HEIDEL. — Ilepl 4>v<rews. ■ 131 



7re/Dt; and even Aristotle comprehended in the term perewpoAoyta his 

 philosophy of nature as a whole. 196 His Physics is rather the metaphy- 

 sical consideration of the principles involved in the explanation of 

 Nature. In the Hippocratean treatise TLepl o-apKwv occurs an instruc- 

 tive passage. "Concerning to. pere'iopa," we read, 197 "I do not want 

 to speak except to show, in regard to man and the other animals, how 

 they came about in the course of nature, and what the soul is, what is 

 health and disease, what it is that produces health and disease in man, 

 and from what cause he dies." The author, while professing to speak 

 7rept twv percwpwv, proceeds to sketch the origin of things, giving in fact 

 a miniature discourse Ilepi cpva-ews after the manner of the philosophers, 

 in the course of which he describes the segregation of the cosmic ele- 

 ments and then turns abruptly to tell of the origin of the various parts 

 of the human organism. Each subject is introduced with the laconic 

 but significant phrase, wSe iytvero. 198 



We are thus brought face to face with the second sphere of interest 

 included in the researches of early philosophy ; for, however much the 

 cosmos engaged the attention of the investigator, the microcosm soon, 

 if not immediately, made good its claims. We have repeatedly re- 

 marked upon the intimate connexion of medicine, so far as it con- 

 cerned physiology, with inquiries 7rep! (pvaem. We need not now 

 enlarge upon this theme. It is sufficient to call attention to the fact 

 that it was recognized by Aristotle 199 as well as by the pre-Socratics. 



But while the philosopher may have devoted the greater part of his 

 attention to these two fields, nothing lay outside the sphere of his in- 

 terest. Thus it is not improbable that the study of mathematics was 

 associated with philosophy from the beginning and included in the 

 scope of Ilepi Screws IcrTopir]. Aristotle, whose empirical method of 

 determining what does and what does not belong to the subject matter 

 of the several sciences is well known, says in the Metaphysics : 20 ° 



196 See Gilbert, Die meteorol. Theorien des griechischen Altertums, p. 14. 



197 II. (tolpkQv, 1 (8, 584 Littre) irepl de t&v /uerewpaw ov8£ (read ovdkv !) 8iop.ai 

 \iyeiv, rjv firi roaovrov es (LvOpwwov d.7ro5et£w /cat t& etAXa f£a, oKoaa (read Skcos !) 

 £<pv Kal iyivero, Kal 8 n ^I'X'J (ctlv, ko.1 otl rb vyiaiveiv, Kal oti to Ka/xveiy, /cat 6'rt 

 rd ev avdpibTrtf) kcikov Kal aya06v, Kal 60ev airodvriiTKet. This little treatise has been 

 unduly neglected and deserves especial attention because of its intimate relation to 

 pre-Socratic philosophy. Its date is hard to determine. Diels, Elementum, p. 17, 

 n. 2, would assign it to the first half of the fourth century, B.C. 



198 Compare Arist., De Partt. Animal. 641" 7 oOrws yap Kal ol <pv<xio\6yoi ras yeve"- 

 creis nal ras cartas tou cr^T^aaTos Xiyovtriv ' inrb rlvwv yap ib~-qfXLovpyqdrf<rav 5vi>d/uec<w. 

 Ibid. 647" 9 foil. ; [Arist.] Probl. 892° 23 foil. 



199 Cp. Arist., De Longev. 464" 33 ff. ; De Partt. Animal. 653*8 foil. ; De Sensu, 

 436*17 foil. ; De Eespir., 480" 22 foil. 



200 1005 s 19 foil., transl. Ross. 



