IIG RICHARD MCKEON 



William of St. Thierry is not opposed to the use of the 

 doctrine of elements. His treatise On the Nature of the Body 

 and the Soul treats its subject physically: Book I is entitled 

 " The Physics of the Human Body " and Book II " The Physics 

 of the Soul." All animal bodies are formed of earth, that is they 

 are composites of the four elements; for the earth, from which 

 they are formed, and what they consist of must be distinguished. 

 William follows Constantine's analysis, defining each element 

 by one quality to which a second quality is added from an 

 element adjacent to it, and he quotes the argument of Hippo- 

 crates that the animal body would feel no pain if it were 

 composed of one element. The elements are transformed into 

 one another; they form the humors and nourish them; and the 

 " children of the elements " follow the ways of their fathers, 

 for the elements operate in the greater world as the four 

 elements operate in the lesser world or microcosm, man.^^ 

 William differentiates three virtues in the regimen of the body: 

 the natural virtue localized in the liver, the spiritual virtue in 

 the heart, and the animal virtue in the brain. His analysis of 

 these three virtues follows Constantine's position in detail, and 

 he shares his conclusions also on the localization of the functions 

 of imagination, reason, and memory in the three cellules of the 

 brain.'* The five senses correspond to the four humours: sight 

 is fiery; hearing, aerial; odor, smoky; taste, watery; and touch, 

 earthly. William characterizes the method of his treatment of 

 the exterior man as one in which he has considered not only 

 the exterior man but also certain things within human bodies 

 which are not subject wholly to the senses of man but are 

 discerned by philosophers and physicists through reason and 

 experience." 



particles. Peter of Poitiers uses the word " atom " in his argument that the flesh 

 of Christ was not in Abraham, because there were not in Abraham as many atoms 

 as there have been men descended from him by concupiscence. (Sententiae, IV, 

 7, 11, PL 211, 1164C). 



"" De Natura Corporis et Animae, I, PL 180, 695-8C. 



'* Ibid., I, 700A-D and 702A-C. 



" Ibid., I, 707B-708A. 



