The Works of Aristotle

THE WORKS OF ARISTOTLE TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF W. D. ROSS M.A. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF ORIEL COLLEGE VOLUME VI OPUSCULA BY T. LOVEDAY E. S. FORSTER L. D. DOWDALL H. H. JOACHIM OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1913 HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY NOTE Professor J. A. Smith has retired from the position of joint-editor of this series, but will act as a general adviser. The Index has been made by Messrs. Forster and Loveday, with the aid (as regards the De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus) of Mr. Dowdall. W. D. R. Feb. 1 91 3. CONTENTS DE COLORIBUS By T. Loveday and E. S. Forster. DE AUDIBILIBUS By T. Loveday and E. S. Forster. PHYSIOGNOMONICA By T. Loveday and E. S. Forster. DE PLANTIS By E. S. Forster. DE MIRABILIBUS AUSCULTATIONIBUS By L. D. Dowdall. MECHANICA By E. S. Forster. DE LINEIS INSECABILIBUS By H. H. Joachim. VENTORUM SITUS ET COGNOMINA By E. S. Forster. DE MELISSO, XENOPHANE, GORGIA By T. Loveday and E. S. Forster. INDEX DE COLORIBUS T. LOVEDAY M.A., LECTURER IN PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD AND E. S. FORSTER M.A, LECTURER IN GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1913 PREFACE Both the method and the style of this treatise are unlike Aristotle's, and its contents differ considerably from his known views. But it is very likely a Peripatetic product, and has been ascribed (though without much probability) to Theophrastus, as also to the convenient Strato. Prantl's ilber Aristoteles die Farben (1849) nas > °f course, been of great use to us, and his text in the Teubner edition (1881) has in the main been followed. We take this opportunity of expressing our obligation to Mr. W. D. Ross for many valuable suggestions. T. L. E. S. F. CONTENTS CHAP. i. The simple colours, and black. 2. Secondary and tertiary colours. Observations on methods. 3. Causes of variety of colours. 4. Coloration by tincture. 5. Colours of plants. 6. Colours of animals. DE COLORIBUS I Simple colours are the proper colours of the elements, 791* i.e. of fire, air, water, and earth. Air and water when pure are by nature white, fire (and the sun) yellow, and earth is naturally white. The variety of hues which earth assumes is due to coloration by tincture, as is shown by the fact 5 that ashes turn white when the moisture that tinged them is burnt out. It is true they do not turn a pure white, but that is because they are tinged afresh, in the process of combustion, by the smoke, which is black. • And this is the reason why lye-mixture turns yellow, the water being coloured by hues of flame and black. 1 Black is the proper colour of elements in process of 10 transmutation. The remaining colours, it may easily be seen, arise from blending by mixture of these primary colours. Darkness is due to privation of light. For we see black under three different conditions. Either (1) the object of 2 vision is naturally quite black (for black light is always 15 reflected from black objects) ; or (2) no light at all passes to the eyes from the object (for an invisible object sur- rounded by a visible patch looks black) ; and (3) objects 1 a 79i 8, 9. This apparently must mean that the yellow of Kovia is a mixture, due to colours received from heating and from black smoke. But as we have just learned that yellow is a simple colour, the passage is suspicious. 2 791*14. Omitting pr) with Coel. Calcagninus in his translation. From 11. 9, 10 we learn that black is due to transmutation of elements. Prantl points out that there is no difference, if the text is right, between the cases of to pr) Spapevov and d<p' cJy prjdfv kt\. and that t6 yap pr/ 6pa>fievov in 1. 16 must refer to both. He therefore takes the case of transmutation to be a first condition, here supplied in thought only, and the rj ml. 15 to mean 'or in other words ', so that to pr) opapevov and d<}> mp p,rjBev kt\. together constitute the second condition. But the explanatory sentences airavrciv yap kt\. and rb yap prj kt\., being separate, seem to show that rj . rj introduce two distinct conditions. We therefore take to opapcvov which is q^vo-ti peXav to refer to transmutation of elements. B 2 i 79ia DE COLORIBUS always appear black to us when the light reflected from them is very rare and scanty. This last condition is the 20 reason why shadows appear black. It also explains the blackness of ruffled water, e.g. of the sea when a ripple passes over it : owing to the roughness of the surface few rays of light fall on the water and the light is dissipated, and so the part which is in shadow appears black. The same 25 principle applies to very dense cloud, and to masses of water and of air which light fails to penetrate : for water and air look black when present in very deep masses, b 79i because of the extreme rarity 1 of the rays reflected, the parts of the mass between the illuminated surfaces being in darkness and therefore looking black. There are many arguments to prove that darkness is not a colour, but merely privation of .light, the best being that darkness, unlike all 5 other objects of vision, is never perceived as having any definite magnitude or any definite shape. Light is clearly the colour of fire ; for it is never found with any other hue than this, and it alone is visible in its own right, whilst all other things are rendered visible by it. 10 But there is this point to be considered, that some things, 2 though they are not in their nature fire nor any species of fire, yet seem to produce light. So we cannot say in the same breath, ' The colour of fire is identical with light, and yet light is the colour of other things besides fire,' but we can say, ' This hue is to be found in other things besides 15 fire, and yet light is the colour of fire.' Anyhow, it is only by aid of light that fire is rendered visible, just as all other objects are made visible by the appearance of their colour. The colour black occurs when air and water are thoroughly burnt by fire, and this is the reason why burning objects 20 turn black, as e. g. wood and charcoal when the fire is put 3 out, and smoke from clay as the moisture is gradually secreted and burnt. This is also why the blackest smoke is given off by fat and greasy substances like oil and pitch and resinous wood, because these objects burn most com- 1 a 791*27. Cf. 794 11-14. 2 79 b 10. Sc. phosphorescent objects. 3 79i b 20. Sc. in a kiln. CHAPTER I 79ib pletely, and the process of combustion is most continuous in them. Again, things turn black through which water percolates, 25 if they first become coated with lichen and then the moisture dries off. The stucco on walls is an example of this, and much the same applies to stones under water, which get 792s covered with lichen and turn black when dried. This then is the list of simple colours. 2 From these primary colours the rest are derived in all their variety of chromatic effects by blending of them and 1 by their presence in varying strengths. The different 5 shades of crimson and violet depend on differences in the strength of their constituents, whilst blending is exemplified by mixture of white with black, which gives grey. So a dusky black mixed with light gives crimson. For obser- vation teaches us that black mixed with sunlight or firelight 10 always turns crimson, and that black objects heated in the fire all change to a crimson colour, as e.g. smoky tongues of flame, or charcoal when subjected to intense heat, are seen to have a crimson colour. But a vivid bright violet is 15 obtained from a blend of feeble sunlight with a thin dusky white. That is why the air sometimes looks purple at sunrise and sunset, for then these conditions are best realized, the air being dusky and the impinging rays feeble. 20 So, too, the sea takes a purple hue when the waves rise so that one side of them is in shadow : the rays of the sun strike without force on that slope and so produce a violet colour. The same thing may also be observed in birds' 1 a 792 4. T<a fiaWov kci\ rjTTov. In 792*3-9 it seems that differences ' of degree ' are identical with differences ra nXlfiti <ai rals Swa^eo-i. One might translate by ' differences in saturation ' if this did not imply varying amounts of colourless light, such as are distinguished from differences of degree by 793* 1-5. The vaguer word ' strength ' seems preferable. But the example of crimson and violet is obscure. It cannot be meant that the difference between these colours depends on differences of strength in their constituents, for we are to learn that they have different constituents. The meaning may be either that differences in the strength of these colours affect their derivatives, which ought not to be mentioned until the discussion of tertiary colours later on in this chapter, or, as in the rendering above, that different shades of each of these colours depend on the strength of their respective constituents, when strictly it should not be mentioned until chap.

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