Page - 633 - in The Complete Aristotle

out of the elements is, as they say, synthesis, and generation into the elements is analysis, so that the body with the finer parts must have priority in the order of nature. But they say that fire is of all bodies the finest. Hence fire will be first in the natural order. And whether the finest body is fire or not makes no difference; anyhow it must be one of the other bodies that is primary and not that which is intermediate. Again, density and rarity, as instruments of generation, are equivalent to fineness and coarseness, since the fine is rare, and coarse in their use means dense. But fineness and coarseness, again, are equivalent to greatness and smallness, since a thing with small parts is fine and a thing with large parts coarse. For that which spreads itself out widely is fine, and a thing composed of small parts is so spread out. In the end, then, they distinguish the various other substances from the element by the greatness and smallness of their parts. This method of distinction makes all judgement relative. There will be no absolute distinction between fire, water, and air, but one and the same body will be relatively to this fire, relatively to something else air. The same difficulty is involved equally in the view elements and distinguishes them by their greatness and smallness. The principle of distinction between bodies being quantity, the various sizes will be in a definite ratio, and whatever bodies are in this ratio to one another must be air, fire, earth, and water respectively. For the ratios of smaller bodies may be repeated among greater bodies. Those who start from fire as the single element, while avoiding this difficulty, involve themselves in many others. Some of them give fire a particular shape, like those who make it a pyramid, and this on one of two grounds. The reason given may be-more crudely-that the pyramid is the most piercing of figures as fire is of bodies, or-more ingeniously-the position may be supported by the following argument. As all bodies are composed of that which has the finest parts, so all solid figures are composed of pryamids: but the finest body is fire, while among figures the pyramid is primary and has the smallest parts; and the primary body must have the primary figure: therefore fire will be a pyramid. Others, again, express no opinion on the subject of its figure, but simply regard it as the of the finest parts, which in combination will form other bodies, as the fusing of gold-dust produces solid gold. Both of these views involve the same difficulties. For (1) if, on the one hand, they make the primary body an atom, the view will be open to the objections already advanced against the atomic theory. And further the theory is inconsistent with a regard for the facts of nature. For if all bodies are quantitatively commensurable, and the relative size of the various homoeomerous masses and of their several elements are in the same ratio, so that the total mass of water, for instance, is related to the total mass of air as the elements of each are to one another, and so on, and if there is more air 633