ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS. 49 



lative opinions from the relations of words, must be 

 very natural to man ; for the very widely accepted 

 doctrine of the Four Elements which appears to be 

 founded on the opposition of the adjectives hot and 

 cold, wet and dry, is much older than Aristotle, and 

 was probably one of the earliest of philosophical 

 dogmas. The great master of this philosophy, how- 

 ever, puts the opinion in a more systematic manner 

 than his predecessors. 



" We seek," he says 10 , " the principles of sensible 

 things, that is, of tangible bodies. We must take, 

 therefore, not all the contrarieties of quality, but 

 those only which have reference to the touch. Thus 

 black and white, sweet and bitter, do not differ as 

 tangible qualities, and therefore must be rejected 

 from our consideration. 



"Now the contrarieties of quality which refer 

 to the touch are these : hot, cold ; dry, wet ; heavy, 

 light; hard, soft; unctuous, meagre; rough, smooth; 

 dense, rare." He then proceeds to reject all but the 

 four first of these, for various reasons ; heavy and 

 light, because they are not active and passive quali- 

 ties; the others, because they are combinations of 

 the four first, which therefore he infers to be the 

 four elementary qualities. 



""Now in four things there are six combina- 

 tions of two ; but the combinations of two opposites, 

 as hot and cold, must be rejected ; we have, there- 

 fore, four elementary combinations, which agree 



10 De Gen. et Corrupt ii. 2. 1! iii. 3. 



VOL. I. E 



