MEDICINE AND PHILOSOPHY IITH AND 12TH CENTURIES 83 



without cause, but himself father and creator. Man is able, 

 however, to come to awareness of intellectual and invisible 

 things from things seen and touched, as is apparent in 

 arithmetic. 



The problem of the origin of the world raises two questions: 

 whether it was made or ungenerated; and, if it was made, 

 whether it was made of itself or by another. Only the last 

 position would provide a place for providence. Niceta argues 

 that the world was made by God, and the argument turns 

 therefore to the characteristics of the visible world. Bodies 

 have two differentiae: either they are connected and solid or 

 divided and separate. If the world was made from a solid body, 

 it would have to be divided into parts; if it was made from 

 diverse parts, they would have to be brought into relation 

 and composition. He argues that the universe could not have 

 been made from a single body or matter, and that a creator is 

 necessary to compound it from two or more bodies. The 

 Greek philosophers formed different theories of the principles 

 of the universe. Pythagoras said the " elements of principles " 

 are numbers; Strato qualities; Alcmaeon contrarieties; Anaxi- 

 mander immensity; Anaxagoras equalities of parts; Epicurus 

 atoms; Diodorus the incomposite (amere) ; Asclepiades masses 

 (onkos) which can be called tumors or swellings; the geometers 

 limits; Democritus ideas; Thales water; Heraclitus fire; Diogenes 

 air; Parmenides earth; Zeno, Empedocles, and Plato, fire, water, 

 air, earth; Aristotle introduced a fifth element, called aka- 

 tonomaston or the incompellable, no doubt to indicate him 

 who made the universe one by conjoining the elements. The 

 " machine of the universe " could not have been set up without 

 a maker and director.^® Niceta then refutes the position of 



^^ Recognitiones, VIII, 15, PG 1, 1378A-9A. The enumerations of Sextus and 

 Galen are somewhat longer and follow a different order from the pseudo-Clement's 

 account, proceeding through the single elements, two, three, four, five, and finally 

 other varieties of elements. The list in Sextus' Pyrrhoneiai Hypotyposeis, III, 30-32 

 runs: Pherecydes earth; Thales water; Anaximander the infinite; Anaximenes and 

 Diogenes of Apollonia air; Hippasus of Metapontum fire; Xenophanes earth and 

 water; Oenopides of Chios fire and air; Hippo of Rhegium fire and water; Onama- 



