Complete Works (266 page)

As for
smooth
and
rough,
I take it that anyone could discern the explanation of those properties and communicate it to someone else: roughness results from the combination of hardness with non-uniformity, while
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smoothness is the result of uniformity’s contribution to density.

The most important point that remains concerning the properties that have a common effect upon the body as a whole, pertains to the causes of pleasures and pains in the cases we have described as well as all cases in which sensations are registered throughout the bodily parts, sensations which are also simultaneously accompanied by pains and pleasures in those parts. With every property, whether perceived or not, let us take up the question of the causes of pleasure or pain in the following way, recalling [b] the distinction made in the foregoing between what is easily moved and what is hard to move. This is the way in which we must pursue all that we intend to comprehend. When even a minor disturbance affects that which is easily moved by nature, the disturbance is passed on in a chain reaction with some parts affecting others in the same way as they were affected, until it reaches the center of consciousness and reports the property that produced the reaction. On the other hand, something that is hard to move remains fixed and merely experiences the disturbance without [c] passing it on in any chain reaction. It does not disturb any of its neighboring parts, so that in the absence of some parts passing on the disturbance to others, the initial disturbance affecting them fails to move on into the living thing as a whole and renders the disturbance unperceived. This is true of our bones and hair and of the other mostly earth-made parts that we possess. But the former is true of our sight and hearing in particular, and this is due to the fact that their chief inherent power is that of air and of fire.

This, then, is what we should understand about pleasure and pain: an [d] unnatural disturbance that comes upon us with great force and intensity is painful, while its equally intense departure, leading back to the natural state, is pleasant. One that is mild and gradual is not perceived, whereas the opposite is the case with the opposite disturbance. Further, one that occurs readily can be completely perceived, more so than any other, though neither pleasure nor pain is involved. Take, for example, those involved in the act of seeing. Earlier
³⁵
we described the ray of sight as a body that comes into being with the daylight as an extension of ourselves. The cuttings, the burnings and whatever else it undergoes don’t cause any [e] pains in it, nor does the return to its former state yield any pleasures. Its perceptions are the more vivid and clear the more it is affected and the greater the number of things it encounters and makes contact with, for there is absolutely no violence involved when it is severed [by the cutting and burning, etc.] and reconstituted. Bodies consisting of larger parts, on the other hand, won’t easily give way to what acts upon them. They pass on the motions they receive to the entire body, and so they do get pleasures and pains—pains when they are alienated from their natural condition and pleasures when they are once again restored to it. All those bodies
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which experience only gradual departures from their normal state or gradual depletions but whose replenishments are intense and substantial are bodies that are unaware of their depletions but not of their replenishments, and hence they introduce very substantial pleasures in the mortal part of the soul but not any pains. This is clear in the case of fragrances. But all those bodies whose alienations are intense while their restorations to their former states are but gradual and slow, pass on motions that are entirely [b] contrary to those mentioned just before. Again, this clearly turns out to be the case when the body suffers burns or cuts.

We have now pretty much covered those disturbances that affect the whole body in a common way, as well as all the terms that have come to be applied to the agents that produce them. We must now try to discuss, if we can, those that take place in our various particular parts, and, as before, their causes, which lie in the agents that produce them. First, then, [c] we need to shed what light we can on what we left untreated earlier when we talked about tastes, and these are the properties specifically connected to the tongue. It seems that these, too, in common with most other properties, come about as a result of contractions and dilations, but apart from that, these tongue-related properties seem rather more than any of the others to involve roughness and smoothness. Now as earth-like parts penetrate the area around the tiny vessels that act as testers for the tongue and reach down to the heart, they impact upon the moist, soft flesh of the [d] tongue and are melted away. In the process they contract the vessels and dry them up. When they tend to be rather rough, we taste them as
sour;
when less rough, as
tangy
. Things that rinse the vessels and wash the entire area around the tongue are all called
bitter
when they do so to excess and so assault the tongue as to dissolve some of it, as soda actually can do. [e] When they are not as strong as soda and effect only a moderate rinsing, they taste
salty
to us. They have none of the harsh bitterness, and we find them rather agreeable. Things that absorb the heat of the mouth, by which they are also worn smooth, are ignited and in their turn return their fire to that which made them hot. Their lightness carries them up to the senses in the head, as they cut any and everything they come up against. Because
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this is what they do, things of this sort have all been called
pungent
. On the other hand, there are those things which have been refined by the process of decomposition and which then intrude themselves into the narrow vessels. These are proportioned both to the earth parts and those of air that are contained within the vessels, so that they agitate the earth and air parts and cause them to be stirred one around the other. As these are being stirred, they surround one another, and, as parts of one sort intrude themselves into parts of another, they make hollows which envelop [b] the parts that go inside. So when a hollow envelope of moisture, whether earthy or pure, as the case may be, is stretched around air, we get moist vessels of air, hollow spheres of water. Some of these, those that form a transparent enclosure consisting of a pure moisture are called “bubbles”; those, on the other hand, whose moisture is earthy and agitates and rises upward all at once are called by the terms “effervescence” and “fermentation.” That which causes these disturbances is called
acid
to the taste.

[c] There is a disturbance that is the opposite of all the ones we have just discussed, one that is the effect of an opposite cause. Whenever the composition of the moistened parts that enter the vessels of the tongue is such that it is congruent with the natural condition of the tongue, these entering parts make smooth and lubricate the roughened parts and in some cases constrict while in others they relax the parts that have been abnormally dilated or contracted. They decisively restore all those parts back to their natural position. As such, they prove to be a cure for the violent disturbances [just discussed], being fully pleasant and agreeable to one and all, and are called
sweet
.

[d] So much for the subject of tastes. As for the power belonging to the nostrils, there are no types within it. This is because a smell is always a “half-breed.” None of the elemental shapes, as it happens, has the proportions required for having any odor. The vessels involved in our sense of smell are too narrow for the varieties of earth and water parts, yet too wide for those of earth and air. Consequently no one has ever perceived any odor coming from these elemental bodies. Things give off odors when they [e] either get damp or decay, or melt or evaporate; for when water changes to air or air to water, odors are given off in the transition. All odors collectively are either vapor or mist, mist being what passes from air to water, and vapor what passes from water to air, and this is why odors as a group turn out to be finer than water, yet grosser than air. Their character becomes clear when one strains to draw one’s breath through something that obstructs one’s breathing. There will be no odor that filters through. All that comes through is just the breath itself, devoid of any odor.

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These variations among odors, then, form two sets, neither of which has a name, since they do not consist of a specific number of simple types. Let us draw the only clear distinction we can draw here, that between the
pleasant
and the
offensive
. The latter of these irritates and violates the whole upper body from the top of the head to the navel, while the former soothes that area and welcomes it back to its natural state.

[b] A third kind of perception that we want to consider is hearing. We must describe the causes that produce the properties connected with this perception. In general, let us take it that sound is the percussion of air by way of the ears upon the brain and the blood and transmitted to the soul, and that hearing is the motion caused by the percussion that begins in the head and ends in the place where the liver is situated. And let us take it that whenever the percussion is rapid, the sound is
high-pitched,
and that the slower the percussion, the lower the pitch. A regular percussion produces a uniform, smooth sound, while a contrary one produces one that is
rough
. A forceful percussion produces a
loud
sound, while a contrary one produces [c] one that is
soft
. But we must defer discussion of harmonization in sounds to a later part of our discourse.

The fourth and remaining kind of perception is one that includes a vast number of variations within it, and hence it requires subdivision. Collectively, we call these variations
colors
. Color is a flame which flows forth from bodies of all sorts, with its parts proportional to our sight so as to produce perception. At an earlier point in our discourse we treated only the causes that led to the origination of the ray of sight;
³⁶
now, at this [d] point, it is particularly appropriate to provide a well-reasoned account of colors.

Now the parts that move from the other objects and impinge on the ray of sight are in some cases smaller, in others larger than, and in still other cases equal in size to, the parts of the ray of sight itself. Those that are equal are imperceptible, and these we naturally call
transparent
. Those that are larger contract the ray of sight while those that are smaller, on the other hand, dilate it, and so are “cousin” to what is cold or hot in the case of the flesh, and, in the case of the tongue, with what is sour, or with all those [e] things that generate heat and that we have therefore called “pungent.” So
black
and
white,
it turns out, are properties of contraction and dilation, and are really the same as these other properties, though in a different class, which is why they present a different appearance. This, then, is how we should speak of them:
white
is what dilates the ray of sight, and
black
is what does the opposite.

Now when a more penetrating motion of a different type of fire pounces on the ray of sight and dilates it right up to the eyes, and forces its way
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through the very passages within the eyeballs and melts them, it discharges from those passages a glob of fire and water which we call a tear. The penetrating motion itself consists of fire, and as it encounters fire from the opposite direction, then, as the one fire leaps out from the eyes like a lightning flash and the other enters them but is quenched by the surrounding moisture, the resulting turmoil gives rise to colors of every hue. The disturbance so produced we call “dazzling,” and that which produces it we name
bright
and
brilliant
.

On the other hand, the type of fire that is intermediate between white [b] and bright is one that reaches the moisture in the eyes and blends with it, but is not brilliant. As the fire shines through the moisture with which it is mixed, it yields the color of blood, which we call
red
. And when bright is mixed with red and white, we get
orange
. But it would be unwise to state the proportions among them, even if one could know them. It is impossible, even approximately, to provide a proof or a likely account on these matters.

[c] Now red mixed with black and white is of course
purple
. When this combination is burnt further and more black is mixed with it, we get
violet
.
Gray
is a mixture of black and white, and the mixture of orange and gray produces
amber
.
Beige
comes from white mixed with orange. White combined with bright and immersed in a saturated black produces a
cobalt blue
color, which, when blended with white, becomes
turquoise
. A mixture [d] of amber with black yields
green
. As for the other hues, it should be fairly clear from the above cases by what mixtures they are to be represented in a way that preserves our “likely story.” But if anyone in considering these matters were to put them to an actual test, he would demonstrate his ignorance of the difference between the human and the divine. It is god who possesses both the knowledge and power required to mix a plurality into a unity and, conversely, to dissolve a unity into a plurality, while no human being could possess either of these, whether at the present time or at any time in the future.

[e] And so all these things were taken in hand, their natures being determined then by necessity in the way we’ve described, by the craftsman of the most perfect and excellent among things that come to be, at the time when he brought forth that self-sufficient, most perfect god. Although he did make use of the relevant auxiliary causes, it was he himself who gave their fair design to all that comes to be. That is why we must distinguish two forms of cause, the divine and the necessary. First, the divine, for
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which we must search in all things if we are to gain a life of happiness to the extent that our nature allows, and second, the necessary, for which we must search for the sake of the divine. Our reason is that without the necessary, those other objects, about which we are serious, cannot on their own be discerned, and hence cannot be comprehended or partaken of in any other way.