gians, was not that which would first suggest itself to the ancient mind, but a more abstruse speculation, and one which had a more intimate relation to the great question about the first origin of things, the first life and motion in matter, whether to be regarded as eternal, or as having had a distinct origination from some older essence. This, also, we fully believe, is the way in which the subject would present itself to such a mind as Socrates, notwithstanding it is generally considered that the plain and practical mode of reasoning ascribed to him by Xenophon is more in accordance with the truth, than the metaphysical character in which he appears in the Dialogues of Plato. At all events, this is the mode adopted here by the Athenian, who undoubtedly represents Socrates, and he also takes a very peculiar method of introducing it. In the commencement of his reasoning on the first head, he takes his hearers by surprise, by suddenly suggesting that they had unawares fallen upon the discussion of a most important principle, which deserved to be disposed of before going on with those more popular views which had just been mentioned. It has, at first, the appearance of being accidental, but one familiarly acquainted with the Platonic method will recognise here the usual ironical resource the author employs when he wishes to enter upon a discussion more than usually subtle-namely, the apparently undesigned eliciting of a question in relation to it from the one with whom the dialogue is maintained. The chief speaker seems, or affects, suddenly to remember something essential to the argument, and which they were in danger of having entirely forgotten, although it is evident that it is the main thing which has been kept in view from the beginning, notwithstanding its seeming incidental introduction. Frequent examples of this may be found in the Protagoras, Republic, and Theætetus, especially the last. It is, in fact, so purely Platonic, that it may be regarded as one of the best signs,

as far, at least, as the style is concerned, by which we may distinguish a genuine from a spurious dialogue.

XII.

Ancient Doctrine of the Four Elements.

PAGE 13, LINE 15. Πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν καὶ ἀέρα. It is generally assumed that in the use of these terms all the ancient philosophers meant four simple, indestructible, and incomposite elements; being the primordia, or ȧpxaì, by the union or composition of which all other things were constituted. Hence many a superficial sneer by popular lecturers at the ignorance of the ancients in respect to chemistry and the number of simple substances. This view of the matter, however, is far from being correct. Some, it is true, maintained the above doctrine nearly in the terms which we have employed, and as it would be stated by a modern chemist. Among these, if we understand Aristotle aright, was Empedocles. Εμπεδοκλῆς μὲν γὰρ τὰ μὲν σωματικὰ τέσσαρα, τὰ δὲ πάντα μετὰ τῶν κινούντων, ἓξ τὸν ȧpiouóv. Aristotle, De Gen. et Corrup., i., 1. By the two moving powers here are intended his poetical personifications of Love and Discord, "Epws and "Epic, or, as they would be styled in the language of modern science, Attraction and Repulsion, which, together with the four elements, made the number of original principles or primordia to be six. Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Democritus maintained that the elements were infinite, not only in number, but in form. 'Αναξαγόρας δὲ ἄπειρα, καὶ Λεύκιππος, καὶ Δημόσ κριτος· ταῦτα δὲ ἄπειρα καὶ τὸ πλῆθος εἶναι καὶ τὰς μορpáç. The doctrine which the first of these held respecting the homœomeriæ, or similar parts, is well known. Aristotle represents him, on this subject, as in every respect the direct opposite of Empedocles. Ἐναντίως δὲ φαίνονται

λέγοντες οἱ περὶ ̓Αναξαγόραν τοῖς περὶ Ἐμπεδοκλέα. Ο μὲν γάρ φησι πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀέρα καὶ γῆν στοιχεῖα τέσ. σαρα, καὶ ἁπλᾶ εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ σάρκα καὶ ὀστοῦν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῶν ὁμοιομερῶν· ὁ δὲ ταῦτα μὲν ἁπλᾶ καὶ στοιχεῖα, γῆν δὲ καὶ πῦρ καὶ ἀέρα σύνθετα. De Gen., &c., i., 1. "For the latter says that fire, and water, and air, and earth are four elements, and more simple than flesh and bone, and others of the homœomeria, while the former contends that these are simple elements, but that earth, and air, and fire are compounds." See Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, lib. i., where there is a long, but not very clear account of some of the ancient opinions on this subject. Compare, also, lib. iii., 3.

In general, however, we are quite satisfied that, even when they used the term oroixɛia, most of the ancient writers on physics had in view elemental states of bodies, without reference to their composition, rather than simple substances or elements in the sense in which modern chemis. try would define the term—that is, as substances incapable of being changed, or of passing one into the other from a change of state. It was in this sense of elemental states that Parmenides held to two, πuρ and yñν, or the solid and the ethereal, regarding the fluid and the aërial as only mixed modifications: οἱ δὲ εὐθὺς δύο ποιοῦντες, ὥσπερ Παρμενίδης πῦρ καὶ γῆν, τὰ μεταξὺ μίγματα ποιοῦσι τούτων, olov ȧépa kai vdwp. Arist., De Gen., &c., ii., 3. In like manner, Aristotle himself declares that they are not simple substances as actually found in nature, but ever compounded of one another, although in their ultimate state he seems to regard them as pure : οὐκ ἔστι δὲ τὸ πῦρ, καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ, καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν εἰρημένων, ἁπλοῦν, ἀλλὰ μικτόν, κ. τ. λ. Lib. ii., 3.

At all events, we have no doubt, from several very decided passages, as to the manner in which these terms are employed by Plato, whatever meaning may be attached to

them in the sentence at the head of these remarks, as the supposed language of the atheistical philosophers. He was so far from regarding them as strictly elements (OTOIXεiα) in the modern chemical, or even ancient Greek sense of the word, that he would not even rank them in that second stage of combination which he styles ovλλab. See the Timæus, 48, Β.: Τὴν δὲ πρὸ τῆς οὐρανοῦ γενέσεως πυρὸς ὕδατός τε καὶ γῆς φύσιν θεατέον, καὶ τὰ πρὸ τούτων πάθη. Νῦν γὰρ ὡς εἰδόσι πῦρ ὅ τι ποτέ ἐστι, καὶ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν, λέγομεν ἀρχάς, αὐτὰ τιθέμενοι στοιχεῖα τοῦ παντός· προσῆκον αὐτοῖς οὐδ ̓ ὡς ἐν ΣΥΛΛΑΒΗΣ εἴδεσι ἀπεικασθῆναι. "We must contemplate the nature of fire, water, air, and earth, before the generation of the Heavens; for now, as though we spoke to those who well knew what fire is, and each one of the rest, we talk of principles, and regard them as the elements (oroixɛia, also used for the letters of the alphabet) of the universe, when they ought not to be likened even to the species of the syllable." It is very clear likewise, from other passages, that Plato views them not as elements, but as elementary states (Kaтασтáσεç), in which all bodies must exist, however varied in other respects their compositions; namely, as solid, fluid, gas, or that fourth condition which the ancients generally denoted by the term fire (up), but which modern chemistry would style the class of imponderable agents. These are heat, light, the electric, the galvanic, and the magnetic influence, which, although having five different names, are coming to be more and more regarded by our most scientific men as only modifications of one and the same principle. In other words, earth (y), as used by Plato and many others of the Greek philosophers, was simply their scientific term for solid (Tò σTEρɛÓV, to which it is sometimes equivalent), whether the substance was earth, or wood, or precious stones,-üdwp for liquid or fluid, &c., and Trup for all that modification more subtle than air, of which they had some tolerably clear

L

views, as the seat of higher agencies than were usually cognizable by the senses, and of which they regarded the visible fire as the lowest representative form.

Whoever wishes to see the views of Plato on these subjects more fully stated may consult that portion of the Timæus, where he treats at great length of the primary constitution of bodies, and which, although erroneous in the details of its numerical ratios (as every a priori or theoretical attempt of the kind must be), contains evidently the germ of the modern chemical theory of definite proportions. These four states, or кaтασтáσɛs, with all other intervening compound modifications, were, in fact, regarded but as varied manifestations of one simple essence (vλŋ), which receives all forms, itself having no form, and is therefore (ǎyvwσTov) unknown and incapable of being known: since all physical knowledge is possible only in respect to those things which have number and λóyoç, ratio or reason; and therefore elements, which are strictly such, are in their very nature aλoya, or incapable of being objects of scientific contemplation, except in their binary or trinary combinations. As he says in the Theætetus, 202, B., ovtw dǹ τὰ μὲν στοιχεῖα ἄλογα καὶ ἄγνωστα εἶναι, αἰσθητὰ δέ, τὰς δὲ συλλαβὰς γνωστάς τε καὶ ῥητὰς καὶ ἀληθεῖ δόξῃ δοξαστάς.

All modifications of this simple essence were (pavóμɛva) phenomena or appearances, having nothing absolute except in the idea manifested by them, no indestructible material nature of their own, but continually passing into and out of each other, or, in other words, ever becoming (yiyvóμeva Kai yevησóμɛva), instead of absolutely being (ovra) in themselves distinct and imperishable substances. Thus, in the Timæus, 49, C. : Πρῶτον μὲν ὃ δὴ νῦν ὕδωρ ὠνομάκαμεν, πηγνύμενον, ὡς δοκοῦμεν, λίθους καὶ γῆν ΓΙΓΝΟΜΕΝΟΝ ὁρῶμεν· τηκόμενον δ' αὖ καὶ διακρινόμενον ταὐτὸν τοῦτο, πνεῦμα καὶ ἀέρα· (συγκαυθέντα δὲ τὸν ἀέρα, καὶ πῦρ ἀνά