124 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



writer then proceeds to say that the physician must study the particu- 

 lar food-stuff and its physiological action as well as the individual con- 

 stitution, determining which of the humors is TrXeiuv evewv ko.1 fxdkXov 

 eVSwaoreiW iv ra crwyuan, and then knowing which humor is inimical 17 ° 

 to the particular food-stuff and is roused to hostility by it, he can pre- 

 scribe a suitable diet. 



Here we find set up an ideal that science is still far from realizing. 

 Only a year or two ago an eminent physician stated that the specific 

 physiological action of drugs still remained undiscovered, with the 

 possible exception of two or three. Even for foods a bare beginning 

 has been made. We may recall that Hippocrates elsewhere 171 insists 

 that each phenomenon has its own </>vo-is or natural cause (law ?) and 

 that Heraclitus likewise proposed to explain each thing according to 

 its own law, thus aspiring to meet the two-fold requirement of science 

 which aims to discover both the proximate causes of events and the 

 ultimate statement of universal law. There is, moreover, a further 

 interest attaching to the passage just quoted at length. It formulates 

 three questions raised by philosophers and by physicians philosophi- 

 cally inclined: (1) what man is; (2) how he originated; and (3) of 

 what he is composed. The first and third questions, as we have seen, 

 practically coincide ; the second agrees with its fellows, except that it 

 regards the process rather than the result, which is, however, only an 

 analysis read backward and cast into the time-form. Hippocrates does 

 not object to the questions, as such ; he merely regards them as too 

 general and, therefore, as premature, considering the stage of advance- 

 ment attained by positive science in his time. His attitude is instruc- 

 tive, however, since it is obviously that of a scientist of knowledge and 

 discernment looking with critical eye upon the venturesome undertak- 

 ings of less mature minds ; for science naturally proceeds from the gen- 

 eral to the particular. 172 



The same position is taken in the essay IIcpi oWr^s: 173 " I say that one 



170 In the microcosm we thus have a picture in miniature of the cosmic ir6\e/xos 

 of elemental forces, in which one element prevails (i-mKpaTe?) at one time, a second 

 at another. It is the function of the physician to support (^or/Oeiu) the losing ele- 

 ment and so to restore the harmony of a proper balance of powers. Cp., for example, 

 IT. lepr)s vobaov, 18 (6, 394 foil. Little) XP1 ^ Kal & TavTy ttj voihtiii Kal £v Tr/ai aWyaiv 

 a.Tra<rr)(Ti jxq ai'^eiv rd i>ovar)p.aTa, d\\d airivbeiv rpvx^v irpo<J<pepovra ttj vovau) to wo\e- 

 p,ul)Ta.TOv eicdaTr), Kal /x/j t6 <pi\ov Kal avvr)des. 



171 See above, n. 57, and Plato, Phacdr. 270 B quoted below, n. 175. 



172 There is an interesting parallel to the procedure of Hippocrates in Aristotle's 

 discussion of the winds, Meteor. 360 s 27 and the comments of Olympiodorus. See 

 Gilbert, Die meteorologischen Thcorien des griechischen Altertwns, p. 524, n. 2. 



173 A,2 (6, 468 Littre). 



