Aristotle re-
ports, held that the growth of plants is due to the natural mo-
tions of their constituents-'the downward rooting by the natural
tendency of earth to travel downwards, and the upward branch-
ing by the similar natural tendency of fire to travel upwards'.
Aristotle, as we have already noted (r §§ 1.1.2 and 1.2.3) rejects
this explanation mainly because it does not account for the fact
that growth is structured, Le. it disregards the formal cause (soul).
Independently of that, and this is what interests us here,
Empedocles 'misinterprets up and down': Aristotle does not
question the premiss that notably the upward natural motion of
the fire is the cause of the vertical growth or position (416"14),
but castigates its application to plants whose parts are upside
down in relation to the universe. Aristotle's meaning thus is that
the principle in question is applicable to man only, for 'in him
alone do the natural parts hold the natural position'. Indeed, as
13 Quoted after O'Brien, Theories of Weight, i. 366. The additions in square brack-
ets are O'Brien's.
14 D-K 31 B 62 = fro 510 BoBack. 0. Bol\ack, Empedocle I, 51.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 81
we have seen (r § 2.2.1), Aristotle explains man's erect position as
being due to the 'rising vital heat'. Aristotle's account of the
spatial orientation of living beings is thus essentially identical
with Empedocles' and rests on the same principles. Now in
Empedocles' framework the postulate that fire has a natural tend-
ency to rise is perfectly well grounded in the idea of an initial
separation; but what of the same premiss (with heat, or rather
vital heat, replacing the fire) within Aristotle's scheme?
Again, take the views of Diogenes of Apollonia On the physio-
logical conditioning of life and thought. Let us recall the follow-
ing ~e!l-known points. IS Diogenes' air is an omnipresent and
omrusclent god; the soul of all animals consists of air which is
warmer than the outer air, but colder than that near the sun
which is also the least dense. Thus for Diogenes the difference~
in quality (purity) and warmth of the air establish the scale of
being: the purest air, situated in the upper realm of the cosmos,
is sheer intelligence and God and is warmer than that which
indwell~ :he ~nirnals and men, to whom it gives life and powers
of cognItion In proportion to its respective qualities. This theo-
logi~al. ~hysiology-:-each of us carries within him a tiny portion
of dlVlnIty-estabhshes a perfectly natural correlation between
what is topologically higher and therefore purer and warmer on
the one hand, an? gre~ter intelligence on the other. Consequently,
the closer an anImal IS to the ground-in Aristotle's terms, the
farther it is from the upright position-the moister and colder
the intaken air, and the lesser the intelligence: this is why ani-
mals are all less intelligent than man.
Comparing these views with Aristotle's, we find that once we
set up a parallel between Aristotle's vital heat and Diogenes'
warm air,16 the similarities are striking: for both, perception and
~hought. depend upon the purity of the respective blood-
tndwe.Iltng substance,. and this purity increases with increasing
elevatIon. Now, for DlOgenes, this psychological scala naturae as
a function of the distance from the centre is an immediate corollary
15 For what .fol1o~s d. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers,
434-S~; G~thrie, HIstory of Greek Philosophy, Ii. 362--81; Diller, 'Die philosophie-
geschlchthche Stellung'.
.16 Pred~ely this 'substitution' ~ad already been made by the author of the ps.-
HIppOCratIc On ~leshes, who pOSI~S thermol/ as his arche, attributing to it the very
same features DlOgenes had aSCribed to the air; we come back to it in § 3.2.
82 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
of his monism: because all living beings in differing degrees
partake of the divine substance, they variously partake of its
thought capacities too; specifically, it immediately follows that
man's upright position is the cause of his unique intelligence.
Aristotle retains all these ideas, but he must ground them on
other premisses, i.e. on his purely physiological theory from which
all cosmology and theology have been extirpated: he reinterprets
the notion of the gradient of purity (which stretches not to heaven,
but only as far as living creatures reach),17 and he introduces a
physiological theory postulating that the purity of the vital heat
(and, correlatively, of the blood) determines the physical and
psychical qualities of living beings. Diogenes' basic ideas-
notably the association of elevation with both purity and cogni-
tion-are thus preserved by Aristotle, but without their theologi-
cal underpinning. Indeed, by making the erectness of animals
itself depend upon the amount of their (elevating) vital heat,
Aristotle in fact integrated the entire theory around that notion
as the explanatory concept.
Yet this 'physiological reinterpretation' of Diogenes' theory was
not entire. In Diogenes' system, the scale of thought-capacities
stretching from God to animals, was an immediate corollary of
the basic premiss which made all thought depend on the single
basic divine noetic stuff. This basic postulate most naturally
implied that man's thinking capacities are derivative of, and
therefore commensurable with, those of the divinity and that in
fact man's intelligence occupies an intermediate position between
God's and that of animals. Aristotle, as we have seen, preserves
these points of doctrine. However, his own biological theory bears
only on that intelligence which is physiologically conditioned:
man's specific intelligence, let alone God's thinking, fall outside
the scope of his physiological theory. This is why, unlike Diogenes,
Aristotle is unable to integrate man's unique thought-capacities
within his account. Also the relationship between man's upright
position, his intelligence, and divinity, is less clearly established
than it had been in Diogenes.
17 Outside biology Aristotle at times correlates purity and distance from the
centre in a general way: even of the celestial matter he at one point says that it
'varies in purity and freedom from admixture' (Meteor. 1. 3, 340b6). Similarly, at
DC 1. 2, 269 b 16, it is said to be 'of a higher nature in proportion as it is removed
from the sublunary world'.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 83
Consider lastly Empedocles' view that the blood is the seat of
perception and thought, a view which, as has often been noted,
resembles Aristotle's.JS Empedocles holds that the cognitive ca-
pacities depend upon a balanced mixture of the four elements
constituting the blood near the heart. For Empedocles this is a
perfectly consistent and well-founded position, believing as he
does that all cognition is of like by like: presumably, as Solmsen
writes, 'if there is excess or deficiency in the mixture ... our grasp
of the outer world will show a lack of balance. A man in whom
the perfect mixture is realized would approximate divine stat-
ure; for even in the divine Sphairos . .. Love would hardly be
able to produce a better balance between them. tl9 For Empedocles,
therefore, it is natural to posit that blood in which the balance
of elements approximates the one in the heavenly region allows
for better cognition; within his philosophy, the physiological ex-
planation of differences in cognition is theologically and cosmo-
logically grounded.
Aristotle, we saw, advocates a similar scheme: better cognition
is associated with purer blood and heat, the purity being sup-
posed to correlate with an increasing distance from the earthy
centre. Yet, again, Aristotle's account falls behind Empedocles'
in that it severs the link between divine and human thought.
Let me conclude: Aristotle's doctrine of the dependence of the
physio-psychological scala naturae upon vital heat incorporates
much Presocratic heritage. Aristotle largely succeeded in account-
ing physiologically for the assumed correlations he has taken
over. At some crucial points, however, the integration proved
incomplete. For one thing, the fundamental notion of the affinity
between God's thinking capacities and those of man, and the
relationship between man's singular thinking power and his
upright position, could not be brought within the scope of physio-
logy. Furthermore, Aristotle's qualitative-formative gradient-
which in Presocratic thought was an immediate corollary of the
idea of an initial separation-presupposes that the substance
which is formative and on which thought depends travels up:
but why should it? In Aristotle's physics and chemistry 'the hot'
18 e.g. Kullmann, 'Aristoteles' Grundgedanken', 229-31.
19 Solmsen, 'Tissues and the Soul', 438.
84 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
is a quality or a power with no cosmological reference, and as
such it cannot be ascribed a m,otion of its own.
This presence within Aristotle's philosophy of partly un-
integrated Presocratic ideas calls for an explanation. Should we
think of Aristotle as picking up one idea here another there, as
one collects pebbles, eclectically creating a theoretical mosaic?
My suggestion is that this is not the case: all the ideas bearing on
the dependence of forms and thought upon vital heat, far from
being a pot-pourri of independent pieces Aristotle found in the
physiological market-place and which he integrated the best he
could within his physiological theory, form a coherent whole. It
found its way into Aristotle's philosophy as we know it from the
extant treatises, because at some point it was an integral part of
Aristotle's own theological cosmology, namely the one he ex-
pounded in his early dialogue De philosophia. Although Aristotle
repudiated this doctrine, he preserved some of its tenets, which
then had to be provided with new foundations, compatible with
his later thought.
2. RECOVERING THE LOST FOUNDATIONS: THE
COSMOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF DE PHILOSOPHIA-
A NEW INTERPRETATION
This, then, is my thesis: Aristotle's views on heat-natural and
vital-as expressed in the biological treatises were an integral
part of an earlier system, the one expounded in De philosophia.
When this early theory was eventually abandoned-presumably
for cosmological considerations-the physiological tenets on
thermon none the less remained: Aristotle could not-and indeed
had no reason to-give them up entirely, for they were received
ideas within medicine which he too needed in his b;(,logy. Yet
within the new framework these ideas were in need of a new
theoretical grounding. Aristotle, I will later suggest, groped for
such a grounding through his theory of connate pneuma; yet,
even in the absence of that theory, an absence which he may
have hoped would not be lasting, he continued to draw on
some received notions, which now no longer had their original
foundation. Aristotle's theory of vital heat is a physiological
Tile Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 85
superstructure whose original cosmological and metaphysical
foundations were forsaken.
The doctrines of De philosopllia have been the subject of much,
yet quite inconclusive debate. As P. Wilpert commented, our
interpretation of De philosophia depends on the general picture
we have of Aristotle's intellectual development, while in tum
that picture is again contingent upon our interpretation of De
philosophia. 20 (This is indeed a perfect instance of the hermeneutic
circle,fl In what follows, I will offer a new view of the cosmo-
logy and the psychology of De philosophia, albeit without again
going over the details of the philological discussions. Rather, I
will draw on two recent independent interpretations of two as-
pects of De philosopl1ia, which, taken conjointly, allow us, as it
seems to me, to make sense both of De philosophia itself and of
Aristotle's doctrine of thermon as analysed in Chapter I.
Two questions concerning Aristotle's opinions in the third book
of De philosophia are of direct concern to us here: his view of the
uppermost element, and his view of the matter of human mind.
On the first of these, an almost universal agreement prevailed
until recently.22 FollOWing notably Werner Jaeger,23 it was gener-
ally believed that in De philosopllia, Aristotle had already intro-
duced what he himself usually called the 'first body', and what
later became known as the 'fifth body' (aither). Thus Cicero's
statements concerning five elements in De philosophia were ac-
cepted as trustworthy, while those invoking only four elements
were considered as contaminated by Stoic influence.
The views on the nature of human mind propounded in De
philosophia were the subject of much controversy, however. Cicero
states that 'The fifth kind [of element], from which were derived
stars and minds, Aristotle thought to be something distinct, and
unlike the four I have mentioned above'; 'Aristotle ... after tak-
ing account of the four well-known classes of first principles
from which all things were derived, considers that there is a fifth
kind of thing, from which comes mind. , ,'; and again that 'if
there is a fifth nature, introduced first by Aristotle, this is the
20 Wilpert, 'Die aristotelische Sehrife, 102.
21 Cf. Freudenthal, 'The Henneneutical Status'.
22 Most of the older literature on both questions is mentioned in Moraux,
'Quinta essentia', itself one of the major contributions to the subject.
23 Jaeger, Aristotle, 143 ff.
86 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
nature both of gods and of minds' (fr. Ross 27),24 The problem is
to interpret these statements in view of the rest of what we know
of the development of Aristotle's psychological views. Specific-
ally, scholars as a rule proceed on the assumption that in the
slightly earlier or contemporaneous Eudemus, Aristotle already
had arrived at the notion of the soul as a form (eidos), and they
seek to interpret Cicero's statements in consequence. Very
schematically, two positions have been taken. Some, notably Paul
Moraux, argued that it is improbable that Ar!stotle shifted from
an initial idealism to hylomorphism in De philosophia and then
back again to the notion of soul as form in the De anima. They
therefore concluded that in De philosophia Aristotle construed the
human soul as analogous not to the stars themselves (made of
ether), but rather to their souls, both being immaterial. As against
this, Jean Pepin and others argued for giving credence to Cicero's
statements, holding that in De philosophia human minds and the
stars were both construed as being of aither, a view which they
take to be compatible with that of the Eudemus. (Pepin also holds
that Aristotle took the aither to be the matter of the highest
divinity.)
Recently, two new interpretations to both issues have been put
forward. David E. Hahm,25 on the basis of a careful examination
of the relevant material, concludes that the evidence does not
bear out the claim that in De philosophia Aristotle already intro-
duced an additional element, over and above the four traditional
ones: there are only four elements in De philosophia. Cicero's
notorious statement to the effect that Aristotle says that the caeli
ardor is god 26 (fr. Ross 26 = R3 26) must therefore be interpreted
24 To Ross's fragment number (Ross, Aristotle, Select Fragmellts) I add, where
applicable, the number in the third (Leipzig, 1886) edition of Rose's collection (R3).
25 Hahm, 'The Fifth Element'.
26 Students of De pililosopilia have missed Leibniz's edifying reaction (in 1670)
to this report of Cicero. It is worth quoting, be it because of the light it sheds on
the possible evolution of hermeneutical perspectives or only as a historical anec-
dote: 'Quod item contendit genuina Aristotelis opera nunc non haberi, idque
locis potissimum Ciceronis, mihi nunquam persuaserit. Nam quid mirum est
hominem politicum et infinitis curis obrutum, qua lis erat Cicero, nonnunguam
subtilissimi cuiusdam Philosophi sententias, fugiente oculo lectas, non satis
assequi? qui credit Aristotelem in veris suis operibus Deum appellasse Kallma
Ollral/Oll ardorem coeli, nae in Aristotelem fatuum putat; et cum sapientem et
ingeniosum habeamus per vim nobis ineptum et stultum obtrudit' (Leibniz, Marii
Nizolii de veris principiis, 429). The passage is given in a free French translation in
Diderot and d' Alembert's Encyclopedic, s.v. 'Aristote' (i. 655, 1751 edn.).
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 87
as referfing not to the ether as a fifth element, but rather to the
uppermost of the four elements, to wit the heavenly fire, or rather
heat (ardor translating thermon or thermotes). Hahm in fact follows
David J. Furley who had argued that Aristotle could perfectly
well have believed, 'like most of his predecessors, that the stars
and planets were made of some kind of fire,27 and construe this
uppermost element as divine, just as he later was to describe as
divine the 'first body'. One important upshot of Hahm's argu-
ment is that it yields a plausible reconstruction of three continu-
ous phases in the development of Aristotle's cosmological
thought. (i) During the first phase, Aristotle constructed his uni-
verse-including the heavens-of four elements and worked out
the theory of natural places and the corresponding rectilinear
natural movements of the elements. De phiIosophia belongs to this
period together with De caelo 3_4. 28 In this period the divine stars
were held to move voluntarily, not through a natural circular
motion of their matter. Here we have one of the advantages of
the interpretation for, as Hahm justly notes, the sections in De
philosophia on the stars' voluntary motion (fr. 2Ib Ross = R3 24)
can hardly be reconciled with the view that they consist of a
naturally rotating aither. (ii) In the second phase, the aither is
introduced as the substance of the heavens and is ascribed a
circular natural movement. (iii) Lastly, in the Meteorologica, the
theory of the two exhalations brings about a 'reinterpretation' of
the theory of the two upper sub lunar elements (air and fire).
Bertrand Dumoulin has proposed a new interpretation of the
theory of soul in De philosophia, or rather reinforces (a modified
version of) Pepin's interpretation. His point of departure is his
own study (into which we need not enter) of the Eudemus.
Dumoulin argues against the received opinion that this dialogue
27 Furiey, 'Lucretius and the Stoics', 22 (= Cosmic Problems, 194; between the
o~gin.al publication and the reprinting, though, Furley has somewhat changed
hiS mmd on the matter: while still believing that Aristotle at some time held the
heavenly bodies to be made of fire, in 1988 he no longer thinks this stance was
propounded in De philosophia). Hahm's phrase ('The Fifth Element', 63) is: 'when
he still believed with the rest of mankind that the heavenly bodies are made of
fire'. Allowance being made for the 'lcttractiveness of a nice rhetorical formula-
tion, one may still wonder whether Hahm intended to imply that the Jews,
Egyptians, Persi.ans, Indians, Chinese, etc. also believed that the heavenly bodies
were made of fire, or that they do not belong to mankind.
28 Cf. Soimsen, Aristotle's System, 298-303.
88 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
did not propound an idealist doctrine of soul: rather, it is a
philosophical restatement of the Orphic doctrine of the immor-
tality of a substantial soul of heavenly origin. 29 (It resulted, ac-
cording to Dumoulin, from a 'detransposition' of Plato's Phaedo,
which itself had ensued from a 'transposition' of Orphism.) Thus,
the weightiest argument against giving credence to Cicero's state-
ments concerning the materiality of the human mind in De
philosophia is removed 30 and Dumoulin follows Pepin in accept-
ing at their face value Cicero's statements concerning the com-
mon matter of the human mind and of the stars. 31 (He dissents
from Pepin on the question whether this matter is also that of the
supreme divinity, but this problem does not concern us here.)
Amusingly, each of these two contemporaneous challengers
of the received interpretations of De philosophia unquestioningly
accepts precisely what the other discards. Hahm rejects the idea
that De philosophia contained a corporeal theory of soul with the
traditional argument that Aristotle could not have shifted from
an idealist position in the Eudemus to a hylomorphist one and
back again;32 Dumoulin, for his part, does not question the
assumption that De philosophia upheld five elements and thus
believes that the substance common to the human mind and to
the stars was the ether, Aristotle's fifth element.
Hahm's thesis on the cosmology of De philosophia and
Dumoulin's interpretation of its psychology seem to me to be
perfectly compatible. In what follows I will therefore pursue the
hypothesis that in De philosophia Aristotle held the fourth and
uppermost element to be fire or heat, and that he took this ele-
ment to be the matter of the divine stars and of the human mind.
Let us begin with the psychology of De philosophia. One frag-
ment introduces something like a scala naturae of minds, as a
function of the matter giving rise to the respective living beings:
Since some living things have their origin in earth, others in water,
others in air, Aristotle thinks it absurd to suppose that in that part
which is fittest to generate living things no animal should be bom. Now
the stars occupy the ethereal region; and since that region is the least
2Y Dumoulin, Recherches, 15-40.
30 Pepin had also, but differently, argued that the doctrine of Eudemus was not
incompatible with the hylozoism of De philosophill.
31 Dumoulin, Recherches, 41-75, 161-3.
32 Hahm, 'The Fifth Element', 66.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 89
dense and is always in movement and activity, the animal born in it
must have the keenest perception and the swiftest movement. Thus,
since it is in ether that the stars are born, it is proper that in these there
should be perception and intelligence. From which it follows that the
stars must be reckoned among the gods (fr. Ross 21 = RJ 23).
Again,
these beings [namely the heavenly bodies] are much more perfect and
pure, so that they move very far from the earth (fr. Ross 27).
Quite clearly, we have here the association of (i) greater distance
from the earthy matter at the centre, (ii) a corresponding greater
purity, and (iii) keener perception and intelligence. Now in the
biological treatises too, as we saw, Aristotle propounds the view
that perception and intelligence depend upon the purity of the
vital heat which in turn is a function of the distance from the
centre, a view that underlies his statements on the relationship
between man's upright position and his superior cognitive facul-
ties. The two theories, I suggest, are related: the physiological
one grew out of the cosmological and theological one. For if we
suppose with Hahm that the celestial matter called 'ether' in De
philosophia is in fact heat and if, furthermore, we follow Dumoulin
in assuming that this matter is the substance of man's mind and
of the divine stars, we will have here what we may consider as
the 'primitive form' of Aristotle's beliefs on the dependence of
soul-functions on the thermon: this theory, indeed, which obvi-
ously resembles that of Diogenes of Apollonia, naturally implies
that higher altitude is associated at once with greater purity and
with higher cognitive capacities. It is here that Aristotle's vertical
gradient of soul-heat has its origin.
Somewhat less spectacularly-or so it at first seems-the heat
shows up also in an apparently more physically minded account.
In the context of an argument for the eternity of the world,
Aristotle (as it is generally held) makes the point that composite
substances necessarily decay, for their parts have been forced
into places which are not their natural ones:
For we men were put together by borrowing little parts of the four
elements, which belong in their entirety to the whole universe---earth,
water, air, and fire. Now these parts when mixed are robbed of their
natural position, the upward-travelling heat being forced down, the
90 . The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
earthy and heavy substance being made light and seizing in tum the
upper region, which is occupied by the earthiest of our parts, the head
(fl'. Ross 19b = R3 20).
The fact that the head, though 'the earthiest of our parts', occu-
pies 'the upper region', is due to the upward-travelling heat. Need-
less to say, we have here Aristotle's explanation for man's upright
position we encountered in the biological treatises. 33 Only that in
the context of De philosophia this explanation makes much better
sense: for here the heat, or the fire, although one of the four
elements, is presumably the substance of the mind. This gives the
argument an entirely different meaning as we will now see.
Consider the sequel of the passage:
The worst of bonds is that which is fastened by violence; this is violent
and short-lived, for it is broken sooner by those who have been bound,
because they shake off the noose through longing for their natural
movement, to which they hasten. For, as the tragic poet says, 'Things
born of earth return to earth, things born of an ethereal seed return to
the pole of heaven; nothing that comes into being dies; one departs in
one direction, one in another, and each shows its own form.' (Ibid.)
We have here two statements: one on the 'violent' bond uniting
together the four substances making up man, and one concern-
ing the ultimate return of each of them to its 'natural place'. If we
now suppose that the heat is indeed the substance of the mind,
or of the (intellective) soul, then the subject of the first statement
turns out to be the violent and short-lived bond tying the soul to
the body, temporarily preventing it from returning to its celestial
abode, where alone it is in its true and natural state. But this, we
know, is precisely the doctrine of soul of the Eudemus (d. fro Ross
5 = R3 41).34 Our interpretation thus makes much better sense of
the passage, and of its exalted rhetoric, than if we assume it to
be about the material persistence of substances (animate and
inanimate) composed of the four sublunar elements. Thus, the
idea conveyed by the citation from Euripides (whose style is also
somewhat too extravagant to be quoted in the context of matters
J3 This, incidentally, I take to corroborate the fragment's authenticity; d. also
Hahm's discussion, 'The Fifth Element', 70.
Jot Cf. also Brunschwig, 'Aristote et les pirates tyrrheniens', for a brilliant analy-
sis of fragment R3 60, showing that its subject in fact is the torture inflicted upon
the soul in incarnated life.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 91
merely physical) is clearly the immortality of the mind-again a
doctrine of the Eudemus (d. fro 2 Ross = R3 38). We may thus note
with satisfaction that our working hypothesis-the synthesis of
Hahm's and Dumoulin's interpretations-has proved its mettle
in yielding a new and, as it seems to me, rewarding interpreta-
tion of the above fragment: it reinforces Dumoulin's claim that
Eudemus and De philosophia share the same doctrine of soul and
mind, but, on the basis of Hahm's thesis, improves on it by set-
ting the doctrine of soul in a larger cosmological perspective.
In De philosophia, therefore, the 'upward-travelling heat' is the
substance of man's mind: this is Aristotle's 'primitive doctrine'.
Within this theoretical framework it indeed made good sense to
hold that the heat, at once the substance of the mind and of the
stars, endows man, whose intellect is unique, with his equally
unique bodily position, allowing the substance of his mind to get
as close to its divine origin as the violent bonds of its earthy
dwelling allow it. Considered physically, the heat gives man his
upright position because it is a physical substance which, as in
Empedocles, 'pushes' man upward as it rises, seeking 'its like' at
its origin. But heat is also the noetic substance, allowing man's
mind to partake of the divine, so that Aristotle's account turns
out to be something like a 'syntheSis' of Empedocles' materialist
account and Plato's idealist one:
As concerning the most sovereign form of soul in us we must conceive
that heaven has given it to each man as a gUiding genius-that part
which we say dwells in the summit of our body and lifts us from earth
toward our celestial affinity, like a plant whose roots are not in earth,
but in the heavens. And this is most true, for it is to the heavens, whence
the soul first came to birth, that the divine part attaches the head or root
of us and keeps the whole body upright. (Tim. 90"; Cornford's translation.)
In its 'primitive form', then, Aristotle's doctrine of man's up-
right position was no less theological than biological and physi-
cal. And again, this original doctrine was far more consistent
with the rest of the metaphysical and theological doctrine in which
it was embedded than its devris we find in the biological trea-
tises. Specifically, it established an intrinsic link between man's
erectness, his intelligence, and his divinity, a doctrine which, as
we saw, is in the treatises too, but without being completely
integrated into its theory.
92 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
To sum up: In De philosophia Aristotle held the substance of the
human mind to be heat, the uppermost, fourth, element, which
he took to be the substance of the divine heavenly bodies toO. 35
This view provided the metaphysical and theological founda-
tions for the following stances: (i) The powers of perception and
intelligence are a function of the purity of heat, the noetic sub-
stance, and hence of the distance from the earthy centre. (ii) Each
of the four elements has an origin which is its natural place.
Once out of it-this necessarily involves violence-it c9nstantIy
seeks to return to it. 36 Specifically, heat-which down here is the
substance of man's mind-has a natural tendency to travel up-
ward, toward its celestial abode. (iii) Composite substances are
held together by violence. Consequently, the presence of heat-
and this implies mind-in the human, predominantly earthy,
body is an unnatural, therefore transient, state. (iv) All elemen-
tary substances are incorruptible. Therefore, the human mind,
consisting of heat, is immortal and ultimately returns to its
heavenly origin. (v) The upright position of man is due to the
presence within him of the upward-travelling divine heat, the
substance of his mind: the heat follows its natural upward
tendency and, as long as prevented from returning to its origin,
it can at least approach it. The entire interpretation seems
confirmed by the fact that some of the ideas recovered from De
philosophia (iii and iv above) are in conformity with those pro-
pounded in other early writings, notably in the contemporane-
ous Eudemus. Lastly, I suggested that Aristotle's views in the
biological treatises concerning the dependence of cognition on
the purity of the elevating vital heat and thus on altitude, and
concerning the connection of man's upright position with both
his intellect and his divinity, should be understood as reinter-
preted versions of tenets which originally were parts of this prim-
itive coherent doctrine.
At this point we may briefly note that Aristotle's doctrine in
the De philosophia as here interpreted emerges as quite close to
35 Aristotle of the De pililosophill thus emerges as close to Heraclides Ponticus,
and Moraux's characterization of the latter as a 'pythagorizing student of Plato'
would seem to fit Ari&totie too: both are, in Pepin's words, of the same 'orientation
spirituelle'. (Cf. Moraux, 'Quinta essentia', 1193; Pepin, 'L'interpretation du De
philosophia', 485.)
36 The term 'natural place' occurs repeatedly in fro Ross 19~ = R3 20. It is in-
triguing to wonder whether we have here a primitive, theological, form of what
was to become Aristotle's doctrine of natural places.
The ~oots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 93
views which were apparently propounded by Theophrastus of
Assos, Aristotle's student, collaborator, and successor at the
Lyceum. Theophrastus seems to have believed that the entire
heavenly sphere consists of a pure and concentrated heat, which
he considered divine, and that the vital heat of living beings, and
with it life as such, derives from the 'generative heat' of the
sun. 37 This doctrine is obviously far removed from the theories
of the Aristotelian corpus, and in particular it is an outright
denial of one of Aristotle's capital innovations, namely his no-
tion of the 'first body' as the fifth element. Scholars have there-
fore wondered what induced Theophrastus to reject his master's
views. This puzzle finds a simple solution if we suppose that
Theophrastus followed Aristotle's early ideas, those we have
identified in De philosophia (although there is no complete over-
lap).38 It thus seems possible that Theophrastus exhibits the influ-
ence of the cosmology of De philosophia as interpreted here, and
we may take his views conversely to supply additional and in-
dependent confirmation for that interpretation by showing that
such ideas were not as alien to the Aristotelian school as is often
thought. 39
3. ARISTOTLE'S HOT ETHER IN CONTEXT: THEOLOGY,
COSMOLOGY, AND PHYSIOLOGY
3.1. Theological Cosmology and Physiology (1): The 'Pythagorean
Notebooks'
We can now corroborate our interpretation and acquire some
further insight into Aristotle's theory in De philosophia, perhaps
also learn something of its origin, by considering a short text
that, surprisingly, has been seldom taken into account in this
context. This is the section from the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
transcribed by Alexander Polyhistor (c.100-40 BCE) and preserved
37 Theophrastus, De iglle 5-6, 44; Gaiser, Tileopilras/ ill Assos, 44-5, 78; for a
criticism of the ascription to Theophrastus of these views d. Sharples,
'Theophrastus on the Heavens'.
3l! e.g. we do not know whether Theophrastus connected the quality of the
vital heat with the kind and rank of the resulting life and specifically with thought
functions, and unlike Aristotle of the De philosoplrill he may have held the celestial-
fie~ element to rotate naturally.
3 For a similar perspective ef. Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 219 fi., 225-6.
94 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
by Diogenes Laertius (8. 25-33). Although the text doubtless con-
tains Hellenistic elements, it now seems well established that its
core is from the fourth century, probably contemporaneous with
Plato, and contains genuine Pythagorean doctrine. 40 Of this dif-
ficult text I will consider only what seems to me to bear directly
on Aristotle's theories in De philosoplzia. 41
The originality of the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' is their doc-
trine of ether, of which the author distinguishes three kinds. The
first is the hot ether, also referred to as thermon: it is pl.lre and
salubrious, and in perpetual motioni the beings contained in it
are immortal and hence divine (26). Thus, the sun, the moon,
and the other stars are divine, for in them heat predominates.
Then comes the cold ether, usually known as 'air': it surrounds
the earth, is motionless and unwholesome-the living beings in
it are all mortal (26, 27). Third there is the 'thick' or 'dense'
ether-the sea and moisture generally (27). Heat is the principle
of life (27, 28). Indeed, it is the sun's rays, breaking through both
the cold and the thick ether, that endow all beings with life (27).
The (human) soul is detached from both the hot and the cold
ether (28), but it is by virtue of the former that man partakes of
the divine (27) and that his soul is immortal (28). More precisely:
of the soul's three parts only the intellective, the one man does
not share with animals, is immortal (30).42 Lastly, the number of
elements is given as four: fire, water, earth, air (25)Y
The similarities between this doctrine and that of De philosophia
-1<)Cf. Guthrie, His/on) of Greek PlzilosoplzV, i. 201 f. n. 3.
41 I draw on the following texts and studies: Wellmann, 'Eine pythagoreische
Urkunde' (gives the entire text); Rusche, BIIII, Leben lind Seele, 175-8e :b:-;~:; ex-
cerpts from the text); Festugiere, 'Les "Memoires pythagoriques" , (gives a French
translation of the entire text); Boyance, 'Note sur I'ether'. In what follows, num-
bers in brackets refer to the paragraphs of the text.
42 The soul's three parts are here named nOIlS, phrenes, and tllI/mos, referring
to the faculties of representation, reasoning, and sensation, respectively. This
identification and the uncommon terminology are discussed by Wellmann,
'Pythagoreische Urkunde', 235 ff.; Rusche, B/Ii/, Leben ,wd Seele, 185 ff.; and
Festugiere, 'Les "Memoires pythagoriques"', 43 ff.
43 In that peculiar order which, interestingly, is also the one in a quotation
from Xenocrates (fr. 53 Heinze) which has some importance for the history of the
'fifth element' (Moraux, 'Quinta essentia', 1185; Soimsen, Aristotle's System, 287 n.
1): 'Thus then he IPlato] classified living creatures into genera and species, and
divided them in every way until he came to their elements, which he called five
shapes and bodies, ail/ler, fire, water, earth, and air' (quoted after Guthrie, His/on)
of Greek Philosophy, i. 271). The comparison with the 'Notebooks' suggests the
possibility that the quotation is slightly corrupted and that in fact the four last-
mentioned substances are modifications of the first, aither.
The Roots of Aristotle's VitaL Heat 95
are too obvious to need much comment. 44 Here and there, the
fourth and uppermost element is identified with heat or fire and
is construed as being in perpetual motion and as divine. Here
and there, the presence of a portion of this substance in man's
soul allows him to partake of the divine, endows him with reason,
and confers immortality precisely on that divine, intellective part
of the soul. 4S
The 'Pythagorean Notebooks' thus give a measure of confir-
mation to the reconstruction of the doctrine of De philosophia
proposed above: such a doctrine indeed existed in the fourth
century.46 Specifically, we have here a corroboration of Hahm's
claim that the characterization of the celestial hot substance as
divine does not imply that it necessarily was a fifth element. 47
(The Pythagorean construes his hot ether as conferring life and
even reason, and is apparently little preoccupied by the place of
ordinary, destructive, fire in this scheme.)
3.2. Theological Cosmology and Physiology (2): On Fleshes
The theological cosmology of De philosophia and the 'Pythagor-
ean Notebooks' bring to mind yet another treatise elaborating a
very similar doctrine. This is the pseudo-Hippocratic On Fleshes
+I They were very briefly noted by Festugiere, 'Les "Memoires pythagoriques" "
24 f., 29 ff., but not pursued, presumably because Festugiere took the 'Notebooks'
to be Hellenistic.
-15 The similarities between the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' and Diogenes' views
are also worth noting. The 'Notebooks' identify the hottest form of ether with the
uppermost element, the 'cold ether' with air, and the 'thick ether' with water and
the moist in general. This is a monism from which, however, the earth seems to
be exdud~d, perhaps because it was thought that the sun's vivifying rays cannot
penetrate It. (all Fleshes (§ 3.2 below) avoids precisely this difficulty by taking the
Ihermon to have remained behind ill the earth.) To some extent, therefore, the
Pythagorean's ether parallels Diogenes' air: both hold that the substance of soul
(or the intellective soul) is identical with the encompassing air but hotter than it
and yet colder than the same substance in the vicinity of the sun. Both, moreover,
a9ree that this .s1;lbstance is divine. It is significant, lastly, that although they
differ on the ongm of semen in the body, they hold similar views on its nature:
ac.cording. t~ the Pythagorean it !;ontains a hot vapour (almos), according to
DlOgenes It IS aerated, or frothy, and warm (Cf. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield The
Presocratic Philosophers, 450--1). Aristotle, we know, holds very similar views
(GA 2.2).
4(, For further evidence concerning the theory of the divine lIither cf. Kirk, Raven,
and Sch~field, The Presocratic Philosophers, 199 n. 1; Guthrie (History of Greek PId-
losophy, I. 270 H., 466) remarks that until a little before Aristotle, ailher and fire
were not c1eaxly separated. Neither of the two works discusses the hot ether of
the 'Notebooks'.
47 Hahm, 'The Fifth Element', 63.
96 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
(Peri Sarkon), dating from the end of the fifth century.48 Here too
the posited Urstoffis the divine, immortal, and omniscient thermon
which the author again identifies with what 'the ancients had
called aither' (2. 1).49 Of this thermon the three basic stuffs of the
world ensued through an initial separation: the upper, purest,
ether; the colder and dry earth; and, in the mean position, the air
which is warm and moist (2. 1_2).50
The main thrust of On Fleshes is to give an account of how the
human body is produced through the action of the thermon on
matter, of which it posits two kinds: fat (liparon) and glutinous
(kollodes). The first is fairly dry, and so the action of the heat
scorches it, thus producing hard bodily parts such as bones. When
the heat acts on the second kind of matter, elastic substances,
notably membranes, are formed: roughly, the heat dissolves the
cold inhering in the glutinous substance and a membrane is
formed around it, thus producing the hollow parts (3). On Fleshes
goes in detail over the formation of the main bodily parts, nota-
bly the heart, blood-vessels, lungs, liver, spleen, joints, nails, teeth,
and hair. (A somewhat more detailed account of the processes
involved is given below, IV § 2.3.)
On Fleshes thus goes further than the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
in extending the theological thermon-cosmology into the field of
physiology. In contradistinction to the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
and De philosophia, On Fleshes is silent on soul and intellect, but
it stands to reason that its doctrine was close to theirs. s1 The ps.-
Hippocratic work thus sheds further light on the broad theoretical
tradition to which belong also the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' and
De philosophia.
On Fleshes is significant for our enquiry for yet another im-
portant reason. The thermon of On Fleshes takes over some of the
functions Aristotle (in the treatises) subsumes under the term
48 Cf. Deichgriiber, Hippokmtes, abe,. Enislehllllg lind Alljball, 27; Diller, [review
of the above], 376 f.; Joly, Hippocmte, Des CIlaires, 182 f. I use the traditional Eng-
lish title of the treatise. A good review of the bibliography is given in Spoerri,
'L' Anthropogonie'.
49 In what follows, numbers in parentheses indicate the chapter and paragraph
of all Fleshes; I have used Deichgriiber's and Joly's editions and translations.
50 That the number of the elements is three (the fourth at the end of chapter
2 being a late interpolation) has been convincingly argued by Diller; d. his [re-
view], p. 372; id., 'Philosophiegeschichtliche Stellung', 372.
51 Rusche infers from indirect evidence that On Fleshes too takes the thermon to
be 'Lebens- und Seelenkraft' (BIIII, Leben fwd Seele, 170-1).
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 97
'nutritive soul', namely informing matter. True, once the author
of On Fleslles has proclaimed the divinity and intelligence of the
thermon in the first chapter, he does not mention them again
explicitly in the sequel. He goes after his biological (anthro-
pogenic) business and invokes the thermon only in its capacity to
heat. None the less, underlying the entire account is a construal
of the thermon not only qua (in Aristotelian terms) efficient cause,
but as a formative power too. It has indeed often been pointed
out, notably by Diller,52 that On Fleshes in fact substitutes the
thermon for Diogenes' air: both share the fundamental and cru-
cial postulate that the single basic stuff of the world is a divine,
immortal substance possessing perception and intelligence. Now
this is precisely the premiss on which Diogenes' teleology is
founded, i.e. the belief that reason in nature, being immanent to
the single Urelement, is the cause of all order and beauty.53 It
would thus seem that On Fleshes too construes the thermon as
both heating and informing; the treatise elaborates on the 'phys-
ical' aspect, but its first chapter intimates that the heat giving rise
to the parts of the human body is heat endowed with intelligence
and therefore capable of being formative. On this interpretation,
the thermon of all Fleshes and Aristotle's vital heat-which, we
saw, is construed as at once a moving and an informing power-
emerge as very close indeed.
4. CONCLUSION: ETHER, HEAT, AND SOUL FROM
THE DE PHILOSOPHIA TO ARISTOTLE'S
BIOLOGICAL TREATISES
4.1. Motifs From Presocratic Heat-Theologies in Aristotle's
Psycho-Physiology
Diogenes of Apollonia, all Fleshes, the 'Pythagorean Notebooks',
and De philosophia, we may conclude, gravitate about one and
52 Diller, [review], 376; 'Philosophiegeschichtliche Stellung', 372, 375; d. also
Theiler, Zur Gescltichle, 19; Deichgriiber, Hippokrates iiber ElIlslellllllg lind Alljball,
notably 27, 31, 41.
53 Cf. Theiler, Zlir Gesc/lichte, 1, 35; Diller, 'Philosophiegeschichtliche Stellung',
369. Laks, Diogelle d'Apol/onie (pp. xxvii f., xxxix f., 250 ff.), has recently criticized
Theiler's claims on Diogenes' teleology, but the point of issue there is the purported
'anthropocentric component' (p. 254) in Diogenes' thought, i.e. where Diogenes'
teleology goes beyond Anaxagoras (p. 252), and this does not concern us.
 98 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
the same doctrine. The main feature of this doctrine is that it is
monist and ascribes the life and cognition which accrue to
sublunaries, specifically to man, to the fact that they partake of
the hottest and purest, celestial and divine, form of matter: this,
let it be m~ntioned in passing, is obviously a Heraclitean legacy,
for Herachtus too had taken man's soul to be a spark of the fiery
substance of the stars.54 This general cosmology integrates de-
tailed physiological accounts in which the heat is ascribed the
central role. O~ this heat-centred, theologically and cosmologically
founded phYSiOlogy we find definite traces in Aristotle's biolo-
gical treatises. In fact, Aristotle's notion of vital heat now ap-
pears as a 'transposition' of this theological, biological cum noetical
doctrine-a translation into physiological terms of tenets which
have their .origin in A~istotle's early theological cosmology. In
sho~t: the vital he~t of.A.nstotle's biological treatises is a de-theologized
versIOn of the earlIer dlvme thermon. This insight allows us to make
s:nse of certai.n features of his biology, notably of his theory of
VItal heat, which otherwise appear as incomprehensible or gra-
tuitous suppositions.
Most important, the very thrust of Aristotle's attempt to ac-
count for soul-functions in terms of vital heat now appears as a
legacy from tradition. This applies both to the lower (nutritive)
soul-functions and to the higher ones related to perception and
thought. Aristotle's notion of the formative power of vital heat,
~o which are due the material persistence of individual compos-
Ite substances and the eternal persistence of species-i.e. all the
fort~s which matter .takes on and preserves in the world of gen-
er~tiOn and ~orrufhon-emerges as being in direct continuity
WIth the earher Vlew. Consequently, Aristotle's view that ani-
mals partake of the divine by virtue of their vital heat which
allows them to procreate and thus eternalize the species (above
I § 1.3.1) and that, indeed, all good in the material world is pro-
duced through the agency of vital heat (1 § 1.3.3) now appears as
the old, theological, doctrine in new, 'desacralized' clothes. Sim-
ilarly, Aristotle's construal of vital heat as an upward-travelling
substance and the fact that Aristotle accounts for all soul-
54 Ct. e.g. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, Presocratic Philosophers, 204. The depend-
e,n~e on Heraclitu~ of the 'Pythag?rean Notebooks' has been stressed by Wellmann
( Eme pythagorelsche Urkunde), that of Diogenes and On Fleshes by Diller
(,Philosophiegeschichtliche Stellung').
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 99
capacities (the intellect alone excepted) in terms of vital heat and
its purity, which is taken to depend on the distance from the
earth-all these elements which are not, or only poorly, grounded
within Aristotle's biology, now become perfectly intelligible as
vestiges of an earlier doctrine.
Specifically, we now understand, as already noticed (§ 2), that
Aristotle's conception of the relation between man's intelligence,
upright position, and divinity, originally had a further dimen-
sion: in the early doctrine, the thermon in man, because it was the
noetic substance which was also divine and celestial, was the
cause of the unique concomitance in man of being at once erect
and intelligent and divine. Aristotle's biological treatises in a
way preserve this thesis, but deprive it both of its most funda-
mental part and of an adequate foundation: precisely that part of
man's intelligence by which he excels over animals and is divine
could not be grounded in physiology, so that its concomitance
with the upright position could not anymore be explained. Thus
the similarities between Aristotle and his Presocratic predeces-
sors concerning cognition and man's relation to the cosmos which
we have noticed earlier (§ 1.2) are the consequences of an origin-
ally shared theory.
Our interpretation of De philosophia has some further upshots
for an understanding of Aristotle's biology. Consider the follow-
ing small, albeit consequential, presupposition on which Aristo-
tle occasionally draws. Aristotle takes plants to derive their vital
heat from the earth, which thus fulfils for them the function of
the stomach: it concocts nourishment for them by virtue of its
'internal fire'.55 This assumption is significant, for it alone allows
Aristotle to account physiologically for the stance-which is cru-
cial to his psychology-that plants have a nutritive soul, although
they obviously have no integrated source of vital heat. But how
can earth-the element which is dry and cold-have not only
heat but even vital heat, or at least heat capable of concocting
nourishment so well that plants produce no residue? Aristotle,
as far as I see, does not address the problem. Now the notion
that the earth contains heat, indeed remains of the divine heat,
is one of the fundamental assumptions of On Fleshes: according
to this treatise, indeed, it is precisely this heat in the earth that
55 Cf. the Appendix to Ch. 1.
 100 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
produces the biological formative processes. 56 Quite obviously,
we get a simple and straightforward explanatioll for Aristotle's
view that the earth possesses heat if we assume that his notion
of vital heat derives from his earlier heat cosmology which shared
many tenets with that of On Fleshes. This is, as it were, an irre-
ducible remnant of the earlier doctrine.
By the same token, let us now notice that among the charac-
teristic ideas Aristotle picked up from On Fleshes is the account
of the formation of the elastic parts: Aristotle states that 'all bodies
depend on something glutinous to hold them together; (GA 2. 3,
737b2), his term, glisc/zros, being one which occurs in On Fleshes
(5. 1) as a synonym for kollodes. Specifically, it is the sinew 'which
holds the parts of animals together' (737 b4). He also argues, again
in conformity with On Fleshes, that sinews, skin, blood-vessels
and 'all that class of substances' are glutinous, differing only by
'the more or the less' (737b4 f.; d. also 2.6, 743b5 ff.).57 Beyond the
mere dependence of Aristotle on On Fleshes, we should note that
the elastic parts are here taken to assume physically one of the
roles of the nutritive soul, namely to hold together the body.
Now we have indeed observed above that Aristotle's attempt to
account physiologically for all the functions of the nutritive soul
was flawed: the account of material persistence in terms of vital
heat applies to homoeomerous substances only and not to
anhomoeomerous parts or to entire living beings (1 §§ 1.3.2 and
1.3.3). We have now corne across what may be at least a part of
Aristotle's answer to this difficulty. 'All bodies depend on some-
thing glutinous to hold them together': that part of the role which
the psychological theory ascribes to the nutritive soul for which
there is no equivalent account in terms of vital heat is here attrib-
uted to the glutinous parts. Aristotle, it seems, seeks to extend
the physiological account of the persistence of homoeomerous
parts to encompass anhomoeomerous substances too and thus
dispose of a physiological theory whose scope equals that of the
psychological theory.58 The additional piece of the theory draws
5{; O~l l::leshes discusses ~nly the formation of man, not that of animals or plants.
But thiS IS of secondary Importance, because I do not claim that Aristotle de-
pended on that treatise alone: my contention is rather that he shared some of the
ideas underlying a tradition of which 011 Fleshes forms a part.
57 It is generally agreed that the passage is misplaced but none the less genuine.
51! This parallelism between the explanatory roles of vital heat and the (nutri-
tive) soul is highlighted by the following consideration. ThernlOll is a successor-
Tile Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 101
on the notion of glutinous parts, those which are at the focus of
On Fleshes (which Aristotle follows). This account, we may note,
is vitiated, however: according to Aristotle, although the sinews
have their arche in the heart (as they should if they are to assume
a soul-function; d. FA 3. 4, 666 b 14 ff.), they do not form a con-
tinuous system, and thus cannot be taken to hold together the
entire body (HA 3. 5, 515°27-33). (This flaw in the account may
explain why it was not given more prominence.) We will corne
back to the congenial chemical properties of glutinous stuffs and
to their possible place within Aristotle's psycho-physiology in
Chapter IV (§ 2).
Scholars have repeatedly noticed further resemblances in spe-
cific points of biological theory between Aristotle and Diogenes/9
the 'Pythagorean Notebooks',6° and On Fleshes. 61 These, too, should
be seen as resulting from the common theoretical core which
they shared.
4.2. Redistributing the Roles: From the Hot Ether to 'First Body',
Vital Heat, and Fire
Aristotle's doctrine of vital heat as we have it in the biological
treatises-I have argued-has its roots in the theological cosmo-
logy of De philosophia. There Aristotle expounded a theory
concept of Diogenes' air, itself a synthesis of Anaximenes' air and Heraclitus' fire
(Diller, 'Philosophiegeschichtliche Stellung', 370). Now Anaximenes' air, which is
soul, is taken to 'hold together' the body (Guthrie, Histon) of Greek Philosophy, i.
131 f.; but d. also Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, Presocralic Philosophers, 158 ff.).
Aristotle's thermoll thus takes over this role of air and it does so either directly
(for the homoeomerous parts) or indirectly, by forming glutinous substances
which bind together the different homoeomerous parts. An enigmatic phrase of
the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' (31) states that the blood-vessels and the sinews are
'the bounds of soul': perhaps that may be taken to establish a direct link between
soul and the glutinous parts. I come back to this idea below, III § 2.4.
59 Cf. e.g. Theiler, Zur Geschicllte, 25 ff.
60 Wellmann, 'Eine pythagoreische Urkunde'; Festugit?re, 'Les "Memoires
pythagoriques" '.
61 Many points of similarity have been collected in Byl, Recherches. The most
striking are: the central position of the heart as the hottest part of the body, which
in fact supplies the heat forming the other parts; the cold nature of the brain; the
assodation of the fat with the hot; the theory of pneuma (where there are differ-
ences though); the idea that the solidification of blood is due to its fibres. These
similarities are in fact so close that some authors have concluded that 011 Fleshes
is posterior to Aristotle; for references and critidsm d. Joly, Hippocrate, Des Chaires,
183.
102 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat
postulating that the fourth and uppermost element is a hot and
divine substance which is also the substance of the reasonable,
immortal, part of human soul. The strength of the interpretation
lies in the fact that it is not based on the fragments alone, but
suggests that De philosoplzia provides the 'primitive doctrine' out
of which grew the theory of the vital heat recoverable from the
treatises.
This conclusion raises highly interesting questions concerning
Aristotle's intellectual evolution. These will not be con~idered
here/2 where we will consider only the emergence of the final
ether hypothesis and its relation to Aristotle's biology. Let us, for
the sake of convenience, call the uppermost substance of the
four-element cosmology in De philosophia 'ether4', and Aristotle's
'first body' as introduced in De caelo 1-2, the later fifth element,
'ethers'. It seems plausible to think that the ethers theory grew
out of the cosmology of De philosophia through a redistribution of
the functions and attributes of ether4 between three entities: the
new sublunar element fire, the supralunar ethers, and the vital
heat. The fire received the quality 'hot' and the rectilinear up-
ward natural motion, ethers the divinity 63 and the newly intro-
duced circular natural motion. 64 The remaining essential capacities
of ether4-namely to bring to effect soul-functions: life and cog-
nition-were taken over by the vital heat.
Consider now the consequences for physiology of this new
cosmology. Ethers had none of the qualities of the sublunar four
62 Let me just mention one tiny point, directly related to the n?tion ?f vit~
heat: one may wonder whether the apparent inconsequence of Anstotle s POSI-
tion on fire-animals-whose existence he at times denies, at times affirms-may
not be related to the shift in the meaning of 'fire'. Cf. Jaeger, Aristotle, 144 ff. and
GA 3. 11, 761~16 ff. with Peck's note ad loc (Aristotle, GA, 352-3 n.a).
63 The meaning of 'divine' shifted slightly, though; d. Guthrie's remark in 'The
Development of Aristotle's Theology', 169; see also Lloyd, Polarity, 258-61.
6-1 This suggestion had already been made by Boyance ('Note sur l'ether~, 206):
'Cette evolution [d' Aristote] se manifeste precisement ... dans cette question de
la chaleur. Aristote a ete amene en fait a refuser explicitement la chaleur a I'ether,
et tout se passe comme si, ayant dans sa jeunes5e adoplE! une doctrine
pythagorisante encore proche de ses origines populaires, il a ete conduit par Ie
progres de sa reflexion a eIiminer un element juge ilIogique.' Wh~ther or not the
hypothesis of a circular natural motion was introduced immedIately upon the
invention of ethers is another question. It is not impossible that at first ethers ~as
only a qualityless heavenly substance (introduced so as to preserve the equilib-
rium of the elements-d. below), with the stars still moving voluntarily: Aristo-
tle's various views on the causes of the circular motions of the heavenly bodies
is a complex and much discussed topic into which we need not enter here.
The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 103
elements and specifically it was not hot. This indeed presumably
is one of the reasons that induced Aristotle to introduce the new
concept in the first place. The astronomical dimensions as (re-
cently) established by 'mathematical science', he reasons, make it
a 'childish opinion' to suppose that the stars and the matter
surrounding them are pure fire: 'If the intervals between the
bodies were full of fire and the bodies also composed of fire each
of the other elements would long ago have disappeared' (Meteor.
1. 3, 339b30-340a2).65 Consequently, henceforth only the fourth
sub lunar element, fire, was held to be warm, but not the heavenly,
quality less, ethers. The latter was held neither to act on, nor to
suffer from, the other four elements: as a 'stranger to generation
and destruction'66 it provided the sublunar world with the nec-
essary condition for its eternal existence (above, I § 1.1.2).
In this context an explanation may be proposed for the oft-
noted but never explained, highly puzzling fact that Aristotle
consistently avoided calling his 'first body' (ethers) by the tradi-
tional name aither. Now it seems probable that in De philosophia
Aristotle called the uppermost divine element alternatively aither
and thermon, precisely as did the other two heat-theological
cosmologies we have considered. The hypothesis that in De
philosophia Aristotle identified the two notions-as in the phrase
'ardorem, qui aether nominetur'67-explains both why we find
the term aither so consistently used in the doxographical reports
and why on occasion the term caeli ardor is used as an equiva-
lent,68 Now this hypothesis also provides a natural and plausible
65 Cf. Jaeger, Aristotle, 138. It may be thought that this argument holds only if
the fire is construed as destructive, so that it could not possibly have been framed
within the cosmology of De philosophia as interpreted here. Not so. Within De
philosophia, the argument would imply that the entire world would long ago have
come to consist of the divine hot substance, with all the living beings (in fact, all
substances would be alive) enjoying the keenest perception and intelligence in
addition to immortality. It is only too obvious that this is not quite the case. The
argument of course depends on the stance that the world has an infinite past, a
stance already propounded in De philosophia.
66 Solmsen, Aristotle's System, 289.
67 Cicero, De lIatura deorllm 1. 14. 37; quoted after Jaeger, Aristotle, 139 n. 1.
66 Hahm indeed has no explanation to offer as to why 'ether' should be used
wherever on his account De pltilosop/!ia had 'fire' or 'heat'. He goes as far as to
write that 'We could, if we like, even imagine that Aristotle himself called this
fire "ether'" (' The Fifth Element', 62). For want of a confirmation of this hunch,
Hahm concentrated his attention on the nllmber of the elements, ignoring the
terminological problem. As we will immediately see, the author of the ps.-
Hippocratic treatise 011 Fleshes explains that his divine thermoll is 'what the an-
cients called aither'.
 104 The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat The Roots of Aristotle's Vital Heat 105
explanation for the fact that subsequently, in the acroamatic trea- as an upward-travelling substance and as an agent of life and
tises, Aristotle avoided the use of the term aither: having used thought be maintained: the former abode of the thermon was
this term in the De philosophia period, its continued use to desig- now occupied by a new tenant who was a stranger to everything
nate a new and entirely different (one is tempted to say: incom- going on under the moon. Thus if one wished to continue to
mensurable) entity, which yet was celestial and divine as the hold that the thermon travels up, that it is purer when higher, or
former, was, he perceived, bound to create confusion. This, I that the gradient of the heat's purity founds the scale of being,
suggest, is why Aristotle used fairly cumbersome locutions in- one had to reinterpret these tenets in a new idiom, to ground
stead of the otherwise convenient and received name. 69 them in a new theoretical framework. Drawing on, or at least
The introduction of ethers entailed a decisive and consequen- inspired by, earlier Presocratic and medical theories, Aristotle
tial rupture of the universe. The sublunar and the supralunar succeeded in this remarkably well. Yet, as we saw, the notion of
realms were now sharply cut off from one another. Indeed, the thermon and the explanations founded on it do not smoothly
situation was nothing less than paradoxical: the primary and integrate within Aristotle's mature physics and metaphysics. 71
pervasive fact that the heat of the sun is indispensable for life, To bring them closer together is one of the objectives of Aris-
itself at the origin of all the myths and theories postulating heat totle's theory of connate pneuma. To this we now turn.
or a hot substance (e.g. Diogenes' air) as an arche-and this in- 71 The difficulty to reconcile the ether, hypothesis with the physiological no-
cludes most Presocratic theories after Heraclitus-now became a tion of Iilml/oll may very well have been one of the reasons why that hypothesis
rather uncomfortable anomaly of physical theory. Since ethers was was not very widely accepted, even within the Lyceum. Cf. Longrigg, 'Element-
ary Physics', 219 ff.
not hot, Aristotle accounted for the sun's warming effect 'me-
chanically' by two fairly ad hoc hypotheses (DC 2.7; Meteor. 1. 3,
341 b12 ff.), which not only were 'both almost equally lame'/o but,
above all, left unexplained why the heat thus produced should
have the sun's vivifying effects observed e.g. in 'spontaneous'
generation (above, I § 1.2.2 and below, III § 2.2.2).
It is clear, then, that the theoretical fabric founded on the early
notion of thermon could not be upheld by Aristotle after the in-
troduction of ethers. The entire coherent doctrine of De philosophia
-theology, noetics, psychology, physiology-founded as it was
on the notion of a universal thermon as a divine, graded, Urelement,
lost its foundation: the Presocratic-type explanations of life and
thought could not survive the separation of the cosmos into two
disconnected realms. Specifically, the crucial premiss of the theory
of soul-the postulate concerning the 'divine in us', i.e. the iden-
tity of the souls' and the stars' substance-had to be given up.
(This, as we will shortly see [III § 2.11, is the reason why, not-
withstanding the identity of some of their functions, vital heat,
or pneuma, on the one hand, and the celestial substance on the
other are merely analogous.) Nor could the early theory of thermon
69 Hahm abstractly suggests a similar explanation; 'The Fifth Element', 62.
70 Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 214; d. also Moraux, 'Quinta essentia', 1204-
5, and Thorp, 'The Luminousness of the Quintessence'.

III
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
1. ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF CONNATE PNEI.1MA:
DESIDERATA FOR AN INTERPRETATION
The great intrinsic interest of Aristotle's theory of connate pneuma!
contrasts with the slightness of the indications Aristotle gives us
of its theoretical contents. Indeed, since Werner Jaeger's seminal
paper of 1913 which drew attention to the existence of an Aris-
totelian theory of pneuma, 2 discussion of this doctrine has been
fairly intensive yet incondusive. 3 In what follows I wish to sug-
gest a new way of looking at Aristotle's concept of pneuma; in a
further move I will show how Aristotle's theory of connate pneuma
bears on the problems raised in Chapter 1.
The most important context for the understanding of the role
Aristotle attributes to connate pneuma is his theory of animal
generation. Aristotle, we already noted, describes sexual
I Long after this book was completed, I was pleased to read Rist's report that
'The late Dr A. L. Peck had assured me ... that, if I could begin to understand
plleuma, I should begin to understand Aristotle' (Rist, Aristotle's Milld, p. xvii).
2 Jaeger, 'Das Pneuma im Lykeion'. Jaeger's paper was preceded by Duprat,
'La Theorie du pllel/ma chez Aristote', to which Jaeger fails to refer; since it is
improbable that Jaeger was unaware of this work, it appears that he considered
it, perhaps not without reason, as not worth a mention. See also n. 30 below, on
19th-cent. discussions of Aristotle's theory of plleuma.
3 Here is a partial list of work subsequent upon Jaeger's: Rusche, Blut Lebell
ulld See/e, 188-250; Peck, ' Appendix B' in his Aristotle, GA, 576-93; Wiersma, 'Die
aristoteJische Lehre vom Pneuma'; Ross, Aristotle, Paroa Naturalia, 39 if.; Solmsen,
'The Vital Heat'; id., 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 174 ff.;
During, Aristote/es, 549 ff.; Reiche, Empedoc/es' Mix/ure; Moraux, 'Quinta essentia',
1205 ff.; Preus, 'Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's De gelleratiolle allimalium';
id., Science alld Philosophy ill Aristotle's Biological Works, 86 ff.; Balme, Aristotle's PA
I, 158-64; Clark, Aristotle's Mall, 202-5; Verbeke, 'Doctrine du pneuma et
entehkhisme chez Aristote'; Nussbaum, 'The sUlllplllltOIl p"ellllla', in her Aristo-
tle's MA, 143-64.; Webb, 'Bodily Structure and Psychic Faculties'; Rist, Aristotle's
Milld, passim (interested mainly in chronological, not substantive, questions);
Althoff, 'Die Rolle des Pneumas bei Aristoteles und in der Stoa', in his Warm, kalt,
fIiissig lind leI/chi bei Aristoteies, 283-91.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 107
generation as brought about by the action of the male semen on
the menstrual fluid, both of which are 'residues' resulting from
the concoction of blood and differing only in degree of concoc-
tion: the male being warmer than the female, semen results from
concoction carried farther than that of the menses. 4 This physio-
logical theory of the origin of menses and semen confronts
Aristotle's theory of generation with the following problem.
Fecundation results in a 'fetation' (kuema) which soon has its
own nutritive soul inasmuch as it is already capable of drawing
to itself and assimilating nourishment (GA 2. 1, 73SalS, 22; 2, 3,
736a32 if., 736hl1 ff.). Whence the crucial question: How can the
action of one residue (semen) on another (menses) give rise to an
entity possessing a nutritive (later also a perceptive and eventu-
ally an intellective) soul?5
It is at this juncture that the concept of pneuma enters the scene
in the follOWing often-quoted passage:
Now so far as we can see, the faculty of soul of every kind has to do
with some physical substance which is different from the so-called 'ele-
ments' and more divine than they are; and as the varieties of soul differ
from one another in the scale of value, so do the various substances
concerned with them differ in their nature. In all cases the semen con-
tains within itself that which causes it to be fertile-what is known as
'hot' substance, which is not fire nor any similar substance, but the
pneuma which is enclosed within the semen or foam-like stuff, and the
natural substance which is in the pneuma; and this substance is analo-
gous to the element which belongs to the stars. That is why fire does not
generate any animal ... whereas the heat of the sun does effect genera-
tion, and so does the heat of animals ... (GA 2. 3, 736 b30 ff.)
Essentially two, almost diametrically opposed, interpretations
of the theory to which Aristotle alludes in this passage have been
put forward. Both, I believe, are wrong. Looking at their respect-
ive strengths and weaknesses will help us, I hope, to get a better
inSight into the problem.
Friedrich Solmsen6 observes that in 'establishing a dose con-
nection between the vital heat, the pneuma, and the element
4 Lesky, Die Zellgllllgs- lind Vererbllllgs/elr/'e/I, 1344 ff.; Peck, 'Introduction' to his
An'stotle, GA, Ixiii ff.
o For good analyses of the problem d. Moraux, 'A propos du 1I0llS thllrathen';
Balme, Aristotle's PA 1, 158-60.
6 For what follows d. Solmsen, 'The Vital Heat'.
108 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
of the stars, the so-called aether', this passage is unique in the
Aristotelian corpus. Aristotle, he thinks, announces here a new
discovery, which is his answer to the problem described above:
in Aristotle's scheme, the transmission of soul-functions from
parent to offspring cannot be effectuated by the sperma which,
being '(only) a residue of the nourishment', is 'surely not a suit-
able vehicle for such functions'. Confronted with this' agonising
predicament', Solmsen suggests, Aristotle was forced to a 'fresh
start' involving the' abandoning of some of the premises so far
used'. 'Our section', Solmsen maintains, which 'treats;the sperma
not as residue of nourishment but as including a physis compar-
able to "the element of the stars", embodies Aristotle's final and
satisfactory solution.' Specifically, since 'none of the elements can
be regarded as sublime enough' to communicate soul-functions
from the sire to the offspring, 'something more theion is needed',
namely the pneuma.
This interpretation has several decisive weaknesses. For one
thing, as Solmsen himself points out, it attributes to Aristotle a
theory which is in no way connected to any other Aristotelian
doctrine. On Solmsen's interpretation, Aristotle's pneuma is
really a deus ex machina which comes in, does its explanatory job,
and leaves the stage never to reappear again.7 More important,
Solmsen does not explain whence the assumption that the semen
contains a pneuma which is 'analogous to the element of the stars'
at all derives its purported explanatory power: why does the
premiss that there is 'something theion' in the semen explain how
the faculties of soul are transmitted? Indeed, Solmsen himself
notes-although he does not draw from it any consequences-
that 'the antecedent inquiry into the nature of the sperma has
found no evidence in it of substances other than water and air'.
Solmsen's interpretation, let us lastly note, treats the generative
pneuma as a case apart and does not connect it to the pneuma's
other roles: simply saying that if it participates in bringing about
perception and locomotion 'it may logically playa part' also in
7 Unless we assume that Aristotle wrote this passage on his last day, it is
difficult to concur with Solmsen when he writes: 'that it is his final word is also
suggested by the fact that no other section of our Book "follows up" the ideas
here put forward or operates on the level of the new discovery:
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 109
generation surely does not bring us close to a unified theory as
we expect it from Aristotle.
David M. Balme8 believes that in the above passage Aristotle
did not wish to announce any spectacular new discovery and
that it must be interpreted in the context of the rest of Aristotle's
doctrines. Unlike Solmsen, he assumes that pneuma is formed in
the body through the heat's action on moisture: the pneuma is not
an additional, gratuitous entity, but a natural result of the body's
functioning. Now Balme thinks, and this is one of the essential
features of his interpretation of Aristotle's biology, that for Aris-
totle all heat is essentially the same: he recognizes that 'the chief
factor that he [Aristotle] invokes to explain biological phenom-
ena is "vital heat"', but maintains that 'he does not distinguish
[it] from the action of fire (one of the ordinary four elements)
except when it is associated with pneuma in effecting reproduc-
tion'. 9 Indeed, he argues, for most purposes animal heat is
I
indistinguishable from the warmth of fire .... Since nature is con-
tinuous from non-living to living ... animal heat need not be an
altogether different element from other heat, nor generative heat
from the rest of animal heat. tlO It follows that generative heat has
nothing special about it, except that it is a purer, presumably the
purest, kind of fire. This, Balme holds, is the only reason why
Aristotle says that the generative heat 'has to do with some
physical substance which is different from the so-called "ele-
ments" and more divine than they' and that the heat lis not fire
nor any similar substance': a difference of quantity has become
a difference of quality. Indeed, he reasons, '[t]he very use of the
comparative "diviner" excludes a definite boundary between
divine and non-divine' and the comparison implies nothing more
than the affirmation that the heat in question is 'less grossly
material, purer, superior'Y
Balme's interpretation has the merit of taking semen to be what
it is, here and everywhere else, in Aristotle's biological thinking:
a residue resulting from several consecutive concoctions of the
nourishment and which, therefore, is imbued with vital heat to
8 For what follows, d. Bahne, Aristotle's FA I, 160-4.
9 Ibid. 71 (quoted above, I § 1.2.1).
10 Ibid. 164. 11 Ibid. 163.
 110 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
a particularly great extent. Balme thus takes full account of the
capital fact that (in Solmsen's words) 'reproduction is in Arist-
otle's scheme a sideline, as it Were, of nutrition'. (As we saw,
Solmsen let go this insight in order to establish a unique role
for pneuma, which would account for Aristotle's viewing it as
analogous to the aither.) Unlike Solmsen, therefore, he largely
integrates Aristotle's theory of pneuma within the rest of Aristo-
tie's physiological theory.
Yet Balme's interpretation seems to me equally unac~eptable.
From the perspective which I have developed all along the last
two chapters, Balme's principled fault obviously resides in his
failure to realize that for Aristotle vital heat and ordinary fire are
very different things: the former is intrinsically formative by its
very nature, whereas the latter becomes formative only when the
appropriate movements are supplied 'by us'. Indeed, to sustain
his interpretation, Balme disregards Aristotle's explicit statements
that 'the heat which is in animals is not fire and does not get its
origin or principle from fire' (GA 3. 3, 737a6 f.) and that the heat
in the semen 'is not fire nor any similar substance' (736b35): his
suggestion that these statements reflect nothing more than an
observation on the difference in the degree of purity and that it
is only in the present context that Aristotle 'finds these more
precise distinctions necessary',12 is unconvincing (in the text there
is no suggestion of a continuity). Moreover, although generative
heat certainly is purer than physical fire as encountered in na-
ture, why should it be held to be purer than the element fire?
Again, Aristotle's stance that not only semen, but also 'any other
natural residue which there may be has within it a principle of
life' (GA 2. 3, 737a5 f.), as shown by 'spontaneous' generation
from putrefying matter, implies that there is continuity within
vital heat, but not between vital heat and all other types of heat
(except that of the sun) which are incapable of generating ani-
mals. Also the analogy statement-which so impressed Solmsen-
seems to have more to it than a mere observation concerning the
purity shared by generative heat and the celestial matter. 13
12 Balme, Aristotle's PA I, 164.
13 Balme in fact explains away the analogy (and with it the 'diviner' character
of generative heat). He writes: 'The generative heat is not identified with ai/her:
if they are analogous, they must be different. In calling the pneuma (or the heat
within it) divine, Aristotle need not imply a connection with the divine stars or
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 111
A further crucial weakness of Balme's view is that it does not
attribute any role to the pneuma. But why, we must ask, did
Aristotle introduce this concept? Surely he did not think of the
presence of pneuma as just an accidental unimportant epiphe-
nomenon of the working of heat; as we will see, he invokes the
pneuma in other physiological explanations, and says that prob-
ably nature 'makes the majority of her productions by means of
pneuma used as an instrument' (GA 5. 8, 789b9 f.). What, then,
distinguishes the roles of (generative) heat and of pneuma?
Solmsen's and Balme's accounts thus present inversely sym-
metrical weaknesses. Solmsen thinks vital (which is also genera-
tive) heat alone cannot effect the transmission of soul: he attributes
this function to pneuma and thus has a specific role for it, albeit
one which is entirely dissoc~ated from the rest of Aristotle's theory
and whose explanatory power remains in the dark. Balme pos-
tulates that the transmission of soul is effected by generative
heat which is (only) the purest fire: this interpretation attributes
to Aristotle a theory which is in continuity with the rest of his
physiology, but it takes no account of Aristotle's explicit state-
ments concerning the difference between fire and vital heat and
leaves no role for the pneuma. So1msen has a ready explanation
for the striking statement concerning the analogy between the
generative heat and the celestial element, but this is bought at
the price of dissociating the account of generation from the rest
of Aristotle's biology; Balme, by contrast, places the account of
generation in the context of Aristotle's biology, but because he
identifies fire with vital heat, he is driven to play down the sin-
gular analogy statement.
Many important and valuable insights on Aristotle's theory of
pneuma are contained in the interpretations of Beare, Rusche, Peck,
Verbeke, and Nussbaum, notably. Although I will follow them
on many individual points, it seems yet warranted to say that
none of them has succeeded in making sense of Aristotle's pro-
nouncements on pneuma as a global and comprehensive project;
these scholars have interpreted various parts of the theory, but
the unmoved mover. The very use of the comparative "diviner" excludes a defi-
nite boundary between divine and non-divine. He need only mean here what he
meant at 732'3 and often: less grossly material, purer, superior' (Aristotle, PAl,
163). Note that the nature of the analogy is not at all explained. Also the inter-
pretation of 'diviner' is not really convincing.
112 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
have not asked whether or how these bits and pieces coalesce
into a unified theoretical structure, nor what Aristotle intended
by introducing the notion of pneuma over and above that of vital
heat. 14
Positively, the above criticisms suggest, I believe, that an inter-
pretation of Aristotle's theory of pneuma should satisfy at least
the following two desiderata: (i) It should not attribute to Aris-
totle an ad hoc hypothesis never to be 'followed up again': Aris-
totle's theory of connate pneuma should preferably be shown to be
an integral part of, possibly a step forward of, Aristotle's general
physiology. (ii) It should make dear what specific explanatory
roles Aristotle assigned to vital heat operative in generation and
to connate pneuma.
Now scholars are in general agreement that Aristotle never
completely worked out the theory of connate pneuma. IS There-
fore, the task which faces the interpreter is to make a plausible
guess as to what Aristotle intended to accomplish by introducing
the concept of pneuma into his physiology: What, we should ask,
were the problems he sought to solve? What we have to try to
reconstruct is not so much a theory, as a research programme. This
point needs to be emphasized. The theory of pneuma has not
enjoyed a good reputation among students of Aristotle: some
refer to the connate pneuma as 'mysterious' or derisively as
'semi-miraculous', others describe the theory itself as obscure or
as making an unwarranted 'promotional effort'.16 Such judge-
ments seem to me to be both misguided and unfair. Even in
14 Peck is close to Balme in failing to distinguish clearly between the role of
vital heat and that of connate pneullla: at one point he seems to identify them,
elsewhere he says that 'plleullla contains soul-heal', or that 'pnellllla is closely
associated with heat': he too does not ask why Aristotle saw fit to introduce these
two distinct concepts. Cf. Peck, Aristotle, GA, Appendix B, 582, 586 and 583 re-
spectively; cf. also his 'The Connate PI/euma', and his lntroductio? to Ar!stotie,
HA, p. xxii (,sump/llltoll p,!euma, itself a pre-eminent and extra-ordmary kmd of
thermoll'). Similarly, DUring, Aristoteies, 552 holds that 'In GA ist das p"euma
offenbar identisch mit der angeborenen Lebenswiirme'.
I, e.g. Nussbaum, Aristotle's MA, 143, 161 f., 163; Solms:n: 'Gree~ Philosophy
and the Discovery of the Nerves', 174 (also n. 32), 177; Durmg, Arrstoteles, 343-
4; Furley, 'Theories of Respiration', 17. A tentative chronology for the elaboration
of the theory of p"eullla is proposed in Rist, Aristotle's Mind.
16 'Semimiraculous': Solmsen, 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the
Nerves', 178; 'mysterious': Nussbaum, Aristotle's MA, 143, 146, 156; 'somewhat
incredible promotional effort': ibid. 161; 'obscure': ibid. 157; DUring, Aristoteles,
552; and Lloyd, 'Aristotle's Psychology and Zoology', 153. For During, the pneuma
is 'dieses Chamaleon unter den Begriffen des Aristoteles'; Aristoteies, 550.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 113
contemporary science, new theories are accepted as 'paradigms'
which are expected to orient research not because of their reali-
zations, but rather on account of the promises they appear to
make: a scientist adopts a theory to guide his or her research
programme not because it already explains everything, but be-
cause it appears to open the perspective of solving what within
the older theory are persisting problems ('anomalies').17 My (ad-
mittedly charitable) interpretation of Aristotle's intentions in
introducing the notion of connate pneuma as a solution to impor-
tant problems he was facing will suggest that his research strat-
egy was a perfectly reasonable one. Aristotle, I will submit, was
no less ingenious in framing his ideas on connate pneuma than
when he elaborated any of his other doctrines.
The theory of pneuma we find in Aristotle's treatises was not
invented by Aristotle ex nihilo. As Jaeger has observed, Aristotle
appears to suppose that his audience is familiar with the theory
and this may be one reason why he does not take pains to de-
scribe it in any detaiJ.18 In fact, the notion of pneuma seems to
have been developed within medicine and indeed there are many
points of similarity between Aristotle's theory of pneuma and
that which can be gleaned from the fragments of some physi-
cians, such as, notably, Diodes of Carystos.1 9 In the present con-
text, however, my concern is to understand the theoretical contents
of Aristotle's doctrine of pneuma and specifically to see what role
it was to assume within Aristotle's global philosophy;20 historical
questions concerning Aristotle's indebtedness to medicine 21 will
17 This, of course, is one of the many important insights offered in Thomas S.
Kuhn's revolutionary, now classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutiolls (1962).
18 Jaeger, Diokles, 216.
19 Cf. Jaeger, Diokles, 213-18. The date of Diodes is under controversy: Jaeger
believed that Diodes must have been dependent on Aristotle, but Kudlien ar-
gued that his activity is to be set at the later period of Plato's life, so that his
views on plleuma reflect those that prevailed within medicine prior to Aristotle.
For a recent statement of the question cf. Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 228 n.
63.
20 Gerard Verbeke makes the following judicious remark on the relationship
between Aristotle's theory of pneuma and its medical counterparts: 'chez Aristote,
la tMorie du pneuma congenital est reprise dans Ie cadre d'une anthropologie
philosophique, ce qui n'est pas Ie cas chez les auteurs medicaux. C'est Ie merite
incontestable du Stagirite d'avoir repense la theorie du pneuma en fonction d'une
conception generale de l'homme' (Verbeke, 'Doctrine du pneuma', 207).
21 For a good overview of this question d. Rusche, Blut, Leben und Seele, 239-
50; also Solmsen 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 174 n. 32,
and Verbeke, 'Doctrine du pneuma', 208 n. 1.
 114 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
consequently be of relatively little importance and will not be
considered. By contrast, some aspects of the relationship of
Aristotle's theory of pneuma to the philosophical tradition will be
very briefly discussed in § 2.4.
2. THE CONNATE PNEUMA: ARISTOTLE'S RESEARCH
PROGRAMME
2.1. A Role for Vital Heat
In order to be in a position to assess the role Aristotle ascribed
to the connate pneuma, we must first appreciate correctly the
functions of what obviously is its cognate concept, namely vital
heat: the insight into the explanatory accomplishments of the
theory of vital heat will open the way to identifying its limita-
tions too, and thus allow us to identify the need which the theory
of pneuma was called upon to satisfy.
We discussed Aristotle's notion of vital heat in detail in Chap-
ter I (§ 1.2.2). We saw that Aristotle's view of the transmission of
soul from parent to offspring through the vital heat is a consist-
ent extension of his theory of the vital heat's role within already
constituted organisms. 22 Let me recapitulate the essential points.
In Aristotle's view, the vital heat is heat carrying specific move-
ments by virtue of which it is formative-its action on the
nutriment gradually transforms the latter into the various
homoeomerous substances, each having a specific logos. This
formative process goes on continuously within every living be-
ing. There is nothing particularly startling, then, in the statement
that when the vital heat transported by the semen-or, more
precisely, as we will soon see, by the pneuma in the semen-
comes to act on menstrual fluid (blood which to some extent has
already been informed), it informs it too. Aristotle, indeed, con-
strues the process as perfectly continuous. In the male, concoc-
tion by the vital heat produced in the heart gives rise, among
so many other homoeomerous substances charged with vital
heat, to semen; just so, when the vital heat carried by the semen
comes to act on menses, it informs them with its characteristic
22 On this point I thus concur with Balme, although our respective interpreta-
tions of the involved theories are very different.
SOIlI, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 115
movements-it produces in them a heart. Then everything con-
tinues autonomously, with the newly formed heart now produc-
ing vital heat (and, we will soon note, connate pneuma too),
capable of informing the surrounding foetal matter (the men-
strual fluid) into the various parts of the foetus: 'as soon as it has
been formed a thing makes itself grow. That is why one part is
formed first, not all the parts simultaneously. And the part which
must of necessity be formed first is the one which possesses the
principle of growth [namely the nutritive faculty] ... '. T~us, if
the heart is formed first ... we may suppose that It IS the
heart ... which supplies the principle' (GA 2. I, 735·14-29; cf.
also 2. 4, 740"19 ff.).21 In short, the action of the vital heat on the
female material produces the heart of the foetus, i.e. a new arche,
a new nutritive soul, comes to be. Aristotle says so expressly:
'Generation is the initial participation, mediated by warm sub-
stance [namely the (hermon carried by the semen], in the nutri-
tive soul, and life is the maintenance of this participation' (De
iuv. 24, 479"29 f.). That indeed there is nothing particularly ex-
ceptional about the semen's accomplishment is confirmed by
Aristotle's stance that generation is effected not only by the heat
of the animals operating through the semen: as we saw (§ 1.2.2),
'spontaneous' generation from putrefying matter indicates that,
in addition to semen, natural residues too have within them a
principle of life. On a more pedestrian level, by virtue of the vital
heat they contain, rennet and fig juice 'set' milk, a process resem-
bling that in which semen 'sets'the menstrual fluid. 24
But if indeed there is nothing new or remarkable in the pro-
cess of reproduction, why does Aristotle make the statement,
which so impressed Solmsen, that the vital heat is analogous to
the substance of the stars? While there obviously is something
exceptional about this statement (for which Balme fails to account),
23 This is also the view of Balme (Aristotle, PA I, 157): '{The semen's] activity
is to generate, that is to initiate such movements in the material as will trans.fo.rm
it into a growing embryo. It does so by causing the heart t~ be form~~, contammg
movements which wjJI continue the foetal development, I.e. contammg a source
of soul. From that moment the foetus has its own [nutritive] sou!.' Similarly
Moraux, 'A propos du IIOIiS tlll/ralllen', 265; Code, 'Soul as Efficient Cause', 55-
6. On the interplay of theory and empirical evidence iI~voJved in the tenet. that
the heart is the first part to be formed d. Lloyd, MagIC, Reasoll and Expene/lce,
215-16.
24 Cf. Peck, 'Appendix B' to his edition of GA, 585; above, I § 1.2.2.
 116 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
it is still not a new additional premiss of the analysis (as SomIs en
maintained). Its meaning is simply the following. Vital heat,
Aristotle says (GA 2. 3, 737·1 f.), is not ordinary heat-rather it is
formative heat, the embodiment of soul. Nor is ordinary heat
formative, let alone generative: ordinary fire' does not generate
any animal' (737'3). In fact, there is only one single source of
generative heat other than a living being, and this is the sun:
'spontaneous' generation makes manifest that the heat issuing
from the sun at times produces an effect comparab~e to that of
heat transported by semen (above, I § 1.2.2 and below, § 2.2.1).
Does this imply that the sun should be construed as a fountain-
head from which issues heat which is identical with the gener-
ative heat in the semen? In view of the identity of the capacities
of both kinds of heat this would be a plausible conclusion. This
indeed, as we saw, is precisely the conclusion that was drawn by
those Presocratic thinkers whose theological cosmologies posited
a hot ether as an arche; Aristotle himself, I argued, propounded
a similar view in the De ph ilosophia. But this cannot be: in Aris-
totle's five-element cosmology, the 'element which belongs to
the stars' ('ethers'), is altogether different from all sublunar sub-
stances; it is not even hot, let alone heat. Therefore, if (as Aristo-
tle assumes) the supralunar element none the less gives rise to
sub lunar living beings, if, that is, it is the source of generative
heat,2S then the most one can say is that the vital heat of sublunar
living beings and the celestial source of generative heat are analo-
gous: they perform identical functions. 26 The sense of 'analogy'
25 As already noted (above, II § 4.2), within the five-element cosmology, the
very fact that the celestial element warms was in need of explanationi that the
sun's heat is assumed to be generative, does not make the problem easier for
Aristotle. Whether and how Aristotle sought to reconcile the 'mechanical' ac-
<:ount of the sun's warming effect with his view that the sun's heat can be gen-
erative is a problem that does not concern us here.
26 'Die Analogie besteht darin, daB auch die Sonnenwiirme die Entstehung von
Lebewesn hervorrufen kann'; Moraux, 'Quinta essentia', 1206. It should be ob-
served that the context of Aristotle's remark makes irrelevant any points of anal-
ogy not directly connected to animal generation. Peck observed that the pneuma
and the celestial element are both supposed not to undergo any qualitative change
(Aristotle, GA, Appendix B, § 25, p. 589), but this common property certainly has
nothing to do with generation and so Pe<:k's correct observation is made in the
wrong context. (The correct context is discussed below, § 2.3.) Also another point
of analogy noticed by Peck belongs to this category, namely that the celestial
element and the pneuma are both held to be acting 'as an intermediary between
an immaterial mover and material objects'; the first is involved in transmitting
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 117
here is thus roughly the usual one in the context of Aristotle's
biological writings.27
We can now realize that the analogy statement conveys a double
message: (i) A positive one, stating that by virtue of the identity
of their capacities to inform matter and specifically to give rise to
souls, the celestial element and the vital heat are analogous. Note
that the analogy obtains between the vital (generative) heat and
the celestial element itself: that these two are at all considered as
comparable entities-namely as substances-seems to echo the
early theory in which the celestial matter, called now aither now
thermon, was itself held to give rise to soul-functions in compos-
ite living beings. 28 (ii) The second message is a negative one, one
motion from the Prime Mover to the sublunar world, the second in transmitting
motion from the soul to the body. (Cf. ibid. pp. 576 H., 589.) In addition to being
irrelevant to the discussion of animal generation, this analogy is somewhat de-
ficient, for, as Fudey has made clear, the soul cannot properly be regarded as an
unmoved mover (d. FurIey, 'Self Movers'). It seems to me, therefore, that al-
though the celestial element and the connate pneuma indeed have some very
important analogous properties, notably their impassibility, these are not those
which Aristotle had in mind when discussing animal generation. The analogy
that mattered there relates only to the generative capacities of vital heat in the
semen on the one hand, and of sun's heat on the other.
27 This has been well brought out by Rusche (Blut, Leben I/Ild Seele, 195); 'Das
"analogon" spielt bei Aristoteles in der Naturphilosophie eine vie I berufene Rolle.
Von einzelnen Teilen, wie Herz, Lunge, Blut usw., groBerer und bekamlterer
Tiere schlieBt er auf das mralogoll d.h. das ihnen Entsprechende bei kleineren und
unbekannteren Tieren. Dieses Analogon ist dann dasjenige nicht naher Bekannte,
was bei den kleineren Tieren die Funktion ubemimmt, die bei den groBeren das
betreHende Organ zu leisten hat: On Aristotle's notion of analogy as functional
equivalence d. e.g. PA 1. 4, 644'17 ff. and also Balme, Aristotle, PA I, 120, 148. In
the present context, though, it is far from dear whether one oE the terms oE the
analogy can be considered as better known than the other. Indeed, in this case,
what is 'bigger', namely the heavenly bodies and their matter, is less accessible
to investigation and therefore, as Aristotle points out, less well known than the
objects studied by biology (PAL 5).
28 The difficulty has been perceived by Moraux ('A propos du lIOIIS tiluralllett',
277 E.): 'Mais peut-on croire qu'Aristote ail vraiment compare la verlu du pneuma
[namely its being hot, i.e. having vital heat] au corps des astres?' Moraux disposes
of the problem thus; 'nous sommes en presence d'une de ces comparaisons
abregees dont les Grecs ont use de tout temps. Aristote a voulu dire simplement
que la vertu naturelle incluse dans Ie pneuma, la chaleur vitale, est analogue 11
celie qui emane de l'element astral' (p. 278). It should be mentioned that scholars
have indeed pondered the possibility that the sublunar analogon of the celestial
element is not the vital heat, but rather of the connate pneuma carrying it. Cf. e.g.
Nussbaum, Aristotle, MA, 159; Peck, Aristotle, GA, Appendix B, §§ 13, 19; Tracy,
Pllysiological Theory, 180 f. (n. 43); Ross, Aristotle, Pllrva IInlumlia, 41; Balme, Aris-
lotle, PA I, 163. This question is of secondary importance, because the double
message contained in the statement remains the same.
118 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
of demarcation and denial, warning that the celestial element
and vital heat are analogous only, and not-as was so often held-
identicaU9 This caveat is all the more called for because of the
widespread traditional view, which Aristotle too had shared, on
which the celestial substance is the heat which makes sublunar
material substances into living beings endowed with souls. 30
We have already considered Aristotle's next statement in this
context, namely that the thermon involved in reproduction 'is
different from the so-called "elements" and more divine than
they are' (736b30 f.; above, 1 § 1.3.1). This statement too follows
from the theory and is not a new premiss. To begin with, there
is again a negative claim here: contrary to what had been widely
held (including by Aristotle himself), the substance transmitting
soul is not the divine substance; Aristotle's view in the treatises
is that the most divine of all material substances is the celestial
matter ('ethers')/1 to which, however, the soul-heat is 'analogous'
only. We have already specified the positive part of the message
(above, I § 1.3.1): Aristotle associates the divine with eternity and
immortality and holds that the transient sub lunar individuals
can partake of the divine, namely via the transmission of the
form of the species from parent to offspring, whereby the eternity
of the biological form is ensured. Therefore, since reproduction,
29 This aspect is in part perceived in Roussel ('Ether et chaleur', 159), who
however suggests that Aristotle is here opposing the theories which postulated
that the celestial matter is fire.
)0 Anthony Preus has recently suggested idenlifijillg the plleuma with the celes-
tial element. Cf. Preus, Science alld Philosophy, 86-9 and id., 'Man and Cosmos in
Aristotle', esp. 478-84. Unknowingly, as it seems, Preus attempted to revive an
obsolete 19th-cent. interpretation already rebutted by Eduard Zeller; for the refu-
tation and references to the upholders of this identification ct. Zeller, PlriiosopTtie
der GriecTtell, ie. 483 f. n. 4. It is possible that this interpretation was influenced by
a medieval and Renaissance theory of matter which sought to solve the problem
of accounting for the material persistence of sublunar substances within the
Peripatetic four-element theory by assuming that a 'quintessence' (the fifth ele-
ment itself or a sublunar counterpart of it) is commingled with all sublunar
substances and endows them with cohesion. The upholders of this theory under-
standably were very fond of the 'analogy' passage we are discussing and inter-
preted it in line with their alchemical-physical theories which contained Stoic,
Neoplatonic, and Hermetic ingredients. Their interpretations of the passage pre-
sumably inspired later readers of Aristotle, including those who already read
Aristotle with a view to understanding Aristotle himself and not in order to
understand the world. For an enlightening discussion of this theory and of its
emergence within 14th-cent. alchemy d. Obrist 'Les rapports d'analogle', esp. pp.
59-63; ct. also the Conclusion, below pp. 198-200.
31 Pepin, Idees grecqlles, 211 f.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 119
and with it the eternity of the species, is effectuated by the themlOn
in the semen, it follows that although the thermon is not fully
divine, yet it is 'more divine' than the four sub lunar elements.
Indeed, the thermon in the semen of each and every individual of
any species carries the eternal eidos of that species. Again we
have here a clear echo of Aristotle's earlier theory in which the
thenllon of celestial origin was not only 'more divine' than the
elements, but divine tout court. Yet once the cosmos was severed
into two, the physiological vital heat, now merely analogous to
the divine celestial matter, was only 'more divine' than the four
sublunar elements (d. above II § 4.1).
Aristotle's statement already encountered above (I § 1.2.2),
according to which 'the faculties of soul have to do with some
physical substance'-namely the vital heat-such that 'as the
varieties of soul differ from one another, so too this sort of na-
ture differs' (GA 2. 3, 736b30 ff., Peck's translation slightly modi-
fied after Balme) hardly needs further comment: the thesis that
Aristotle construes the thermon as a formative factor underlying
the hierarchy of forms has been at the heart of Chapter 1. The
differential effects of the informing action of vital heat are most
perceptible in generation, where the thermon determines the na-
ture of the living being: it determines, first of all, the individual's
species-its place on the scala naturae-and, moreover, also
whether and to what degree the individual will be deformed, i.e.
have a form, or soul, lesser than the species' most perfect one.
The quality of the vital heat, in short, determines the 'faculties of
soul'.
All of Aristotle's statements in the notorious passage bearing
on the transmission of soul from parent to offspring thus derive
from the theory of vital heat and there is nothing new or spec-
tacular about them. All, that is, except for the appearance on the
physiological stage of a new, hitherto not encountered entity: the
connate pneuma. To its examination we now turn; in due course
this will bring us back to the passage from which we set out.
2.2. The Basic Postulate and Its Implications
2.2.1. Tile Production of Connate Pneuma
My general thesis will be that the driving force behind Aristo-
tle's theory of connate pneuma was the intention to provide an
120 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
integrated physiological account of all souljunctions (except the
specifically human intellect). On Aristotle's assumptions, such
an account had .to show how the bodily part in which the soul
has its seat, the heart (d. above, I §§ 1.2.1 and 1.2.3; also e.g. MA
9, 703a3; 10, 7033 37; DA 2.8, 420b28), can indeed alone minister all
soul-functions. For, according to Aristotle, the heart produces
the vital heat on which, as we saw, depend the functions of the
nutritive soul and which is also a determining factor of the other,
cognitive soul-capacities (the human intellect excepted); more-
over, the heart also directly controls soul-faculties such as sensa-
tion and motions. The following crucial physiological questions
thus arise: How does the heat produced in the heart reach all the
parts of the body? How does the heart receive messages from the
sensory organs located throughout the body? How does it con-
trol the body's motions? Aristotle, I suggest, wished to frame an
integrated physiological account tying all soul-functions to the
heart. The stakes were great: within psychology, Aristotle sub-
sumed all these functions under the unifying general concept of
'soul'; the theory of connate pneuma was to provide a correspond-
ing unified physiological theory. The connate pneuma's role in
transmitting and maintaining forms, in which we are primarily
interested, will thus appear as an integral part of an ambitious
and comprehensive research programme.
The fundamental postulate of Aristotle's theory of plleuma is
that connate pneuma is naturally and constantly produced through
the action of vital heat on the blood. 'As for pneuma, its presence is
the result of necessity, because liquid substance and hot sub-
stance are present, one being active and the other being acted
upon' (GA 2. 6, 7423 14 ft.). From a physical point of view, the
phenomenon is essentially the same as the formation of vapour
through boiling, inasmuch as 'boiling is due to the volatilization
("pneumatization") of fluid by heat' (De iuv. 26, 479b31).32
32 This is also the interpretation of Rusche, BllIt, Leben lind See/e, 216 if., 226 H.;
similarly, Wiersma, 'Die aristotelische Lehre', 106; Peck, Aristotle, GA, Appendix
B, §32, p. 593; Balme, Aristotle, PA I, 162; Verbeke, 'Doctrine du pneuma', 195-
6. Jaeger ('Das Pneuma', 75, 78) interprets this passage rather differently: it states,
he holds, that the connate pnellma is necessary as a prereqllisite condition, namely
in order to create a specific balance, or logos, betv.'een the cold and the hot, a
balance necessary for the formation of the homoeomerous parts. This curious
('stoicizing') interpretation is doubtless due to the fact that Jaeger came to this
passage in GA from a study of MA, where the connate pnellma is indeed assigned
a role in maintaining the logos of composite substances; d. below, § 2.3.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 121
Exchanging the terms of the theory of qualities for those of the
theory of the elements, we can say that pneumatization is simply
an instance of the frequent transformation into one another of
the elements: specifically, when fire and water interact, water
loses its coldness, fire its dryness, the outcome being air (GC 2.
4, 331 b 14-16), or rather warm air, which indeed is precisely the
(somatic) definition of pneuma (GA 2. 2, 736'1). It is in fact this
process of constant pneumatization which produces the pulsa-
tion of the blood vessels (De resp. 20,480'2-15).33 Pneuma is thus
comparable to vapour (atmis) in that it is 'given off by moisture
in a body when exposed to burning heat' (Meteor. 4. 9, 387"25 f.)
and indeed through cooling pneuma again becomes liquid (Meteor.
4. 6, 382b30). The idea of pneumatization is thus firmly anchored
in Aristotle's physics.
The notion of pneumatization is more problematic than it may
appear, however. As we shall see, Aristotle assumes that once
the blood has been pneumatized through the action of vital heat,
the pneuma continues to inhere in it, so that it is continuous
throughout the body, just as the blood is. Aristotle's theory as-
sumes that the blood's pneumatization is a lasting state, not a
circumscribed process of limited duration. But from the physical
point of view as defined by the principles of Aristotle's physics
this assumption raises the following difficult question: why does
not the pneuma, which is warm air, separate off the blood and
rise as vapour? How can Aristotle construe an aeriform sub-
stance remaining suffused in a liquid and thus out of its natural
place? To improve our insight into Aristotle's ideas on pneuma
we should here consider not only the word, but the world too.
I suggest that when Aristotle referred to the formation of pneuma
within the blood through the action of vital heat, he had in mind
the singular characteristic features of the process in which fresh
milk is heated and eventually boiled, a procedure we may safely
assume he had occasion to observe. The action of heat on milk
33 Rusche, BllIt, Leben lind Seele, 220 ff.; Furley, 'Theories of Respiration', 18-9;
von Staden, Heropilillls, 269-70. The idea that connate pnelllllll is produced in the
blood through the action of the vital heat may possibly be found already in 011
Fleshes (Heidel, 'Peri Sarkon', 183) and it can be recovered with some detail in
Diodes of Carystos and thus confirms the attribution of this doctrine to Aristotle
too. Cf. Rusche, BllIt, Lebell lind Seele, 142-64; Harris, The Heart, 104-7; Longrigg,
'Elementary Physics', 228. For our purposes it is of secondary importance whether
Aristotle borrowed the theory from Diodes (or more generally the Sicilian School),
or the other way around (d. above, n. 19).
 122 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
almost from the outset (above 30· C) causes the formation of
minute bubbles throughout the liquid. These tiny bubbles do not
coalesce to form large ones and they do not immediately rise to
the surface, where they would vanish; rather, they persist in the
liquid and rise only very slowly. Thus, as long as milk is main-
tained warm, it contains bubbles through and through-it re-
mains thoroughly 'pneumatized' in the precise sense of the term.
Moreover and very importantly, the pneumatization is accom-
panied by a very notable increase in the volume oJ the liquid (a
phenomenon of which most of us have been victims). All these
characteristics distinguish milk from, say, water or oil, whose
behaviour under the influence of heat is rather different, and in
fact strictly conforms to the principles of Aristotle's physics.
(When these liquids are heated, bubbles are also formed, but
they quickly rise to the surface, where they vanish-the heating
does not result in any durable 'pneumatization' of the liquid, nor
in a significant increase in volume.) The continued existence of
bubbles throughout the liquid-its pneumatization-thus is a
phenomenon which is characteristic of milk and indeed is due to
some very specific chemical features. 34
Now Aristotle considers milk as one of the fluids produced in
the body through concoction of the blood, and my suggestion is
that he took it as a model of how the pneuma can durably remain
suffused in the blood: milk is the paradigmatic instance lurking
behind the notion of a pneumatized fluid as a fluid in which an
aeriform substance continuously inheres without separating off
and rising to its natural place. That this is how Aristotle pictured
the pneumatization seems to be confirmed by his description of
male semen, which, like milk, is blood that has undergone fur-
ther concoction: Aristotle says that the semen contains pneuma in
the form of tiny bubbles {GA 2. 2)-manifestly the pneuma in the
semen does not separate off the fluid. 35 Similarly, when pneuma
:>I Notably the presence of milk colloids in a solid condition. Cf. Davies, The
Chemistnj of Milk, 242-5.
35 It has often been noted that Diogene5' description of semen as containing air
or froth is very similar to Aristotle's. Indeed, as Lesky (Zellgllngs- lind
Vererbllngslehren, 1345-9) has remarked, the fact that Aristotle (who usually is
quite fond of taking Diogenes to task) does not discuss Diogenes' views on this
matter, shows that he essentially accepted them. Cf. also Longrigg, 'A Seminal
"Debate"'.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 123
is produced in water under the action of the heat of the sun, a
'frothy bubble' is formed (GA 3. II, 762 24).36 3
Our interpretation of Aristotle's view of how connate pneuma
is produced and maintained in the blood can be confirmed by
considering the four following accounts in which pneuma is ex-
plicitly or implicitly involved:
(i) The most impressive one is Aristotle's account of 'sponta-
neous' generation: 'Animals and plants are formed in the earth
and in the water because in earth water is present, and in water
pneuma is present, and in all pneuma soul-heat is present, so that
in a way all things are full of soul' (GA 3. 11,7623 19 if.). Aristotle
here says in so many words that (a) in all moisture pneuma is-
and this means: is potentially-present, so that (b) upon heating
by the sun's-generative37-heat (c) pneuma is formed (just as in
the living body), which (d) carries vital, generative, heat. There
is no essential difference, then, between sexual and 'spontane-
ous' generation in Aristotle's physiology: from a physiological
point of view, the only difference relates to the source of the vital
heat. (Other differences, relating e.g. to the regularity of the pro-
cess, are irrelevant here.) Indeed, let us note that Aristotle's as-
sumption that the heart-the source of all vital heat-is the first
organ to be formed (above, § 2.1) implies that in sexual repro-
duction the foetus from the outset possesses not only vital heat
but, as a result, connate pneuma too; it is this connate pneuma
of the foetus itself which, by means of the vital heat it carries,
differentiates the parts of the foetus (GA 2. 6, 741 b37 ff.).38 In
36 Rusche at least at one point (Blllt, Leben find Seeie, 208 ff.) has a very different
idea of the presence of pllellllla in the blood. He suggests that blood has (the
element) air among its components, along with earth and water: on this view, the
heating and the pneumatization transform the nutriment into a homoeomer having
air, or more air, in its logos. This interpretation seems to me to fail for more than
one reason. Aristotle manifestly conceives of the connate pnellllla as a substance
and not as an ingredient of blood: how indeed can the air qua constituent of the
blood be wann air? Rusche's suggestion is also incompatible with Aristotle's
assumption that the pneuma is (a substance) imparting motion 'without under-
going alteration' and 'capable of expansion and contracting' (MA 10, 703'19, 25;
d. below § 2.2.4).
b
37 GA 3. 11, 762 14; d. also 2. 3, 737'3; 2. 6, 743'33 f. and Ch. I n. 54.
38 Aristotle says that the pnellma differentiating the foetus's parts is 'not the
pnellma of the mother, nor that of the creature itself' (GA 2. 6, 741 b37), but the
context shows, and Rusche (Blllt, Leben lind Seele, 219) has conclusively argued,
that Aristotle has in mind here not the connate pneuma, but rather the plleullla
inhaled by respiration.
124 50111, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
'spontaneous' generation that initial pneuma is produced by the
action of the heat of the sun..
(ii) Similarly and consistently, Aristotle explains the growth of
eggs and larvae as follows: 'The reason for this is on a par with
the reason why yeast grows .... This growth is due to its more
solid portion turning fluid, and the fluid turning into pneuma.
This is the handiwork of the soul-heat in the case of animals, of
the heat of the humour blent with it in the case of the yeast' (GA
3.4,755"17 ff.).39 To see how pneumatization brings about growth
we tum to a passage in Problems, which explains why dough
rises when heated: 'Is it because [dough] contains moisture which
is not separated in such a way that it can escape when it is
warmed, and this moisture, becoming pneuma and not being able
to escape ... makes the dough, therefore, rise and causes the mass
to be greater?'40 (This is precisely what happens also in heated
milk, but this instance is less pertinent here because milk is li-
quid.) As in the cases of sexual and 'spontaneous' generation,
although with a more humble outcome, in the process of baking
bread pneuma is formed through the action of heat on moisture.
The growth is accounted for on the basis of the idea that tiny
bubbles of pneuma are formed, which do not separate off and
escape the substance, and that this pneumatization increases the
bulk of the substance although the quantity of the matter has not
changed, an idea well known also from Aristotle's genuine
writings.41
(iii) When a thing ripens, Aristotle says, it passes through a
pneumatikon stage (Meteor. 4. 3,380"23), before eventually becom-
ing denser (presumably through the evaporation of the pneuma).42
This is indeed what we should expect on the basis of the theory
as interpreted above: for Aristotle, ripening (pepansis) is a species
of concoction (4. 3, 380"11), a process through which the natural
heat of a thing masters its constituent moisture (4. 2, 379b32-
380"4). This action of the heat on the moisture is naturally accom-
panied by the formation of pneuma, and this pneumatization
39 The relevance of this passage to our subject is pointed out by Rusche, Billt,
Leben Iwd Seele, 219 ft.
40 Ps.-Aristotle, Problems 21. 23, 92~18 ff.; similarly Problems 21. 10, 927b37 if.
41 Cf. notably GC 1. 5, 321'10 ff.; De iI/V. 26, 47~31 f.; DC 3. 7, 305 ll f. and
b
Rusche, Blltl, Leben lind Seele, 221 f.
42 For this interpretation of the passage d. Strohm, 'Beobachtungen', 108.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 125
Aristotle presumably took to account for the growth of the fruit.
As already noted above, plants in fact dispose of vital heat (I
§ 1.2.2 and the Appendix to Chapter 1), and we will below (IV
§ 2.2 and App. B) see that Aristotle's chemistry of olive oil is
apparently founded on the idea that oil contains pneuma, a prem-
iss which is warranted on the basis of the theory of ripening just
considered.
(iv) Last but not least, we can appreciate the significance of
Aristotle's basic idea of pneumatization by considering its fol-
lowing important corollary. Aristotle occasionally remarks that
vital heat keeps the blood in the living body from coagulating:
'So long ... as the blood is in the body, it is kept fluid by animal
heat' (PA 2. 4, 651"12; also 2. 2, 647b lO f.; 2. 9, 654b9 ff.; 3. 5,
667b28 f.; d. also Meteor. 4. 11, 9 ff.). Now from a chemical, or
physical, point of view, the claim that vital heat is the cause of
the blood's continued fluidity is exactly the opposite of what
Aristotle's theory leads one to expect. Blood consists of a watery
part and of fibres, which are earthy (Meteor. 4. 7, 384"16 f.; 4. 10,
389"19 f.; 4. 11, 389b 6 f.); its composition being analogous to that
of mud (PA 2. 4, 651"7), Aristotle's theory of solidification im-
plies that it solidifies both under the action of heat and under
that of cold (Meteor. 4. 6, 383"13 ff.). The point of the statement
that vital heat keeps blood from solidifying therefore seems to be
not only that the heat hinders coagulation through cold (this is
trifling), but also that, unlike ordinary heat, the vital heat inher-
ing in blood does not bring about evaporation (a process in which
the moisture separates off, leaving the earthy matter behind) and
thus solidification (d. IV § 1.3). How is this possible? On the
interpretation of Aristotle's notion of pneuma as suggested here
the answer is straightforward; Aristotle's view seems to be that
in the living body, the action of vital heat on the blood trans-
forms part of it into pneuma, which, contrary to what happens
when ordinary heat acts on a liquid containing earth and con-
trary to what is implied by Aristotle's physics, does not separate
off the remaining blood; rather, the pneuma remains suffused in
the blood, as it can be observed to do in milk. This is why, the
constant heating in the body notwithstanding, the liquid and the
earthy parts of the blood are not dissociated and the blood does
not coagulate. Let us recall that we have encountered above (r
§ 1.3.2) a related tenet according to which the heat inhering in a
 126 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
substance 'draws in' the mastered moisture, preventing it from
being separated off through evaporation.
For Aristotle, the basic postulate of the theory of connate pneuma
promised to strike a number of targets with a single bullet. I
consider them in turn.
2.2.2. The Workings of CO/mate Pneuma (1): Providing the Vital Heat
With a Substrate Transporting It
Aristotle assumes that nutritive soul is 'present' everywhere in
the body: 'there is no such thing as face, or flesh either, without
soul in it; and though they are still said to be "face" and "flesh"
after they are dead, these terms will be names merely ("homo-
nyms") just as if the things were to turn into stone or wooden
ones' (GA 2. I, 734b24 f.)Y But the functions of the nutritive soul,
we have seen, are accomplished by vital heat: it is vital heat that
maintains the form of a substance within the living body, so that
its destruction entails the disruption of the form too. For in-
stance, when blood, semen, marrow, etc. lose their heat, they
lose their proper natures qua blood, semen, marrow, etc., 'for all
that is left is their material factors' (Meteor. 4. 11, 389b 12; d. also
PA 2. 9, 654[>10 f.). Consequently, since the vital heat is produced
mainly in the heart, at the centre, it must continually be trans-
ported thence to all parts of the body (d. De iuv. 4, 469b9 f.).44
Now, as already noted earlier (II § 1.1), vital heat is not a sub-
stance and thus cannot be assumed to move on its own;45 and
even if it were a substance, it could not have a natural movement
to all the parts of the body. Whence the question: how, according
to Aristotle, does the vital heat-the 'carrier', as it were, of nu-
tritive soul-reach the entire body? Now there is only one trans-
portation network available in Aristotle's anatomy: that of the
blood vessels. Aristotle in fact assumes that blood (or its ana-
logue) is conveyed 'throughout the whole body', for, he explains,
'this blood is the material out of which the whole fabric [of the
43 For further references d. Sorabji, 'Body and Soul in Aristotle', 63 n. 58. Cf.
also Ackrill, 'Aristotle's Definitions of pSllcillt.
44 This has been pointed out in Tracy, 'Heart and Soul in Aristotle'; d. I § 1.2.3.
45 Recall the following, already quoted statement: (II § 1.1): 'Heat and straight-
neSS can be present in every part of a thing, but it is impossible that the thing
should be nothing but hot or white or straight; for, if that were so, attributes
would have separate existence' (De long. et brev. vito 3, 465 b13).
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 127
a
body] is made' (PA 3. 5, 668 20 f.).46 This consideration suggests
the possibility that it is the blood that transports the vital heat.
Indeed, 'blood is the only fluid which remains throughout the
whole body, and throughout life so long as it lasts ... If too much
[blood] is lost, [animals] die' (HA 3. 19, 521 a 7 ff.)-certainly not
because of the blood's nutritive function (discontinuing this func-
tion has no instantaneous effect), but rather because of the failing
of all the functions of the nutritive soul, which depend upon the
vital heat. Moreover, Aristotle explicitly relates the fact that blood
and vital heat are produced in the heart to the fact that this same
part is also the origin of the blood vessels (PA 3.5, 667b21-31).
Yet the blood does not appear to be itself charged with the
transportation of vital heat: its function is nutrition (PA 2. I,
64~2; 2. 3, 650 a35; 3. 5, 668"4 f.) and as a rule, Aristotle holds,
nature 'makes each thing for a single use' (Pol. 1. 2, 1252b l f.).
Moreover, blood is not essentially hot (PA 2. 3, 649b20 f.), and if
it were to deliver somewhere its charge of vital heat it would
presumably cool down, thereby losing its form (Le. becoming
blood by homonymy only). My suggestion therefore is that al-
though vital heat is not transported by the blood, it is neverthe-
less transported concomitantly with it, namely by the connate
pneuma inhering in the blood. Indeed, the assumption that the
action of the vital heat constantly pneumatizes the blood allows
Aristotle to hold that the role of conveying the soul-heat every-
where in the body is assumed by the resulting pneuma: being by
its very nature wann air, and being coextensive with the blood,
the pneuma is precisely the substrate capable of carrying vital
heat to all parts of the body. Indeed, Aristotle explicitly says that
'in all pneuma soul-heat is present' (GA 3. II, 762a20), and of the
connate pneuma in the semen he says that it 'contains' the gen-
erative heat (GA 2. 3, 736b37). Jaeger's formulation is most con-
cise and poignant: 'Man konnte bei Aristoteles das Pneuma
Subjekt der Wiirme nennen.'47 One of the specific functions of the
o!O At PA 3. 5, 668'13 ff. Aristotle makes the same point in more detail by draw-
ing the famous comparison between the vascular system and a system of irriga-
tion channels, an analogy to be found already in the Timaells 77c ff.
47 Jaeger, 'Das Pneuma im Lykeion', 78 n. Similarly also Rusche (Blut, Leben
lind Seele, 229): 'dieses Pneuma list) nach Aristoteles der eigentlichste und nachste
Trager der Warme im Blute'; Preus, 'Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's GA',
38 [= Scierlce and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works, 89): 'The pnellllla [is] the
special vehicle of vital heat.' Cf. also Balme, Aristotle, PA I, 163; Verbeke, 'Doc-
trine du pneuma', 195.
128 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
connate pneuma, then, is to be the substance which, inhering in
the blood and carried with it, assures the continuous and unfail-
ing distribution of the vital heat throughout the body.48
The idea that the connate pneuma is the immediate substrate of
vital heat has the following important consequence. In Chapter I
we repeatedly observed that Aristotle takes the vital heat to rise
in the living body and that this premiss plays a crucial role in his
psycho-physiology. We then observed that this assumption is
problematic, beca~se vital heat is not a substance and so cannot
be supposed to have an upward natural motion of its own
(II § 1.1). In Chapter II I suggested that this assumption is in fact
part of traditional heritage, which Aristotle could not relinquish.
Aristotle's theory of connate pneuma, I now suggest, was intended
to solve the problem and supply a physiological grounding for
the postulate of vital heat's upward motion. Consider why.
On a first level of analYSis, Aristotle's doctrine of natural places
allows one to hold that, qua (warm) air, the pneuma is a sub-
stance, which, as such, has a natural upward motion. (This holds
also on the basis of the doctrine of the relativity of the heavy and
the light (DC 4.5,312"21 ff.).) Presumably, the pneuma can move
upward while still remaining in the blood, i.e. without separat-
ing from it (we come to back to this immediately). Since the
connate pneuma is air charged with vital heat, it follows that the
heat rises in the body 'with' the pneuma in which it inheres.
Yet this account still needs some rectification. We have not yet
accounted for another part of the theory, namely the important
tenet, repeatedly pointed out in Chapter I, that there is a gradient
of vital heat, which, as we saw, Aristotle takes to establish a
hierarchy of forms. Obviously this tenet supposes that the wanner
the pneuma, the higher it travels up inside the body. But this
supposition is not warranted by Aristotle's doctrine of natural
places invoked above. Aristotle in fact never integrated his two
distinct ways of deducing the four elements: the one proceeding
on the notion of natural place and accounting for their cosmic
distribution, and the one defining them in tenns of the four
qualities and accounting for their mutual transformations. 49 On
48 'From this archl [the heart] the SUII/phutoll p"euII/a diffuses vital heat through-
out the body'; Beare, Greek Theories, 335.
49 This point is well brought out in Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 214.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 129
what grounds, then, can warmer (and purer) pneuma be assumed
to travel higher than less warm pneuma?
For Aristotle's answer we must turn to his theory of exhalations,
whose rationale was precisely to bridge the gap between the two
competing construals of the elements, a gap which forbade one
to say that something rises because it is hot. 50 Physically speaking,
the connate pneuma is to some extent analogous to what, on the
scale of the entire world, Aristotle calls 'exhalation'. Aristotle, as
is well known, postulates the existence of a moist and of a dry
exhalation, raised by the sun from water (the sea etc.) and the
earth, respectively (e.g. Meteor. 1. 4, 341b 6 ff.). In the present con-
text we are interested in the first only. The 'exhalation from water',
also called 'vapour' (atmis; e.g. Meteor. 1. 9, 346b33; 2. 2, 354b31;
2. 4, 359b34 ff.), Aristotle says, is 'naturally moist and warm'
(Meteor. 1. 3, 340°27 f.).51 The vapour results from the action of
heat on water, then, as the connate pneuma results from blood
within the body (except that the vapour, unlike the connate
pneuma, separates off). Now the idea that the exhalations pro-
duced by the sun rise is self-evident: it is a part of their defini-
tion. 52 On the basis of the theory of exhalations, then, the connate
pneuma can indeed be held to rise by virtue of its heat, and the
more so the hotter (and purer) it is. Indeed, at one point (De
somno 3, 457"12), Aristotle refers to the exhalation produced within
the body during digestion-this is the exhalation carrying vital
heat involved in bringing about sleep (above, I § 2.2.2)-with the
term pneuma. 53 Although the pneuma inheres in the blood carry-
ing it and is not 'free' in the body as the exhalations are in the
world, still the theory of exhalations associates heat with an upward
motion and thus aIIows us to understand on what grounds Aris-
totle should have thought that the warmer pneuma rises higher
than the colder. On these grounds, then, the theory of pneuma
50 Ibid.
5J I follow Strohm in rejecting Ross and Lee's emendation into 'moist and
cold'; d. his Aristoteles, Meteorologic, 139. As the immediately following analysis,
and in particular the passage to be quoted, show, it makes no sense to construe
the vapour as cold.
52 Thus, conceming the moist exhalation, vapour, Aristotle says: 'the moisture
about [the earth) is evaporated by the sun's rays and the other heat from above
and rises upwards: but when the heat which caused it to rise leaves it ... the
vapour cools and condenses again as a result of the loss of heat ... and tums
from air into water' (Meteor. 1. 9, 346b24 if.).
53 Solrnsen 'Cleanthes or Posidonius?', 281 n. 63.
 130 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
natu~aIIyimplies that within the living body, a gradient of vital
heat IS produced: the warmer and purer pneuma within the blood
will rea~h the hig~er organs, supplying them with greater and
purer vItal heat-Just as Aristotle presupposes it in his psycho-
physiology.54
The connate pneuma, in sum, is the substrate of the vital heat:
the ti~y bubbles of warm air which always and everywhere in-
here m the blood carry the vital heat to each and every spot in
the body. In addition, qua warm air, the pneuma has a natural
movement upwards and it is by virtue of it that Aristotle can
think of the vital heat as rising inside the body, with the greater
heat rising higher.
The ontological question which was left open throughout
Chapter I (cf. § 1.2.2)-namely: what is vital heat?-now receives
the following answer. Vital heat necessarily inheres in a substrate
-it is not a substance existing on its own. Indeed, we know that
vital heat inheres in all composite substances which have come
to ~e throu?h concoction. But this is not the whole story. For the
actIon of vItal heat on blood, from which all the other bodily
parts are formed, necessarily produces in it pneuma, and it is this
pneuma which in fact is the immediate substrate of vital heat. In
fine, therefore, the substance which Aristotle regards, in conform-
ity with his physics, as the initiator of the various formative
processes is connate pneuma, but the active phusis in it is vital
heat (GA 2. 3, 736°35 f.).
2.2.3. The Workings of Connate Pneuma (2): Transmitting Sensory Effects
One of the fundamental tenets of Aristotle's psycho-physiology
concerns the role of the heart as the common sensorium. Charles
H. Kahn has ~~de very dear that nothing less than the unity of
the soul-specIfically of the sensitive soul-within of Aristotle's
psychology in fact hinges on that notion: 'This view of the sense
faculty as a unified whole, of which the special senses are
parts ... pervades the entire De anima, which continuously refers
t? the sens~ry p~wer of the soul as a single unit ... The concep-
tIon of the mdiVIdual senses as independent faculties would be
, 54 It j~ w?~th noting that A~istotle. o~casionally draws an analogy between
exhalatIOns In the world and In the hYIng body, comparing 'small things with
great' (Meteor. 2. 9, 369'31): d. e.g. 2. 3, 358"3 ft.; 2. 8, 366b 15 ff.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 131
just as alien to Aristotle as the conception of individual organs in
abstraction from the body of which they form a part. ... Now
this view of the sense faculty of the soul as a unified whole
unmistakably implies that the individual organs also combine to
form a unit, a physiological system, which can serve as instru-
~en~ for .the sense faculty as a whole: 55 Because sense percep-
tion IS a smgle soul-faculty, it must be centred in one bodily part,
the heart: 'this fact of centring of the soul is normally expressed
by the characteristically Aristotelian term arche ... : it is the
"source" or "principle" of sensation which is located in the heart.
Sensation proper occurs only when the stimulus reaches this
centre; and unless it does so, the eye cannot see nor the ear
hear: 56 This is what lurks behind designations of the heart such
as the 'primary sense organ', the 'source or principle of sensa-
tion', the 'common sense organ', or the 'sense organ proper,.57
The idea that the sensations from all the sense organs reach the
heart is thus pivotal within Aristotle's psychology. We must
therefore ask: how do they? Although fundamental, the question
has received relatively little attention. In 1863 Freudenthal sug-
gested that the affections to which sensations give rise 'are
carried [to the heart] through the medium of the blood'.58
Similarly, Sorabji briefly says in a footnote that the 'changes left
behind in us by earlier sense-images are located in the blood in
our sense organs (Insomn. 461 b12, b16-19, 462'9, '12). They can
travel down with the blood towards the heart (461"5-7, "28-b1,
b12y.59 There are however at least two considerations telling
against this interpretation (which is based only on On Dreams).
(i) As already noted, in Aristotle's view the blood is the nutrition
of the body and Aristotle subscribes to the principle that nature
'makes each thing for a single use' (Pol. 1. 2, 1252bl f.). Indeed,
Aristotle explicitly maintains that blood does not receive sense
perceptions (HA 3. 19, 520b12 ff.; PA 2. 10, 656b19 ff.; 3. 4,666"17 f.),
so that it seems plausible to think that it cannot transmit them
either. This point has been strongly emphasized by Solmsen:
Aristotle's observations on the insensitivity of blood, he writes,
55 Kahn, 'Sensation and Consciousness', 20.
56 Ibid. 26. 57 Ibid. 14; d. also Tracy, 'Heart and Soul'.
58 Freudenthal, Ueber den Begriff des Wortes PlulIltasia, 25.
• 59 Sorabji, 'Body and Soul in Aristotle', 54 n. 34. Similarly, Modrak, Aristotle:
11le Power of Perceptioll, 73--5.
132 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
'signal the end of all hope that the blood may be the looked-for
carrier of the sensations'.60 (ii) Further, the view on which sen-
sory effects are transmitted by the blood does not take into ac-
count Aristotle's statements connecting the working of certain
sensory organs with the connate pneuma; to this we will come
back shortly. In Aristotle's thinking, it thus appears, the blood is
not itself the vehicle of changes produced in the sense-organs.
Yet we know that in Aristotle's physio-psychology the sense-
images are transported to the heart and that the traI¥portation
must be effected through the blood vessels. Indeed, as long as the
arteries were not functionally differentiated from the veins nor
the nerves discovered, the communication between the perceiv-
ing centre (whichever it was taken to be) and loci throughout the
rest of the body where the perceptions originate, had to be indis-
tinctly ascribed to all the vessels: there was no other 'part' which,
being continuous between the centre and the periphery, was a
possible candidate for this office. 61 Aristotle, we thus realize, has
to postulate an agent which transports sense-images to the heart
through the blood vessels. Our question therefore is: What is it?
Almost a century ago, John I. Beare already argued that 'it
would appear-though Aristotle has not worked his conception
out clearly-as if he conceived the sensory effects to be conveyed
with the blood, in the same vessels, but not to be affections of the
blood itself or primarily connected with it, but rather with the
sumphuton pneuma,.62 Beare, who is followed by Peck and Verbeke,
as well as, more cautiously, by Solmsen and Lloyd,63 points out
that in connection with smell and hearing Aristotle explicitly
speaks of 'passages (poroi) full of connate pneuma, connecting
with the outer air and terminating at the small blood-vessels
60 Solmsen 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 172.
6! This is the insight of Wright, 'The Theory of the Pneuma in Aristotle', surely
unique in its mixture of confusion and insightfulness; similarly, Harris, The Heart,
162. The distinction between the arteries and the veins was introduced by
Praxagoras of Cos on functional considerations, namely precisely in order to
have different vessels for carrying blood and pneuma; d. Solmsen, 'Greek phi-
losophyand the Discovery of the Nerves', 178 ff. Although Praxagoras was roughly
Aristotle's contemporary, Aristotle is unaware of the distinction, and refers to all
vessels by the term phlebes.
62 Beare, Greek Theories, 334; d. also p. 295 with n. 5.
63 Peck, Aristotle, GA, Appendix B, notably §§ 30-3, pp. 591-3; Verbeke, 'Doc-
trine du pneuma', 197 f.; Solmsen, ('Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the
Nerves', 172-8) and Lloyd ('The Empirical Basis', 222-3) are more hesitant but at
bottom subscribe to the same interpretation.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 133
around the brain which extend thither from the heart' (GA 2. 6,
744"2 ff.). Elsewhere Aristotle makes a similar statement in con-
nection with sight: 'there are channels [paroi] which lead from
the eyes to the blood-vessels that surround the brain' (PA 2. la,
656b17).64 At least three senses, then, are explicitly said to involve
the connate pneuma. Therefore, although, as Solmsen notes, Ar-
istotle 'is not very explicit about the role of the pneuma in the
processes of smelling and hearing' and does not' actually make
pneuma the agent of communication with the heart', in view of
the considerations raised above, it would yet seem reasonable to
conclude that Aristotle held the sensory effects to be transmitted
to the centre by the connate pneuma. Indeed, seeing that in Aris-
totle's opinion (i) 'instruments of sensation are the blood-
containing parts' (PA 2. la, 656b25) and that (ii) all messages
from the sense organs reach the heart, the origin and 'principle'
of the vessels (d. 667b28 if.), but that (iii) blood itself presumably
cannot transmit sensory effects,65 it is difficult to see what other
view Aristotle could have held.
This interpretation gains in plaUSibility if we reflect that in
ascribing the connate pneuma the office of transmitting sensory
effects, Aristotle was in fact only incorporating into his psycho-
physiology a received idea, albeit in a new guise. To see that this
is indeed the case, we have to hark back to Diogenes of Apollonia
who, we know, held that sense perceptions originating, say, in
the ear, are transmitted (presumably to the heartr by the air,
which he held to be contained in the 'vessels' (phlebes, which in
this context it would obviously be misleading to call 'blood ves-
seJs').67 Diogenes further assumed-and this point is essential-
that the vessels reach out to the entire body, for only on the basis
of this hypothesis could he suppose that the air, the posited trans-
mitter of sensations, is present everywhere in the body.68
64 This account is elaborated also in a further passage, whose authenticity,
however, has been questioned (GA 5. 2, 781·23-b6).
65 Indeed, Aristotle at one point seems to emphasize the apparent paradox-
from his vantage point, a rather uncomfortable fact-that while blood is itself
presumably without sensation, the presence of blood in a part is yet (as he be-
lieves) a necessary condition for that part to be capable of sensation (PA 2. 10,
656b19 f.; 3. 4, 666'16 f.).
66 Solmsen, 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 153.
67 Ibid. 154; Furley, 'Theories of Respiration', 10.
68 Cf. Guthrie, Histon; of Greek Philosophy, ii. 366; Laks, Diogene d'Apollollie, 11,
61, 115, 150. For the same contention in the Hippocratic 011 the Sacred Disease, see
Solmsen, 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 156.
134 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
Diogenes' ideas are echoed by Plato: just as Diogenes held that
the transmission of perception is due to soul-air which is warmer
than the air outside, so Plato in the Timaeus teaches that percep-
tions are transmitted by the blood's more mobile particles, namely
(as Solmsen has suggested) fire and air;69 and, as we should ex-
pect, Plato too holds that the transmission is effected via the
vessels, displayed as they are 'in order that the effect of sense
perceptions may become known throughout the body'?O
Aristotle too makes Diogenes' theory his own. Yet he cannot
incorporate it into his physiology as it stands. For Aristotle be-
lieves that the breathed air has a single function, namely to cool
the heart's innate heat (De resp. 15; PA 3.6). According to Aris-
totle, therefore, the inhaled air is located in the lungs only, per-
haps also in the heart, but it does not spread to the entire body.
The connate pneuma-materially defined as warm air, in perfect
continuity with Diogenes and Plat<r-takes over the role which
had been that of the hot air. The idea that sense perceptions are
transmitted by the connate pneuma coexisting with the blood in
the vessels is therefore a new twist given to a traditional well-
established notion, allowing its integration within Aristotle's
physiologically-founded psychology.
To be sure, many details of this embryonic theory are far from
clear. We cannot answer all the questions to which the theory
gives rise. But, on the interpretation here suggested, this is some-
thing we should not seek. Aristotle's remarks point toward a
research programme which had every reason to seem coherent,
plausible, and promising.
2.2.4. The Workings of Connate Pneuma (3): Initiating Motion
The connate-pneuma hypothesis plays an important role also in
Aristotle's explanation of how the heatings and chillings near the
heart, which accompany perceptions, phantasiai, and emotions,
bring about animal motion. On this part of the theory I must
remain very brief, because it straddles wide philosophical issues
(relating notably to the mind-body problem) which go far beyond
the scope of the present enquiry. Indeed, my intention in the
~9 Solmsen, 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nerves', 161.
70 Tim. 77e5, quoted after Solmsen, 'Greek Philosophy and the Discovery of
the Nerves', 164.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 135
following remarks is only to show that the global project which
J have ascribed to Aristotle, namely to provide a physiological
counterpart to the psychological account of all soul-functions,
was intended to comprise also an account of animal motion in
terms of connate pneuma; the details of this account do not con-
cern us here.
The theory of pneuma in the context of Aristotle's treatment of
animal motion has been the object of a detailed study by Martha
C. Nussbaum, which I wHl largely follow. As Nussbaum has
argued, the point of the theory is that it posits a body which, ex
hypothesi, 'will be moved by initial perceptual changes and, in
turn, set up the changes in the heart region that lead directly to
motion'.7l The basic idea is that the heatings and chillings near
the heart immediately affect the connate pneuma there, leading to
its expansion or contraction and thus-since the connate pneuma
in the vessels reaches throughout the body-to the transmission
of movement from the arche to the rest of the body. This role of
the connate pneuma is underscored by the fact that unlike the
blood-vessels, the neura, which are also strongly involved in
motion (e.g. MA 7, 701 b9 f.), are not continuous from the heart
throughout the body (HA 3. 5, 515'32 ff.): in Aristotle's physio-
logy they cannot be assigned the role of transmitting movement
from the centre, where they too have their arche, to the limbs.72
Here the fact that pneuma is an aeriform substance is of course
crucial: 'the functions of movement are pushing and pulling, so
the tool of movement has to be capable of expanding and con-
tracting. And this is just the nature of the pneuma' (MA la,
703'19 ft.).
The intended thrust of Aristotle's projected theory of connate
pneuma thus seems to be this. Aristotle holds that all soul-
functions of the body-nutrition, growth, sensation, motion-
have a single arche (e.g. De somno 2, 455b34 f.; PA 2. 1, 647'25 f.;
3. 4, 666'11 f.) and he seeks to identify a single bodily agent to be
71 Nussbaum, Aristotle, MA, 156; d. also her 'The "Common Explanation" of
Animal Motion', and Sorabji, 'Body and Soul', 62.
n This is overlooked by Verbeke, 'Doctrine du pneuma', 197. Similarly, as
already noted (above, II § 4.1), the fact that the sinews are not continuous through-
out the body prevents Aristotle from ascribing to them the function of holding
the entire body together.
136 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
charged with the physiological accomplishment of all those soul-
functions. The assumption that connate pneuma is necessarily
present wherever moisture and heat interact implies that it co-
exists with the blood (or its analogue) throughout the body and
explains how vital heat can naturally move upward in the body.
Since vital heat is formed mainly about the heart, the connate
pneuma has its arche there too and this stance allows Aristotle to
think of the connate pneuma as capable of transmitting sensations
to, and movement from, the origin, in addition to tranflporting
the vital heat to the entire body. Moreover, since the connate
pneuma is 'air' carrying vital heat, the theory of pneuma integrates
the theory of the vital heat, with explanations in terms of the
latter theory remaining valid within the former, more general
one too: the theory of connate pneuma incorporates the theory of
vital heat as a formative agent, the embodiment of nutritive soul,73
but accounts physiologically for a number of soul-functions on
which the theory of vital heat is silent. In brief, the connate pneuma
was intended to be the physiological 'operator' of the entire (non-intel-
lective) soul. Does not Aristotle say that 'it is probable that Nature
makes the majority of her productions by means of pneuma used
as an instrument' (GA 5. 8, 789b8 f.)?
We have thus seen, I think, that Aristotle apparently groped
toward a general theory of connate pneuma, which was to de-
scribe the physiology of all soul-functions (except the human
intellect). The plausibility of the interpretation of any specific
point of the theory is of secondary importance in comparison
with the central claim that this was indeed Aristotle's goal. The
hypotheSis that Aristotle was intent upon elaborating such a
general theory should serve as a hermeneutic guide when one
comes to the interpretation of any specific point. This should be
remembered particularly when we now come to considering the
possibility that the theory of cormate pneuma was to account also
for a function of nutritive soul we have not considered so far-
namely, maintaining the material persistence of composite sub-
stances. To appreciate correctly the plausibility of Aristotle's very
enigmatic explanation-sketch in this limited context, we must
73 This point has been well taken by Rusche (Blllt, Leben lind Seele, 234): 'wenn
[das Pneuma] also in Lebensvorgangen tatig ist, ist es das nur kraft der in ihm
enthaltenen Lebenswarme.'
! Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
constantly bear in mind that it is a component of a global project
137
of accounting physiologically for all soul-functions.
1
2.3. Material Persistence Revisited: Connate Pneuma and the
Functions of Nutritive Soul
I If the thesis that Aristotle introduced the concept of connate
pneuma with a view to elaborating a physiological account of all
soul-functions is correct, then we should expect to find Aristotle
pondering also an account in terms of pneuma of the material
persistence of composite substances within the living body, which,
we saw, on the level of psychological theory is ascribed to the
(nutritive) soul. Aristotle indeed explicitly adduces such an
account: the pneuma he states, has
weight by comparison with the fiery and lightness by comparison with
its opposite. Whatever is going to impart motion without undergoing
alteration must be of this kind. For the natural bodies overcome one
another according to their predominance: the light is overcome and kept
down by the heavier, and the heavy kept up by the lighter. (MA 10,
703'23-8)
The passage straightforwardly addresses the problem of material
persistence of individual composite substances which was brought
to the fore above (r § 1.1.2): why do the elements not fly off
upward and downward to their natural places? This should be
stressed: Aristotle explicitly sought to account physiologically
for the persistence of composite substances-the problem mat-
tered to him and he did not think that the account in terms of
soul made a physiological explanation redundant. In the present
context the problem arises with particular acuity because in every
volitional movement the elements making up a living body are
moved in unnatural motions. Aristotle here attempts an answer
in terms of the connate pneuma, whose purported 'mean' posi-
tion with respect to heaviness and lightness is affirmed to coun-
terbalance the light against the heavy elements, thus holding
together the composite body,74 We will come back to this imme-
diately below.
This role of the pneuma in maintaining in equilibrium the con-
trary elements within a living body has yet another aspect. Left
7. Nussbaum, Aristotle, MA, 158 f., 161.
138 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
to themselves, Aristotle says, the 'natural bodies [i.e. the ele-
ments] overcome one another according to their predominance'.
Were it not for the pneuma, one of the elements would come to
predominate the opposite ones: either a heavy one would keep
down the light ones, or the other way around (703"25 f.). The
result would presumably be animals which are, say, entirely
earthy, because the 'elevating vital heat' would not redress the
entire animal (d. I § 2.2.1).75 Obviously, this is not the case, how-
ever: living creatures are fairly stable, Le. their constitutive dom-
ineering elements are maintained in equilibrium. Or rather in
many different equilibria: we saw that by virtue of the differ-
ences in their vital heat, animals are earthy to varying degrees,
and this gives rise to the scala naturae, at the top of which is man,
the warmest and therefore least earthy animal. There are thus as
many different equilibria between the 'fiery' and its 'opposite' as
there are kinds of animals, and in each animal this specific equi-
librium between its constitutive elements is maintained by the
connate pneuma. The pneuma thus not merely prevents the living
beings from disintegrating, but it maintains their constitutive
elements in their specific equilibrium, keeping any of them from
predominating the others.
What, we should now ask, is the scope of the explanation of
material persistence in terms of the connate pneuma? What are
the bodies whose persistence Aristotle is explaining? Two inter-
pretations are possible: (i) the persistence for which Aristotle
seeks to account is that of the homoeomerous substances only;
(it) Aristotle here seeks to account for the persistence of
anhomoeomerous substances too, including entire living beings.
(i) The first interpretation is a minimal one: at the very least,
Aristotle's purpose is to explain why composite homoeomerous
substances neither disintegrate nor become dominated by a sin-
gle element, as the four-element theory implies that they should.
The explanation rests on the idea that the ubiquitous pneuma
everywhere in the body binds the recalcitrant four elements of
the homoeomer into a cohering substance, preserving its distinc-
tive logos. (To be sure, maintaining the material persistence of
7S A similar corollary follows also from another consideration. Without the
p"euma, animals would become dominated by one element just as in the absence
of the celestial substance ('ethers'), the entire cosmos would have come to be
dominated by fire (above, I § 1.1.2 and II § 4.2).
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 139
homoeomerous substances is a function Aristotle also ascribes to
the vital heat [above, I § 1.3.2]; the relationship between the two
accounts will be discussed below.)
(ii) The second interpretation, in which the minimal one is
preserved as a special case, attributes to Aristotle a much greater
design. Let us recall that the account of material persistence in
terms of vital heat is of limited scope, for it bears only on sub-
stances that have resulted from concoction, i.e. homoeomerous
substances (above, I §§ 1.3.2 and 1.3.3). This explanation leaves
much, indeed too much, to be desired: living beings, notably, are
composite substances which endure qua this or that animal, pre-
serving their forms (souls) over spans of time; the persistence of
the homoeomerous parts is only one aspect of the persistence
of the entire living being. Can Aristotle account physiologically
also for this global persistence, namely of forms more complex
than mere logos? The second, broader, interpretation suggests
that providing an explanation for the material persistence of
anhomoeomerous parts and of the entire body in terms of connate
pneuma was a part of Aristotle's research programme;76 'holding
together' the entire living body, which on the level of psychol-
ogy Aristotle ascribes to its (nutritive) soul, was to be explained
physiologically as brought about by the connate pneuma. Indeed,
Aristotle's suggestion that the pneuma 'keeps down' the fiery
element and 'keeps up' the heavy ones unmistakenly recalls his
statement in De anima (2. 4, 416a 6-9) that earth and fire 'tend to
travel in contrary directions', so that 'if there is no counteracting
force they will be torn asunder'; this 'counteracting force', which
in the De anima is identified as being exerted by the (nutritive)
soul, seems to be ascribed to the working of the connate pneuma
in the above-quoted passage. (In the homoeomerous parts this
'holding-together' of the opposite elements is ascribed to vital
heat; d. I §§ 1.1.2 and 1.2.3.) Aristotle, it thus appears, considers
the connate pneuma as the privileged agent assuming the func-
tions of the nutritive soul. Indeed, if the connate pneuma has its
arche in the heart, and if it is continuous throughout the body as
7. We have already seen (II § 4.1) that Aristotle pondered an account according
to which it is the glutinous, elastic parts which hold together both the individual
anhomoeomerous parts of the body and the entire body. But this account, we
saw, is not entirely satisfactory because the sinews are not continuous from the
heart-the arcize of all soul-functions-throughout the body.
140 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
the blood is, can one not assume that it holds together the entire
body, in addition to holding together the contrary elements in-
side each homoeomer? If the heart controls all soul-functions by
means of the connate pneuma-why should the function of the
nutritive soul be an exception? To be sure, Aristotle does not say
it explicitly. But the logic of his programme would seem to point
in this direction. So does the context in which the explanation is
adduced: Aristotle explains that the pneuma brings about the
motion of animals, i.e. it sets their constituents into forced mo-
tion; the explanation refers to the pneuma's action within the entire
animal. (I add some further considerations in favour of this in-
terpretation in § 2.4 below.)
The very fact that the pneuma is ascribed a role (whatever its
precise scope) in bringing about material persistence of substances
contains the clue to the understanding of an interesting and in-
sufficiently appreciated aspect of Aristotle's philosophy of na-
ture. Paul Moraux has observed that by introducing the 'first
body' ('ethers') on the one hand, and the connate pneuma on the
other, Aristotle 'extended the traditional system of the four ele-
ments into two entirely different directions'.77 These two moves
are intimately related, however. Aristotle introduced the 'first
body' ('ethers') as an inert matter because he recognized that a
four-element cosmology allows no account of the equilibrium
between the world's constituents: had the celestial sphere con-
sisted of fire, that element would have become the dominant one
and 'each of the other elements would long have disappeared'
(Meteor. 1. 3, 340"2 f.; d. also 340b1 ff. and Physics 3. 5, 204~1 ff.;
above, II § 4.2). The celestial element thus safeguards the mater-
ial persistence of the macrocosm. 78 But for the very same reason
the four-element theory of matter, too, is incapable of accounting
for the material persistence of composite substances (above, I
§ 1.2.2). Now the introduction of 'ethers' allows Aristotle to ac-
count for the persistence of the sublunar world as a whole, but
this still leaves the individual composite substances defenceless
71 Moraux, 'Quinta essentia', 1206.
78 'Ethers' preserves the world from corruption in yet another way. The celes-
tial sphere provides the natural place for fire: it thus prevents the two superior
elements from getting ever farther away from the centre (cf. DC 2. 1,284'5-11),
and so 'holds together the entire cosmos. ct. Solmsen Aristotle's System, 53; Gill,
Aristotle 0/1 Substance, 239. A similar idea may underlie the passage at Plato, Tim.
57d.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 141
in .fa~e Of. the continuous strife of their opposite constituents.
ThIS ImpJtes that Aristotle has to rehearse on the level of his
theory of (sublunar) material substance the move done on the
Jev~l of the physics of the macrocosm: it is necessary for him to
POSIt a subJun~r counterpart to 'ethers', charged with bringing
about the perSIstence of sublunar composite substances. This is
precisely the role Aristotle ascribes in the above-quoted passage
to the connate pneuma: the connate pneuma is supposed to do on
the le.vel of each individual composite substance just what the
celestial substance is held to do on the cosmological leveF9 In
fact, as Peck has pointed out, the pneuma and the celestial ele-
ment share a property which is crucial in this context, namely
that they are both supposed not to undergo any qualitative
cha~ge:8o the characterization of the heavenly element as 'not
subJect to alteration' (DC 1. 3, 270'27; d. also "14) is applied to the
pneuma too (MA 10, 703 a25).81 This analogy of their dispositions
enables the pneuma and the celestial element to assume analo-
gous functions, namely the preservation of the equilibrium among
the four elements. Aristotle's two 'extensions' of the four-
element cosmology are thus two sides of one and the same coin
indeed they are two parts of a single theoretical move: they both
respond. to the same deficiency of the theory of matter, which, by
postulatmg opposite constituents, implies that the equilibrium
between them-in the entire cosmos just as in every composite
sublunar s~bstance-is labile and must be enforced by some
~xternal enttty. (At II § 4.2, I suggested that this difficulty resulted
~n the. sequel of Aristotle's abandonment of his early cosmology
m whIch the generation and material persistence of living beings
were thought of as being brought about by the divine thermon.)
79 ~s we saw ~n Ch. I, Aristotle's !heory of vital heat usually ascribes this
function to the Vital heat. The respective explanatory roles of vital heat and of
connate pneuma are discussed below.
80 Peck, Aristotle, GA, Appendix B, § 25, p. 589. But Peck, as we already noted
(n ?6), made his correct observation in the wrong context.
8 Nu~sba.um (Aristotle, .MA, .162 f.) correctly observes that the assumption that
pneuma IS air charged With Vital heat does not entail that it is not subject to
change. Let us note, however, that blood and the other homoeomerous sub-
s~ances ke~p th~ir f?rm-Le. in some sense remain unaltered-by virtue of the
~Ital heat I~enng III them. In any event, I would again urge that we must be
Illdu!gent. With .what, ?s I suggested, is only a research programme: Aristotle, let
us give him thiS credit, presumably perceived the difficulties, but thought that
the programme's promises outweigh them.
 142 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
We should now observe-and this has not yet been sufficiently
perceived by students of Arist<;:>t1e-that the account according to
which material persistence is produced by the connate pneuma
which has 'weight in comparison with the fiery and lightness by
comparison with its opposite' in fact fails pitifully. The reasons
for this failure are instructive, for they give us some insight into
Aristotle's intentions and into the constraints under which he
was elaborating the theory of connate pneuma. The pneuma could
play the role which Aristotle attributes to it only if its weight had
placed it just between the light and the heavy elements, i.e. be-
tween air and water. But pneuma is hot air, so that with respect to
lightness and heaviness it is situated between (ordinary) air and
fire! This, I surmise, is the reason why Aristotle uses the blurry
formula 'has weight by comparison with the fiery and lightness
by comparison with its opposite': Aristotle's formulation impli-
citly but clearly acknowledges that pneuma has weight 'in com-
parison with the fiery' only, and not, as it should in order to fulfil
its role, in comparison with air too. Thus, while rhetorically in-
sinuating that the pneuma counterbalances against one another
the heavy and the light, this formulation avoids a more specific
statement which would have made it plain that the connate
pneuma cannot possibly accomplish the role with which it is here
entrusted. 82
That Aristotle still brings forward this so obviously flawed
explanation would seem to confirm that he was indeed com-
mitted to the programme I ascribed to him, on which all soul-
functions were to be physiologically explained by reference to
pneuma. As we have seen, connate pneuma results from the inter-
action of vital heat and moisture and it is the substrate of vital
heat: as such, it is necessarily warm air, a definition that was
consequential in different parts of the theory (e.g. in accounting
for the vital heat's upward motion and in the account of the
transmission of perceptions). Had the notion of pneuma been
introduced with a view to accounting only for material persist-
ence, as 'ethers' was into the cosmological scheme, then pneuma
would perhaps have been defined as a substance whose weight
is midway between air and water. Yet because the other parts of
82 This is overlooked by So)rnsen, 'Greek Physiology and the Discovery of the
Nerves', 177. The account fails for yet another reason, considered in the Conclusion.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 143
the programme made it imperative that it be hot air, the expla-
nation of persistence became an awkward anomaly of the theory.
The above discussion raises the following question: Aristotle,
we saw in Chapter I (§ 1.3.2), has a theory accounting for mater-
ial persistence of composite substances (inanimate and animate)
in terms of their natural or vital heat. We now see that he ascribes
to pneuma too a role in producing material persistence. How do
these parallel accounts tally?
Two views are possible, according to the scope we attribute to
Aristotle's account of persistence in terms of pneuma.
(i) If we cautiously adhere only to the minimal interpretation,
assuming that Aristotle took the connate pneuma to account for
the persistence of homoeomerous substances only, then the ex-
planations of material persistence in terms of vital heat and in
terms of connate pneuma have precisely the same scope. We may
then suppose that Aristotle was groping toward an account of
persistence in terms of pneuma in the context of his global project
of accounting for all soul-functions in terms of connate pneuma.
On this supposition, Aristotle had in mind an explanation of
material persistence in terms of pneuma, drawing on ideas of
relative weight, largely paralleling the account ascribing the
persistence of the macrocosm to the 'first body'. On this interpre-
tation, however, the account of material persistence in terms of
pneuma would have remained unintegrated with that in terms of
vital heat. Another possibility is to think that in line with his
general view of the theory of pneuma as integrating that of vital
heat (above, § 2.2.4, in fine), Aristotle thought that the immediate
cause of material persistence is vital heat and that the connate
pneuma is merely its substrate and vehicle. On this view, the
passage in which the pneuma is said to bring about persistence by
virtue of its weight with respect to the elements must be consid-
ered as an infelicitous expression of this idea, perhaps due to the
context.
(ii) Alternatively, if we accept the wider interpretation and
assume that the explanation of persistence in terms of pneuma
was intended to include within its scope anhomoeomerous sub-
stances too, then this explanation obviously has a scope much
broader than the one in terms of vital heat. On this interpreta-
tion, the principal goal of the explanation of material persistence
in terms of pneuma was to go beyond that in terms of vital heat
 144 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
where the latter breaks down-namely in accounting for the
persistence of anhomoeomerous substances. On this interpreta-
tion, the connate pneuma indeed emerges as the full physiological
counterpart, i.e. the functional equivalent, of what in his psy-
chology Aristotle called 'nutritive soul': specifically, it assumes
the role of 'holding together' the entire body of living beings.
The indications we have of Aristotle's views of pneuma, and
particularly of the pneuma as a cause of material persistence, are
obviously far too slight to allow us to make a reasonable choice
between these alternative interpretations. But perhaps this is
something we should not seek. More interesting than taking stock
of Aristotle's solutions to various problems is the attempt to follow
him (to the extent that we can) in struggling with difficulties
inherent in the very premisses of his theories. At times, identify-
ing Aristotle's problems may be more revealing than recording
his solutions. Aristotle's theory of pneuma in its relations to his
theory of vital heat may be a case in point.
2.4. Conclusion: Aristotle's Theon) of Connate Pneuma as a
Synthesis of Earlier Views-a Historical Perspective
Aristotle's theory of connate pneuma, I hope to have shown, was
a grand, ambitious, and perfectly sound project. The initial idea,
the hard core of the research programme, was to posit that soul-
functions are accomplished by an aeriform substance charged
with vital heat, which coexists with the blood in the vessels con-
necting the heart with the rest of the body. Aristotle in fact sup-
poses-this is his basic physiological postulate-that a pneuma, a
sort of warm air, is constantly produced through the action of
the vital heat on the blood, and that this pneuma is coexistent
with the latter throughout the body in the form of tiny bubbles
that do not separate off. This assumption allows him to hold that
the vessels-necessarily the channels of communication between
the heart and the rest of the body-carry not only nutrition (the
blood), but concomitantly also an aeriform stuff charged with
vital heat. The connate pneuma could thus be held to be capable
of performing all biologically grounded (non-intellective) soul-
functions: the vital heat, which the connate pneuma carries
throughout the body, accomplishes the workings of the nutritive
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 145
soul, whereas the connate pneuma itself transmits perceptions to
and motions from the heart. Specifically, an integral part of this
research programme is the idea that pneuma is involved in bring-
ing about, among the other soul-functions, material persistence
(whether of the homoeomerous substances alone or of the entire
body). We have thus identified in Aristotle a physiological ac-
count in outline, which his theory of soul required,83 describing
how the heart controls the entire body, thereby becoming some-
thing like an acropolis (PA 3. 2, 670'23)84 in a body resembling 'a
city well-governed by laws' (MA 10, 703'30 f.).
Let us now briefly note that Aristotle's notion of connate pneuma
as warm air inhering in blood can usefully be regarded as inte-
grating into a single consistent doctrine earlier more or less in-
dependent traditions, which associated life and soul-functions
with three distinct notions: heat; moisture; and air.85 In Chapter
II we already looked with considerable detail into the theories
centring around the first of these notions, so we will limit our
discussion here to the remaining two.
The association of life with moisture in Greek thought goes
back to ancient myths which probably derive from related Near
Eastern traditions. 86 As G. E. R. Lloyd has pointed out, 'several
usages suggest that the Greeks conceived the living as "wet" and
the dead as "dry"'.87 Indeed, the account of the origin of life
often invoked the idea of a primeval moisture. 88 The same idea
of course comes to the fore in Thales' cosmology, which posited
water as the arclte. 89 In the medical tradition the same idea is
connected with the name of Hippon of Sam os who is said to
have identified soul with water.90
In his phYSiology, and specifically in his theory of connate
pneuma, Aristotle takes over this view and connects life with
moisture in a number of ways. He considers blood-the bodily
S3 Tracy, 'Heart and Soul'.
IH Cf. Hartman, Substallce, Body, alld SOIlI, 138 ft.
85 For a similar perspective cf. Wiersma, 'Die aristoteHsche Lehre yom Pneuma',
104 f.
86 Cf. Guthrie, III tile Beginning, 18 ft., 30 ff.
87 Lloyd, 'Hot and Cold, Dry and Wet', 271-3.
88 Cf. Guthrie, III tile Begi/lning, 30-8.
89 Cf. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, Tile Presocrat;c Philosophers, 88 ff.
9Q Hall, 'Ufe, Death and the Radical Moisture', 6; for Aristotle's unflattering
judgement cf. DA 1. 2, 405"1.
 146 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
moisture par excellence-as the nutriment from which the parts
are formed (PA 2. I, 647bz; 3. 5, 668"9), and postulates that in
non-sanguineous animals some other fluid must take over the
blood's role: 'every animal contains fluid, and if it is deprived of
this ... it perishes' (HA 1. 4, 489·20 f.; cf. also PA 1. 5, 645 b8 f.; 3.
5, 668"4 ££.).91 In the process of incorporating this view into his
own framework, Aristotle integrates it with another traditional
theory, namely that which took life to depend upon heat, which
is so paramount in his own thinking. This synthesis is created
through the fundamental postulate that in a composite substance
in which the moisture is 'mastered' by the dry, it is the natural
or vital heat of the substance which 'draws in' its moisture (above,
I § 1.3.2). This theory in fact establishes that old age and death
are necessarily concomitant with both coldness and dryness (be-
low, IV § 1.2). Similarly, the synthesis of the two traditions is
reflected in the stance that the vital heat keeps the blood from
coagulating in the body, i.e. heat maintains blood in liquid state
(above, § 2.2.1), heat and moisture being both necessary for life.
Again, reflecting upon Thales' reasons for choosing his arche,
Aristotle accepts as reasonable, indeed as self-evident, the fol-
lowing.rationale: 'Thales ... says the principle is water ... getting
the notion perhaps from seeing that the nourishment of all things
is moist, and that heat itself [notably, one presumes, vital heat]
is generated from the moist and kept alive by it' (Metaph. 1. 3,
983bz3 f.; d. also De resp. 6, 473'12; Meteor. 2. 2, 355'4 f.). The two
originally competing accounts, associating life with heat or with
moisture, are integrated into a single one, in which heat depends
on, and thus is necessarily concomitant with, moisture.
Air is a third notion that was intimately connected with life
and other soul-functions in early Greek thought. 'The equation
of air with soul or life', W. K. C. Guthrie wrote, 'was not the
invention of any single philosophic or religious individual or
school, but must have originated in the mists of early popular
belief.,n The association of air with life and soul is found in a
number of philosophical and physiological theories. Thus, even
a 'pluralist' like Empedocles seems to have identified his element
air with the 'life-bringing' goddess Hera and ascribed to it an
9.See also Lloyd, Science, Folklore and Ideology, 38.
92Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, i. 128-9. Cf. also his The Greeks and their
Gods, 135-43.
Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma 147
important role in his physiological theory.93 More to the point is
the monist tradition which posited air as the arclle. Anaximenes,
notably, who considered soul to be of air, is reported to have
held that' as our soul, being air (aer), holds us together and con-
trols us, so does pneuma and air enclose the whole world.'94 We
already considered above the views of Diogenes of Apollonia
concerning the air's roles in performing all soul-functions (above,
II § 1.2 and III § 2.2.3).
The notion of the connate pneuma as an aeriform substance
involved in soul-functions allowed Aristotle to add to the above
syntheSis associating life with moisture and heat also ideas de-
riving from the theories subsuming life under the notion of air.
The connate pneuma (the carrier of vital heat) plays a role wher-
ever new life comes to be: it is present in the semen, and also in
'spontaneous' generation. Again, Aristotle draws on ideas going
back to Diogenes95 to account for the transmission by the connate
pneuma of sensory effects from the periphery to the centre, and
of movement in the opposite direction. Further, Aristotle obvi-
ously sought to associate pneuma with the material persistence of
living beings-an idea which clearly echoes Anaximenes. (The
proximity is particularly great if we accept the broad interpreta-
tion of Aristotle's account of material persistence, namely as
bearing both on homoeomerous and anhomoeomerous sub-
stances.) Aristotle's theory of pneuma can thus be regarded as
having replaced the Presocratics' air (which was the same inside
the body and outside it and indeed was also the heavenly, di-
vine, substance) with another aeriform substance, namely the
connate pneuma produced within the body, the outer air now
being taken to refrigerate the body's vital heat. The identity and
provenance of the aeriform soul-substance have changed-but
its roles largely remained the same.
93 Rusche, Blut, Leben ulld Seele, 131-2; Longrigg, 'The "Roots of All Things"',
422-3.
9~ D-K 13 B 2; quoted after Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, Tlte Presocratic Philoso-
phers, 158-9. Cf. also Alt, 'Zum Satz des Anaximenes', This point was already
noted briefly above, Ch. II, n. 57.
95 In point of fact, Diogenes' view that the soul-air is warmer than the air
outside (fr. 5) is itself already a 'synthesis', for, as Diller has pointed out
('PhilosophiegeschichtJiche Stellung'), it is, so to say, the outcome of the conflation
of two Originally independent theories: one-Heraditean heritage-associating
life with fire, the other with air.
 148 Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma
Aristotle's theory of connate pneuma as here interpreted, let us
now note, turns out to share a fundamental tenet with that of
Strato of Lampsacus, Aristotle's successor (after Theophrastus)
as the head of the Lyceum. Strato indeed held that the soul is a
pneumatic substance which is in toto corpus diffusa, % precisely the
(indispensable) idea presiding over Aristotle's theory too. The
fact that Strato identifies his pneuma with the entire soul puts his
view in close vicinity to that of Aristotle according to the broad
interpretation, and perhaps this may be taken to lend some sup-
port to that interpretation. 97 We thus end up with an interesting
(hypothetical) historical picture, in which the development lead-
ing from the Presocratic upholders of air as the soul-substance,
via Aristotle, to Straton (and beyond) was fairly continuous.
The postulate concerning the production of the pneuma through
the heating of blood in the heart implies that the heart supplies
the body at one and the same time with moisture (blood or its ana-
logue), 'air', and heat: in Aristotle's account, all three, each of which
was traditionally associated with life and soul-functions, are
necessarily co-extensive. Aristotle's global project of the theory
of connate pneuma presumably could derive some legitimation
from the fact that its building blocks were received ideas.
96Cf. Wehrli, Stratal! val! Lampsakos, p. 33 (fr. 108), and comm. pp. 71 f.
97It must of course be borne in mind that Strato's theory may already have
been influenced by the Stoic view of soul.
IV
The Chen1istry of Cohesion and
Decay
The aim of the present chapter is to highlight some further as-
pects of Aristotle's account of material persistence of individual
composite substances: we will take the vantage point of the' chem-
ist', who studies the resistance to disintegration of substances
without paying attention to whether or not they form part of a
living body, and thus whether or not they have soul 'in' them.
Until now, indeed, we followed Aristotle in his inquiries mainly
qua student of physiology: on that level of analysis, we saw,
Aristotle ascribed the 'holding together' of the homoeomerous
parts of the living body to vital heat, and he at least pondered an
account of material persistence in terms of pneuma as well. (As a
student of psychology Aristotle accounts for the same facts by
drawing on the notion of soul.) Now in Chapter I (§ 1.3.2) we
already considered Aristotle's view according to which the ma-
terial persistence of inanimate composite substances is due to
their natural heat, an account that is a consistent extension' down-
wards' of the biological theory. In the present chapter we look at
this theory anew and in greater detail. We will try to identify the
physical factors on which, according to Aristotle, depends the
material persistence-or, as I will prefer to call it in the present
context, the cohesion-of a substance qua material substance, ani-
mate or inanimate. I will show that although Aristotle nowhere
treats the problem of the cohesion of substances systematically,
it is yet possible, on the basis of important hints dispersed here
and there in his extant writings, to make explicit a rich theory,
that can perhaps be described as Aristotle's chemistry! of cohesion.
J See again the Introduction, n. 2 on the use of the term 'chemistry' in the
present context.
 150 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
1. ARISTOTLE'S GENERAL THEORY OF THE COHESION
OF SUBSTANCES, ANIMATE AND INANIMATE
1.1. The Dry and the Moist: The Topological and the Physical
Meanings
A particular sub lunar substance-a stone, a loaf of bread, a ce-
dar, a horse-is primarily characterized by its unity and indi-
viduality, by the fact that while remaining numerically one and
the same it can undergo modifications (Cat. 5, 3blO f., 4alO n. An
individual substance/ therefore, is delimited-it has definite
contours, its constituents stay together at one place (i.e. they
remain contained within certain boundaries [Phys. 4. 4, 212a20]).
From this simple logical consideration Aristotle draws an impor-
tant consequence concerning the composition of substances in
terms of the dry and the moist. The argument is this: 'Moist',
Aristotle defines, 'is that which, being readily adaptable in shape,
is not determinable by any limit of its own' (GC 2.2, 329b30 f.; cf.
also Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b29). Evidently, individual substances cannot
be formed out of the moist alone: the limit has to be imposed by
something else, namely by the 'dry', defined as 'that which is
readily determinable by its own limit, but not readily adaptable
in shape' (GC 2. 2, 329b31 f.; cf. also Meteor. 4. 4, 381bz9).
It is important to realize that these definitions of the concepts
'moist' and 'dry' are what I will call topological: they concern
solely the capacity of a clump of matter to maintain a given
spatial shape, not the more intuitive and physical senses usually
associated with the corresponding terms (to which we shall come
shortly). This topological construal of 'moist' and 'dry' has im-
portant implications. Thus, every instance of solidification (in the
sense of becoming rigid) of a 'moist' substance-e.g. the harden-
ing of cement, just as the freezing of water-is conceived of as
'drying', simply because it involves the acquiring of a definite
shape. Conversely, every instance of softening (liquefaction is
a special case thereof)-e.g. the dissolution in water of 'earth'
such as salt, the softening or melting of a metal-qualifies as
'moistening'. (Cf. Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b ll if. for the topological defi-
nitions of 'hard' and 'soft'.)
2 In this chapter, as before, by 'substance' I mean 'sublunar substance', one,
that is, constituted of the four sublunar elements or powers.
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 151
-In Aristotle's usage, the terms 'moist' and 'dry' of course have
also their usual physical meanings: here the mark of 'moist' is
not the absence of shape, but the presumed presence within a
substance of another stuff, namely the fluid element, 'water',
which can be extracted from it, i.e. separated off as vapour; by
contrast, a dry substance is one which contains no such moisture.
For Aristotle, then, the terms 'moist' and 'dry' have each two
different meanings, which must be carefully distinguished. Ac-
cordingly, each of the two terms has two extensions. Now these
two extensions of 'moist' and 'dry' obviously overlap consider-
ably: a stone is 'dry' in both the topological and the physical
senses, and mud is 'moist' in both senses. However, at some
crucial points, as will be seen later, there is a discrepancy between
the two extensions which is the source of serious difficulties.
Aristotle does not clearly distinguish between the two mean-
ings of the terms 'dry' and 'moist'. As a result, the homonymy
of each of them is the basis of some statements which, while
grounded in the meanings of the involved terms, yet have em-
pirical implications. For instance: the topological meanings of the
terms 'dry' and 'moist' warrant the claim that all definite, well-
delimited bodies in the sublunar world necessarily are compounds
of the moist and the dry (Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b25). This is then put
differently, but purportedly equivalently, in a statement which
has a more concrete empirical reference: 'all definite physical
bodies in our world require earth and water for their composi-
tion' (Meteor. 4. 4, 382;14-5). Later in this chapter we will repeat-
edly encounter similar instances.
The concepts of 'moist' and 'dry' are pivotal in Aristotle's
account of cohesion and of its disruption. The clarification of
their meanings will afford us a better insight into its strength
and its limitations.
1.2. Moisture and Natural Heat As the Causes of Cohesion;
Decay as a Form of Drying
In Chapter I (§ 1.3.2) we already briefly touched upon Aristotle's
physical theory of cohesion. 'Earth', Aristotle says in De generatione
et corruptiolle, 'has no power of cohesion without the moist. On
the contrary, the moist is what holds it together; for it would fall
to pieces if the moist were eliminated from it completely' (GC 2.
8, 335"1-3). The paradigmatic instances are e.g. soda and salt
 152 The Chemistnj of Cohesion and Decay
b
(Meteor. 4. 9, 385 9). We have here one of the fundamental prin-
ciples of Aristotle's chemistry: the cohesion of a substance depends
upon its moisture. 3 This prinCiple, we will now see, involves a
conflation of the topological and of the physical senses of 'moist'
and 'dry', and thus derives no less from a logical analysis than
from empirical facts.
Aristotle illustrates and confirms the fundamental postulate by
the following reasoning, underwritten by a well-known poetical
quotation from Empedocles. Since 'the moist is un~esistant and
the dry resistant', Aristotle says, it follows that 'the moist causes
the dry to take shape, and each serves as a kind of glue to the
other, as Empedocles says, in his poem On Nature, "gluing meal
together with water'" (Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b31 ff.). Two points de-
serve notice. The first is that Aristotle's argument is purely for-
mal or logical: it is founded only on the meanings-namely, the
topological meanings-of the notions involved. None the less,
the theory obviously has empirical bearing and the second point
concerns the factual evidence supporting it. Behind Empedocles'
metaphor of the meal which is 'glued together with water' lurk
concrete, everyday phenomena. First, bread is obviously prepared
from flour and water, and indeed in the Problems Empedocles'
verse is quoted in this connection. 4 Second, and perhaps more to
the point, the procedures the Greeks employed to produce glue,
specifically the glue used in the manufacture of papyrus, also
instance the 'gluing together' of flour and water: 'fine flour of the
best quality [was] mixed with boiling water, with a very small
sprinkle of vinegar.'s The citation from Empedocles, and the pro-
cedures to which it alludes, were thus well chosen to drive home
the basic theoretical postulate of Aristotle's theory of cohesion,
namely, that, as it is formulated in Problems, moisture has a 'bind-
ing quality' (Prob. 21. 9, 927b34).6
3 Similarly: Theophrastus, De igne, 8; and d. Eichholz's discussion in his
Theophrastlls, De lapidus, 18-19,29.
1 In bread the flour 'uses the water as a glue-a metaphor employed by
Empedocles in the Physics, when he says "gluing barley with water'" (Prob. 21.
22); D-K 31 B 34.
5 Pliny, Nalural History 13. 26, quoted after H. Rackham's translation.
• Another passage in the Problems provides further insight into the role of
moisture as the cause of cohesion: bread that had been kneaded either too little
or too much is said to break up because in both cases most of the moisture has
escaped (Prob. 21. 17; similarly 21. 8).
The Chemistnj of Cohesion and Decay 153
Aristotle's theory of cohesion is all the more powerful as in
most cases the topological and the physical meanings of the terms
'moist' and 'dry' can comfortably be conflated. The argument
just considered first draws on the topological meanings of 'moist'
and 'dry' in order to establish the explanatory import of 'moist'
as the cause of cohesion; subsequently, the moist is construed as
a physical stuff, as a 'glue' holding together substances which
would crumble in its absence, as meal does. This implies, and
Aristotle indeed supposes (§ 1.1), that all well-delimited and
cohering substances are necessarily compounds of the moist
and the dry.
Let us consider the physical notion of moisture then. It is read-
ily seen that moistures differ with respect to their role in confer-
ring cohesion. A garment, for instance, may be soaked with water
whose evaporation certainly will not make it crumble. This mois-
ture, therefore, Aristotle considers as foreign or extraneous
(allotrias, epaktos) moisture (GC 2. 2, 330"17 ff.; Meteor. 4. 5,
382b ll): here 'the water has a separate existence' (Meteor. 4. 5,
382b19 f.) in the sense that its removal does not affect the sub-
stance itself? Foreign moisture is obviously of little consequence
for the theory of matter. Indeed it is rather the other kind of
moisture-inner, (con-)natural (sllmphuton) moisture, which a
substance has 'of its own deep within it' (GC 2. 2, 330"21)-
which is of primary importance and which will command our
attention in the sequel.
'Inner' moisture is obviously one that is 'glued' to the dry so
as to form a cohering substance. Since Aristotle construes the
moist and the dryas being both passive, i.e. as implying suscep-
tibility only, it follows that their 'gluing together' must be brought
about by some other agent(s): an active factor must be operative,
and this can be either heat or cold (GC 2. 2, 329b24-31; Meteor. 4.
I, 378b lO-25). Accordingly, there are two rather dissimilar kinds
of processes, then: (1) Cold, Aristotle affirms, 'is that which brings
together, i.e. associates, homogeneous and heterogeneous things
alike' (GC 2. 2, 329b29); cold is therefore involved in the produc-
tion of both homoeomerous bodies (e.g. metals, horn, nail) and
7 Foreign moisture, let us note in passing, is of two kinds: it may be limited to
the surface of a substance, or it may penetrate it to the core. In both cases, how-
ever, it remains an extrinsic adjunct which can be added or taken away with no
effect on the substance itself (GC 2. 2, 330"17, 22; Meleor. 4. 5, 382b 1 I).
154 The Chemisl1y of Cohesion and Decay
anhomoeomerous ones (e.g. frozen mud) (GA 2. 6, 743 8 ft.; Me- 3
teor. 4. 6, 383 a27 ff.). (ii) By contrast, heat, as already noted earlier
(r § 1.2.2), through a class of processes which Aristotle subsumes
under the generic term 'concoction' (peps is), brings together only
'things of the same kind'. In fact, where heat acts on heterogene-
ous substances, it 'eliminates what is foreign'-e.g. surplus (for-
eign) moisture which the heat evaporates, or ashes in the case
of combustion. This is why concoction is a process bringing
about combination (mixis), i.e. it results in the formation of a
homoeomerous substance. With respect to moisture, therefore,
the action of heat has two possible effects: the heat either evapor-
ates the moisture, or transforms it through concoction into natur-
al moisture. In the latter case, a homoeomerous body results, in
which the dry has 'mastered' the moist and informed it with a
specific logos: concoctions through vital heat, as well as artificial
concoctions in which the logos is supplied 'by us', produce
homoeomerous bodies.
Our discussion so far has shown that a homoeomerous sub-
stance coheres by virtue of its inner, connatural moisture, i.e.
moisture which has become mastered by the dry through a pro-
cess of concoction. This raises the question concerning the role of
the concoction: why is 'mastered' moisture a cause of cohesion
whereas extraneous moisture is not? Aristotle's answer to this
question will emerge from an analysis of his treatment of the
processes by which natural moisture is 'expelled' from a sub-
stance: this is the process of desiccation or drying. But we should
here notice that since 'dry' is homonymous in Aristotle's usage,
the term 'drying' is homonymous too. According to whether the
meaning of 'dry' is physical or topological, Aristotle's 'drying'
therefore denotes two different processes: one process of drying
is that in which moisture is eliminated from a substance, which
then disintegrates; a second process of drying is that in which an
originally moist substance (in the topological sense) solidifies.
Within Aristotle's theory of cohesion the first kind of processes
of drying is obviously of the greater relevance-it is considered
immediately below; drying in the second sense is taken up separ-
ately in § 1.3.
In Chapter I (§ 1.3.2) we have already considered Aristotle's
analysis of decay of composite substances, animate and inanimate,
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 155
I and here I will only recapitulate the salient points. Aristotle
construes decay as a process which necessarily goes through
\ two phases. First, the natural heat inhering in the substance-
which the substance acquired during the concoction by which it
I came to be-must be eliminated by an external agent (usually
the surrounding). This is so because it is a thing's 'own heat,
1 which attracts and draws moisture in' (Meteor. 4. 1, 379"24) and
because it is the moisture which is the immediate cause of cohe-
sion. In the second phase, indeed, after the heat is gone, the
1 moisture, now separated, evaporates, and consequently the sub-
stance crumbles. Aristotle's account of cohesion and decay thus
\
rests on the postulate that the connatural moisture of a substance
I is maintained in it by virtue of the natural heat, so that a sub-
stance becomes dry-and consequently loses its cohesion-if and
only if it had lost its natural heat.
\ Later in this chapter we will have a number of occasions to
consider how Aristotle applies this postulate to the analysis of
I different instances of drying. For the moment let us simply recall
the following example (above, III § 2.4). Aristotle takes decay of
1 living beings-i.e. ageing and death-to consist in their becom-
I ing dry and cold (d. e.g. De long. et brev. vito 5, 4663 } 9-20). He does
I not say why these two features should be concomitant, but the
reason should be clear now. Since for Aristotle life is inherently
I associated with heat/ it follows that ageing and death primarily
mean becoming cold (d. e.g. De iuv. 23, 478b34 ff.). This process
of gradual dwindling of vital heat is necessarily accompanied by
1
desiccation too: as the heat of the ageing living organism lessens,
the amount of natural moisture which the body can draw in
\ decreases; some of this moisture ceases to be 'mastered' by the
I dry and, 'set free', it evaporates. Therefore, as the ageing body
loses its heat, it necessarily gets drier too: 'the heat is failing and
\ 8 Decay, or putrefaction (sepsis), 'the strictest general opposite of unqualified
becoming' (Meteor. 4. 1,379'3), is for Aristotle a special case of destruction (phthom)
I in general: the term refers to natural destruction, i.e. destruction resulting from
'the ordinary course of nature' (such as ageing) and not from violence (e.g. through
fire) (Meteor. 4. I, 379"4 ff.).
9 Recall e.g. the following statements: 'of necessity, life must be simultaneous
\ with the maintenance of heat, and what we call death is its destruction'; indeed
I 'the soul is, as it were, set aglow with fire' in the heart whose warmth is therefore
a necessary condition for life (De iI/v. 4, 469bS ff.); above, I § 1.2.1.
\
(
 156 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
with it the fluid' (GA 5. 3, 783b8). And in a word: the drying of
the aged is a consequence of the abating of their heat. lO
This theory allows Aristotle to account not only for material
persistence and decay tout court, but also for differences in resist-
ance to decay. Thus the characterization of ageing and of death
as getting cold and (therefore) dry implies that long life depends
upon the capacity of the living being to conserve intact its heat
and, as a result, its moisture. Now Aristotle indeed maintains
that substances differ in their resistance to decay: the constitutive
moistures of substances-and let us not forget that substance a I
consists of nothing but appropriately 'mastered' moisture-are
not all on a par in their resistance to refrigeration and (conse-
quently) desiccation. The resistance to decay, Aristotle argues,
hinges on 'the quality as well as the quantity of the fluid'; spe-
cifically, 'the moisture must be not only great in amount but also
warm, in order to be neither easily congealed nor [as a result]
easily dried up' (De long. et brev. vito 5, 466"29 f.). Considered from
the point of view of their role in conferring cohesion, then,
moistures are variegated; and, as we should expect on the basis
of the general theory of cohesion as depending upon heat, the
determining factor is the heat of the moisture in question. In
short: Aristotle holds that moistures differ in their natural heat
and, consequently, in their resistance to evaporation. The role of
concoction in producing cohesion is now clear: during this pro-
cess, the moisture gets mastered and, at the same time, natural
heat goes into the resulting substance; it is by virtue of this heat
that the moisture remains in the substance as connatural mois-
ture, which produces the cohesion of that substance. We can thus
expect Aristotle to hold that the better the moisture of a given
substance is concocted, the more resistant it will be to decay.
This is in fact precisely Aristotle's view.
10 I come back to Aristotle's theory of ageing in the Conclusion. As noted
earIie~ (III. § 2.4), the .theory that moisture depends upon heat, so that the Jiving
org~sm IS necessanly warm and moist, while the dead body is at once dry and
cold, IS a sort of synthesis of the two traditional Greek views of life; the one
which associated life with the moist, the other which associated it with heat. It
is noteworthy that Aristotle's view is apparently the inverse of the one advocated
by ~alen: the latter held that the body's vit~l heat is nourished by its radical
mOls~re, s~ that de~th e~ue.s when that mOIsture has been entirely consumed;
cf. Nlebyl, Old Age. thiS VIew was embraced by Ibn Sma (Avicenna) and it
dominated medieval medicine; cf. Hall, 'Life, Death and the Radical Moisture';
McVaugh, 'The "Humidum radicale"'.
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 157
Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of moisture: an aqueous
moisture which evaporates easily, and a fatty moisture, which
separates off only with difficulty. The substances to which these
kinds of moisture belong are, correspondingly, little or very co-
hesive. We will consider these two kinds of moisture below (§§ 2.1
and 2.2) and see that the fatty moisture owes its capacity to resist
evaporation and thereby to prevent decay to the natural heat
I
that has gone into it during concoction.
1.3. An Excursus: Non-Destructive Drying-Solidification
\ In the last section we considered drying as a process in which a
I physical body, moisture, is separated off a substance, thereby
leading to its decay or disintegration. But 'drying', we recall, also
has a very different meaning for Aristotle: given the topological
! definitions of the dry (as that which delimits) and of the moist
(as that which yields), all instances of solidification must neces-
j sarily be construed as 'a form of drying' (Meteor. 4. 5, 382b1; 4. 7,
3848 11). We will now look at Aristotle's concept of drying as
\ solidification: although it does not bear directly on the theory of
cohesion, our main concern, its discussion will highlight the more
I general theoretical matrix of which the discussion of decay forms
a part.
I The definition of the dry as that which does not yield, implies
that 'everything that solidifies [Le. everything that initially is
I moist] is [either] a watery liquid or a compound of water and
earth, and the cause is either dry heat or cold' (Meteor, 4. 6,
382b31-3). Let us consider the two processes involved in turn.
\ (0 Solidification through dry heat affects the 'compounds of earth
and water'. When subjected to heating, the moisture evaporates,
f leaving the earthy, dry component behind as a sediment: 'heat
draws out the moisture, and when the moisture evaporates the
\ dry constituents increase in density and pack closer' (Meteor. 4.
6, 3838 16 ff,), (Compounds of this kind, it will turn out, solidify
by cold too.) In some of these cases concoction takes place: the
\
heat evaporates the surplus moisture, and at the same time the
dry 'masters' the remaining moisture; so the dry constituent and
some of the moisture become 'glued together' into a substance.
In other cases, the moisture is entirely evaporated and the resi-
due of earth crumbles into dust.
 158 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
Solidification through heat is not always possible. Watery li-
quids like wine, urine, and whey cannot, Aristotle says, be solidi-
r ;?",i C
'h.• • .• .
I
+
fied by fire which rather 'dissolves' them: this means that, owing
to the absence of an admixture of earth, fire evaporates the entire
liquid into vapour, with no sediment being left behind (Meteor. 4.
6, 383"6 ff.; 4. 5, 382 b13 ff.). Nor can viscous liqUids be solidified
by heat: they too leave no sediment behind (Meteor. 4.5, 382 b15),
albeit f~r the opposite cause. As we will see below (§ 2.1), they
are entirely. tr~nsf~rmed into fumes, with their earthy compon-
ent too vanIshmg mto the air.
(ii) Solidification through cold. Aristotle assumes solid substances
such as amber, myrrh, frankincense, gum, and stalactites to have
been solidified through cold (Meteor. 4. 10, 388b19 ff.). Concern-
ing such substances he is in a difficult position. On the basis of
the to~olo~icaI notion that all solidification is 'a form of drying',
he mamtams that these substances are 'dry'. The physical mean-
ings of 'dry' and 'moist' in turn lead him to postulate that the
action of the cold in fact eliminated the moisture from these
substances. How are we to construe this intuitively implausible
process? Aristotle's answer is this:
Compounds of earth and water are solidified both by fire and by cold,
~nd are also increased in d~nsity by both, their mode of operation being
In some respects the same, In others different. Heat draws out the mois-
ture, and when the moisture evaporates the dry constituents increase in
density and pack closer; cold expels the heat and the moisture evapor-
ates and passes off with it. (Meteor. 4. 6, 383"13 ff.)
Thus, cold, no less than heat, can bring about solidification
through evaporation. (In point of fact, the former does so accid-
entally, the latter essentially; cf. GA 5. 3, 783"35 ff.) This account
is evidently grounded in the principle discussed above: it is be-
cause the moisture inheres in the natural heat of the substance
that cold can ~v~porate it by 'expelling' the heat (Meteor. 4. 10,
388 14-15). ThIS IS also why, common sense notwithstanding, in
all the cases of solidification or drying seemingly brought about
through cold, it is heat which is really operative: 'Things are dried
either by being heated or by being cooled, heat internal or exter-
nal being the active cause in either case. For even things which
are dried by cooling ... are dried by their internal heat which,
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
when driven out by the surrounding cold, evaporates the
159
moisture if the amount of it is small' (Meteor. 4. 5, 382b 16 if.). For
instance, amber is formed by cooling (as the insects trapped in it
are taken to indicate), namely when 'the heat expelled by the
cold of the river evaporates the moisture in it' (Meteor. 4. 10,
388b22 f.). Similarly, stalactites are formed when 'their heat is
driven out by cold and their moisture accompanies the heat when
it retires' (Meteor. 4. 10, 388~8 f.).
This theory, let us note, applies only to compounds of earth
and water, but not to instances of solidification by cold of purely
watery liquids (e.g. congealing water into ice). The theoretical
reason is obvious: since watery liquids form no sediment upon
evaporation, it cannot be assumed that it is through evaporation
that cold solidifies them. Moreover, these substances are pre-
cisely those for which solidification and liquefaction are revers-
ible processes: 'bodies solidified by deficiency of heat are melted
by heat, for instance ice, lead, or bronze' (Meteor. 4. 8, 385"31 ff.).
But one can hardly think of this reversal-as the notion of solidi-
fication cum desiccation through evaporation implies-as being
due to the restoration of the (evaporated) moisture through
heating! The source of the difficulty here becomes apparent if we
remember that it is the topological notion of 'dry' which leads
Aristotle to think of any instance of solidification as a form of
drying; the solidification of watery liquids through cold, how-
ever, cannot be thought of as a process of drying also in the
physical sense (Le. as one depending on the elimination of mois-
ture through evaporation). In short, in the cases discussed until
now, thlO' largely overlapping extensions of the topological and
the physical concepts of 'dry' and 'moist' allowed Aristotle to
equate drying and solidification, postulating that evaporation is
always involved. The present class of cases shows that the exten-
sions of the topological and the physical concepts are not iden-
tical: the solidification of watery liquids through cold is in need
of a different theory. How, then, does Aristotle construe the
solidification of watery liquids which, after all, are the most
common instances of solidification by cold? This proves impos-
sible within the theoretical framework discussed so far and in-
deed we find that Aristotle endeavoured to elaborate a distinct
theory for the solidification of these liquids. This theory, although
interesting in its own right, has no immediate bearing on the
 160 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 161
TABLE 1. Desiccation (and, eventually, its converse) in Meteorologica 4 2.1. Aqueous Moisture and Fatty Moisture in Aristotle
Type of Heat Cold On close scrutiny, we find that Aristotle occasionally distinguishes
Substance
two kinds of moisture, and draws on this distinction to account
With Evaporation No Evaporation for differences in the cohesion of substances. One sort of mois-
ne,lt
Watery Water «old) Vapour ~ ture is aqueous, the other fatty (or greasy; liparos).ll The latter kind
Water~Ice
Liquids of moisture Aristotle takes to resist decay better than the former.
heat
Water Water + Earth (",Id. molsture) Water + Earth~
mId For instance, one reason why plants live longer than animals is
Water + Earth(h..!)
with Soda, Salt, etc. Stalactites, Amber, that 'they have an oiliness and a viscosity which makes them
Froz(:l1 mild,
Earth Water + Earth ~ etc. IrO/I, Horn retain their moisture in a form not easily dried up'-notably, we
Pottery, Millstones infer from the context, through cold (De long. et brev. vito 6,
Water Water + Air heal)
Water + Air <old) 467"6 ff.). Similarly, 'water animals have a shorter life than ter-
with Oil that thickens
Air
Oil that thickens restrial creatures, not strictly because they are humid, but be-
cause they are watery, and watery moisture is easily destroyed,
Note; Drying (elimination of the moisture and/or solidification) is brought about either by
he~t (left column) ~r by ~old (right column). Some processes are reversible through the
actIOn of the oPfoslte. active power; these are indicated by a double arrow. Some drying
I since it is cold and readily congealed' (Le. dried up by cold-see
below; De long. et brev. vito 5, 466b33 ff.; cf. also 466b22 f. and De
sensu 2, 438"20 f. for similar accounts). Again, differences in the
processes result m solid substances (indicated by italics).
thickness of hair among animals are explained thus: 'if the mois-

problem of cohesion which is our main concern; I therefore con-

sider it separately in Appendix A.
Table 1 provides an overview of the different cases of desicca-
tion through heat and cold as distinguished by Aristotle.
2. RESISTING DECAY: FATTY MOISTURE AND OIL
I ture [of the skin] is watery, it quickly dries off and the hair does
not attain to any size, though it does if the moisture is greasy,
because greasy matter does not readily dry off' (GA 5. 3, 782 b2 ff.).
I We conclude that fatty moisture is resistant to desiccation by either
heat or cold. Indeed, olive oil, certainly the paradigmatic instance
of fatty moisture, is dried up by neither heat nor cold (Meteor. 4.
1
7, 383b34). It follows that, in general terms, 'fat things are not

Aristotle's theory of cohesion rests on the idea that th~ rnhp<;ion

of a substance is brought about by its connatural moisture, which
in turn is maintained in the substance by the natural heat that
has ?o~e into it d~ri~g concoction. This postulate suggests the
possIbIhty of expla1010g the differences in the cohesion of sub-
stances as depending upon differences of their moistures, result-
~ng from differe~ces in their natural heat. Aristotle, we saw,
10deed makes thIS move and holds that the resistance to desic-
cation (in the physical sense), and hence the decay, of a sub-
stance de~ends not o~ly on the quantity, but also on the quality
of the mOIsture; speCIfically, to resist desiccation, the moisture
should be 'warm' (above, § 1.2). We will now see how Aristotle
applies this idea to the facts.
I liable to decay' (De long. et brev. vito 5, 466"23), indeed, 'fat does
not putrefy' (HA 3.19,521'1). Substances whose moisture is fatty,
. sum, are coh
10 ' an d perSIS
eSIVe . t en t .12
\ Why is this so? How does Aristotle explain these congenial
r II In the medieval Scholastic and alchemical Latin literatures, Iiparos was trans-
lated as IIIICIIiMIIS; in 17th- and early 18th-cent. English, 'unctuous' was employed.
I used this term in earlier publications and in the draft of this book. An anony-
\ mous reader of my manuscript advised me that for the ears and eyes of contem-
l porary native speakers of English the term 'fatty' is a more congruous rendering
of the Greek. I gratefully accept his or her suggestion, and use here that term
although it introduces a break with tradition. (The traditional term can be en-
countered in some passages quoted in the Conclusion.)
l~ The idea that 'that which is sticky cannot be separated' and so does not dry
\
up occurs also in Problellls 21. 12,928'26 ff.: 'For when the dough is ~eaded and
the lightest flour and the stickiest moisture are left, the bread, when It has been
r exposed to the fire, becomes glutinous and does not dry up'; d. also Prob. 21. 6
for a similar account.

r
 162 The Chemistn) of Cohesion and Decay
properties of fatty moisture? This problem will occupy us through-
out the rest of this chapter. A first step toward understanding
what Aristotle had in mind can be done by considering the dis-
tinct~on ~e b~efly draws between fumes (thumiatos) and vapour
(atm/s): od, pItch, and sweet wine, for instance, give off fumes,
whereas
b
water, urine, and whey rise as vapour (Meteor. 4. 5,
382 13-17; 4. 7, 3843 6; 4. 9, 387b6 f.). Consider vapour first.
Aristotle here defines it as 'a moist exhalation ... given off by
moisture in a body when exposed to burning heat',(Meteor. 4.9,
387"25).13 When the moisture of a substance is driven off as va-
pour, a dry residue is usually left behind (unless, that is, the
substance in question is a watery liquid which evaporates en-
tirely; Meteor. 4. 6, 383"11 f.). It should indeed be emphasized that
vapour consists only of the evaporated moisture, i.e. nothing of
the other, earthy, constituents of the substance is admixed with
it: 'In all such cases it is the water that is driven off in the process
of drying. This is shown by the fact that if you collect the vapour
it condenses into water' (Meteor. 4. 7, 384"5-7; cf. also 2. 3,
b
3S8 16 ff.; De sensu S, 443"28). Substances giving off vapours, then,
disintegrate: their moisture is separated off the other, dry constitu-
ents, which are left behind and crumble: 'everything that decays
gets drier, until it ends as earth or dung' (Meteor. 4. 1,379"22 f.)
'Fumes', Aristotle says, 'are given off by bodies which contain
moisture, but in such a way that it does not evaporate separately
when they are exposed to fire' (Meteor. 4. 9,387"23). This defini-
tion implies that the moisture of substances like oil is inseparable
moisture. In fact, 'fuming is the exhalation of dry and moist to-
gether' (Meteor. 4. 9, 387"30), i.e. of both of the substance's com-
ponents, not of the moisture alone. Fumes are, so to speak, the
entire original stuff transformed into an aeriform state. In fumes,
it thus appears, the moisture remains 'glued' to (i.e. 'mastered'
by) the dry, just as it was in the body giving the fumes off: this
indeed is why fumes are not moist and are incapable of wetting
(Meteor. 4.9,387"28,31). This idea also explains why oil does not
boil off or thicken: 'it gives off fumes but does not evaporate'
its moisture (Meteor. 4. 9, 387b7) and thus cannot be dried up
(Meteor. 4. 7, 383b34; § 1.3 above).
Aristotle does not develop the distinction between vapour and
J3 Let it be noted that this definition is in agreement with the definition of the
moist exhalation given in Meleor. 1: d. 1. 3, 340b3, b2S; 1. 4, 34}hS f.; 1. 9, 347'S f.
The Chemistn) of Cohesion and Decay 163
fume in detail, nor does he explain why the moisture of, say, oil
is in fact 'inseparable'. Some further insight into what he had in
mind can be gained from the following consideration. In the
course of his fairly long discussion of olive oil (whose nature is
'most difficult to determine'), Aristotle accounts for precisely the
same facts as before, but now he draws on a quite different
concept: oil, he explains, 'is not dried up or boiled off by fire
because its viscous (glischros) character prevents evaporation'
(Meteor. 4. 7, 384"2). Now the notion of viscosity-'a moisture
modified in a certain way' (GC 2.2, 330"S)-receives a brief treat-
ment as one of the 'passive qualities' of homoeomerous bodies: 'A
thing is viscous when it is ductile as well as being liquid [moist]
or soft. And this characteristic belongs to all bodies with inter-
locking parts, whose composition is like that of chains; for they
admit of considerable extension and contraction' (Meteor. 4. 9,
387"11). On this account, then, it is the 'internal structure' of vis-
cous substances-their interlocking parts-which prevents their
moisture from being separated off.
Aristotle thus presents us with two distinct explanations of the
inseparability (as vapour) of the moisture of fatty substances: one
in terms of fumes, the other in terms of a chain-like particulate
structure. The two accounts are by no means contradictory, of
course, but rather complementary. Juxtaposing them, we may, I
think, conclude the following: Aristotle regarded oily substances
as consisting of 'parts' hanging together like the links of a chain
and as being, therefore, extensible. This is why when heated they
give off fumes, which are, so to speak, the original stuff extremely
stretched out. Consequently, since the 'parts' continue to hang
all together, no moisture can be separated off as vapour. Put
differently: by virtue of their 'interlocking parts', oily substances
are highly cohering and do not easily disintegrate; specifically,
they do not admit of the separation of the moist from the dry
components, so that if subjected to heating the entire substance
passes off as fumes. 14
We get a further insight into Aristotle's two explanatory models
if we remember that in Aristotle's time oily substances were
widely used as excipients in the production of ointments: the
odoriferous, usually very volatile substance was 'fixed' onto an
Ii This is also the interpretation adduced by Albertus Magnus; d. the Conclu-
sion, p. 202 below.
 164 The Chemistnj of Cohesion and Decay
oily one which allowed it to subsist for a long time. IS The notion
of.~me and the image of a chain of parts, consisting of the entire
ongInal substance stretching out into the environment, therefore
had a rather concrete, almost tangible meaning: they had their
'model' in the odoriferous unguent whose endurable scent testi.
fied t~at its e~tire oily substance persists spread through space.
It wIll readIly be realized that the above considerations have a
direct ~earing on the question why fat things resist decay: since
d~cay IS a. consequ.en~e of the loss of moisture, and, since oily
thIngs, owmg to theIr VISCOUS structure, do not desiccate, it follows
that they are n~t, or. little, susceptible to decay. This is why, in
general terms, VISCOSIty is 'a cause of unity' (Metaph. 8. 6, 1045"10).
The physi~al-chemical theory of oil which can be gleaned from
Meteorologlca 4 thus founds the notion of fatty moisture as used
in the Parva naturalia and it underlies the postulate that 'fat things
are not liable to decG\Y'.
Yet the matter cannot rest here. For one thing, it seems that we
have lost sight of the notion of natural heat which, as we saw is
central to Aristotle's account of the cohesion of substances: h~w
does that idea fit in with those we have just encountered in the
account~ of oil? Furt~er, supposing that the cohesion of oily sub-
stances IS due to theIr viscosity (i.e. to their chainlike structure)
it still remains .a p~zzle how that structure is supposed to b~
fo~ed a~d. maIntaIned. For considered from the material point
of VIew, olliS a compound mainly of water and air (Meteor. 4. 7
384"16): but what is it that holds together these components s~
strongly, in fact, that the water cannot be separated? These q~es­
tions are taken up below.
2.2. The Cohesiveness of Fatty Moisture: Causes and Consequences
2.2.1. Heat and Pneuma as the Causes of the Cohesion of Fat Substances
The question why 'fat things are not liable to decay' is directly
addressed by Aristotle in only one enigmatic sentence: the cause,
he says, is that fat things 'contain air; now air relatively to the
other elements is fire, and fire never becomes rotten [corrupted]'
(De long. et brev. vito 5, 466"24-5). Although the account is far
15 Th.eophras~s, De odoribll,s, §§ 14-20; Bliirnner, Teclmologie lind Terminologie,
356-64, Chapot, Unguentum; art. 'Salben'; Forbes, Studies, 3,1-49. As could be
expected, Aristotle was acquainted with these techniques: <:f. On Dreams 2, 460"27 f.
Tile Chemistnj of Cohesion and Decay 165
from clear,16 the fact that Aristotle brings in fire at all (even if
obliquely) suggests that he sought to connect his account of fat's
particular resistance to decay with his theory of cohesion in terms
of heat. In fact, for Aristotle 'fat is hot' (PA 4. 3, 677'33; 2. 7,
652"27), so that its particular cohesiveness neatly conforms to,
and is explained by, his theory according to which the cohesion
of a substance depends upon its natural heat. The claim that fat
substances are hot is of course warranted by the stance that heat
subsists in concocted substances: fatty substances are either ani-
mal fats, which on Aristotle's account are concocted blood (PA 2.
5, 651"20 ff.), or vegetable oils to which an analogous account
applies. 17 Aristotle explicitly states this idea in his account of
I buoyancy: just as in solid substances that have undergone com-
bustion 'a certain amount of fire is left in the ashes', so also 'does
I a remnant of the heat that has been developed remain in fluids
after concoction; and this is the reason why oily matter is light,
and floats on the surface of other fluids' (PA 3.9,672'5-9).18 The
I cohesiveness of fatty moisture, then, fits neatly into Aristotle's
general account of the dependence of the cohesion of substances
I upon their internal heat. .
Other accounts in which Aristotle discusses properties of oil
.
possibly allow us to improve our insight into his views on what
protects oily substances from corruption. These acco.unts, as we
will see, make dear that Aristotle supposes the heat In fats to be
carried by air they contain, which turns out to be specifically hot
air. But 'hot air', we recall, is precisely the somatic definition of
pneuma (GA, 2. 2, 736a 1). It is therefore conceivable, as I now want
to suggest, that Aristotle envisaged the possibility to subsume
16 Does not Aristotle himself say elsewhere that, unlike fire, air does decay:
'everything else decays except fire: for earth, water and air a~1 decay, sinc~ all are
matter in relation to fire' (Meteor. 4.1,379'13 ff.)? And what, mdeed, does It mean
that air is fire 'relatively' to the other elements, and ~hat the three eleme~ts are
'matter' in relation to fire? Perhaps the idea underlymg both statements IS that
the 'outer' elements are 'forms' to those below them. Cf. Gill, Aristotle 011 SI/b-
stance, 239.
17 Cf. Appendix to Ch. I. That olive oil contains heat is affirmed at Meteor. 4.
b
7, 383b31 and is also stated repeatedly in Problems; d. 1. 39, 863b22; 5. 38, 884 38;
24. 1, 936'12.
b
18 At GA 2. 2, 735 b25 and Meteor. 4. 7, 383 25 Aristotle explains the buoyancy
of oil with reference to air only. But since, as we will presently see, he takes 011
to contain specifically hot air, the difference between the accounts seems to be
one of emphasis, not of substance.
 166 The Chemistnj of Cohesion and Decay
the cohe~i:eness of fat~ also under his general theory of pneuma,
and s~ecIfica~ly to ascrIbe it to the pneuma's capacity to produce
matenal persIstence, as discussed in Chapter III (§ 2.3). It should,
howe~er, ?e con<;eded from the outset that this part of the inter-
pretatIon IS admIttedly more conjectural than the former
~onsider fi~st the following two accounts, which sho~ that
~rIstotle wa~ In fact prepared to invoke the notion of pneuma in
hIS. explanatIons of physical properties of fats:
. (1) The greasines~ of oils, th~ir shiny, glittering aspect (liparos),
IS at one place aSCrIbed by ArIstotle to 'a combination of air and
a
fire' (PA 2.5, 651 24 f.). Elsewhere he says that 'oil itself contains
a good deal of pneuma-for of course shininess is a quality of
pneuma, not of earth and water' (presumably because these are
the' dark' elem~ntsi GA 2. 2, 735"'24 f.). 19 Comparing the two ac-
~o~nts, we realIze that they are identical and that Aristotle iden-
hfI~~ p~eu.ma and 'a combination of air and fire', i.e. hot air.
~ll) SImIlarly:. the ~act that oil does not freeze is explained by
~n~totle thus: .1ts faIlure to freeze is due to its heat-because the
aIr ~s ho~ and IS impervious to frost' (GA 2. 2, 735 b29 f.). Here
agaIn ArI~totle s~em~ to. draw not only on the quality 'hot' of the
e~ement aIr (for ~ hIS bIOlogical writings air is consistently con-
SIdered as cold), but on the properties of specifically h t . .
oil. 0 aIr In
~hese instances, as well as a close scrutiny of the analogies
ArIstotle draws between the properties of semen and of oil (1
have r~legated their detailed discussion to Appendix B), show
that ArIstotle drew on the notion of pneuma to explain physical
~nd chemical properties of fatty substances. But does the pneuma
Invoked here have anything to do with the theoretical notion by
that ~ame, that of the psycho-physiological accounts? This seems
possIble. The fundamental postulate of Aristotle's theory of
connate pneuma (III § 2.2.1) states that concoction necessarily pro-
duce~ pneuma, so that all substances resulting from concoction
co~taIn some pneuma. Now by virtue of their long concoction,
ammal fats, presumably also vegetable fats, contain a particu-
larly great amount of pneuma. It is this large share of pneuma-
and therefore of heat too-that accounts for the specific properties
I? 'T~at which is moist is generally black, owing to the admixture of the earthy
eIement (Prob. 38. 1, 966b20).
2Jl 0. below, Appendix B.
The Clzemisft1! of Cohesion and Decay 167
fats, such as their shininess and resistance to freezing. More-
and this is perhaps the crucial point, the global theory of
is implicitly presupposed here in yet another way: as the
in AppendiX B shows, Aristotle construes the pneuma in
as consisting of tiny bubbles of hot air, suffused throughout
liquid without separating off. The fact that he proceeds on
assumption that fats are substances which remain perma~­
'pneumatized', Le. contain air which is not part of theIr
mixis and yet does not separate off, seems to indicate that he
draws on his theory of connate pneuma. I thus suggest that when
Aristotle invoked plleuma (or hot air) in the context of his ac-
counts of the physical properties of oil, he may have done so
with the intention to build on his theory of pneuma.
Now if Aristotle indeed holds fats to contain much pneuma,
and if he draws on his general theory of connate pneuma in order
to account for their properties, then it is conceivable that he
thought also of the particular cohesiveness of fats as subsumable
under the same theory. For the explanation of the material p~r­
sistence of homoeomerous substances in terms of pneuma, whIch
is a part of Aristotle's global project of accounting phfsiologic-
ally for soul-functions in terms of connate pneuma, applIes to fats
just as well (or as badly) as to any homoeomer?us substance
within a living body. The cryptic account from whIch we set out,
in which Aristotle ascribes the resistance to decay of fats to the
fact that they 'contain air', possibly echoes this idea: Aristotle
may have been thinking not of the element air, but rather of hot
air, Le. pneuma, just as he invoked pneuma in other accounts of
the properties of fats. His statement that' air relatively to other
elements is fire' may indeed convey the notion of a particularly
hot air. Moreover, the statement that 'fire never becomes cor-
rupted', with the implication that air too is 'relatively' resistant
to decay, recalls the description of the connate pneuma as not
'undergoing alteration' (MA 10, 703a 25).21
21 The reason why Aristotle does not explicitly connect the cohesiveness of fats
with their plleuma could be that the entire t~eory ~f connate ptlel/Illa has never
reached completion: Aristotle may have wntten thiS passage and the o.~er ac-
counts invoking only air or hot air before he was prepared to draw eXl?hcltly on
the notion of p"euma, especially in the context of an ac~ou~t of coheslOn~pro­
bably not the least problematiC part of the theory, to which mdeed only a smgle
sentence is devoted in the entire corpus (III § 2.3).
 168 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
Aristotle, we can conclude, thought of the cohesive properties
. b pneuma inhering in them, we may have here a further piece
of fatty moisture as due to the presence in it of heat, carried by
the specifically hot air, or pneuma, within it. This is in conformity
with the general theory according to which the unity of a com~
posite substance is produced through concoction, and is subse~
quently maintained by the natural heat with which it remains
suffused. Beyond that-but this part of the interpretation is more
hypothetical-Aristotle may have groped toward an account of
the striking cohesiveness of fats also in terms. of pneuma, the
theoretical concept of his psycho~physiology, which inter alia was
to explain the material persistence of composite substances. Here
as elsewhere, to be sure, the account of cohesion in terms of heat
and the (conjectured) account in terms of pneuma are not contra~
dictory: since pneuma is hot air, the assumption that fats contain
pneuma implies that they are hot.
2.2.2. Fat Parts (Sinews, Membranes) and the Unity of Animal Bodies
Fats, then, are resistant to decay and as such' a cause of unity'
a makes the majority of her productions by means of pneuma used
(Metaph. 8. 6, 104S lO). By virtue of this quality, fats, and gluti-
nous substances generally, seem to have a great significance
within Aristotle's project of accounting physiologically for soul-
functions. These substances, as I have already briefly suggested
(u § 4.1), seem to be involved in an attempt to fill the important
theoretical gap in Aristotle's physiological account of one of the
functions of the nutritive soul. I refer to the impossibility of
explaining in terms of vital heat the material persistence of
anhomoeomerous bodies (I § 1.3.2). We have in fact observed
(II § 4.1) that Aristotle ascribes to viscous or glutinous substances
an important function within his economy of the living body: by
virtue of their cohesiveness and elasticity, membranes and sin-
ews are said to hold together the entire body and its anhomo-
eomerous parts. Although, as already pointed out, this account
ultimately fails (because these parts do not form a continuous
system throughout the body), Aristotle quite clearly regarded
them as accomplishing physiologically a function of the nutritive
soul: he explicitly entrusts the glutinous, elastic parts with bring-
ing about physiologically the material persistence of the
anhomoeomerous parts and of whole body.
Moreover, supposing that Aristotle indeed thought of the
cohesiveness of glutinous substances as being brought about
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 169
or what was to be Aristotle's theory of connate pn~l/ma ~s the
physiological counterpart of soul. On this hypotheSIS, A:Isto~e
ma have worked toward an account according to WhIC~ t e
co~ate pneuma holds together the entire body (the b.road I.nte~-
retation, ct. III § 2.3) by means of the ~iscous 'p.arts In ~hlch It
inheres and which it endows with t~~Ir speCifIC ~hyslcal and
chemical properties (elasticity in addItIon to cohe~lveness). On
this (admittedly somewhat speculative) interpretatIon, then, Ar-
istotle could have contemplated the idea tha~ the co~ate pneuma
does not itself directly bring about the ~atena~ perslstenc~ of th~
entire body by being continuous from Its arc~e to th~ penphery.
rather the pneuma itself endows with matenal persistence only
homoeomerous substances, which in their t~r~ hol~ tog~ther the
entire body. Whether or not Aristotle had thIS Idea In mInd ~ust
remain conjectural, but if he indeed had, then it may have given
him one further reason to think that 'it is probable that Nature
as an instrument' (GA 5. 8, 789 b9).
2.3. Fatty Moisture: Conceptual Sources
The notion of fatty moisture is far from central in th~ exta.nt
Aristotelian corpus, but it enjoyed an after-life of ~wo millenma,
f w hints of which will be given in the ConclUSIOn. The ques-
:io~ concerning the origins of this notion (which seems not as yet
to have engaged the attention of scholars) is therefore of some
interest. 'f' I'ty f
We can trace the notion of fatty (liparos) as a spe~I IC qua.I 0
matter related to cohesion back to the pseud?-Hlppocrattc On
Fleshes, whose affinity with Aristotle's early phIlosophy has been
pointed out earlier (II § 3.2).22 The author, ~s we ~lready noted,
osits the 'hot' (thermon) as a sort of intelhgent, Immortal, and
~ivine substance (2.1), akin to Diogenes' air. He ~ssumes
;hat
even after the initial separation had taken place-l.e. ~fter ~he
largest part of the hot went outwards, i.e. to the top penphery -
;U For texts and translations d. Ch. II n. 49. In what follows, numbers. in pa
f
renthesis in the text refer to paragraphfs of 0H'I FI~sh~; T~e;r~g~;~t~~~I:h~;:e~t
passages from On Fleshes are taken rom arns, . Ie , .
overview of the theory d. Spoerd, 'L' Anthropogo/1le'.
 170
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 171
still 'a lot of hot was left in the earth . . "by non-solid, flexible surfaces like membranes (e.g. stomach,
large quantities and I'n oth I dIn dIfferent places, in some
, ers ess an in oth I" intestines, bladder; d. 3. 3-6).
but taken aU together a lot' (31)' Th hers very Ittle Indeed,
formation of certain parts f thO 'h e aut or then describes the The fatty and the glutinous stuffs are here both taken to ac-
o e uman body: count for the cohesion of, respectively, the solid and the flexible
When, in the course of time the earth d . d tissues. On Fleshes seems not to distinguish between the cold and
the hot, these elements collect d d r~e up under the influence of the moist: the action of heat eliminates both at once, and when
tunics. And as the heating we e anf mal e rottenness about them like heat acts on 'pure' cold, a liquid results. This explains why ac-
t
f rom the earth was fat and h nd on
1
or a ong tim
.
h
e, w atever rottenness cording to On Fleshes the more a substance contains of the cold,
came bones, and whatever a~t east wet, burnt most quickly, and be-
share of the cold could nor ~ hap:ened to be more-gluey and had a the less cohesive it is, and vice versa. For instance, teeth are more
could they becox'ne part 0/
t~ en l~ e~ were heated, be burnt up, nor solid than bones because they contain no cold at all (12.1). This
different from the others and ~e co . h~y therefore took on a form is plausible: the more a substance contains of the formative hot
For they did not have much of t~me :~l~d t~ndons [neuraJ or sinews. substance, the better it preserves its form, i.e. it has greater co-
great deal of cold. And of this I;
~~ 10 t em. But the veins had a
glutinous was cooked by the h ~o 'd; outer surface which was most
hesion. It follows that the difference between the fatty and the
glutinous is one of degree only: both kinds of substances are
being overpowered by the hot a , an d' ecame membrane, and the cold cohesive inasmuch as the heat has overpowered, to different
came wet. (3. 1-3) . ,was Issolved, and for this reason be- degrees, the cold cum moist within them.
The conceptual scheme of On Fleshes is apparently original:
The basic underlyin .d . th
ness', the result depe;d~ ~a l:h at when the hot acts on 'rotten- 'Ein wirklicher VorUiufer Uisst sich nicht fassen,' Karl Deichgraber
rotten matter contains very ~itt1: ;~';;tity of t~e cold: whe~ the wrote. 24 But the absence of a literary source is not the absence of
author refers as fatty-then the h d ~nd mOIs~r~-:-to thIS the any source at all. In fact, the notion of the glutinous as bringing
case notably bones result).23 Wh~~ nes and sol~dlfies it (in this about cohesion seems to have a very precise origin: it derives, I
~atter is then called glutinous (kOllO;;;~r~;;:I~ IS resent-the believe, from the procedure by which the Greeks (who probably
learnt this art from the Egyptians) prepared glues from animal
hrely overcome the cold and th e ot oes not en-
~.g. sinews or tendons. (Note tha~sh~;oduc~s so~ething flexible, skins. Glue (kolla) was made by boiling steer and bull skins in
IS associated with that which ield e, ~s In Ans!otIe, the moist water (d. taurokolla; gluten tallrinum):25 glue was extracted pre-
does not yield.) An additional ~ssu s, t. e ~ry WIth that which cisely from what On Fleshes considers as membranes. Thus, the
acts on the cold itself I't 'd' I ,~phon IS that when the hot formation process described in On Fleshes is in a way the exact
, ISS0 ves It and r 'd reversal of the process by which glue was produced in practice.
assumption that the hot act b Ik a IqUl results. The
(but not the outside) entiret on a . u of matter whose interior The fact that the author of 011 Fleshes uses the term kollodes to
to account for the formatio y ~o~s~~ts of cold, allows the author designate precisely the matter which, on his account, gives rise
by a solid substance (this is ~~t bf °th parts, surrounded either to membranes and their like seems to support this view.
W
a y e case of the head, 4. 1), or The notions of the fatty and I or glutinous matter as accounting
for cohesion quickly found acceptance. Plato draws on them in
~ The author in fact holds that th f .
solId one, which he still takes to be f: atty substance .IS burnt, giving rise to a the Timaeus (82d): 'From sinews and flesh, again, proceeds the
problem !hat was to remain troubleso tty (d. 4. 3). He IS here confronted with a viscous and oily stuff which glues the flesh to the structure of the
for ~~heslOn (cf. the ConclUSion): how~:;sf~~~g as fatness wa~ taken to account
stability-and easily inflammable and th . e at onc~ coheSive-the cause of
the problem and argued that 'pitch '1 us I~stable? AnstotIe already addressed 24 Deichgraber, Hippokrates iiber EntsteJlllllg, 35.
mixed with other thin gs than b ' 01 an, wax are more inflammable when 25 BlUmner, Technologie und Terminologie, i. 287 ff.; Sauer, Chemie, 4-13. What
dryness 'by which the transiti: themse~ves (Meleor. 4. 9, 387>22), namel with happens is this: animal skins, as well as bones, tendons, etc;., essentially consist
fat (liparos) substances bUm' 'fa~ i~o fire ISb~ffe~ted' (388'5; also '9). This i~ why of coHagen, which yields gelatin on boiling. Gelatin is the chemical substance
. a com mation of dry and oily' (388'8). active in numerous glues.
 172 The ChemistnJ of Cohesion and Decay The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 173
bones.'26 Aristotle too echoes this conception. We already en- off when the heat is driven out by cold;
countered his statement that 'all bodies depend on something does in its interna~ hea.t, pa~::sd in both in the topological sense of
therefore, congeah~? 1m h
p
ry l'n the physical sense of losing the
glutinous to hold them together' (GA 2. 3, 737h2; d. II § 4.1), his losing the adaptablhty of s h ape an I
term, glischros, being one which occurs in On Fleshes (5. 1) too, as natural moisture.. I to all cases of solidification
a synonym for kollodes. He also argues, again in conformity with It is natural to expect thiS account to app y thing explicit to dispel the
On Fleshes, that sinews, skin, blood-vessels, and 'all that class of by cold and indee~ ~ri~totle nes:e\:~y::7treadY noted briefly in the
substances' are glutinous, differing only by 'the more or the less' impression that thiS IS 1.n~~ed. . b ' ld involves the evaporation of
(73r4 f.).27 text, the theory that sohd1fichatlOnl'd~fiCOt1'on of watery liquids, i.e. those
. t a count for t e so 1 1 ca . t
Aristotle's concept of the fatty (liparos)-our main concern here mOlsture canno. c h C sider the following two related pom .s.
-thus has next of kin in the concepts kollodes and glischros. In without an admlXture o~ ea~t. on. d metals) can be liquefied agam
On Fleshes, and for Aristotle too, the latter two are synonyms and (0 Solidified watery hqUlds (e· g · 1c3e84abn12' 4 8 385"31 ff.). This is in lIice
(M t 4 6 383"26 ff . 4 7 , . ,
Aristotle, we saw, considers oil to be glutinous. All these con- by heat e eor. . , ., '.' d . . I that 'opposite causes
conformity with Aristotle's chenshe ~rm~I~: that 'what one [of the
cepts concerned with cohesion and material persistence are Produce opposite effects' (4.7, 384hz ff.~, 1m.p Yl g, (4 6 383b15 f.). Yet
I'd'fi th other will d1SS0 ve .,
active power~l so. I .1 es e e for we have to assume that when, say,
anchored in, and founded on, the theolOgical metaphysics con-
sidered in Chapter II, which accounted for forms and souls in there is a major dlffic~lty. her, to also (re-)introduces moisture into the
terms of a divine heat. The notion of fatty moisture as a cause of ice is melted, th~ heating IPS? fac diatel transpires that Aristotle's con-
material persistence may also have a social dimension. It is con- dry (because sohd) body. It ~m~oes n~t ield and as that from which
sidered below, in Appendix C. flation of the dry as tha.t ~hIC~ is bound~o get him into trouble when
all moisture has been ehmmat.e. ti b cold is a reversible process.
it comes to cases where solid1fica o~ ~ they solidify do not increase
APPENDIX A: ARISTOTLE'S TWO THEORIES OF (Ii) 'Watery liquids', Aristot~e S~ysi ~ e~ 3 380"34). Now since for
SOLIDIFICA TION BY COLD t
in density' (Meteor. 4. 6, 38312, c . so whe~ the moisture in a thing

In the text (§ 1.3), Aristotle's theory of cohesion was my primary con-

cern. Its analysis led me to touch upon Aristotle's account of solidifica-
evaporates and its dry consUtuen s r
Aristotle 'increase in density takes race acked closer' (Meteor. 4. 6,
e
.~ is solidified by cold, it does
383"11), it follo:-"s that when ; ,;at7ris1t~~I~'s premisses, therefore, cold
tion through cold, but this theory was exposed only inasmuch as it shed not have its mOIsture evaporate. n h t the evaporation-by-cold theory
light on the theoretical principle according to which the moisture of a solidifies water but, contra~ to wha dl be otherwise for as noted in
composite substance depends upon its heat. Yet, Aristotle's treatment of d .t 28 Th1S can ar y ' .
implies, does not ry 1 . t sceptible to become the sed1-
solidification through cold has further components which have an inter- the text, without an earthy compohnen su Id) cannot effect what
est of their own and which will be considered now. ti (by either eat or co 4
ment, evapora on . . .
Aristotle considers as sohd1ficahon. (Meteor . . , 383b18 f.; 4. 7, 384"7 f.; .
4 6
On Aristotle's premisses, we have seen, all solidification is construed
as drying. The account of solidification by cold of substances com- 10, 388"32 f.). work solidification of watery li-
pounded of water and earth (e.g. plants) is in complete conformity with Within Aristotle's conceptual frame f't 'wn a theory not involving
this notion: it postulates that the moisture of a substance, inhering as it quids is therefore in ~eed of.a thle o~ Of It Si~troduces the relevant dis-
t· and drymg Anstot e m ac .
evapora 10n
tinction himself: 'things ' . cold so I'd'fes
wh1ch I 1 1 but does not increase m
26 Corniord's translation. CE. also Cratyilis 427b and Deichgriiber, Hippokrates
iiber Entstehllllg, 35 n. 2.
h t 'cold not only solidifies, but also
28 In the first par~ of Aristotle's s~ate~en::r:in air to water' (Meteor. 4. 7,
27 It is generally agreed that the passage is misplaced but none the less genu-
ine. As already noted (II § 4.1, esp. n. 60), in his biological treatises Aristotle dries water and mcreases denSity y . I ; The second part of the state-
follows On Fleshes on a considerable number of points of detail. The idea that 384'10 f.), the notion of 'dry' i~ the tOao~~~~c~~ ;~fer to water, for it surely is
ment is independent of the first an t dry a watery liquid. In fact, the
membranes must be glutinous so as to stretch without breaking occurs also in On
the Natllre of Child 12. 6, where their formation is compared to that of the crust
of bread; cf. also Ps.-Aristotle, Problems 21. 12, 928'26 ff. and 21. 6.
implausible to think t~a.t turning air ~
described process-air IS transforme 0 w
t a
:~:?nd thereby increases the density
of the liquid-refers to oil (d. 383b26).
 174 The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 175
density [i.e. the solidification is not effected by evaporation], contain
melted' (Meteor. 4. 4, 381 b24-8). Surpri~ingly, these. notions,
more water, like wine, urine, vinegar, lye and whey: and of things which
it increases in density (but which are not evaporated by fire) [Le. the were to b ecome commonplace in ScholastIc .natural philosophy, 1 •
evaporation is effected by cold1, some contain more earth while others nnw lIe1<: else (as far as I am a ware) drawn upon In the AMeteoro
. t tl dog/ca.
b . f passage of De partibus animalium, howe.ver, . ns 0 e raws
are a compound of water and air' (Meteor. 4. 7, 384"11 ff.). (The last a ne . een that which IS mOIst (or dry) ac-
possibility refers to e.g. oil (d. Appendix B) and need not detain us two relevant distinctIons: one bet:v d between being moist
here.) But how can one construe solidification not involving evaporation? tua/Iy and that which is so potentially, t~de s:~~yn (PA 2 3 649 b l0-20).
d) rally and being so acc/ en a . , d
One hesitant attempt to afford an answer can be discerned in a few (or ry essen / I . the Meteoroiogica- ice an
isolated statements of Meteor%gica 4. One of the 'passive qualities' which Aristotle here gives the same examp e ~ l~ dry but are so 'acciden-
Aristotle discusses is the capability (or its absence) Qf substances to other congealed liqui.ds, he say~ ~reo~f ao;entially, moist. These dis-
solidify and he here introduces a slight variation in the presentation of tally; they are es~enhally, altho ~l' t~tthey allow Aristotle to sever
his familiar ideas: 'Bodies which solidify and harden do so under the tinctions are mamfestly ,vep[ ~se d ,~n '. on their basis the liquefaction
influence of cold or heat, heat drying their moisture and cold expelling the rigid link be~een solid an :~tals, etc. is less problematic.
their heat: they are so affected, in fact, either by lack of moisture or of through heat of Ice, froze~ mud, t~e t without its own difficulties,
Th ' ut of the dIlemma IS no
heat, those in which water predominates by lack of heat, those in which IS way 0 I Aristotle invokes in the same
earth predominates by lack of moisture' (Meteor. 4. S, 385"22 ff.; d. also however. Consider the seco~dd ~xam~ e he says are actually, but only
context. Earth a~d ashes soa.e m w~~' though potentially, dry. Now,
b
10, 38S lO ff.). Here, let us note, 'lack of heat' and 'lack of moisture'
accidentally,. mOIst; the (rem~)m i~s;; gae;(;ratiolle et cormptione Aristotle
y
appear as two independent causes. In the present perspective, cold is
taken to be a cause of solidification on its own, with no relationship to as we saw In the text § 1. , . . h bulary There what is
h facts With anot er voca . ,
evaporation; indeed, there is no mention here of the moisture passing describes t ~se v~ry same. o ntially is said to be penetrated by
off with the heat. Aristotle can now elegantly invoke the principle of the actually mOIst WIthout bemg sb esse t t the essentially and actually
. ( ) moisture' y con ras ,
opposing causes producing opposite effects: 'bodies solidified by defi- fOreign extraneous. '. (GC 2 2 330"12-24' cf. also Meteor.
ciency of heat are melted by heat, for instance ice, lead or bronze' (4. 8, moist bodies have an II1ner mOIsture ., k s e:k of a 'foreign
4. 5, 382 11 f.). But, can .we, by tt~: ~::~v~d e;:~m~ say, ice (through
b
385"31 f.).29 Yet the account has obvious drawbacks, the most conspicu-
ous being that it remains a mystery why the (re-)introduction of heat (accidental) dryness which mus . ? we sa that when water
into a substance should make it moist. heat!), so that it becomes ~at~r (agam): O~ ~~:se ar/obviOUsly highly
Another, plausibly complementary, start can be found elsewhere in is 'soaked' with d.~ness It . ecomes i~ce'art ex lain why Aristotle did
the Aristotelian corpus. Suppose again that a substance is solidified by uncomfortable pOSlt.IO~S, :vhlch ~ay h ;hey cInform to a very funda-
not develop these dIstinctions, a t oug
cold without its moisture being eliminated. This implies that the mois-
mental pattern of his thought. 30
ture is still somehow 'present' in the substance, although the latter
appears as 'dry' (because solidified). Aristotle has an obvious concep-
tual framework in which he can accommodate this notion: 'The passive APPENDIX B: THE CHEMISTRY OF OIL
elements of physical bodies are moist and dry and all bodies are com-
pounds of them, the nature of the body varying according as to which . . . bl f rs to olive oil-essentially on
predominates, dry doing so in some cases, moist in others. And all will Aristotle discusses oIl-he l~vana ~ r~: context of the discussion of
exist either actually or in the opposite sense, potentially: this, for exam- two occasions:;n ~~~oro:og~c::d ~ ;e ge~eratione Ilnima/ium 2. 2, where
ple, is the relationship borne by the process of melting to the capacity
~~u::~:~~:enp~~nt th~: ~~de' ~hySi~~~ ~:~e~r~:: usac~~~:~~~h~:; ~~
constitution-of semen an OI are
29 The coexistence of the two theories, let us note in passing, puts Aristotle in
a very uncomfortable position because his accounts of solidification by cold of accounts. . . bl is addressed: why does the
liquids with and without an admixture of earth are not continuous with one In the Meteor.o/~g/~al' one ml.~~nfyp~~o~g~ either cold or hot, although
apparently 'mOIst 01 not so I I
another. Imagine a series of liquids containing a progreasively diminishing amount
of earth: what determines the point from which onward solidification through
cold is brought about by one rather than by the other cause?
less problematic; d. e.g. GC 2. 7, 334 8-, .,
M8
., (h t d old) the situation seems to be
30 With respect to the active quah~es 30~ ; ; 2 c2 b35-649b 8.
 176
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay 177
both thicken it (4. 7, 383"22 f)? h .
full of air'. Therefore: (i) The' . ~ e r~as~n, Anstotle says, is that 'it is Meteorologica the thickening and whitening of oil in heat in fact receive
int~ water. Now the densitr o;c 7n ~ t e cOld. turns the air in the oil conflicting accounts: the thickening is attributed to the oil's constituent
affIrms, is greater than that of .~~ an f ~ater mixed together, Aristotle air turning into water, the whitening to the evaporation of any water in
of the refrigerated oil m t' el er ~ t. em.,n follows that the density the oiL In De generatione animallulll, by contrast, the thickening is theor-
holds of the action of h:a~ mc:ease, I:e. It thickens. (li) Much the same etically linked to the whitening, both being attributed to the formation
i.e. the internal heat of th~ W~IC~, ~r~totle implies, causes 'its heat'- of tiny 'pneumatic' bubbles within oil (and semen).
turns into water, and the OilOt~ick~n:be. ~ereupon, the ai~ in the oil Another, for our purposes more important, difference between the
of cold. Let us remark in . h Y t e same cause as ill the case two accounts is that the one in Meteorologica throughout invokes air,
the principle according to ~~~:~nt a: we ~~ve here another instance of whereas the one in De generatione animaliulII more often than not invokes
the internal, natural heat has th ex e~a eat, destructing or expelling pneuma and only sometimes air. Thus, in the language of Meteorologica,
In addition, the heat (bu; not th e same e fect as cold (ct. 4. 7, 383b31-2). the fundamental assumption of the account is that oil 'is full of air' (4.
cause, Aristotle cryptically says ei;~:~) also caus~s the oil to whiten: the 7, 383bz4), whereas in De generatione allimalium this same assumption
tained'. (The idea behind thO ' . e evaporation of any water it con- is reformulated as stating that oil (and semen) 'are composed of water
expoun~ed in Problems 21. 4.~s emgmatic explanation may be the one and pneuma' (2. 2, 73SblO). But since from a purely physical, or somatic,
~onslder now the discussion of the sam h . point of view pneuma is hot air (GA 2. 2, 736"1), there is no contradiction
ammaliu1lt. Aristotle here expla'ms h e p e~om~na 10 De generatione between the two accounts. It is another question whether the difference
issuing from the bOdy: but fI 'd wd y semen IS thick and white when between the accounts is significant: do the explanations in De generatione
, Ul an colourless l'
moreover, it solidifies neI'th . 'h . upon coo mg, and why an/maliuIII in fact draw on Aristotle's theoretical notion of pneuma, or is
. er 10 eat nor m cold H th '
PhYSlcal properties of semen are identical to h' e ar~es at these the term pneuma here simply a synonym of 'air'?3)
same explanation applies to both Th t ose ~f od and that the Consider the account of the oil's thickening cum whitening in heating
tion is that 'other fluids thO k 'b .e gehneral premiss of the explana- as given in De generatione allimalil/Ill. It is founded on the idea that
IC en eSI d e t ose h'ch
water and earthy matter v' th w I are composed of bubbles are formed, namely when 'the watery substance in [the oil) is
(GA 2. 2~ 735 8-1O). This 'pr::;jpleO~t~e~~:posed of ~ater ~nd pnel~ma'
b
separated out from it by the heat and becomes pneuma' (2. 2, 735 b15-16):
explanatIOn, or rather Hlust t' . tum receIves a mecharucal' in oil which is heated just as in semen which is concocted in the male
ra IOn: an Instance f a f1'd
water and pneuma, Aristotle says is foa ' h' ~ b UI composed of body-the bubbles form under the influence of heat and thus indeed
white; and the smaller and m '. m w IC ecomes thicker, and contain not air simpliciter, but specifically hot air.32 Similarly, accounting
ore mIcroscopic the b bbl h
an d more compact [i.e. thick]' h u e s are, t e whiter for the oil's resistance to freezing, Aristotle also alludes to pneuma, albeit
Aristotle's argument now is thl~ t Wehappe~ra.nce of the bulk' (735 blO f.). indirectly: 'its failure to freeze is due to its heat-because the air is hot
" IS. en 011 IS heat d 'th
s tance 10 It is separated out f ' t e, e watery sub- and impervious to frost' (735 b29-30). It seems unlikely that Aristotle is
(73S lS f.); the oil has thus b rom! ~y the .heat and becomes pneuma'
b
drawing here on the properties of the air qua element: although in De
b u bbles of air-or rather fecome mIxed WIth pneu ' (735b .
It. h ma 14; I.e. tiny generatiolle et corruptione he assigns air the qualities moist and hot, in the
thickens and whitens (In 0 10 aIr- .ave formed within it) and so it biological writings he consistently construes air as cold, the function of
also Plato, Tim. 83c-d.) T~:c:hit~ee~hIteness indicates the bubbles; ct. breathed air being to cool down the internal heat of the heart. 33 (This is
ceives a different explanation' wh t~g t~rough the action of cold re- one of the reasons why the pneuma must be distinct from the outer air
and compressed', whereu on th ~7 thie 01 cools, 'the air is coagulated and therefore connaturaL) Thus the air preventing the freezing of oil is
fact that in cold the oil thi~k 0:
~ d ckens (73,Sb30_1). Obviously, the specifically hot air, namely pneuma as construed in Aristotle's theory of
invoke bubbles (which im I ens u oes not whIten forbids Aristotle to connate pneuma.
As to why oil does not soKlt pn.euma, and ~hus hot air) for this case too.
freeze is due to its heat-be7a~~cO~d, ~n~totIe says that 'its failure to 31 Most students and translators of Aristotle (A. L. Peck being the outstanding
frost' (73S b29-30). t e air IS hot and is impervious to exception) have not attached any significance to this shift of the terminology.
32 Similarly, explaining the thickening of water mixed with oil, Aristotle in-
Of the two accounts, the one in D . '.
orate. First unlike the d' . . e generatlOne amma[zum is more elab- vokes 'some pneuma [which] is left behind in it owing to the friction of mixing'
, ISCUSSlOn 10 Met I . . (GA 2. 2, 735b21-3): the role attributed to the friction is apparently to bring about
the actions of cold and h t d e.oro oglca It does not subsume
j

some heating.
ea un er a smgle explanation. Second, in 33 Cf. e.g. Longrigg, 'Elementary Physics', 216-17.
 F
178
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
C} ion and Decay 179
The textual eVidence and the logic of the arg-ument both corroborate The Chemistry of 0 les h t follows I briefly
the view, already suggested in the text, that in his discussion of the . h
it in Aristotle and t erea fter In w
'. which a may have mter-
.
as we encounter tra-scientific ideas related to ?d'in about cohesion.
bn~g
physical properties of oil Aristotle used the term pneuma advisedly. The
describe some ex. of fatty moisture as f
n~tl~n proper~es '~ns
reference to mere air proved insufficient, and heat had to be invoked as live oil earned it a
fered with the es the physical a where the olive
~h~\s ~ r~glderivativeIY,
well: the oil's air had to be specifically hot air, i.e. pneuma. Moreover, as
rel~glon.
already noted, the pneuma could assume its explanatory role only if one Since verr .ear 'true particularly of e Egypt.

~" n~";e~1 ~;;:'",

aSsumed that, although somehow 'separate' from the substance of the lace in Palestine, Mesopotam.la an, ded it a symbolic
oil (i.e. not a part of the mixis), the pneuma Was yet 'in' it. Aristotle in fact it, origm, h" de,n,ing f,,"I,,e, the libe,"tion of
describes the pneuma as conSisting of tiny bubbles which-pace the laws Thus the fact t a onl'es of J'uridical meanmg sb tween a buyer and a
'f' e in cerem fbI' ations e '1 )
then~~tment prie~t. o~n~~
of his phYsics-continue to inhere in the oil: Aristotle's analysis of oil sigm Icanc tualliberation 0 a Ig. 'ent (post first eXI e

the.~
thus draws on his general theory of connate pneuma. a slave and of the high m uents underlie the

Judaisfmi·Si;;~~:'th' (';~~ ::il~;ent ~ v~7

seller, or I the strengthening qualltles y;bolic conferring of
'nointm,nt of ,acroonent"
APPENDIX C: OIL-THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF use a 0 IV h
power and onour. t the various Chnstian ~
35 In fact, the use 0 01 . . hurches, goes duec y
A PERSISTENT CONCEPT
old tradition com.mon M~ddle Eastern practic~s. Greece through the
back to these ancient introduced into ancient 'tted to the Greeks
HistOrians of science have become increasingly aware that concepts and The olive tree whas e time presumably transml '1 and the olive
ideas they encounter in Scientific discourse may have roots going back ' . ho at t e sam . G eece too 01
Phoemcians w . ted with it. Indeed, m r37 Th olive tree was asso-
to pre-scientific thought and that this early history of a concept or an some ideas assocI a . ious significance. e . odl discov-
idea may have an incidence on its Subsequent history Within science. To h d symbolic and rehg h Id to have been Its g y f the
e~d ~an
tree a. h e who was often e . ches were part a
appreciate as fully as possible the Significance an idea or a concept had ciated With At
~onsl
d a holy tree-olIve ds of the pantheion-
for a thinker and his contemporaries, We must therefore take into ac-
off~
erer. It was. e::d every month to all t e go e victorious competi-
count pOSsible extra-scientific connotative charges aSSOciated with them. ancient sacrtfice rotection of the law. Th ractice whose
The concept of fatty moisture as a cause of cohesion may be a case in34
point. d was under partlcular p d with olive branches, a p d olive
an at Olympia were crowne I s Similarly, oil of the sacre
tors 'b d to the orac e . , es
To be sure, the notion of fatty moisture as resisting decay has an
empirical grounding. Aristotle takes it for a fact that oil-the paradig-
origin was attn ute
of the pnze
. s at the Panathenalc
.
g~m
tl associate w
d'l'th oil and the
.
I~port~~ ~~ical
trees was on: t feature conslsten y h' hly durable and m
matic fat substance-neither evaporates, nor congeals or freezes. On
The most olive is indeed ever,green, elaboration in,
Aristotle's account, then, oil is indestructible moisture and thus cer- olive is longeVIty. T t This feature received ,m: h holy olive on the
IaffiJy ha. the phy,i", 'nd ,hem"" pmpe,H", "'Im.ite k" p,odudng
cohesiveness. But the association of fatty moisture with material persist-
need of little treatm:~ story according to whlc ~i~ on the very next
for example, the fam shoots of two (or on:) cu uerors of Athens.
ence may have also a further, namely symbolic, dimension. Since ancient Acropolis ga~e o~t :e~rnt down by the perslan CO~~th indwells the
~.e powe~
g
times, indeed, oil was strongly connected with SOcial practices in which a f 'tt the view of Athene
.~as hi~~ei~:ystematically conne.ct~t :~her
day after havm b d that a divine
ideas of perSistence, stability, and permanence loomed large. These sym-
Indeed, it and of life. Thus,
bols of course hinge on the physical properties of oil, but they may in olive, a belte w f l'ght and heat, of the bng a immortality on the
turn have contributed to the emergence of the notion of fatty moisture as the goddess o. I ranches were held to canfer laid on the bed of
the crowns of oltve
victorious athletes a.n 'f
~similarly, olive branches w:re wn in Greece too:
. ting the dead was no
34 Some scholars resent this line of enquiry; d. e.g. Lennox, 'Demarcating An-
cient Science'. Contrary to What these scholars seem to fear, the reCognition that
h ractice 0 anom a
the dead, T e p 36 H fmeister Die heiligen le · Die
science (if this imprecise and partly a-historic term may be Used for the sake of
35 Kutsch, Salblmg als ~e.c ~~eber, 'Die Heihs.kelt d~;t riechischer Bmlmku/tll~:
convenience) does not exist in a social void and does not emerge ex nihilo by no I kt. 0 . . , 6Ibaums'; Murr,
means implies that rationality and science cannot be demarcated from irration- 37 For what follows c., Der Izeilige a/baum; Idem, 13.gChapot 'Unguentum,
Pflanzenwelt, 40-50; W~7Ige\ Fischer, Der albaum,~~- e;clzichtIiclle En/wickillng;
ality and non-Science, although the problem certainly becomes more complex
through this recognition. Cf. Freudenthal, Wissenssoziologie'. 40-54; Besni.er, 'Olea, !O~;um'; Schmaud~re~,
Ca,bral' 'HUlle'; Pease, tf Le Pain et 11111 lie,
;;l96.
Detienne, 'L'Olivier'; Amoure I,
 180
The Chemistry of Cohesion and Decay
it was held to hinder, or at least to slow down, the decomposition of the
corpse. Similarly, oil was used to conserve various kinds of food.
Athene was also construed as the goddess of health who uses the tree
sanctified to her. The health of a free Athenian required exercising in
athletics (at the gymnasium) and this in turn was inconceivable without
the use of oil. Thus Democritus is reported to have attributed his long
life toinside.
from his haVing soaked himself with oil from outside and with honey Conclusion
The olive Was also a symbol of social peace and stability. Indeed, olive
trees-which invaders used to burn down-have to, grow some 15 to 19
years before they payoff. In Greece, therefore, just as in the Middle
East, the olive tree became a symbol of peace. Thus, the Victory of Athene of roblems bearing on the persist-
over Poseidon is a symbol for that of reason Over brutal pOwer, of a We set out from a small set p d ithin Aristotle's four-
civilized stable peasant SOciety over a barbaric one, whence the signifi- ence of form in matter as cons~r;:~s o~his kind any theory of
cance of the olive tree on the Acropolis. Indeed, the Greeks regarded element theory of matter. T~ qu~: does it come about that por-
eating animal fats as typical of the Barbarians. One reason inVoked (by matter owes a clear answer. H tl structured into substances
Suidas) for the association of Athene with the olive tree is that the oil tions of hylic ~atter are co~s~: ~ame forms? And how does
is the matter of light, and light the symbol of mutual understanding. having forms, mdeed alw~y I dy informed portions of mat-
Similarly, the olive tree at Olympia is a symbol of the peace god Zeus
and, generally, for the pax deomm. Aristotle explain the fact t at a ~:~ances----over varying spans of
ter-the composite sublunar ~u b preserving those forms and
These ideaS-longevity, health, stability-recall the ones we have seen time violate the laws of phYSICS: hen omena as the eternal
not disintegrating?y referr~ ~~t:r~:tpersistence of individual
aSsociated with the concept of fatty moisture. My suggestion is that
these symbolical COnnotations of oil were aSSociated with, and to some persistence of speCIes and t e
extent sustained, the explanatory import ascribed to the notion of fatty
moisture. For those who invented or used this concept, the physical substances, ~espectively, I 1;i;~~tle'S theory of the ~our elem~nts
features of oil went along with an array of social and symbolical mean- In and by Itself, we saw, . f tter becoming mformed mto
do es not account for a porhon 0 rna. al' a fiortiori it falls short
ings: oil was not just any old liquid with certain congenial physical
h
properties, but a substance whose great symbolic power Was connected a substance suc as a p lant or an ammthe, same species-specl'f'IC
precisely with the idea of persistence and reSistance to decay. The sym- of explaining the fact that it ~ eve~hen does Aristotle account
bols and meanings associated with oil may have made it easier to think forms that arise within matter. OJ ani~al species-the regular
of it, and of fatty substances in general, as bringing about cohesion and for the perenniality of the r~~~t ~ f order which since eternity
permanence. Moreover, the notions of stability and persistence are as- existence within matter 0 . l~;S ~res? How can his theory of
have ever the same essenttl~ 't ea fact' that good exists not only
sociated with the divine, as is that of oil too. It is dear, however, that
since the physical and the symbolical properties of oil go hand in hand, d t
this suggestion is a surmise which is difficult to check matter accomrno a e the fe let ousI but to some extent, m . th e
in the changeless supralunar re~. m, too?
world of generation a~d cor,ruK.;~~ of matter is the question of
No less critical to Artstotl.e s. 'd Yl composite substances. For
the material persistence of ~d~~n~t~tuents of a composite SU?-
in Aristotle's framework, t e rs) which seek to gam
' (I ments or powe , ,
stance are opposttes e e h with the consequence that nev~r
dominance over one anot er, ternal when they con tam
are they [the composite substances] e't 3 465 b29). What, then,
I" I (D long et brev, VI, , b
contrary qua tbes e, "
none the less temporanly mamtams Wi
, 'thin composite su stances
 182
Conclusion Conclusion 183
a fairly constant equilibrium even in i
so that for a period of time ;he 10 m~alance~ ~urroundings, functions which, psychologically speaking, are those of the nutri-
stance remains more or' I th gos or eldos defirung each sub- tive soul, are physiologically accomplished by vital heat. Vital
, ess e same? A . . heat is formative heat, warmth charged with movements carrying
substance,. some (usually three) of the gam, m a compos~te
out of theIr natural plac d h elements are necessanly forms. Correspondingly, the nutritive soul consists in the forma-
. es, an t e questi '. Wh tive capacities embodied in, and carried by, vital heat. Ordinary
th eIr tendency to attain th I on IS. at counters
gether so as to constitute ese p aces and what fastens them to- heat becomes formative when the right movements (which vital
Aristotle takes the elemen~~~ sub~t~nce? (As we saw (I § 1.1.2), heat has by nature) are supplied 'by us'. The species persist
to move to their respect' a mlxls to preserv,e their tendency because via the semen, the species-specific form-transmitting
W. lve natural places.) . movements in the vital heat of the sire are carried over to the
e qUIckly had to realize that th . .
to the theory of matter 1 e enquIry cannot be restricted offspring.
cusses notably in De en a ~~e, to questio~s which Aristotle dis- The thesis that, on the level of physiological theory, Aristotle
t
logica. Aristotle mak!s ~;: lOne co~ruPtlOne and in the Meteoro-
persistence of composite na:~s I eX icit sta~ements on material
considers vital heat as the cause of material persistence of
homoeomerous substances is corroborated by the fact that this
h
psychology, where he accountsaf sU' s,tances m the context of his tenet is part and parcel of the wider parallelism he establishes
t
§ 1.1.2), a concept involved' h~r 1 m terms of nutritive soul (I between the physiological and the psychological accounts. This
t00. But m . m IS account of a' 1 ' parallelism indeed continues all the way through (excluding only
parallel to his p h I . fllma generation
tion throughout this book sY~r~ o~-thIs has been my conten- the human nOlls): more and purer vital heat produces higher
theory of the functions of nut 't~tot e also had a physiological soul-functions. The vital heat's role in bringing about material
n lve soul, thO th persistence thus appears as an integral part of its multi-faceted
research programme, followed the aim . IS, ~ory, or rather
of the phYSiology involved in all s l;:f p:ovIdmg an account functioning as described in the comprehensive physiological
man nous). I endeavoured t 'd ~u - h~ctions (except the hu- theory of the soul-functions. The parallelism extends' downward'
(w hich IS ' 0 1 entIty t IS ph . I ' h too, for Aristotle's accounts of the material persistence of animate
consistently extended b A' ,YSIO ogtcal t eory
explicit its contents as well as ~s n;!~tIe s c~e.mistry), to make and of inanimate substances are in continuity: just as Aristotle
quences. We concluded that Aristotk's uPp~slhons and conse- takes the vital heat of living beings (including plants) to be the
try complement the four-element phySIOlogy and chemis- cause of the material persistence of their homoeomerous parts,
solutions both to the probl f ~eory of ~atter so as to provide so he takes inanimate substances to cohere by virtue of their
vidual composite substa em 0 ~ e matenal persistence of indi- natural heat. More precisely, the theory is this: the natural or
species. The central theo~;~s ~n to that of the persistence of vital heat that has informed a substance in the first place contin-
theory i~ that, of heat (natura~aa:~r:.~~~l\Of this physio-chemical
ues to inhere in it. It thus constantly draws in the substance's
'mastered', connatural moisture, which is the immediate cause of
In Anstotle s physiological theo '
man nous excepted) depend on vitZ'h soUI-~~ctlOns (the hu-
all cohesion. Therefore, when the heat is quenched, the moisture
the perspective of Our en ui thi' eat. SpeCIfically, and from passes off too, and the substance disintegrates. This account
point, Aristotle holds th~ :.; r ,s IS ~h.e mo~t ~irect1y relevant applies to inanimate and animate substances alike. Cohesion,
produced in the heart ( . lvmg emgs It IS the vital heat material persistence, or form, then, which on the psychological
r level of analysis Aristotle attributes to soul, he describes on the
matter into the homoeo: tn an analogous part) that informs
which matter (namely nu~:~;:~~r~s ~:';he body. The process in level of his physio-chemical theory as depending upon heat, an
tion by vital heat goes on c t' IS 1 o~ed through concoc- agent distinct from, and irreducible to, the four elements or
and animal generation (both on m~ously, m every living being, qualities. A notable case in point is oil, and fatty moisture in
particularly striking instancese~~~. and spontan~ous') is just a general: having issued from particularly long concoctions, fats
o IS process. ThIS means that are especially warm and, therefore, little liable to decay (IV § 2.1).
 184
Conclusion
Conclusion 185
Th~ theory of vital heat falls sho .
functions of nutritive soul ho .r.t of accounting for all the physiological theory, now through his psychological one. As noted
count for the forms and th: m ~~v~r. It offers a physiological ac- earlier, the two theories have largely overlapping, although not
substances only, animate and~ ena. persistence of homoeomerous quite identical, scopes. The considera~le 'parallelism' ~etween
~he most common and ontolo ~;~~mate (1 §? 1.~ ..2 and 1.3.3). But the physiological and the psychological accounts raises the
y most Sl~lficant substances
10 Our World are plants and aJ
proves its mettle for th r als: Here Anstotle'S psychology
indifferently for ~he come ?enetra notion of nutritive soul accounts
question of their precise relationship to one another. As already
stated (I § 2.3 in fine), it has not been my aim to address this
philosophical question, specifi~ally not the qu~stion whether in
h omoeomerous and anh 109- 0- be and the rna terIal · persistence of
Aristotle's view the psychologIcal theory can 10 some sense be
. omoeomerous
be~gs too (although not for the coh' p t d
ar. s, a~ of entire living 'reduced' to the physiological one. Here I wish to look at the
This, r submit, is wh in his eSlOn o~ I~arumate substances). problem from another angle and suggest that both theories fa~l
subject-namely wher~ the m~st expl~cIt statements on the short of accounting for all the relevant phenomena and that thIS
stake (GA 1 5 411 b7f LA . materIal persIstence of a plant is at may be related to Aristotle's drawing concurrently on both of
• , .1 - nstotIe pret t d
cal, rather than on physiologic 1 th ers 0 raw on psychologi- them.
at the same time Aristotle 1 a, keory (I §§ 1.1.2 and 1.2.3). Yet We have already noted repeatedly the shortcomings of the
account so as to parallel th: sOs see s to. extend the physiolOgical physiological theory: above all, it does not easily allow for an
to accomplish this r su t ~ ycholog1cal one at all points and account of the material persistence of anhomoeomerous sub-
tion behind the e~brygg~s e ' may have been the main motiva- stances and entire organisms (although Aristotle may have wished
ornc th eory of c t
connate pneuma is construed as th o~a e pneuma. Since the to remedy this defficiency through his theory of connate pneuma).
theory of pneuma inte rates th e :arner of the vital heat, the We also noted a weakness of the psychological theory, namely
the intention of going ~eYOnd ~eo:avItal heat. B.ut it also follows its incapacity to account for the cohesion of inanimate substances
all the physiological processes' t~er ~o provIde an account of (for which the physio-chemical theory accounts smoothly). But
what to the psychol o ist lOvo ve 10 the functioning of the psychological account of material persistence has a further,
excepted), including t~e ~~fe~::; as s?ul (the rational soul and decisive, inadequacy, which has not yet been noted: Aristo-
homoeomerous ones and perSIstence of substances tle's notion of soul cannot take into account the time factor in-
the same time the th Pferhaps also entire living beings At' volved in the gradual corruption of any living being. This point
. ' eory 0 pneuma a' . .
hal complement to that of vit I h Ims at provIding an essen- has many ramifications, involving Aristotle's notions of soul and
farious claims Concenu' th ad eat: many of Aristotle's multi- form, and it straddles a number of spheres within Aristotle's
. 1h ng e ependen f
~Ita eat presuppose that V't 1 h h ce 0 soul-functions on thought. I limit myself to the following very brief and tentative
hon within the living bOd ~ a . eat as a natural upward mo- suggestion. Considered from the vantage point of Aristotle's
and therefore cannot b y. ~bt vltal heat is not itself a substance psychology, the 'career' of a living being is this: after having
e aSCf} ed a natu a1
remedy this want Aristotle' r upward motion. To come to be, it preserves its unity and self-identity as long as it
a substrate, namel; pneuma pos~s ~fat t~e vital heat inheres in has nutritive soul, and when that soul departs, the substance
b
speaking, it is the connat: ;~:~ ca defined as 'hot air': strictly disintegrates. But why should the nutritive soul depart at all,
up":ard in a natural motion, but ~:' ch, qua. substance, moves and how is this related to the organism's ageing? Aristotle's
toUe s claims concerning th 't 1h IS assumptIon warrants Aris- psychology is silent in face of these questions. As has been stressed
hi e Vl a eat's upwa d .
. s statements on the 'g d' , r motion and hence repeatedly, a constant effort must be exerted if a composite sub-
and on the dependence ~: t~ent of heat within the living body stance is to persevere, so that, psychologically speaking, living
heat. e erectness of a body upon its vital beings exist by virtue of their nutritive soul ceaselessly coercing
Aristotle, We see, accounts for soul-functions now thr h h' their recalcitrant matter into an informed substance. Now soul is
oug IS a form, and in Aristotle's framework forms admit only of being
ii'
186
Conclusion 187
Conclusion
and not-being, but not of a gradual wearing-away as a continuous
.
fr om . h 10 ical theory it is seen as a pro-
process of loosening leading to decay and destruction. The idea the perspecttve of psyc 0 gf'l I' until it suddenly found-
.th change 0 eve, ,
that the nutritive soul for a period of time functions well as an cess that goes on Wl no f r 'ng being as it appears 10
'active cause' holding together the opposite elements, but that it ers. Compare the li~e-traj~ctory s~ol~ ~~:l theory we have a graph
gradually and inescapably loses this capacity until at Some point both theories. In Ansto~le s ~hy . it i~ a curve that (at least from
it can no longer accomplish this job, is incompatible with Aris- showing vital heat agamst time. tinuously descends toward
totle's notions of soul and form. In Aristotle's psychology, death mid-life onwards) smoothly and con ts us with a graph describ-
necessarily appears as an abrupt, inexplicable 'breaking down'
of the soul. I the axis. Aristotle's psychol?!?y P~~~7n time: it remains horizon-
ing the fortunes of the nutn~lv~ s b
/
tly falls down to the axis,
To account for the fact that all living beings eventually die as tal all along, until at one pomt l~ ~ti~~oul obeys a binary logic-
a result of a necessary, natural process, and that this process is In short: Aristotle's concept of nu n as the logic of the concept
gradual, Aristotle therefore draws on a concept other than that I t values-were h , h
it can take on on y .wo , e thus is a hiatus separatmg t e
of the nutritive soul. This is the concept of vital heat: according of vital heat is contmuahst. ~he~ I theories: what for the former
to Aristotle's physiology, living beings dispose of a certain quan- physiological an~ the psych~~~tt~e existence of living beings-
tity of vital heat, which the natural process of life slowly but is the most promment fact a . us decrease of necessar-
surely consumes (De iuv. 23, 479"9). This, to be sure, is in perfect namely, that life is a process of cOllnbtmuoccommodated within the
conformity with the interpretation proposed here, according to ily limited duration~
' annot at aA . et atIe's two theories of l'f .
1 e lS
which more vital heat implies 'more' material persistence (I § 1.3.2 latter. This incongrulty between nS °to introduce some idea of
and IV § 1.2; cf. also below, p. 190). Within physiology, this gradual ed
unbridgeable (unless one is prep) arW hould thus consider the
consumption of the vital heat appears as a natural and necessary "t 'ty' of forms, e s d
a changing 10 enSl . nt of this discrepancy an
process. From this perspective, natural death appears as the possibility that Aristotle ,:as cogruza f the respective scopes of
necessary result of the gradual 'exhaustion of the [vita11 heat that (together with the dlffere~ces 0 ared to him to render im-
owing to lapse of time' (De iuv. 24, 479b 1).2 The strength of the the two theories already.noted) It ap~e I theory of life. On this
physiolOgical theory is that it allows one to construe death as the Possible a unified physIO-Pshycholo~lcha d to use both theories
natural outcome of a necessary and above all gradual process, . tl ay ave WlS e d
hypothesis, Ansto e m f ther preferring accor _
following Upon the nature of matter. . d d ntly 0 one ano, h
separately and 10 epen e d w on this now on t at.
To be sure, Aristotle links the phYSiological and the psycho- ing to the context at h and to raw no . .
logical theories through the postulate that soul and vital heat are
necessarily concomitant in the living body (I § 1.2.1). They in- , 'h of vital heat and its ongms
Our enquiry into Anstotle s t fe,ory s including the following.
deed are. Still, whereas from the vantage point of physiological has shed light on a number 0 ~ssu~ s' a arallelism between the
theory life appears as an extended process of continuous decline, We observed (III § 2.3) that t ere l Pu»w and to the celestial
'b to the conna te pH e " .
This point is overlooked in Gill, Aristotle on Substallce, 234. roles Aristotle ascn es . 'bed the role of producmg
I
, th former lS ascn .
2 There is some ambiguity in Aristotle's position, however. According to the 'first body': Just ~s e . d' 'dual substances by preservmg
theory as just deSCribed, the consuming of the vital heat takes place independ- the material perslstence of 1~ lVI t the latter by creating the
ently of external factors, even if it can be accelerated or slowed down by the .,. f th 'r conshtuen s, so , f h
'motive force' of the environment (Meteor. 4. 1,379"35; cf. x §§ 1.1.2 and 1.3,2 and the eqUlhbnum 0 el , . the constituents 0 t e
'. f th quihbnum among .
also De iuv. 23, 479'15 ff.). But elsewhere (GC 2. 10) Aristotle maintains that all condItions or ' e he Id to rna ke POSSl'ble its eternal perslstence. t
passing-away in fine depends upon the sun's double motion along the ecliptic, so Id
much so, indeed, that the duration of all life 'is measured by a period' (336 b13).
sublunar wor : IS e. ' f he' canonical' theory of matter, 0
Perhaps he thought the two ideas could be connected through the tenet that
Aristotle's two extenSIOns 0 t t' are thus two parallel
haIled atten lOn,
'decay is the4. destruction
it' (Meteor. 1, 37916 f,).
of a moist body's own natural heat by heat external to which Paul Moraux as c h ver same challenge: the impo~-
moves which resp?nd to t e t irl persistence of whatever IS
sibility of accountmg for rna er
 188
Conclusion Conclusion 189
composed of the four opposite elements or powers-be it an Notebooks', at the centre of
. f Oil Fleshes and the 'Pythagorean st celestial element is the
individual sublunar substance or the entire sublunar world- o h' ch was the idea that the up?er~~e ~ital heat of the biologi-
within the sole framework of the four-element theory of matter
(I § 1.1.2). ~~
dlVme. heat On this reconstruction, k
to spea , so me of the roleshin the
I treatises took over, so d' 'ne and intelligent t ermo~.
Understanding the operations of vital heat within Aristotle's ca lunar world of the former IVI ristotle gave most of hIS
framework is crucial for an adequate appreciation of a central
~~\e~:nts effec~s brou~h!:sb~~~:eI~~S
su\ h in his biological theory A b 'tal heat a physical
aspect of Aristotle's metaphysics: Aristotle's alternative to Pla- on the have their origin
to's theory of Ideas partly depends upon it. For, as Klaus Oehler's s h siological grounding, the Id ork For instance, the
perceptive analysis has shown (I § 1.3.1), the slogan 'Man gener- ~~ ~h~ Presocrat~c-type ~l:~:t:n c~rrelates
earlier, t with better
ates man!' conveys in a rhetorically succinct form a knock-out (formerly theological) ~ohon th:he basis of the assumptions th~t
n
argument against Plato: 'there is no necessity ... for the exist- cognition is now explamed °d natural motion of vital he~t, t e
ence of Ideas. For man is begotten by man, each individual by an t f
(i) on accoun 0 the upwar h ' t I heat co-vanes . WI'th the dIstance
.
individual' (Metaph. 12. 3, 1070"27 f.). The Aristotelian sUbstitute urity of the blood and of t e.~1 a urer less earthy, blood IS less
for Plato's Forms is the eidos which is physically present in each
Z:S~y thermhi~ti~~r~::~:: idde~ th~!
p the centre; and that (11) p , that sense-organs made
and every individual of that species-it is carried and transmit-
affected by sensitive: the
ted from parent to offspring through the vital heat of the male
~herC: ~ra~I:;:a~~etaphysical. Similarl~,
f containing, sue 0 . . 1 but its groun mg 1
parent's semen. The eidos of a species, that which informs all its is such a correlation is
individuals, is not a transcendent Form. Because Aristotle's theory new-physiological instead of t ~o °iS a legacy from Presoc~at~c
of vital heat is the basis for his account of the permanence of the idea that vital heat. trav~~s ~ich Aristotle preserved ';lth;
plant and animal forms, it must be taken into account if we want thought and from De phtlosop ~~~ng that connate pneuma IS ~ e
to grasp adequately Aristotle's rebuttal of Plato's Idealism: in his biology, namely by po~ h hot air has a natural mohon
Aristotle's phYSiological theory, vital heat, not Forms, is the fac- substrate of vital heat, WhlC as
tor producing whatever good-i.e. permanence and stability_
that exists within the unceasing flux of generation and corruption upward. . d UCl'ble, however,
. 1 h at remains Irre . h
in the sublunar World. One capital feature ~f VIta e. ties Aristotle ascribes to It: t e
nd this is the formative capacl f forms-that it at once wa~s
The vital heat is metaphysically significant for yet another
reason: through its role in bringing about all soul-functions (with
:tan,e that vital heat is thefbearet~~ early system, whose
and informs-is a legacy rom f Diogenes of Apollonia an 0
pro~m;
the sole exception of the human no us), it determines the scala . 1 systems 0
ity to the teleo1oglca ointed out. .
naturae, i.e. it establishes an ontological hierarchy of forms (I On Fleshes has repea.tedlr ,bee~tfon of vital heat grew out of ~s
§ 2.3). We saw that by virtue of the vital heat's cosmological The thesis that Anstot e s ~ also clarifies, as we ~a;v, ~
reference (its Upward motion) the 'higher' forms are topolOgically earlier theological me~aphys~cs tatement that vital heat IS analo f
more elevated. Specifically, the tenet that man is both the most
mgo~s' eleme~tl.(llIlth§ou·
rung of the much dlscusse s 2 1) The central message 0
perfect animal and the only one whose body is in conformity to the celestial gh the celestial matter and
with nature (i.e. with an upright position) is a necessary corol- . one o.f derua
this statement IS . . .a ffectuating genera t'Ion (' spon-
.
lary of the theory of vital heat (I § 2.2.3).
the vital heat do identical Job.s m e the are not-as the earlter
An answer to the question, what looms behind the primordial taneous' and sexual, r~spe~h~el~~t rather merely analogical; t~e
importance which Aristotle ascribes to vital heat was suggested doctrine maintained-ldenttca, come to the supra lunar one IS
through our analysis of his early dialogue De philosophia. Accord- closest a sublunar s~bstance can e of
ing to the interpretation presented in Chapter II, De philosophia
to be analogous to. It.. h also into another important featur
expounded a theologico-philosophical doctrine, akin to the ones We gain a new mSlg t
 190
Conclusion
Aristotle's thought as we k .
what Heinz Happ has a t~O~ It f~om the treatises, namely into
the noetic substance" imP /'t ~scnb:d as the 'spatialization of
prime mover is the idea tKa~C\ m Anstotle's thinking about the
strictly speaking thi' 1 .has a location, namely (although
(I § 2.2.3). But ;ta s IS meanmgle~s) ~beyond' the last s her~
1074b34) the pn1 pure thought thmkmg itself (Meta ph i2 9
, me mover obvi I h
zation. The fact that Aristotl ous \can ave no spatialloca1i~
mover as being somewhere i~ ~one t e less thinks of the prime
Conclusion 191
~dduced the general thesis, implied by his theory of vital heat,
that perfection of form and longevity correlate, were it not that
it is flatly and unambiguously contradicted by many conspicu-
ous facts: most depressingly, 'the longest-lived things occur
among the plants' (4,466"9), which are at the bottom of the scale
of being. Indeed, it is difficult to find simple empirical generali-
. . I
zations concerning longevity (4, 466"1-9) and Aristotle must take
into account various factors such as the size of the animal, the

rt
ace
remnant of the doctrine of D c~n no~ be explained as a quality of its moisture, etc. (De long. et brev. vito passim, esp. ch.
of the early dialogue the 's e t!os of'l1a. Within the framework 4). Aristotle's position is particularly uncomfortable because all
is indeed explicit a;d 't . pa I;bzatlOn of the noetic substance' the factors he mentions as determining longevity in turn hinge
the doctrine The'I'd 1 IS Pder ectly consistent with the rest of on vital heat, notably animal size (GA 2. 1, 732 a18 ff.) and type of
"
b ut, unlIke ea passe into AI" t tl' I moisture (watery or fatty, i.e. warm), The physiological theory
other tenets co ld IS 0 e sater framework
u not receive " thus definitely implies that vital heat should be the one causal
a new gr~undmg which
I
would make it fit into the rest of th
of the early theological~meta h sice syste~. Takmg cognizance factor on which depend at once all these characteristics, includ-
thus allows us to identify th~ \ al doctrme of De philosophia ing longevity. This, indeed, is again legacy from De philosophia,
mature system as a tradl't' lIS1 a len element within Aristotle's which upheld precisely that both the rank of a substance and its
lOna egacy whi h A ' material persistence depend upon the quantity of the divine heat
an d presumably could n t ' ' c nstotle did not-
We can now take noti 0 -consIstently accommodate, it contains. Empirical evidence unfortunately refuted this corol-
tl e ' s account of material ce 0 f. at severe' anomaly' Wlt 'h'm Aristo- lary of the theory. Given the constraints under which he was
tradition from which his p~s~:~nce. !n continuity with the early operating, Aristotle had no means to resolve this problem and he
the perfection of forms (~y logy Issued, Aristotle holds both left it open.
sistence of a composite be :ca a naturae) and the material per~ The study of the phenomena related to the coming-to-be and
an~ the quality of the vit=~:a~~~ef~~o~rrelate with the quantity the material persistence of individual composite substances and
Anstotle to maintain-that the hi h s-:a~d we should expect to the persistence of species straddles many compartments of
e
scala naturae, the longer-lived 't' gTh : ~ hvmg being is on the Aristotle's thought. This, I believe, is why roaming through the
, 'fi 1 IS. IS IS of
~I~ cance, because it would im 1 some metaphysical thick and occasionally dark forest of Aristotelian texts with our
Imltate on their humble I I h P Y th~t sublunar substances questions as a beacon to guide us, allowed us to throw new and
of being perfect and bein eve tIe c?ncom~tance within the deity unfamiliar light on some aspects of Aristotle's thought. Among
er the points which can now be seen in a different light, not the
best to get as close as p g :bvl astIng. Anstotle indeed does his
OSSI e to asserti least important is that Aristotle's early theological cosmology
of ontological excellence d 1 . ng a general correlation
than females, and the rea:~n i~~~evlty: thus, ~males live longer of heat has left definite traces upon the body of thought ex-
more warmth than the fema!' at the male IS an animal with pressed in the acroamatic treatises. More often than not, De
also 467·30),3 Only too I dIe (~e long. et brev. vito 5, 466 b15; ct. philosophia and the treatises have been studied separately, the
gay, It seems, would Aristotle have implicit presupposition (and therefore the unsurprising result!)
3 We have already noted ( b being that there is little or no continuity between the respective
~~a~i~e f~Talh~ ~ ~hoduces :e::~ Ic!~~~f~ ~( ~~~~!:~;ciliuse the male is hotter systems of thought. In point of fact, however, De philosopl1ia is
732'4): on th: ~~al h:a~~~u;U;!~~~dasb'~horthe divine' than ~~~~::iea(~A~cir
strictly indispensable for the understanding of a number of the-
matenal persistence• 0 e perfection of the I''orm and '.Its' oretical ideas on which Aristotle draws without elaboration in
the treatises. Among them, the notion of vital heat is of central
 192
Conclusion Conclusion 193
importance: its character as a formative power charged with the , t 'mal a stance that allowed him
functions of the nutritive soul; its roles in bringing about the . mos as a living, i~telhgen amIn ;nswer to the 'troubleso~e
higher soul-functions and thus in determining the scale of being; cos pply to it biologIcal theory, from disintegrating', Davld
to a tion what keeps the cosmos orts) maintained a notion
qU~m ~icero
the correlation of purity with elevation and its effects on cogni-

~a ~m~s
tion; the significance of man's upright position; the spatialization writes, Cleanthes (as refI.er' (cingentem ardorem): in
v ital heat as 'heat which tog:stance that holds together
s~he
of the noetic substance--all these and more, I argued, must be

~ (tueatu~,
understood as vestiges of the earlier heat cosmology. What these o iS cosmology vital heat IS a
I whole cosmos'.4 (It hardly
insights imply for the chronology of Aristotle's writings and for ntineat) and preserves is within a hairsbreadth of
our understanding of his intellectual evoluti0!l are questions that co ds to be pointed out that t IS reconstructed above, except
I will have to leave open. nee f 't 1 heat as re-a
Aristotle'S notion 0 VI a ot-or rather not any mo
that Aristotle's vital heat, wa~, nn of vital heat wa~ then super-
The idea that the four elementary constituents of sublunar sub- , entity) Cleanthes no 10 'us' nohon of pneuma
stances are domineering opposites in perpetual strife is a tradi- cosmdlcb r ;ather reworked into, ChryslPP holds together all
sede y, 0 h' h ermeates an d 'S .
:~:stances, including inani~ates~~~:~se of cohesion. Of interes:
tional idea which is at the very heart of the material persistence cosmic substance w IC P .5 this is the' canonical tOlC
problem. The crucial points are, first, that forms have to be im-

:~t~:;.~~~r~:t:~~ ;~:.\~:~~;~r:nlo!~:;~u~:~~~;!:f
posed upon matter-they do not rise in it spontaneously-and, tion of pneuma as the umver t the details of the theory, bu
second, that even once a SUbstance haVing a form has come to be,
it will rapidly decay and diSintegrate if left to itself. The four-
element theory can account neither for the emergence nor for the in terms of pneuma, na th 'the constituents of a 0 y . us
persistence of forms in matter. Throughout this book I endeav- h neuma can 'hold toge er h 'The opinion of Chryslpp
oured to show that Aristotle was alert to this crucial problem p
tit epermeates 't through
I ll ands throug
' He. supposes that all substanceb
blending (krasis) is as fo ow . h it a certain pneuma y
the~e th~o~g a~d
and that he pondered a number of interrelated solutions to it.
We will now look at subsequent attempts to come to grips ?n nified, and that goes. together (sunekhetai).
with the same problem. For an understanding of the difficulties IS u f which the uruverse IS e, 'th itself.'6 Thus, withm
means 0 mpathehc WI f h ion
persists (summenei) ~nd .IS sy euma can be the cause 0 co es
,
inherent in the very foundation of Aristotle's theory of matter, it
will be revealing to see how later natural philosophy (especially Stoic physics, the UbIqUitous pn
the long-lived Peripatetic tradition), which also operated with
four-element physics, handled the problems of coming-to-be and " ,r Stoic Cosm%gJj, 142 f. , dded a fourth-hexis-
4 Hahrn, Tile Orlgms 0, Ii s of plleuma, ChryslPP.ili: Origins of Stoic Cosmol-
the material persistence of substances. For the sake of conven- To the three soul-fu!'c f ?:nimate substances (H h' ht for we saw that
~1':IY;~;/). t;hi~h:~~n,~e:li~~ ;:he:\~~~ i~:~i::t~ stuf~~hi:~oi~ ~~~h?:~ht~~
5

ience and breVity I will largely concentrate on the problem of

material persistence, but the implications for the issues pertain- Ari~totle already explam~ a comprehensive theory ntinuous above,
,0 (d. I
ing to informing matter and for the persistence of the species will
be apparent. natural heat, t~us, cr~~a1e ensoule~
to sUbfS t~n~et~tll~,~Otheory
of heat a~d i~
~ 1.3,2), More gener~lr'A~;tot\e
ass age from t e ma reconstruction 0
was closer to the ~tOlcSe~
os, han is usually beheve ,
ence of Stoicism in. it~
It will prove instructive to begin with a brief look at the post- background show~l
t a a better understanding ~f:we :~rYstotle's
and the StOICS
Aristotelian tradition of natural philosophy which, more than this inSight may a. 0~1 The points of contact e Ie Longrigg, 'Elementary
0

relationship to Ansto e, h been underscored a so m

any other, confronted the problem of the cohesion of composite
philosophies of na~r~f
ave 4 f ' translation quoted after
Physics', esp, pp. 2 h 'd'sias, De mixtiolle, 3. ~16, 1 thO' theory of plleuma as the
substances head-on: this, of course, is StOicism, where the uni-
versal divine pneuma was construed as informing matter and as • Alexander of Ap ro I 1'011 81 For detatls on e ff' Todd Alexallder
holding together both individual substances and the entire cos- Sorabji, Matter, Space, ~/ld ~or~kY TI;e Physics of th,e ~OiCS, \ogy' 172'ff,; Hallin,
cause of cohesion, c~. a;nsi~ 34 'ff,; Lapidge, 'StOIC osmo ,
mos. CIeanthes, following Zeno of Citium, regarded the entire of Apllrodisias 011 StOIC PI y 167 ff
Origills of Stoic Cosmology, '
 194
Conclusion Conclusion 195
by virtue of the
matter. 7 postulate allowing the interpenetration of because total blending is ruled out, pneuma cannot account for
The upshot of this quick l i m ' '. material persistence.
nature is the following. Wifhin ~se.Into th~ StoIC phIlosophy of The same criticism, let us note, probably does not apply to
the cosmic pneuma ac t f tOlc phYSICS, the doctrine that Aristotle's account of cohesion in terms of heat and moisture.
. co un s or the materi 1 . This account, we saw, rests on the idea that the immediate cause
composIte substances was introd d a perSIstence of
contra Aristotle the I'nte . uce at the cost of advocating of cohesion of a composite substance is its moisture, which is
, rpenetration of b d' .' h ' maintained in the substance by the heat that has gone into it
one cannot account for the cohesi 0 Ies. In t. e last analysis,
terms of a cohesive matt I on of a composIte SUbstance in during the process of concoction through which it was informed
th at that matter indeed er, un ess one is prepared to maIntain . and came to be in the first place. Now heat is not a substance and
through so as to be able re~~~a:es the substance through and so the tenet that heat somehow inheres in a substance violates no
a lesson the Stoics teach 0 0 It together. This is, so to speak, Aristotelian principle (although its precise meaning remains some-
Th' 1 us. what unclear).l0 As to the cohesion-endowing, 'mastered' (con-
IS esson provides us with ful
to look back at Aristotle's a use vantage point from which cocted) moisture-it forms part of the mixis and so its presence
account of material p . t . within the substance is in conformity with Aristotle's system.
of pneuma (above III § 2 3) W erSIS ence In terms
t;
of pneuma was confr~nt e c~n ~ow see t~at Aristotle's theory It should be clear that the last remarks benefit from hindsight,
in order to draw on the no~:a~fr, In~e~d CrItical difficulty.8 For and deliberately so: standing on the shoulders of the Stoics (and
matter, Aristotle would h h da dIstinct, cohesion-endowing subsequent traditions to which we will come shortly) enabled us
. aw a ~a~eptilitth' h to detect the problems which were inherent in the very founda-
ma tt er Interpenetrates the f h' a IS co esive
view of 'pneumatization' ;~~reb~o enng substance. Aristotle's tions of what I take to be Aristotle's projected theory of material
vital heat (III § 2.2.1) indeZd co~e;od through the .action of the persistence in terms of connate pneuma. There is no explicit hint
penetration as this is possibl 'th' as close to the Idea of inter- that Aristotle himself was aware of these problems-except per-
the pneuma is held to' h ~ WI In the Aristotelian framework haps the very fact that he is silent on them. It thus seems con-
In ere In the blood d' h .
parts and to be inseparable f an In t e other bodily ceivable, that the difficulties facing any attempt to remedy the
{as the bubbles in hot milk rom the subs~ance in which it inheres incapacity of the four-element theory to account for material
etration-the idea that tw :r~: But, strIctly speaking, interpen- persistence through a 'materialist' account positing a cohesive
the same place-is a stanc~ o. Ies are simul~aneously at one and substance, may be yet another reason why Aristotle preferred,
however, undermines Arist~:totle ca~egoncalIy rejected. 9 This, as it seems, to draw on his relevant psychological or metaphys-
stance which, by virtue of its s very .I~ea o~ pneuma as a sub- ical doctrine in terms of soul or form, rather than pursue the
ness and heaviness count bmelan pOSItion WIth respect to light- physiological-chemical theory whose components we have iden-
. , e r a ances the an tag . ti I tified here.
one agaInst the other on each d oms c e ements
so that 'the light is overcom an d e~ery spot within the substance
the hea'l kept up by the li;h~~ (~~t down ~y the heavier, and Armed with this insight into the difficulties of accounting for
penetration of matter is excl d d h 10, 70323 ff.). If the inter- material persistence within the Aristotelian framework, we will
stance, can only be taken t ~ ~ , t en pneuma, which is a sub- now briefly consider the fortunes of this topos within the Peripa-
elements of a substance' 0 e 'hllx:aposed to the constituent four tetic tradition. The basic underlying problem, we saw, is that
. , even t e Idea of 'pn '. if a composite substance is to endure, the equilibrium of its
not CIrcumvent this difficult W· h' . eumahzatIon' can-
7 Till .
y. It In Anstotle's framework , th en,
8 515 made very clear in So boo M 10 Although it is the p"el/ma which transports the vital heat-so that heat can·
9 In addition to the one alread ra. 1~. ~er, Space, and Motion, 83-5. not exist without pneuma-Aristotle draws on the notion of heat independently
Sorabji, Matter, Space, and Mof;;~, ~~a!f. above, III § 2.3. of the theory of pileI/ilia. Therefore, the fact that in the last analysis the theory of
plIellma fails does not impair the theory of vital heat.
 196
Conclusion
Conclusion 197
components must be upheld by a distinct agency. To identify
. h Latin West. The details of the
this 'agency', the Peripatetic natural philosophers of late Anti- edieval philosophy and to t t~ and A verroes, for one, more
qUity and of the Middle Ages took two directions. Some postu- :octrine vary from a~thor ,t~ o~r~ome
au significant points,. Con-
lated that things are held together by Forms imposed upon matter once changed hIS oplm~n
rel~va
nt to our purposes, It can
from outside by a transcendent entity, called 'the active intellect'; th:ng the part of the doctrIne lification that the theory
I will call this stance transcendental, Others postulated that sub- ce ertheless be said with some SImp 'ntained in matter as fol-
stances cohere by virtue of a specific cohesive-namely fatty- nev , and are mal d
lained how forms arIse 't If entirely amorphous an
moisture intermingled with them, an account which we have elxp Hylic matter being in and bYf 1 se tside. The active intel-
already gleaned in Aristotle himself; I will /call this approach oWS,l , 't forms rom ou h f
pass 've, it must recelve , h 1 fs ur elementary forms , and . so t e our_
immanentist. The transcendental stance complemented Aristotle's led imprints upon,lt teo s are similarly imprInted upon ~p
theory with Neoplatonic doctrinal elements; the immanentist with elements ensue, HIgher form ts by the active intellect (whi~h
Stoic ones, The first is compatible with Aristotelian physics, but , te mixtures of the elemen . the elements are In
proprIa . 1 f s) Now smce " b
it oversteps the bounds of the theory of matter and in this sense ' fact stores all posslb e orm,' d a fortiori entire hvmg e-
is not itself physics anymore. The immanentist position is incom-
stn'fe, the homoeomerous
m h bodIes,
t'
an h a
intellect d 'nfused
Iinto ,matter,
patible with the principles of Aristotelian physics, for it violates
~ld ,v~:
' s whose forms t e ac Ive I ' the continued asslstance
the postulate that bodies cannot interpenetrate one another. 109 not endure if left to themse ensable for their exist-
StilI another approach to our problem is the alchemical: we will ~o the active intellect is the:efor~II~r~~~ht ou t in the following
very briefly see below that it occupies a mean position between ence, The gist of the theory IS w~ord by R. Levi ben Gershom
the transcendental and the immanentist approaches, and thus it assage from The Wars of th~ version the influence of the
too confirms our observation concerning the impossibility of ac- p(Gersonides, 1288-1344), in w ose Id is mediated by the heav-
1
counting for persistence within the four-element theory of matter. active intel ect on the sublunart wor l'ntellects movmg 'h t em,.
On the transcendental stance I can be brief: the emergence and ' d by the separa e
evolution of the theory of the active intellect have been admirably enly bodles an d 't is in the nature of oppo-
studied by Herbert A. Davidson,ll Taking their cue from Aris- Down here there are opposite:le~:~::~;~g Iwhatever is combined ou;
totle's enigmatic remarks on the nous poietikos in De anima 3, 5, 'tes to destroy one another, t u~. such destruction does not occur
slf them It necessarily follows [sell, smce hich bring about and preserve
commentators of Aristotle came to hold the view that the very o . here there are so me causes
that down d ofw whatever comes to be from h
same agency which is instrumental in actualiZing forms in the e existence of the elements an blunar realm depends on t e
soul-the' active intellect'-does so in matter too, The beginning thh In fact the preservation of the sU cause of this equilibrium
of this theory goes back to Alexander of Aphrodisias, where it t em", , 't t' g elements, Th e ' I deed
~q
uilibrium of the const! u m f the celestial bodies, , .. n f
may have resulted from a reaction to-and a wish to 'transcend- action reaching the elements rom reserves whatever it has 0
entalize' -the Stoic doctrine of pneuma as a thinking substance IS theh
it is t rough them that the sublunarF 't'srealm they w Ph'IC h preserve" as perfectlyf
permeating all matter and to Plotinus. 12 It was subsequently elabor- the good and the perfect, .. or I I hich depends the persistence 0
oss ible the opposite elements on w which preserve, as long as
ated within Arab Aristotelianism (which incorporated significant
f],
as p , 'th moreover, d d' f the
Neoplatonic elements), in the works of al-Kindj and, notably, al- all composite bodies. It IS . e h at in the living beings. In ee , I
Fadibi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna, who apparently coined the term' giver ossible the elemental [= Vita ~ the sublunar things were to cease
Pactioon of the celestial bodies reachm g d the perfect in them would be
of forms'), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), whence it passed to Jewish d an
for even a tiny instant, th . en the Idgooemain to any living b' emg. 13
' 'I rly no hfe wou r
11 Cf. Davidson, Alfarab/~ Avice/ma, and Averroes, 011 Intellect. Cf. also Walzer, wanting; SImi a , 1 ti'on quoted
'Aristotle's AcHve Intellect'. The following paragraph is based on Davidson's 161 170' my trans a ,
work.
12 Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, 011 Intellect, 13, 30-1. WI
,lt3hLS~;gih~e~~~~~~~:::;:t~:~!:~~~~d~~:<y!eryT~~~i
. tudy of Gerson! ,
~~:~~e~P~~g~~;d~~:
For a comprehensIVe S • 1 d Active Intellects,
'Gersonides on the Matena an
 198 Conclusion 199
Conclusion
. 100 k very briefly into one, albeit par-
My pOint is this: the active intellect is charged inter alia with h ere, W here we. WIll only . de 16
the very same functions which Aristotle had attributed alterna- ticularly signiftcant, episo l' f rteenth centuries, some alche-
tively to soul, heat, ~nd connate pneuma, and which the Stoics In the thirteenth and ear y ou ts within Scholastic theol-
ascribed to the universal pneuma. The coming-to-be of organized mists (following in part developm~:d to the problem of material
substances and their material persistence could not be accounted and natural philosophy) resp?n h' h tended to abolish the
for on the sole premisses of the four-element theory of matter. As ogy f theones w IC d th
ersistence by elabora .mg between the sublunar an e
a result, the sublunar world of the medieval followers of Aristo-
tle was an open system: its order and structures depended on an
~eripatetic absolute dlchotom~ that just as the changeless celes-
supralunar realms. They argue Tbrium among the four elements
external causal agency. Whereas Aristotle sought to complement t · 1 fifth body upholds the equi I b 'n the sublunar world a
his theory of matter by immanentist accounts in terms of heat la th re must e 1 'th
'n the macrocosm, so , e . composite substances WI
and pneuma, the doctrine of the active intellect went in the oppo- 1 tuff-' the quintessence -e~dowm~h inferred that it must be
site direction and even placed vital heat itself under the protec- :heir (limited) material persI~tence: :~ence
t through distillation
tion of the posited transcendental cause. The 'weak point' in possible to isolate that cohe:lve q~~a~ce capable of doing in the
Aristotle's theory of matter allowed medieval Peripatetics to forge and thus produce a change es; ~~es in the supralunar one. In the
a coherent synthesis of physics, metaphysics, and theology, in sublunar realm what the ethe ean de Rupescissa, notably,
which the sub lunar world ever depended for its continued exist- 'ddle of the fourteenth century, J tible celestial substance
ence on God. 14 ml b t n the mcorrup .
posited an analogy e wee 'bl sublunar quintessence, argumg
Before coming to the immanentist stance, let me briefly men- d the sought-for incorrupt! e I ments of the world at
tion the alchemical theory, located midway between the tran- an h k th contrary e e . I
that both hold in c ~c. e osite substance, respective y.
scendental and the immanentist approaches. The concern with large and in any indIVIdual c°x.n~a invoked the famous passage
the material persistence of sublunar composite substances is of
To drive home his po~nt, Rupes~e celestial element is analogous
course at the very core of the alchemical enterprise: alchemists . which Aristotle affIrms that A 2 3 736b30 £f: above, III § 2.1).
were traditionally engaged in the production of the Philosopher's
Stone, a substance that would transform base metals into gold-
Itn the vital heat in the semen (G
o
: ' nd
d RupesCissa a
clai~edthat it is the
b
Later authors went beyon the composition of sub lunar su _
the incorruptible sublunar substance par excellence-and that was 't 1£ that enters . 17
often identified also with the elixir of Hfe, a 'medicine' endowing fifth element 1 se 'th material perSIstence. bl
stances, endowing them:VI res onse to the very same pro em
man with immortality. IS The alchemists' problem was thus prac- This alchemical theory IS ~ .Ptellect was also called upon to
tical before being theoretical: more than to account for whatever
which the theory of the aCfhve mlement theory of matter so as .to
persistence could be observed in nature, their goal was to pro-
solve: compIemen fIn g theh our-eaterial persistence 0 f co mposite
duce persistence where it did not naturally exist. The long story rovide an account of tern. st to note that and how
of the alchemists' pathetic attempts to do so need not be told ~ubstances. It is of particu~ar :~!e;~alogy
A . totle's statement concerrung
between the celestial
I d by his late followers:
as recyc e h
element an~ the pneuma w drive home the point that t e
rIS
14 This probltmatiqlle is brought to the fore well with reference to Ibn Sina in
Michael Stolberg, 'Die Lehre von "calor innatus"'. Stolberg shows that due to the
perceived impossibIiIity of an 'eductio formarum ex potentia materiae', Ibn Slnii
whereas Anstotle sought to . d of matter are analogous only
ascribed to the vital heat formative capacities, which he held in tum to depend
supralunar and the sublunar k m s
upon the active intellect. (We came across this stance in the passage from
Gersonides just quoted.) The 'celestial influences' on the sublunar world were a ., f this tsepisode . d elusively on the very
IS base e~
16 The following descnption 0 d'analogie', espeCially pp. 56-64, where
constant topos of medieval natural philosophy, which among other things was Ob . t 'Les rappor
involved in the debate over the worth of astrology. For an overview and bibli- enlightening study: flS , • . • I ' fluenced
ography cf. Freudenthal, 'Maimonides' Stance on Astrology'. many further details are glve.n. 'ble that these thinkers mdlrect Y3~
17 As already suggest.ed, it IS POSSI f Aristotle; d. above, Ch. III n. .
15 Cf. e.g. Leicester, The Historical Backgrollnd.
some early and recent mterpreters 0
 200
Conclusion Conclusion 201

and oiliness, by a stronger orrr~e, the body remaineth dissolved

(the identity of some of their functions notwithstanding), the f f the tyre is separated, and taken
alchemists drew on it in order to legitimate a break with the ·tesS
fia n . hich once clean drawn 0
up hooly, w u
Peripatetic tradition and affirm a full or near identity of the stuffs
to which the universe as a whole and every Single substance and brought to ashes. . l ' I t,'on of the two distinct
within it OWe their material persistence. . t'liation thus allowe d th e physlca h'sod a been postulated 0 n1 y
DIS 1 hi h before a d h' h
We now turn to the immanentist account, namely the one kinds of moisture w chich evaporates easily an w ~c

an~ 2'~pon
founded on the notion of fatty moisture. I will give some indica- heoretically: the aqueous, w t cohesive moisture whIch
tions of its fortune: both because of its intrinsic historical interest, t ndenses into water; tlh e fa the disappearance of
co orates only with difficu ty an
eV~fch the body disintegrates.
and because its existence again highlights that to account for
material persistence, Aristotle's four-element theory needed to in distillation, as well as .the
be complemented. It goes without saying that since the account W The disintegration of substancet henomena in the alchemIcal
lcination of metals, were centr; ~ irical evidence thus made
bodYn~a:subject of theoretical an7s~:
of the cohesion of inanimate composite substances in terms of
their natural heat as reconstructed above is not explicit in ;:boratories. A S,:"wing
Aristotle's writings, the Peripatetic tradition did not pursue it. the issue of coheSIOn l~tO a c~ of nature elaborated by . ra
Some Aristotelians therefore sought to overcome the theoretical the various phIlosophIes h d alchemists-ennched
Now h'l sop ers an d f
chal1enge posed by the cohesion of composite substances by language theoretidans~p 1 ~ with ingredients borrowe ro~
drawing on the notion of fatty moisture. 18 Aristotelian natural phllosop y f metals (inherited from Cree t
The problem of cohesion of inanimate substances came to the the sulphur-mercury theory 0 works had a ready accoun
fore particularly
19 in the sequel of the invention and spread of alchemy). But neither of the~::~:e had to look elsewhere f.or a
distillation. Distillation had been used already by Greek alche- for cohesion, and the Ahrab ~ d ninth- and tenth-centu.ry ,:"nt~s

dIst~llatio
mists, but this art was carried much further by Syriac and Arab . ble concept. We t us n . , . n and for calcmation y
alchemists who20 distilled practically every kind of mineral and sUlta tl'ng for the results of hich they construed as
accoun . f f tty mOlsture, w 'b d t
animal matter. The typical result of a fractionated distil1ation drawing on the notlO~ 0 2~ A tenth-century treatise attn. u~e t ;
as practised at least from the ninth century onward is vividly
the principle of_ cO~~:~~'tates
that fat moisture. cans b:n~oe;a:ti~
described by the Renaissance practitioner Conrad Gesner
(1516-65): Jabir ilbn ~:~y':i is distilled until a very g~~t:~~i~ifies' ,23 Since
name y w . This substance nev h hesion
Of a plant or any other substance ordeined to be distilled, what parte of substance is obtamed .. : ccording to Aristotle, t e co § 1 2)
it is most meet to be extenuated and fyret (that is the purest parte, the oil remains 'moist' and smce,.a oisture (above, § 1.3.2; IV .,
lightest, the thinnest, the moistest and the most superficial parte ... ) being of a substance depends u~o~ ~~~~fatty quality [that) brings about
the principle follows that It IS .
first of all fyret by the force of the heat, is lifted up; next suche other
b · tl'on' 24
partes as in purenes cum nie to the first, and last such a moisture of the com m a . . 'd became a full _fledged theoretical .
thinges as is more crosse that held together the earthy partes, a certain Once established, thIS 1 ~~ d w for explanatory purposes m
. . I on which one cou ra
pnnclp e, h .ting late, Gesner
18 The theory accounting for cohesion in terms of a fatty moisture is by no
T Of Evonymvs, 2 (my italics). Althoug wn
means in contradiction with any of the other accounts. Ibn SIna, for instance, is, 21 Gesner, The reasure ~f t as his earlier colleagues. d' importance was
as already mentioned, one of the philosophers by whom the theory of the active witnessed the very samethac;otion of fatty moistuf g%n~onl~f the Aristotelian
intellect was carried forward, and he also drew often, as will immediately be 21 One of the reasons h
e s which arose from t e 51 more complic-
that it allowed t? slol~e P~~~~rmatter. This makes ~h~ ~~:lc~~oZeudenthal, 'Die
seen, on the notion of fatty moisture.
19 The following historical apen;u draws on FreUdenthal, 'Die elektrische and the a1chemlca t .eoh For somewhat more e al
Anziehung'i id., 'The Problem of Cohesion'; id., '(A1-)Chemical Foundations'; t d than I present It ere.
ae . h g'
and id., 'Clandestine Stoic Concepts'.
20 Forbes, Short History Of tlte Art of Distillation, el~t~~~~~,
24
1:~elb~n1;l~yYill~d!O~t Husain, 'Chemistry in Iraq and Persia', 339.
Stapleton, Azo, and HI y
 202
Conclusion
Conclusion 203
.
a variety of contexts. In his Canon, Ibn S1na invokes it to explain
the formaHon of calculi in the Iddneys and, similarly, writing in . fatty' an d cer taI'nly WIse
10:22, he builds on it his account of the tonnaHon of stones and
mountains, an integral part of his defence of the postulate of the
the natural
nature wou
~eap~OVide this just beca~se 't~:
of animals depends IS . . 'difficult to separate
t For nature mten
it to last for a long
eternity of the World. 'Pure earth does not petrify' Ibn S1M and difficul::~i~t:ru:~,~ proble~
ti"c;,~l~~~ at the Stoic theoryh~~~~~~::;lanatiOn of cohesionr~
lerts us to the
echoes Aristotle (GC 2. 7, 33Sa2 f.), 'because the predominance of
dryness in the earth endows it not with cohesion but rather with
crumbliness.'2S Stones mUst therefore be formed through desicca~ f interpenetration lurkmg be know that the account cannotl
Hon which yet leaves moisture Within them; they must have a
non~evaporable moisture. Indeed:'
o
~
f tty moisture: we
terms of a sumption that the parts ~ A~ertus
f th substance an
Magnus, the for
ceed ?n t e 7:ture are simply juxtapose. blem as is shown by
coheSIve mo f this dehcate pro ,
Often a clay dries and is changed at first into something intermediate t unaware 0 e'
one was no d tortuous passag .
be'w"'n stone and day, viz. a sof, stone, and .fte'Ward,;, changed into the 'following uneasy an , 'n is moisture, which is so
stone [proper]. The clay which most readily lends itseU to this is that
which is26 fatty (/azij), for if it is not fatty, it USlially crumbles before it
petrifies. e of coherence and mlXl garth flow into every
We say that the caus part of the [element] e" of the parts of
subtle that it ma~,es. e~~7cause of the thor~ugh ml~~g not soaked all
Slmilarly, 'mountains have been fonned by one of the caUSes of other part:
the matena .
~n~~~s i~that case, if this m
hIding them fas,
o:s~~;
e:aporated when the
th dust Thus
the formaHon of stone, most Probably from fatty day which slowly
dried and petrified during ages of which We have no record.,27
'hrough fi th~ '~~~e~~~:;;
stone sohdl e,
:ould b. left
thin viscous and stic y, so
~nly 10:;';
;;:rp;'s with joi~
Albertus Magnus fully endorsed Ibn Sma's theory. Since the th e must be some g. f chain.3{}
cause of Cohesion mUst be moisture which is not evaporable, he 'h:r"cthy pa"s like the Imks 0 a ,. e well mixed': 'First
argues in his De mineralibus (completed probably about 1262), A . stones are hard if their. matterry ISpart v ryE
0 the dry [material]. .
the moisture is necessarily fatty, 'there must be something viscous gam, , re affected it, causmg eve h t is subtle and mOlst IS
and sticky, so that its parts join with the earthy parts like the
links of • chaln: Indeed, 'it is the viscous and unctuous moisture
the mOlStu
to flow mto ~verywell
other part .. , Fo;
mixed, since It IS
v: a~t~~~lb:"t'S
a. in enetrating the
discussion
Which gives COherence to the material of stune:" nus idea proves capable of bemg the smallest partides. . .. hesive if and only U
parts and even f t moisture can be co through and
S~bst"';,:etrabillty
its mettle in yet another context. Metals, Albertus Magnus
affirms, are 01 water, like all other liquefiable things. But 'the clearly showsd that :!eate the enti;e is at
moisture in metals is not torn out of them, even by strong heat~ it is assume tOh Postulate excludmg mterp. ture as a cause
hie if t e p . f fatty mOiS h
ing: it must therelore be a moisture which 'is not separable from throug , .'.' violated: the nohon 0 I on the basis of t e

concep~
{the substance] except by the destrucHon 01 iis very substance', least impbotly fulfil its explanatory role on y f pneuma, (In point

~~'i:sr:,~::~:c~;: i;tyin;~~!;,~s::b~::~~~ t~;~~~ ~~~:~

namely not 'simple water', but rather fatty moisture. 'EVidence of cohesIOn can derlying the Stoic o. .de.. have gone
01 'his', Albert suggests, 'is that all the radical moisture on which
into the notion 0 a. h theoretical nohon o. 1 hi-
71 "(Arabic),
HolmY"d 18 ,"d
(English, slightlyA"c,m""
M,nd,,;".,
26 Ibid. 72 and 19, respectively.
fk ""g"41lo",,, ""8"Ii,mllo,,, "pidom,
modified),
later.)32 Stri~tlYI sP:.h":~~'f~u~dations Arist~e~:~:r~%;:r!'ted
is incompatib e WI .
of
ft one which was, 0
h .t' an allen gra ,
p~sical,
27Ibid. 78 and 28. I have diSCUssed Ibn Sina's geology and its broader, meta-
intentions in Freudenthal, '(A1-)Ch emical Foundations'.
losop
fairly wey; 111 fiSor many centuries.
Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus, bk. I tract, i, ch. 2; quoted after Book Of
Minera/s, 12-13, Note that Albert connects the notion of fatty moisture with Ar-
istotle's aCCOunt of viscosity in the manner diScussed above (IV § 2.1). 29 Ibid. bk. III tract: I,' ch2"2' pp. 156-7 (sign
. 12-13, r htlyIb'd
,Imodified). "h
• bk. I tract. Il, c . l', P ' 37,
30 Ibid. bk. I tract. I; ch~de;tke Stoic Concepts.
32 Cf. Freudenthal, Cia
 204
Conclusion Conclusion 205
Indeed, both in alchemy and in natural philosophy, the idea d , ts suggested that the theoretical
e atom IS , t no-
that substances Owe their cohesion to a fatty moisture, or oili~ . In a secon mov, h' h they wished to contmue a use,
Uon of fatty moistu~e,. w l~ir own framework, i.e, be sh~wn to
ness, was taken for granted throughout the Middle Ages, the uld be grounded withm th 'c structure of matter, They
Renaissance and beyond. Ga1ileo Galilei clearly has it in mind
~~u: thc~selves fr~~o~
co quality reducible to the atoml d w on the received notion
when, in his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, he makes
considered tor:ccount not only for. ""he-
Salviati affirm that the cohesion of bodies not haVing a filamentous f fatty moisture, which they I ti 'ty A particularly slgruficant
structure has two causes: one is the horror of a vacuum, but, tl)is ~ion (rigidity), but also for as ~ 0~1 this notion within the most
being an insufficient explanation, 'it is necessary to introduce se in point is the use m~ e tu theory of electricity, Elec-
another cause in the form of a gluey or viscous substance which
binds firmly together the component parts of the body.133 So weB
caidely accepted seventeent -ce~, ~ody such as amber causes
w, I ttraction-a rubbed 'elec nc d it-had been clearly
indeed was this notion entrenched, that it was used as a 'gap- rtnca a h ff t move towar 'lb t
~~marcated attra:l~~o'
ht bodies such as c a, 0 f n notably by William GI er
filler' even within seventeenth-century mechanical philosophy, a from magneh,c h of the mid-seventeenth
physical system whose premisses are as far-removed as possible in 1600,36 For the ~echamcal P~~at tk! attraction could be ex-
from those underlying the concept of fatty moisture. tury it was Vital to show I
Atomism as revived in the seventeenth century could account cen k' 'ccu t qual'ti'es' 1,
namely as brought
h'
I~des issuingfro~
lained without invo 109 0 h ' act of particles, But ow IS
for the cohesion and material persistence of a substance by
e~ent
Pbout 'mechanically' through ft e ex hypothesi
assuming that its atoms cling to one another through their posited toward it? Surely thIS
~ cau~es ac~o~\hese
a ne to explain that a stream 0 par I
branches and hooks. But since the atoms were supposed to be body upon rubbing it, particles. The faute ,de
rigid, the atomic theory could not account for elasticity. Here the at b e the effect of the Impa ti' was to posit thathbodies
cann 'h me ques on
century-old notion of fatty moisture again proved to be a pre-
mieux solution to t~s bot er~o traction are fatty, so that, t e par-
capable of exercislOg electnc a~bing are fatty too, and, IP~O fa~to,
cious SUCCour. Atomists argued, first, that the received notion of
ticles emitted by them upond~hat the effluvia supposedly I.SSUl~g
fatty motion can be integrated into the mechanical philosophy.
elastic. It was thus su~pose
Thus Walter Charleton (1620-1707), rendering in English the ideas
e not hard particles actmg ,Y
of Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), expounds the traditional distinc-
tion between watery and fatty moisture: from a rubbed electn~ body dar37 Thus Charleton, for one, agam
, but rather elashc threa s, ,
Impact, d"s views argues,
[TJhere are Two sorts of Moisture, wherewith compact bodies are usu- expounding Gassen 1 , Amber and other
ally humectated; the one, Aqueous and Lean, the other, Oleaginous and bduced from ,
That such tenacious Ra~e~ are a m hence, that all Electnques are
Fat. The First is easily dissoluble and evaporable by heat, but not in- ' '1
Electriques, IS eaSl y co nvmclble , ., f ro
flammable; the other, though it easily admit heat, and is as easily
inflammable ... is not easily exsoluble, nor attenuable into fume, in , us being entangled as
regard to the Tenacious cohaerence of its partides. 34
disgregated; but th~~:~ :s with the particles of th~ ~o~~d
hich compose the Oleagmo , to which they are
disengaged, with-
well amonghth,emHsemo~s angles, are not to be expe e ssful attempts of evolu-
admixt, by t elr a , . , d after many unsucce.
JJ ' ••• qualche glutine, visco 0 colla, che tenacemente colleghi Ie particole delle t and long agitation, an
quali esso corpo e compos to'; Galileo Galilei, Dialogues, II; Discorsi, 59: 10--11.
Charleton, Physiologia,
point still322 (italics in the original), Charleton-Gassendi seek ~~:'~~h"leton, Ph""/'g", 322-'.) b . 'ny but U",,",", ,nd VI,oo"' fu~~
e,g,: 'the Atoms o~;!~sc:~~~;~ h::O~S, and re:p~o~~~rfi~~h~~~:!;; this
to 34drive home the further:
35
ter, such whose other, the intestine motions of ,th . of that unctuous-
d~ssochiat~d e:sgll~e~ier t~e(d~~~:I~~~~
And thus much we learn in the School of Sense, that such bodies as are
humectate with the Aqueous. and Lean moisture, are easily capable of to be force is requiredhto PI,ysiologia, 297),
Exsiccation: but such as are humectate with the Unctuous and Fat, very hardly: indeed IS W Y som the usually co aere ., 4-9
ness and tenacity, wherebbr yh 2' Heilbron, ElectriCity, 17, h' ng' and 'Clan.
,II ~ , thai 'Die elektrische Anzle u
Why? because the Atoms, of which the Aqueous doth consist, are mOCe 36 Gilbert, De magtlete, ,
laevigated or smooth in their superfice, and so haVing no hooks, or dawes, 37 For what follows, ct, Freu en ,
whereby to cohaere among themselves, or adhaere to the concretion, are soon destine Stoic Concepts',
 206
Conclusion
Conclusion 207
Unctuous and Pinguous Concretions, and that in no mean degree: and
manifest it is, that a viscid and unctuous Bodie is no Sooner Warmed by three centuries after its incep-
~X~g anthrox.~gthe\fe_history
· en Only then, some twenty- on of On Fleshes in the
rubbing! but there rise out of it certain small Lines or Threads, which wi'thin the theological of the con-
adhaere to a mans finger that toucheth it, and such as may, by gentle tto f the fifth century BeE, 1 .
P enumbra o . to a conclUSIOn.
abduction of the finger, be prolonged to a considerable distance. 38 t of fatty mOIsture come
The electrical threads, in short can bring about attraction be- cep Peri atetic and other natural
cause they are elastic, and they are elastic because they are fatty For many centuries, numerous . to ~hinking that the notion of
(unctuous); in addition, their stickiness allows them to adhere to philosophers deluded. thems~lver~ ~ Aristotelian theory of matter,
nearby bOdies, and thus, when upon coo1il1g they shrink back,
they carry the lighter ones among these bodies toward the elec- ;::rch allowed the latter to accou~ O~eryone for ever, and with
f moisture was an mtegra pa t f the cohesion of substances.

tric body. This theory of electricity was to prevail, especially in Yet, we know, you. cann~t ;e~~l~~ee sixteenth and seventeenth
England, well into the eighteenth century.39 the rise of anh-Anstotehs th t the king was naked:
. suddenly saw a
More generally, the notion of fatty moisture enjoyed great centunes some h B'tumen Oyle, Grease
longevity in chemistry. Put very briefly, the idea of a specific as Sulp ur, 1 ,

'ha~:,ei::;::pe"te in heat, and very mo;:t~;

S for fat and unctuous substances, 'be them? Not unto fire, because
fatty moisture, as elaborated within medieval and Renaissance
:.,,' unto what Elemont
natural philosophy and alchemy, was absorbed into the concept
~~reover, ra~her c~~~~:~dl ~nd
h's is extreme hot and dry, 't then generate It. ... Ay ,
of terra pinguis developed by Johann Joachim Becher (1635-82), fire would moyst ... and therefore, as
in whose theory it was combined with ideas on the sulphureous have any ingenerate quality ... Ib fewell to it so it cannot be any

~:teria11 :ubst:C~~ ran~action,

principle as construed by Paracelsus. 40 Becher's concept was in · annot agree with fire, nor e a . bein more agreeable to water
tum transformed into that of phlogiston as introduced by Georg cause of fat, or oylie and into which it
Stahl (1660-1734).41 Both Becher's and Stahl's concepts denoted from whence it is thought to e rna tion Wherefore being of a watery
· thought to be reduced by conden~a tnes~e or bee the matter of it. T~e
~at",e, °I~ef~: b~ing ~O::d:
a principle of inflammability, a material ingredient whose elimin-
ation (through burning) from a substance causes it to disinte- it "nnot ag<" with e:rth, enid and dry, and
grate: both concepts thus accounted for cohesion, in continuity like we may say of wate\ ilii hich is temperate, and moyst, an S qr
it. ~a~~~:e: ~~ ~l~t:~: ~lem:n% toget~~ i~:~~ ~~~::~t:~~i ~~~r~ll
with the traditional concept of fatty moisture.42 As is well known,
the existence within chemistry of Stahl's phlOgiston came to an U1 . t
canno see
how this oylie substance, w~c
f
. h chiefe faculties 0 every
thing doth reside, as
things, and where~n t e h uld be from the Elements.
abrupt end with the introduction by LaVOisier of his theory of 43

their hllmidllm rad/cale, s O h . t

38 CharIeton, Physiologia, 346. 39 HeiJbron, Electricity, 193-5, 202-5.

40 The combination between the ideas on fatty moisture as expounded here .

Aristotle, I beheve, wou Id have appreciated t e pom .
with the distinctively alchemical notion of a sUlphureous principle accounting
inter alia for inflammability goes back to the Middle Ages and Becher's theory is 43 Jorden, A Discourse, 76 f.
a continuous development of this tradition. The idea that fatty substances are ipso
facto sulphureous too underlies e.g. Newton's reasoning on the causes for the
differences in the 'refractive power' of various substances; d. Opticks, 274 .
• 1 For brief
Background, accounts cf. e.g. Stillman, The Story, 425-8; Leicester, The Historical
119-23.
42 Within physics, the problem of cohesion was solved through the introduc-
tion of interparticulate short-range forces; cE. Thackray, Atoms and Powers. It is
worth recording that one of the criticisms levelled against Stahl's chemistry was
that it could not explain what binds together earth and water, those diSSimilar
principles, into a single substance: the problem of accounting for material persist-
ence within Entwicklung',
begriffliche the four-element theory was still alive and well. Cf. Carrier, 'Die
336-7.
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~

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 Index of Aristotelian Passages 223
011 the Soul 4 650b33 49
Index of Aristotelian Passages 1
5
4 408a14
411b7
11
18
651a12
651a13
125
49
2 4 416a6 15,18 5 651a24 166
416a9 21, 31, 32
Nole: The index includes only h 416a15 32 7 652b10 30
are only referred to. For the sa~~s~~gs~:nt tt.~e ~tua~y ,!uote.d, not such as 421a21 53 653a31 58
quoted passage is indicated An t p ICI , 0 Y t e first lme of each 9
which are not strictly identi~al' c~~ ry mt
y therefo;e bring together passages
in different (consecutive) entri~s. verse y, parts 0 one passage can be listed On Sleep
10 656a7
656a11
63,67
62
3 456b21 58 656b3 51
457b4 60 656b17 133
De philosophia (fragments), 379322 457b23 61 656b26 51, 133
Ross 19 (=R3 20) 89-90, 90 41, 162
379323 42 458a13 61 16 660a12 53
21 (=R3 23) 88-9 379a24 3 4 667a12 50
21b (=R3 24) 87 42, 155 54
2 379b32 22 On Length atld Shortness of Life 667a14
26 (=R 3 26) 86 379b35 2 465a12 13 5 668a20 126-7
13
27 85-6,89 3 381a10 3 465b3 13 6 669b4 58
28-9 20
381b6 29 465b13 77 7 670a24
Topics 9 672a5 165
6 6 4 381b24 174-5 465b27 14
145a36 61 4 3 677b33 42, 165
381b31 152 465b29 14, 181
011 Ihe Heavens 382a4 151 4 466a9 191 10 686a26 63
1 3 5 382bl 5 466a23 42, 161 686b2 57-8
270a27 141 157 686b28 59
2 3 286a9 37 382b16 158-9 466a24 164
382b19 466a29 156 11 692a23 49
286a32 13-4 153
6 288b16 15 6 382b31 157 466b15 190
383a11 173 466b33 161 011 the Movemetlt of Allimals
011 Generation and Corruptioll 383a12 173 6 467a6 161 10 703a19 135
1 1 314a20 11 383a13 158 703a23 137, 194
10 328a10 11 383a16 157 On Youlll and Old Age alld On 703a25 16, 167
328a29 12 383b15 173 Respiration 703a30 145
328b22 11 7 383b22 176, 177 3 468b27 71
2 2 329b29 153 384a2 163 4 469b6 20 On tile Generatioll of Animals
329b30 150 384a5 162 14(8) 474a25 19 1 20 729a13 26
330a5 163 384alO 173n., 19(13) 477a15 66 2 1 731b25 37
330311 153 174 477a20 58 731b30 7
7 334b23 13 384b2 173 23(17) 478b33 31,71 732a4 38
8 335al 41, 151 8 385a22 174 24(18) 479a29 115 732b31 65
385a31 159, 174 479bl 186 734b24 126
Meteorology 9 26(20) 479b31 120 735a1 29
1 387a11 163
3 339b30 103 735a14 115
387a23 162
340a2 140 387315 121, 162 History of Animals 2 735b8 176, 177
340b27 129 387a30 162 1 4 489a20 146 735b29 166, 176,
2 3 359b4 72 n. 3 19 521a1 161 177
387b7 162
4 360a5 72 387b22 170n. 521a3 56 3 736b33 25,37,
360a6 72 388a5 521a7 127 107, 110,
170 n. 118, 119,
360b32 72 388a8 170n. 21 522b8 27
8 365b26 72 10 127
4 388b22 159
1 379a8 41 Parts of Animals 737al 31
388b28 159
379a11 13, 40-1 11 389b7 2 2 648a2 52 737a3 26, 116
41
379a12 14 389b12 31, 126 648a4 54 737a6 110
379a16 41, 186 n. 12 390a3 3 650a2 70 737b2 100, 172
44n.
650a5 65 737b4 100, 172
* See p. 86 n. 24 for the abbreviations. 650a24 71 4 739b23 27
 224 Index of Aristotelian Passages
On the Generation of Animals (COllt.) 22 929b7 152n.
6 742a14 120 23 929b18 124
743a27 29,32
743a32
743a34
29
32 Metaphysics
General Index
744a2 132-3 1 (A) 3 983b23 146
744b23 51 8 (H) 6 1045alO 164, 168
3 1 751b6 12 (A) ageing 146, 155-6, 185-7 not coagulating in living body
30,43 3 1070a28 39, 188
4 755a17 see also death; decay 125, 146
124
11 762a19 air: its composition depending on vital
123, 127
4 1 766b16 Nicomacheall Ethics Anaximenes' notion of 101 n., heat 48, 59-60
25
3 767b6 6 7 1141a26 53 147 condition of life 127
24
10 777b7 7 13 . 1153b33 67 cold in Aristotle's biological Empedocles' view of 83
14
5 1 778b29 writings 166, 177 function of 127
61 informing movements inhering in
3 782b2 161 decays 165 n.
783b8 Eudemian Ethics Diogenes' notion of 81, 95 n., 27-8
155-6 2
8 789b9 1 1219b19 61 101 n., 104, 133-4, 147, 169 insensitive 131
Ill, 136, matter of the body 27-8, 50, 126,
169 2 1220b16 50 in fatty substances 164-8, 175-8
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' 94, 131, 146
Problems (Ps-Aristotle) 95n. pneumatized 120-3
Politics psychological consequences of its
21 9 927b34 152 1 refrigerating the heart 134, 147,
2 1252b1 127, 131 composition 48-52, 68
12 928a26 161 n. 177
12 1260a12 59n. purest in man 58
relation of Presocratic notion to
Aristotle's connate pneuma resulting from concoction 23
147 transporting vital heat (through
see also pneuma connate pneuma) 27-8, 31, 34,
ai/her, see ether; first body 126-7
Albertus Magnus 163 n., 202-3 blood vessels 126, 131-4, 172
Alexander of Aphrodisias 196 bone 51
Alexander Polyhistor 93 Brague, R. 57 n., 59, 62 n., 63 n.
amber 158, 159, 160, 205 brain 101 n., 133
analogy, meaning of 116-17 bread 152
Anaxagoras 97 n. bronze 159, 174
Anaximenes 101 n., 147
animals: Charles, D. 35 n.
intelligence of 52-3, 67-8 Charleton W. 204
unity of their bodies 139-41, chemistry (Aristotle's) 3 n., 5, 149
168-9, 184; see also persistence Chrysippus 193
apeiroll 12 Cicero 85, 86, 88, 193
aqueous moisture, see moisture Cleanthes 192-3
ardor 86-7, 103, 193 coagulation:
arteries 132 of blood 125-6
Athene 179-80 of milk 26-7
atmis, see vapour cohesion:
Averroes, see Ibn Rushd caused by heat 3, 5, 40-4, 46, 65,
Avicenna, see Ibn Sina 98, 139, 143, 155-6, 165, 183,
195
Balme, D. M. 22, 109-11, 112 n., caused by moisture 41, 151-3;
114 n., 115 caused by specifically fatty
Beare, J. 111,132 moisture 161-72, 176-80; theory
Becher, J. J. 206 of 5, 40-4, 151-7, 183, 195
blending, Stoic notion of 193 considered chemically 5, 149
blood: degrees of 156-7, 160-8
carrier or not of sensations 131-4 defini Hon of 149
chemical composition of 125 in On Fleshes 171
 226 General Index
cohesion (cont.):
Peripatetic .accounts of in terms of
fatty mOIsture 200-7 ' see also decay, ageing
in Stoicism 193-4
see also persistence
cold:
brings together things 153-4
sOlidificatt,on through 172-5; see
also drymg
status of compared with that of
heat 34
combination, see mixis
concoction:
definition 22
informs nutriment into
homoeomers 22-9 37 114 154
182-3 ' , , .,
leads up to solidification 157
in the living being 23
makes a heap into a substance 23
40, 154
na tural vs artificial 23, 28-9
occurring inside the earth 71--3
and persistence of substances 40-1'
see also cohesion, persistence
process described 22-3 157
produces informing m~vements 28
produces 'natural heat' inhering in
substances 41-2, 156; see also
heat
produces pneuma in liquids 120
166 ' Empedocles 16 n., 18, 33, 75, 80-1,
produces semen and menses 107
109,114 ' generative heat diviner than
quality of determines perfection of
outcome 24-5
ripening a species of 124
see also vital heat
connate pneuma, see pneuma
Cooper, J. M. 9-10, 19, 36, 39, 45
cosmology / cosmogony:
the development of Aristotle's
84-93, 102-5
Presocratic 79-80
courage, depending on thick blood
49
Davidson, H. A. 196
death:
accounts in terms of soul and vital
heat compared 185-7
associated with becoming both d
and cold 145-6, 155-6 ry
defined as destruction of vital
heat 20
decay:
inexorable in composite substances
13:-18, 40-1, 154-7; in De
phllosophia 89-90
construed as gradual or abrupt
185-7
differential resistance to 156-7,
160-8
of the earth 72;'
of plants 71
s.ee als~ ageing, cohesion, elements
Delcitgraber, K. 171
Democritus 9, 180
desiccation 41
see also drying
Dierauer, U. 52, 56, 67-8
digestion 51
' 11-19, 45, 75-6, 87, 118 n., 129,
Diller, H. 97
D!ocles of Carystas 113, 121 n.
DlOgenes of Apollonia 81-2, 89,
95 n., 97, 98 n., 101, 104 122 n
' directions 2, 15-16, 137-8, 182
133-4, 147, 169 189'
Diogenes Laertius 94
distillation 200-1
divine:
Aristotle's notion of 37-8 98
102 n., 118 ' ,
biolOgical processes partaking of
the divine 37-8, 98
ether d~vine 95 n., 96, 98, 102
elements 37-8,47, 109--10, 118-19
hea~ens divine 80, 93, 95, 98
man s divinity 62-5, 67-8, 91, 94-5
nous divine 68
some animals divine 67
stars divine 87, 94
Urstoffe divine in Presocratic
philosophies and in De
philosopltia 4, 77-8, 79, 81, 88-9
92, 94-7, 98-9 172
vital heat or pne~ma divine 37 47
dry, topol?gical .~d physical '
meanIngs dIStinguished 150-1
154,157 ' see also cohesion
drying:
as a consequence of ageing 155-6
as the elimination of moisture 155
as so~i~ifica~on 157-60; see also
so!tdification
General Index
topological and physical meanings
of 150-1, 154, 159, 173
During, 1. 20 n., 21, 29
Dumoulin, B. 87-8, 89, 91
dwarfs, animals dwarf-like 57
earth:
internal heat of concocts plants'
nutriment 71-2
nature of its internal heat 72-3,
99-100
earthiness, dependence upon vital
heat 55, 57
Eichholz, D. E. 73
elastic parts 100
elements:
equilibrium of 11-18, 181-2, 197;
see also equilibrium
ever in strife 12-14, 192, 197
four-element theory 1-2, 6, 8-9,
181-2, 192, 198,206 n.; extended
140-1, 187-8
tend to travel in contrary
.,
tend to uncombine 2, 16; see also
decay
emotions:
physiological aspects of 48-50, 52,
134
see also soul
83,91, 146
equilibrium:
inherently unstable 2, 12-14,
140-1, 197; see also decay
maintained by connate pneuma
(microcosm) 134-41
maintained by ether (macrocosm)
14-15, 140-1, 199
maintained by active intellect
(micro- and macrocosm) 197
must be maintained from outside
' 12, 195-6
within a mixis 11-18, 137-8, 181-2
see also elements
erectness:
co-varies with perfection 65-8, 74
depending upon vital heat 56-62,
81
man's 4, 57-60; Aristotle's account
in context 99; in De philosophia
90-3; Diogenes' account of 81;
Empedodes' account of HO'-'L>91i">:\
passing out during sleep
Plato's account of 91'
relationship. to his di~inity 62-5
91, 99; relatIOnship to his '
intelligence 58-60, 91, 99
see also vital heat
eternity:
associated with divinity 37-8
of the IIOUS 68
of species 2, 7, 10, 36-8, 119, 188
of the world, see world
ether:
analogous to generative heat or
pneuma 104, 107-18, 199-200
associated with Athene 179
in De philosophia 85-105
development of Aristotle's notion
of 5, 102-5
divinity of 94-5, 96
history of as fifth element 94 n.,
102-5
in On Fleshes 96
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
94-5
see also first body
Eudemus 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92
evaporation 157-8, 162, 173
see also drying; vapour
exhalations:
dry exhalation 72-3
moist exhalation 162
theory of 87, 129-30
Farabi (al-) 196
fat (moisture):
associated with the hot 96, 101 n.,
164-8
conceptual sources of 169-72
containing hot air or pneuma
164-9, 175-8, 184
inflammable 170 n.
properties accounted for 165-8,
175-8
resistant to decay 6, 42, 161-72,
183; in post-Aristotelian
tradition 200-7; symbolic
dimension thereof 178-80;
resulting from concoction 23,
165
see also moisture
fear, refrigeration of blood 49
 228 General Index
female:
colder than the male 38 n. 190
less divine than the male 38 n 190
J~ss perfect than the male 24 .,
lives less than the male 38 n
Festugiere, A.-J. 95 n. . spa~alization of 64-5, 190
fibres (in blood) 48, 101 n.
see also blood
fig-juke:
containing vital heat 26-7 115
'sets' milk 27, 115 ' due to upward travelling heat 58
fire:
cause of growth in Empedocles 18
31,80
celestial element in De phiiosopJ/ia
86-7
identical or not with vital heat
21-2, 23, 28-9, 109-10 116
not celestial element 14'
role in nutrition and growth 21
31-3
fire-animals 102 n.
first body:
analogous to generative heat or
pneuma, see vital heat, pneuma
emergence of Aristotle's doctrine
of 5, 102-5
extension of Aristotle's physics
140-1, 143, 187-8
maintaining the equilibrium of the
macrocosm 14-15, 140-1, 199
not warm 103 116
in Theophras~s 93
see also ether
first matter 75
form:
result of concoction 23
transmission by sire 24-5
frankincense 158
Freudenthal, J. 131
fumes 158, 162-4
Fudey, D. J. 42 n., 87, 117 n.
Furth, M. 8, 17 n., 46 n.
Galen 156n.
Galileo Galilei 207
Gassendi, P. 204
Gersonides, see Levi ben Gershom
Gesner, C. 200
Gilbert, W. 205
G~lI, M. L. 2, 7 n., 16, 17, 19, 45
gltschros 100, 163, 172
glue 152, 171
glutinous 100-1, 139 n., 161 n., 168-9
170-2
God:
Diogenes' view of 81
medieval 198
Gotthelf, A. 8, 28 n., 35 n.
growth:
alternative explanations of 18, 31-3
of eggs, larvae, yel'lst, due to
pneumatization' 124
of fruit 124-5
' 40-7, 155-6, see also cohesion,
of plants (Aristotle's and
Empedodes' a<;<;ounts) 80
gum 158
Guthrie, W. K. C. 146
Hahm, D. 86-7, 88, 89, 91, 95 103 n
104 n., 193 ,.,
' earthiness 55; Diogenes' account
hair 51
Happ, H. 64, 66, 190
harmonia, theory of soul 43 n.
heart:
acropolis 145
central organ of perception 52 54
120, 130-3, 135-7 " compared 95; principle of life
characteristics of and intelligence
55
characteristics of and their
psychological consequences
48-52,54
~aracteristics of and memory 55
Dlogenes of Apollonia on 133
formation of US 123
involve~ent in e~otions, see
emotions
organ of memory 55
origin of blood vessels 127
'seat' of soul 20, 30, 120, 126,
130-7, 145; in plants 70-1
source of vital heat 20, 30-1
49-50, 66, 120, 123, ]26-7'
heat:
in Aristotle: abating in old age
155-6, 185-7; accounts for
cohesion of homoeomerous
substances, not for the
persistence of anhomoeomerous
on~s 43, see also persistence;
active factor 22; analogous to
celestial element 104, see also
pneuma; attracts moisture in 42,
General Index
125-6, 146, 155, 158, 183, 195;
' brings together things of the
same kind 154, see also
concoction; cause of material
persistence, see cohesion,
persistence; early notion of and
its dependence on Presocratics 5,
84-93, 99-101; inheres in
substances that resulted from
concoction 3, 27-8, 40-4, 156,
165, 195; intemal heat of the
earth 71-3, 99-100; and material
persistence of substances 3,
persistence; natural heat 41-2;
noetic substance in De pllilosopllia
4, 88-93; produces permanence
188; the sun's 104; tends to
move upward 58, 75, 77-8, 90-2,
this posited tendency
problematic 74-7
in Presocratic thought: divine
77-8, 93-8, 172; Heraclitus' view
of 98; in all Fleshes 81 n., 96,
169-72, 189, 207; in De pllilosophia
and the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
and formative power 94, 96 n.,
97, 116
Theophrastus' view of 93
see (1150 vital heat
Hera 146
Heraclides Ponticus 92 n.
Heraclitus 98, 101 n., 104
Hippocrates:
Hippocratic corpus 42 n.; all
Fleshes 6, 81 n., 95 n., 95-101,
103 n., 121 n., 169-72; all fhe
Sacred Disease 133 n.; A" fi,e
Na/llre of Child 172 n.
Hippon 145
homoeomers, homoeomerous
sub11,tances 11, 22-3
material persistence of 40-4
hoof 51
hom 153,160
Ibn Rushd 196, 197
Ibn Slna 196, 198 n., 200 n., 202
ice 159, 160, 174, 175
'informational power' of semen,
blood, et<;. 27-8
see also vital heat
229
intellect:
active 6, 39 n., 68, 196-8, 200 n.
passive 68
productive, see intellect (active)
intelligence:
of animals 52-3
co-varies with erectness 56-62, 92;
in Diogenes 81-2
dependence on the constitution of
blood 49, 52, 54-6; Diogenes'
account of 81-2; Empedocles'
account of 83
dependence on the constitution of
the heart 55; Diogenes' account
of 81-2
dependence on the senses 53-4
dependence on (vital) heat 55,
56-60; Diogenes' account of
81-2
inversely proportional to
of 81-2
man's 52-60, 62-5, 67-8; compared
with that of animals 56, 67-8,
81; compared with that of God
81-2, 83; relationship to his
erectness and divinity 58-60,
62-5,82
of stars 88-9
interpenetration of matter:
affirmed by the Stoics 193-4
implicit in Aristotle's theory of
pllellllla 194
presupposed within Peripatetic
school 196, 203
see also pneumatization
iron 160
Tabir ibn I;Iayyan 201
Jaeger, W. 85, 106, 113, 127
Joachim, H. H. 75
Kahn, C. H. 130
Kindt (al-) 196
kollodes 96, 100, 170-1, 172
krasis, see blending
KudIien, F. 113 n.
Kuhn, T. S. 113 n.
Laks, A. 97 n.
Lavoisier, A.-L. 206
lead 159, 174
Leibniz, G. W. 86 n.
 230 General Index
Levi ben Gershom 197, 198 n.
Lewis, F. A. 9 n., 35 n.
life:
construed as related to air 146-7,
155, 156 n.
construed as related to heat 19-20,
146, 147 n.; see also heat
construed as related to moisture
145-6, 156 n.
construed as related to vital heat
146, 155; see also vital heat
liparOIl 96, 161, 166, 169-72
see also fat
Lloyd, G. E. R. 132, 145
logos (of mixis) 22, 23, 29, 33, 40,
44 n., 114, 120 n., 138, 154
lungs:
function 58
in man 58
male:
hotter than the female 38 n., 190
lives longer than the female 38 n.,
190
more divine than the female 38 n.
has more perfect form than the
female 24
man:
has a god-like nature 62-5
has hands 59
has purest blood 58
intelligence of, see intelligence
'man begets man' 38-9, 45, 188
is the norm 24, 58
the most perfect animal 24, 58,
138, 188
naked 59
partakes of divinity 62-5, 67-8, 91,
94-5; see also divine
place in scale of being 67-8, 138,
188
possesses speech 59
upright position of 57-65, 91, 99,
188, see also erectness; its
conformity with nature 62-5
material persistence, see persistence
(of individual substances)
matter:
theory of matter, see elements
mean, doctrine of 12
membranes 96, 100-1, 168':"9, 170-2
memory 54-5
Mendelso~ E. 70 n.
menses;
acted on by semen 24-5, 114
resulting from concoction 23,
107
Meteorology book 4
authenticity of 13 n.
midriff 51, 60
milk:
coagUlation 26
contains fire or heat 27
pneumatization of 121-2;
model for connate pneuma
122
resulting from concoction 23, 26
millstones 160
mind:
Aristotle's philosophy of (not to be
dealt with) 4, 68-9, 134; see also
theory of heat
in De philosop},ia 85-91
mixis 11, 15-6, 22, 43, 154, 195
mixture, see Sill/thesis
moist, topological and physical
meanings distinguished 150-1
moistening, topological meaning 150,
173
moisture:
acted on by heat 154; see also
concoction
aqueous vs fatty 157, 160-1;
separated through distillation
200-1
associated with life 145-6
attracted by heat 42, 125-6, 155,
158
cause of cohesion 41, 151-3,
155
fatty (as cause of cohesion): in
Aristotle 160-72, 175-80; in
post-Aristotelian tradition
200-7
foreign vs inner 41, 153-4, 175
kinds of differ in resistance to
decay 156-7, 160-1
'mastered' during concoction 22-3,
41, 154, 156
radical 202, 207
separable vs inseparable 162-3
Moraux, P. 86, 92 n., 140, 187
motion, animal, role of connate
pl/euma in 134-5
mud 160
myrrh 158
General Index
nails 51, 153
natural motion:
does not belong to qualities 76
of earth 18
of elements in mixis 15-16
of the fifth element 102
of fire 18, 102
of heat (upward) 58, 75, 77-~,
83-4, 90-2; see also heat, Vital
heat
invoked as cause of growth 80; In
De philosophia 87, 92
theory of 75
natural places, Aristotle's theory
of 15, 75, 87, 89-90, 92, 128
necessitation 1-2, 9, 34-5, 39
Ileum 135, 170
Newton, Sir 1. 206 n.
/LOIIS 4, 68, 69
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
94n.
Nussbaum, M. C. 111, 135
Nuyens, F. 20 n.
Oehler, K. 38-9, 45, 188
oil 125, 160, 161, 162, 170 n., 173 n.,
174
properties of accounted for 165-8,
175-8
symbolic dimension of 178-80
result of distillation 201
used in ointments 163-4
ointments 163-4
olive oil, see oil
olive tree 179-0
Olympia 179
Oil Fleshes, see Hippocrates
opposites:
in the cosmos 79
in a mixis 2, 11-12, 181, 192,
197
Orphism 88
oxygen 207 "
papallsis, see ripening
Paracelsus 206
Peck, A. L. 106 n., 111, 112 n., 132,
141
Pepin, J. 86, 87, 8~, 92 n.
pepsis, see concoction
perception, see sense-organs
perfection, depending on vital heat
24-5,66,74
Peripatetics:
immanentist account of
persistence 200-7
transcendental account of .. ,...~ ••,.'c
persistence 196-8
persistence:
definitions of kinds 7-8, 17 n., 181
eternal persistence of the
macrocosm 14-15, 140-1, 192-3,
199· see also world
.
etern~l persistence of species 8-10,
18-19 36-40, 98, 181, 188; see
also eternity (of species)
material persistence of individu~1
composite substances: alchemical
theory of 118 n" 196, 198-200; of
animate and inanimate
substances (scopes of accounts
compared) 43-4; and connate
pneuma 14-~5, 140-~, 194-:5; d~e
to violence In De pJlllosopJl1a 92,
and elastic parts 100-1, 168-9;
and ether 14-15, 140-1; and fats
42, 161-72, 178-80; and heat or
vital heat 40-4, 46, 65, 98, 139,
143, 165, 183, 195; of
homoeomerous vs
anhomoeomerous substances
(scopes of accounts compared)
30-4, 43-4, 46, 100-1, 138-40,
143-4, 168-9, 184-8; "nd
nutritive soul 17-18, 43-4, .4.6,
139, 144, see also soul (nutntlVe);
'psychological' and.
'physiological' theor~es compared
181-7, see also material
persistence of homoeomerous vs
anhomoeomerous substances
(scopes of accounts compared);
post-Aristotelian accolU1ts of
196-207; problem of defined 2,
7-8, 11-18, 137-8, 181, see. also
decay; should correlate With .
quantity of vital heat 190-~; In
Stoicism 192-4; theory of (10
terms of moisture and he~t)
40-4, 151-7, see also coheSIOn
Phaedo 88
pirantasia 54
pJllebes 132 n., 133
phlogiston 206
phrenes 94 n.
plzrollesis 52

232 General Index
pitch 162, 170 n.
plants:
devoid of sensation 51, 58, 64
growth of (Aristotle's and
Empedocles' explanations) 18, 80
live longer than animals 161, 191
place in scale of being 65-6
their upper part turned downward
58, 62, 64-5, 71 n., 80
vital heat of 23, 27, 65, 70-3, 99,
125
Plato 21, 38-9, 45, 68, 88, 91, 92 n.,
94 n., 113 n., 171, 176, 188
Plotinus 196
Plutarch 79
pneuma (connate):
analogous to the celestial substance
104, 107-18, 141, 189, 199-200
Aristotle's theory of: accounts for
animal motion 134-5, 147;
accounts for material persistence
137-44, 145, 147, 187-8, scope of
this account 138-40, 143-4, see
also persistence; a<;counts for the
transmission of sensations to the
heart 132-4, 145, 147; accounts
for the transportation of vital
heat throughout the body
127-30; accounts for the upward
motion of vital heat 128-30;
construes pneuma as capable of
expanding and contracting 135;
construes plleuma as the
substrate of vital heat 5, 78,
127-30, 144; defines pneuma as
hot air 121, 127, 128, 134, 136,
142, 165-6, 176, 177; desiderata
for an interpretation 112-13,
119-20; different interpretations
of 106-12; an extension of
Aristotle's philosophy of nature
140-1, 187-8; fails 142, 194-5;
fundamental postulate of 120,
144, 166; has not been completed
5, 78, 112, 132, 167 n.; implies
interpenetration of bodies 194;
integrates the theory of vital heat putrefaction, see decay
5, 136, 184; goals of 119-20,
135-7, 142, 144, 184; mentioned
78, 84, 101 n.; posits continued
production of plleuma in the
body 109, see also
pneumatization; posits that the
areM of pneuma is in the heart
136; presupposed in accounts of
fats 165-9, 175-8; relationship to
theories of Diogenes and Plato
133-4, 147; summary of 135-7; a
synthesis of earlier views 144-8
described as divine 37
inhering in fats 164-9, 175-8, 184
medical theories of 113
out of natural place 121
related to whiteness 176-7
Stoic theory 6, 192-4, 196
see also pneumatization
pneumatization:
accounts for froth 124
of blood (hinders coagulation)
125-6
comes close to interpenetration of
substances 194-5
fats assumed pneumatized 166-8,
175-8
in growth and ripening 124-5
milk as model 121-3
physical process involved 120-3
in spontaneous generation 123-4
Poseidon 180
pottery 160
powers, see qualities
Praxagoras 132 n.
Presocratic:
Aristotle's early, Presocratic-type
cosmology 4, 78, 84-93
cosmology / cosmogony 77, 79-80
legacy identified in Aristotle 79-84
notion of 'hot' 77-8
notion of qualities 75
Preus, A. 25 n., 118 n.
prime mover, see unmoved mover
purity:
Diogenes' view of 81-2
Empedocles' view of 83
increasing with distance from
centre 56-60, 74, 80, 81-2, 83, 89,
92, 99, 105, 189
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks'
94
'Pythagorean Notebooks' 93-5,
97-101
qualities:
active and passive 76, 153
Aristotle's view of 13
General Index
Presocratic notions of 75
their status 75-7
quintessence 118 n., 199
rennet:
containing vital heat 26 f., 34, 115
'sets' milk 26-7, 115
ripening 124
Rist, J. M. 106 n.
Ross, D. 20 n.
Rusche, F. 111
Rupescissa, J. 199
salt 151, 160
Salviati 203
scale of being:
in De pIJilosophia 88-9, 191
Diogenes' account of 81
of organs 51-2, 55, ~6 n., :29-30
Presocratic heritage In Aristotle
83-4
of species 47, 66 n.; continuous
66-8; cosmological reference
62-5, 74, 83-4; dependence on
vital heat 4, 58-60, 65-8, 74,
119, 138, 188; should correlate
with longevity 190-1
semen: . 39
carries eternal form of speCies ,
118-19
carrying vital heat and movements
27-8, 34, 109-10, 115, 126
compared with oil 175-8
containing pneuma 107, 122
resulting from concoction 23, 107,
109, 122
'setting' menses 24-5, 107, 114-15
views on the physical nature of
95n. h elastic parts 100-1; In fetation
sensations, transmitted to the eart
131-4
sense-organs:
Aristotle's and Empedodes'
accounts of compared 83
and intelligence 53
made of purest matter 51, 6? .
physiologic~l.c~ctors determining
their sensitivity 50-2, 54-6
scale of value 51, 55
sense powers forming a unity
130-1
transmission of sensations to the
heart 131-4
separability of the sc~ence~ 33 n.
separation, Presocratic notion of
79-80, 83, 169
sepsis, see decay
'setting' 24, 26-7, 28, 115
shininess 166, 167
sinews 51, 135 n., 139 n., 170, 172
slaves 59 n.
sleep 51, 60-2
soda 151, 160
solidification:
through cold 172-5
see also drying
Solmsen, F. 12, 68, 79, 83, 107-9, 111,
115-16, 131, 132-3, 134
Sorabji, R. 55, 131
soul: 7 h'
Aristotle's notions of 86, 8.; IS
different notions compatible or
not 20-1, 30, 69
d body 20, 48-56, 126; see also
anpersistence ('psychol.ogical' and
'physiological' theones
compared), theory of heat
Diogenes' view of 81-2
faculties of depending upon
characteristics of the blood and
heart 48-50, 52
has its seat in the heart 20, 30,
130-1
Heraclitus' view of 98
nutritive: an 'active cause' of
material persistence 2, 18, 43,
139, 184, see also persistence;
Aristotle's theory of 18; cause
of growth 18, 31-3; can~ot
account for gradual agemg
186-7; and connate pneuma
137-44, see also pne~m?; an? ,
107; in its absence bodily parts
are so only homonymously
126; not an unmoved mover
117 n.; and vital heat 19-35,
29-34, 40, 43, 47-73, 98-9, 126,
183
perceptive 130-1; see also sense-
organs .'
see also theory of soul, Intelligence
species:
eternal 7, 36-8
persistence of 36-40, 188
Sphairos 83
 234 General Index
spontaneous generation 25-6, 107,
110, 115, 116, 123-4, 147, 189
Stahl, G. 206
stalactites 158, 159, 160
stars:
in De philosophia 86-93
in Heraclitus 98
not fire 103
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' 94
Stoicism 6, 192-4
and the notion of fatty moisture
203
relationship to Aristotle 193 n.
Stolberg, M. 198 n.
Strato 148
substance:
comes to be through concoction
22-3,40
defined 150
Suidas 180
sun:
double motion of 186 n.
its heat problematical 104, 116
produces exhalations 72-3, 129
in the 'Pythagorean Notebooks' 94
role in spontaneous generation 26,
104, 116, 123
Sill/thesis 11, 15
teleology 2, 9-10, 37, 97
tendons 170
terra pingllis 206
Thales 145, 146
Theophrastus 93, 148, 152 n., 164 n.
theory of connate pileI/Ina:
relationship to theory of heat, see
theory of heat
relationship to theory of soul 6,
136, 143-4, 144-5, 184, 195; see
also persistence ('psychological'
and 'physiological' theories
compared)
theory of heat (including vital heat);
relationship to theory of soul 6,
20 n., 30-4, 40, 43-4, 46, 47,
49 n., 50 n., 68-9, 98, 100-1,
168-9, 182-7, 195; see also
persistence ('psychological' and
'physiological' theories
compared)
relationship to theory of connate
p"ellma 136, 143-4
theory of matter, see elements
theory of soul:
relationship to theory of (vital)
heat, see theory of heat
relationship to theory of connate
p"euma, see theory of connate
pnel/llla
thermoll, see heat
tlll/mos 94 n.
Timacl/s 21, 134
timorousness, depending on thin
blood 49
topological meaning of 'dry' and
'moist' 150 . 184, 195
see also dry, moist
touch:
best in man 59
conditions intelligence 53, 54
requires soft flesh 53
Tracy, T, J. 21 n" 30
unctuous 161 n., 202, 204 n., 205 n.,
206,207
see also fat
unmoved mover 64, 190
urine 162, 174
vapour 121, 129, 151, 158, 160,
162-3
veins 132, 170
Verbeke, G. 111, 113 n., 132
vinegar 174
viscous 158, 161, 163-4, 168-9, 202,
203
vital heat:
abating of in ageing 186-7; see also
ageing
in its absence bodily parts are so
only homonymously 31, 126
'active cause' 45-6
analogous to celestial substance
104, 107-18, 189, 199-200
Aristotle's early theory of 84-93,
189
causes erectness 56-62, 138, 188
Cleanthes' view of 193
compared with Diogenes' air 81-2
compared with the thermon in 011
Fleshes 96-7
should correlate with persistence
190-1
cosmological reference of 56-5
determines scale of being 58-60,
65-8, 74, 79, 119, 188, 191
General Index 235
and perception 4; see also sense-
de-theologized version of
organs
Presocratic thermOl1 5, 98, 189,
191-2 of plants 23, 27, 65, 70-3, 99, 125,
165
distributed 'against nature' during
produced in the heart 31, 66, 126,
sleep 60-2
divine, or diviner than the 182
quality of determines the
elements 37-8, 47, 109-10,
perfection of the outcome 24-5,
118-19
emergence of the notion of 78, 79, 119
in semen 24-5, 114-15, 126
84-5, 97-105
in spontaneous generation 25-6
of fig juice, rennet 26, 115
not a substance 75-7, 126, 128, 130,
formative and heating functions
distinguished 28-9, 31-3
tends to move upward 58, 60-2,
formative power of 3, 22-9, 37,
114, 182, 189 79-81, 90-1, 126; this posited
tendency problematic 74-7,
gradient of 79, 128-30; see also purity
83-4, 128, 184; this tendency
greatest in man 55
identity or not with fire 21-2, 23, explained by theory of connate
p'leI/rna 128-30, 184
28-9, 109-10, 116
in immanentist account of the theory of integrated in that of
connate plleJIma 136, 184
eternity of species 2-3, 36-40,
45-6, 118-19, 188 and thermon in 011 Fleshes 97, 189
see also concoction, heat, pllel/ma,
informing movements of 27-9, 183
theory of (vital) heat
inheres in blood 31
inhering in and carried by connate
wax 170 n.
pnel/ma 78, 127-30, 136
and intelligence 52-60; see also Webb, p, 37 n.
whey 162, 174
intelligence
inversely proportional to earthiness whitening 176-7
Wieland, W, 29
55
keeps blood from coagulating in Wilpert, P. 85
living body 125-6 wine 162
world, eternity of 1-2, 7-8, 10, 14,
and material persistence of
45, 47, 79, 89, 202
substances 3, 40-7; see also
perSistence
and necessitation 34-5 Xenocrates 94 n.
notion of in Stoicism 193
notion of in the Timaeus 21-2 Zeller E. 118 n.
Zeno 192
and nutritive soul 3, 19-22, 29-34,
Zeus 180
43, 126, 182-3, 186-8