The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher Part 31

Q. What is the reason that old men sneeze with great difficulty? A.

Because that through their coldness their arteries are very narrow and close, and therefore the heat is not of force to expel the cold.

Q. Why doth a drunken man think that all things about him do turn round?

A. Because the spirits which serve the sight are mingled with vapours and fumes, arising from the liquors he has drunk; the overmuch heat causeth the eye to be in continual motion, and the eye being round, causeth all things about it to seem to go round.

Q. Wherefore doth it proceed, that bread which is made with salt is lighter than that which is made without it, considering that salt is very heavy of itself? A. Although bread is very heavy of itself, yet the salt dries it and makes it light, by reason of the heat which it hath; and the more heat there is in it, the better the bread is, and the lighter and more wholesome for the body.

Q. Why is not new bread good for the stomach? A. Because it is full of moistness, and thick, hot vapours, which do corrupt the blood, and hot bread is blacker than cold, because heat is the mother of blackness, and because the vapours are not gone out of it.

Q. Why do lettuces make a man sleep? A. Because they engender gross vapours.

Q. Why do the dregs of wine and oil go to the bottom, and those of honey swim uppermost? A. Because the dregs of wine and oil are earthly, and therefore go to the bottom; but honey is a liquid that cometh from the stomach and belly of the bee; and is there in some sort putrefied and made subtle; on which account the dregs are most light and hot, and therefore go uppermost.

Q. Why do cats' and wolves' eyes s.h.i.+ne in the night, and not in the day?

A. The eyes of these beasts are by nature more crystalline than the eyes of other beasts, and therefore do so s.h.i.+ne in darkness; but the brightness of the sun doth hinder them from being seen in the day-time.

Q. What is the reason that some men, if they see others dance, do the like with their hands and feet, or by other gestures of the body? A.

Because the sight having carried and represented unto the mind that action, and judging the same to be pleasant and delightful, and therefore the imagination draweth the like of it in conceit and stirs up the body by the gestures.

Q. Why does much sleep cause some to grow fat and some lean? A. Those who are of ill complexion, when they sleep, do consume and digest the superfluities of what they have eaten, and therefore become fat. But such as are of good complexion, when they sleep are more cold, and digest less.

Q. How much, and from what cause do we suffer hunger better than thirst?

A. When the stomach hath nothing else to consume, it consumeth the phlegm and humours which it findeth most ready and most at hand; and therefore we suffer hunger better than thirst, because the heat hath nothing to refresh itself with.

Q. Why doth the hair fall after a great sickness? A. Where the sickness is long, as in the ague, the humours of the head are dried up through overmuch heat, and, therefore, wanting nourishment, the hair falls.

Q. Why doth the hair of the eyebrows grow long in old men? A. Because through their age the bones are thin through want of heat, and therefore the hair doth grow there, by reason of the rheum of the eye.

Q. Whereof proceedeth gaping? A. Of gross vapours, which occupy the vital spirits of the head, and of the coldness of the senses causing sleepiness.

Q. What is the reason that some flowers do open with the sun rising, and shut with the sun setting? A. Cold doth close and shut, as hath been said, but the heat of the sun doth open and enlarge. Some compare the sun to the soul of the body; for as the soul giveth life, so the sun doth give life, and vivificate all things; but cold bringeth death, withering and decaying all things.

Q. Why doth grief cause men to grow old and grey? A. Age is nothing else but dryness and want of humours in the body; grief then causeth alteration, and heat dryness; age and greyness follow immediately.

Q. Why are gelded beasts weaker than such as are not gelded? A. Because they have less heat, and by that means less force and strength.

THE PROBLEMS OF

MARCUS ANTONINUS SANCTIPERTIAS

Q. Why is it esteemed, in the judgment of the most wise, the hardest thing to know a man's self? A. Because nothing can be known that is of so great importance to man for the regulation of his conduct in life.

Without this knowledge, man is like the s.h.i.+p without either compa.s.s or rudder to conduct her to port, and is tossed by every pa.s.sion and prejudice to which his natural const.i.tution is subjected. To know the form and perfection of man's self, according to the philosophers, is a task too hard; and a man, says Plato, is nothing, or if he be anything, he is nothing, but his soul.

Q. Why is a man, though endowed with reason, the most unjust of all living creatures? A. Because only man is desirous of honour; and so it happens that every one covets to seem good, and yet naturally shuns labour, though he attain no virtue by it.

Q. Why doth immoderate copulation do more hurt than immoderate letting of blood? A. The seed is full of nutriment, and better prepared for the nurture of the body, than the blood; for the blood is nourished by the seed.

Q. What is the reason that those that have long yards cannot beget children? A. The seed, in going a long distance, doth lose the spirit, and therefore becomes cold and unfit.

Q. Why do such as are corpulent cast forth but little seed in the act of copulation, and are often barren? A. Because the seed of such goeth to nourish the body. For the same reason corpulent women have but few menses.

Q. How come women to be p.r.o.ne to venery in the summer time and men in the winter? A. In summer the man's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es hang down and are feebler than in winter, or because hot natures become more lively in the cold season; for a man is hot and dry, and a woman cold and moist; and therefore in summer the strength of men decays, and that of women increases, and they grow livelier by the benefit of the contrary quality.

Q. Why is man the proudest of all living creatures? A. By reason of his great knowledge; or, as philosophers say, all intelligent beings having understanding, nothing remains that escapes man's knowledge in particular; or it is because he hath rule over all earthly creatures, and all things seem to be brought under his dominion.

Q. Why have beasts their hearts in the middle of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and man his inclining to the left? A. To moderate the cold on that side.

Q. Why doth the woman love the man best who has got her maidenhead? A.

By reason of shame-facedness; Plato saith, shame-facedness doth follow love, or, because it is the beginning of great pleasure, which doth bring a great alteration in the whole body, whereby the powers of the mind are much delighted, and stick and rest immoveable in the same.

Q. How come hairy people to be more l.u.s.tful than any other? A. Because they are said to have greater store of excrements and seed as philosophers a.s.sert.

Q. What is the cause that the suffocation of the matrix, which happens to women through strife and contention, is more dangerous than the detaining of the flowers? A. Because the more perfect an excrement is in its natural disposition, the worse it is when it is altered from that disposition, and drawn to the contrary quality; as is seen in vinegar, which is sharpest when it is made of the best wine. And so it happens that the more men love one another the more they fall into variance and discord.

Q. How come women's bodies to be looser, softer and less than man's; and why do they want hair? A. By reason of their menses; for with them their superfluities go away, which would produce hair; and thereby the flesh is filled, consequently the veins are more hid in women than in men.

Q. What is the reason that when we think upon a horrible thing, we are stricken with fear? A. Because the conceit or imagination of things has force and virtue. For Plato saith, the fancy of things has some affinity with things themselves; for the image and representation of cold and heat is such as the nature of things are. Or it is this, because when we comprehend any dreadful matter, the blood runneth to the internal parts; and therefore the external parts are cold and shake with fear.

Q. Why doth a radish root help digestion and yet itself remaineth undigested? A. Because the substance consisteth of divers parts; for there are some thin parts in it, which are fit to digest meat, the which being dissolved, there doth remain some thick and close substance in it, which the heat cannot digest.

Q. Why do such as cleave wood, cleave it easier in the length than athwart? A. Because in the wood there is a grain, whereby, if it be cut in length, in the very cutting, one part naturally separateth from another.

Q. What is the reason, that if a spear be stricken on the end, the sound cometh sooner to one who standeth near, than to him who striketh? A.

Because, as hath been said, there is a certain long grain in wood, directly forward, filled with air, but on the other side there is none, and therefore a beam or spear being stricken on the end, the air which is hidden receiveth a sound in the aforesaid grain which serveth for its pa.s.sage; and, seeing the sound cannot go easily out of it is carried into the ear of him who is opposite; as those pa.s.sages do not go from side to side, a sound cannot be distinctly heard there.

Q. Why are the thighs and calves of the legs of men flesh, seeing the legs of beasts are not so? A. Because men only go upright; and therefore nature hath given the lower parts corpulency, and taken it away from the upper; and thus she hath made the b.u.t.tocks, the thighs, and calves of the legs fleshy.

Q. Why are the sensible powers in the heart; yet if the hinder part of the brain be hurt, the memory suffereth by it; if the forepart, the imagination; if the middle, the cogitative part? A. It is because the brain is appointed by nature to cool the blood of the heart; whereof it is, that in divers of its parts it serveth the powers and instruments with their heart, for every action of the soul doth not proceed from one measure of heat.

THE PROBLEMS OF

ALEXANDER APHRODISEUS

Q. Why doth the sun make a man black and dirt white, wax soft and dirt hard? A. By reason of the disposition of the substance that doth suffer.

All humours, phlegm excepted, when heated above measure, do seem black about the skin; and dirt, being full either of saltpetre, or salt liquor, when the sun hath consumed its dregs and filth, doth become white again. When the sun hath stirred up and drawn the humidity of the wax, it is softened; but in the dirt, the sun doth consume the humidity, which is very much and makes it hard.

Q. Why are round ulcers hard to be cured? A. Because they are bred of a sharp choler, which eats and gnaws; and because it doth run, dropping and gnawing, it makes a round ulcer; for which reason it requires dry medicines, as physicians a.s.sert.