Four Elements
- "...four bodies are fire, air, water, earth." (339a15-16)
- "Fire occupies the highest place among them all, earth the lowest, and two elements correspond to these in their relation to one another, air being nearest to fire, water to earth." (339a16-19)
- "Fire, air, water, earth, we assert, originate from one another, and each of them exists potentially in each, as all things do that can be resolved into a common and ultimate substrate." (339a36-b2)
All terrestrial matter consists of these four elements. Various ratios of the elements combine to create the diverse materials found in nature.
Read more about this topic: Meteorology (Aristotle)
Famous quotes containing the word elements:
“Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and superseded by elements of lower quality.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)