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nor comminuible. Such are the bodies that have the pores along which they
cohere lengthwise and not crosswise.
Those hard or soft solids are apt to be cut which do not necessarily either
split in advance of the instrument or break into minute fragments when they
are being divided. Those that necessarily do so and liquids cannot be cut.
Some things can be both split and cut, like wood, though generally it is
lengthwise that a thing can be split and crosswise that it can be cut. For, a
body being divided into many parts fin so far as its unity is made up of many
lengths it is apt to be split, in so far as it is made up of many breadths it is apt
to be cut.
A thing is viscous when, being moist or soft, it is tractile. Bodies owe this
property to the interlocking of their parts when they are composed like chains,
for then they can be drawn out to a great length and contracted again. Bodies
that are not like this are friable. Bodies are compressible when they are
squeezable and retain the shape they have been squeezed into; incompressible
when they are either inapt to be squeezed at all or do not retain the shape they
have been squeezed into.
Some bodies are combustible and some are not. Wood, wool, bone are
combustible; stone, ice are not. Bodies are combustible when their pores are
such as to admit fire and their longitudinal pores contain moisture weaker
than fire. If they have no moisture, or if, as in ice or very green wood, the
moisture is stronger than fire, they are not combustible.
Those bodies give off fumes which contain moisture, but in such a form
that it does not go off separately in vapour when they are exposed to fire. For
vapour is a moist secretion tending to the nature of air produced from a liquid
by the agency of burning heat. Bodies that give off fumes give off secretions
of the nature of air by the lapse of time: as they perish away they dry up or
become earth. But the kind of secretion we are concerned with now differs
from others in that it is not moist nor does it become wind (which is a
continuous flow of air in a given direction). Fumes are common secretion of
dry and moist together caused by the agency of burning heat. Hence they do
not moisten things but rather colour them.
The fumes of a woody body are called smoke. (I mean to include bones and
hair and everything of this kind in the same class. For there is no name
common to all the objects that I mean, but, for all that, these things are all in
the same class by analogy. Compare what Empedocles says: They are one and
the same, hair and leaves and the thick wings of birds and scales that grow on
stout limbs.) The fumes of fat are a sooty smoke and those of oily substances
a greasy steam. Oil does not boil away or thicken by evaporation because it
does not give off vapour but fumes. Water on the other hand does not give off
788
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book The Complete Aristotle"
The Complete Aristotle
- Title
- The Complete Aristotle
- Author
- Aristotle
- Date
- ~322 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 2328
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International
Table of contents
- Part 1; Logic (Organon) 3
- Categories 4
- On Interpretation 34
- Prior Analytics, Book I 56
- Prior Analytics, Book II 113
- Posterior Analytics, Book I 149
- Posterior Analytics, Book II 193
- Topics, Book I 218
- Topics, Book II 221
- Topics, Book III 237
- Topics, Book IV 248
- Topics, Book V 266
- Topics, Book VI 291
- Topics, Book VII 317
- Topics, Book VIII 326
- On Sophistical Refutations 348
- Part 2; Universal Physics 396
- Physics, Book I 397
- Physics, Book II 415
- Physics, Book III 432
- Physics, Book IV 449
- Physics, Book V 481
- Physics, Book VI 496
- Physics, Book VII 519
- Physics, Book VIII 533
- On the Heavens, Book I 570
- On the Heavens, Book II 599
- On the Heavens, Book III 624
- On the Heavens, Book IV 640
- On Generation and Corruption, Book I 651
- On Generation and Corruption, Book II 685
- Meteorology, Book I 707
- Meteorology, Book II 733
- Meteorology, Book III 760
- Meteorology, Book IV 773
- Part 3; Human Physics 795
- On the Soul, Book I 796
- On the Soul, Book II 815
- On the Soul, Book III 840
- On Sense and the Sensible 861
- On Memory and Reminiscence 889
- On Sleep and Sleeplessness 899
- On Dreams 909
- On Prophesying by Dreams 918
- On Longevity and the Shortness of Life 923
- On Youth, Old Age, Life and Death, and Respiration 929
- Part 4; Animal Physics 952
- The History of Animals, Book I 953
- The History of Animals, Book II translated 977
- The History of Animals, Book III 1000
- The History of Animals, Book IV 1029
- The History of Animals, Book V 1056
- The History of Animals, Book VI 1094
- The History of Animals, Book VII 1135
- The History of Animals, Book VIII 1150
- The History of Animals, Book IX 1186
- On the Parts of Animals, Book I 1234
- On the Parts of Animals, Book II 1249
- On the Parts of Animals, Book III 1281
- On the Parts of Animals, Book IV 1311
- On the Motion of Animals 1351
- On the Gait of Animals 1363
- On the Generation of Animals, Book I 1381
- On the Generation of Animals, Book II 1412
- On the Generation of Animals, Book III 1444
- On the Generation of Animals, Book IV 1469
- On the Generation of Animals, Book V 1496
- Part 5; Metaphysics 1516
- Part 6; Ethics and Politics 1748
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book I 1749
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book II 1766
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book III 1779
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book IV 1799
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book V 1817
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI 1836
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII 1851
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII 1872
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX 1890
- Nicomachean Ethics, Book X 1907
- Politics, Book I 1925
- Politics, Book II 1943
- Politics, Book III 1970
- Politics, Book IV 1997
- Politics, Book V 2023
- Politics, Book VI 2053
- Politics, Book VII 2065
- Politics, Book VIII 2091
- The Athenian Constitution 2102
- Part 7; Aesthetic Writings 2156