Plato on Providential Ecology

Disobedient Stomachs

“What comes next needs to be pursued along the same lines, and that is: how has the rest of our body come to be? It would be more fitting than anything else if it had been composed following a rationale like the following: those who were putting our kind together were aware of the intemperance for food and drink that would exist within us, and that we would want much more than what is moderate or necessary because of our gluttony. Therefore, to prevent wasting away swiftly through disease and the immediate and complete coming to an end of the incomplete race of mortals, the gods, foreseeing these problems, set up a receptacle, called the “lower belly,” to serve as a container for surplus food and drink; and they coiled the entrails around as they made them, in order to prevent food from passing through too quickly, a situation which would quickly compel the body to need even more food and produce insatiable desire, a gastric-gluttony on account of which the whole race would be rendered unphilosophical, uncultured and disobedient to what is most divine in us.”

τὸ δ᾽ ἑξῆς δὴ τούτοισιν κατὰ ταὐτὰ μεταδιωκτέον: ἦν δὲ τὸ τοῦ σώματος ἐπίλοιπον ᾗ γέγονεν. ἐκ δὴ λογισμοῦ τοιοῦδε συνίστασθαι μάλιστ᾽ ἂν αὐτὸ πάντων πρέποι. τὴν ἐσομένην ἐν ἡμῖν ποτῶν καὶ ἐδεστῶν ἀκολασίαν ᾔδεσαν οἱ συντιθέντες ἡμῶν τὸ γένος, καὶ ὅτι τοῦ μετρίου καὶ ἀναγκαίου διὰ μαργότητα πολλῷ χρησοίμεθα πλέονι: ἵν᾽ οὖν μὴ φθορὰ διὰ νόσους ὀξεῖα γίγνοιτο καὶ ἀτελὲς τὸ γένος εὐθὺς τὸ θνητὸν τελευτῷ, ταῦτα προορώμενοι τῇ τοῦ περιγενησομένου πώματος ἐδέσματός τε ἕξει τὴν ὀνομαζομένην κάτω κοιλίαν ὑποδοχὴν ἔθεσαν, εἵλιξάν τε πέριξ τὴν τῶν ἐντέρων γένεσιν, ὅπως μὴ ταχὺ διεκπερῶσα ἡ τροφὴ ταχὺ πάλιν τροφῆς ἑτέρας δεῖσθαι τὸ σῶμα ἀναγκάζοι, καὶ παρέχουσα ἀπληστίαν, διὰ γαστριμαργίαν ἀφιλόσοφον καὶ ἄμουσον πᾶν ἀποτελοῖ τὸ γένος, ἀνυπήκοον τοῦ θειοτάτου τῶν παρ᾽ ἡμῖν.

Plato, Timaeus 72E-73A

‘I wasn’t paying attention’ - Things Aristotle said, part II

Aristotle’s apophthegmata in Diogenes Laertius. Continued from last time.

“When asked what the upshot of philosophy was, he said, ‘the fact that I do without orders what others do because of a fear of the law.’

When asked how students might make progress, he said, ‘when the people urging on the ones who are ahead do not wait for the ones who are behind.’

To the talkative person who’d inundated him with a long story and then asked, ‘has my babbling annoyed you?,’ he said, ‘oh god no, I wasn’t paying attention.’

To the person who accused him of doing a favour for a no-good man – for it is also told in this way – he said, ‘I didn’t do it for a man, but humanity’.

When asked how we should treat our friends, he said, ‘the way we wish they would treat us.’

He said justice is a virtue of soul distributive of something according to worth.

He used to say, ‘the best provision for old age is education.’

In the second book of his Memoirs, Favorinus says that he used to say all over the place, ‘for the one who has friends, there is no friend;’ it’s also in the seventh book of the Ethics.*

These, then, [are the sayings that] have been attributed to him.”

[20 cont.] ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ποτ' αὐτῷ περιγέγονεν ἐκ φιλοσοφίας, ἔφη, “τὸ ἀνεπιτάκτως ποιεῖν ἅ τινες διὰ τὸν ἀπὸ τῶν νόμων φόβον ποιοῦσιν.” ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν προκόπτοιεν οἱ μαθηταί, ἔφη, “ἐὰν τοὺς προέχοντας διώκοντες τοὺς ὑστεροῦντας μὴ ἀναμένωσι.” πρὸς τὸν εἰπόντα ἀδολέσχην, ἐπειδὴ αὐτοῦ πολλὰ κατήντλησε, “μήτι σου κατεφλυάρησα;” “μὰ Δί',” εἶπεν· “οὐ γάρ σοι προσεῖχον.”

[21] πρὸς τὸν αἰτιασάμενον ὡς εἴη μὴ ἀγαθῷ ἔρανον δεδωκώς – φέρεται γὰρ καὶ οὕτως – ”οὐ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ,” φησίν, “ἔδωκα, ἀλλὰ τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ.” ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν τοῖς φίλοις προσφεροίμεθα, ἔφη, “ὡς ἂν εὐξαίμεθα αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν προσφέρεσθαι.” τὴν δικαιοσύνην ἔφη ἀρετὴν ψυχῆς διανεμητικὴν τοῦ κατ' ἀξίαν. κάλλιστον ἐφόδιον τῷ γήρᾳ τὴν παιδείαν ἔλεγε. φησὶ δὲ Φαβωρῖνος ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τῶν Ἀπομνημονευμάτων ὡς ἑκάστοτε λέγοι, “ᾧ φίλοι οὐδεὶς φίλος”· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ ἑβδόμῳ τῶν Ἠθικῶν ἐστι. καὶ ταῦτα μὲν εἰς αὐτὸν ἀναφέρεται.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 5.20-21

*Looks like he means the work we call the Eudemian Ethics. Aristotle does not quite say what is reported in the text of Diogenes (he says ‘many friends’ instead of just ‘friends’), and he doesn’t say it ‘all over the place;’ also, it seems Aristotle, too, was quoting an apophthegm when he wrote it. Here’s the passage (it’s quite beautiful):

“We say we seek and pray for many friends, and at the same time that ‘there is no friend for the one who has many friends.’ Both are right. It is within the realm of possibilities for many people to live together in community and share in each other’s experience. This would be the most choiceworthy thing of all; but it is also the most difficult, and for this reason, it is necessary that the activity of sharing our experiences be kept among only a few people. And so not only is it difficult to make many friends (since you need to get to know one other), but also to enjoy the friends one has.”

καὶ τὸ ζητεῖν ἡμῖν καὶ εὔχεσθαι πολλοὺς φίλους, ἅμα δὲ λέγειν ὡς οὐθεὶς φίλος ᾧ πολλοὶ φίλοι, ἄμφω λέγεται ὀρθῶς. ἐνδεχομένου γὰρ πολλοῖς συζῆν ἅμα καὶ συναισθάνεσθαι ὡς πλείστοις αἱρετώτατον: ἐπεὶ δὲ χαλεπώτατον, ἐν ἐλάττοσιν ἀνάγκη τὴν ἐνέργειαν τῆς συναισθήσεως εἶναι, ὥστ᾽ οὐ μόνον χαλεπὸν τὸ πολλοὺς κτήσασθαι (πείρας γὰρ δεῖ), ἀλλὰ καὶ οὖσι χρήσασθαι.

Eudemian Ethics 7, 1245b20-25

Earlier in the Eudemian Ethics 7, 1238a9-10, Aristotle says something a bit different. Like the previous passage, he says it’s hard to have lots of friends because it takes time to really cultivate a friendship; but he also adds that he thinks it’s just not possible to feel affection for more than one person at a time. This is a strong claim. In Nicomachean Ethics 8.6, 1158a10-11, it’s even stronger. He says humans by nature can’t love more than one person at a time. Does he really think this? Given the quotation above it’s hard to see how—maybe he’s not too committed to it, maybe I’m missing something.

The Nicomachean Ethics also gives a bit more context to the claim about the time it takes to make a friend:

πολλοὺς δ' ἅμα τῷ αὐτῷ ἀρέσκειν σφόδρα οὐ ῥᾴδιον, ἴσως δ' οὐδ' ἀγαθοὺς εἶναι. δεῖ δὲ καὶ ἐμπειρίαν λαβεῖν καὶ ἐν συνηθείᾳ γενέσθαι, ὃ παγχάλεπον.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8.6, 1158a13-15

There is a difference of opinion among translators about the passage. It’s been moved in opposite directions:

1. “It is not easy for many people to please the same person a great deal at the same time, nor, perhaps, that they be good people.” (Ross takes it this way)

2. “It is not easy for the same person to please many people a great deal at the same time, and perhaps there are not many good people.” (Crisp in the Cambridge translation takes it this way)

The first says something like, “it’s hard to really enjoy lots of people at the same time,” and while I sort of see what this might mean, I admit I don’t totally get it. One thing Ross might be thinking is that Aristotle is making a logical point. It’s like he’s saying, ‘if any one of those people were actually pleasing, there wouldn’t need to be so many of them.’

Or maybe he’s thinking we only have so much attention we can give to everything going on in our lives. If there are too many things going on, at some point we have no more attention to give, so if lots of people are trying to please the same person at the same time, that person won’t be able to be exceptionally pleased by any one of them. And if, to become a true friend, you need to be exceptionally pleasing, then it would be hard for any of those people to become friends (as in the ‘no friend for the one with friends’ saying).

The second says something like, “it’s hard to be all things to all people,” especially since (as he goes on to say), “one needs to become deeply acquainted and develop intimacy” to be a friend, “and this is very difficult.” This puts the emphasis on the fact that, again, time and attention are finite, and the more we divide them, the less we have for any one person.

The reason people take the passage in two ways is in part grammatical. The clause is in indirect speech and the verb ἀρέσκειν can take both a dative and an accusative (i.e., one can be pleasing to X (dative) or simply please X (accusative)). Our sentence has nouns in both cases (πολλούς, as a substantive, ‘many people’; τῷ αὐτῷ, ‘the same person’). So either πολλούς is the subject of ἀρέσκειν and τῷ αὐτῷ is a personal dative (‘that many people are pleasing to the same person is not easy’); or, πολλούς is the object of ἀρέσκειν and τῷ αὐτῷ goes with οὐ ῥᾴδιον (‘it is not easy for the same person to please many people...’).

Passages like this can expose a translator’s intuitions about things seemingly familiar.

Aphrodite Kallipygos

“Back then, people were such libertines that they even dedicated a temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos.* Here’s why:

A man from the country had two beautiful daughters, and one day, when they were feeling competitive with each other, they went out to the highway to see which of them had a nicer butt. When a young man who had an elderly father happened to pass by, the two each put on a show for him, and he, having watched, picked the older one’s as nicer. But he also fell in love with her and once he returned to the city, he became bedridden and told his younger brother what had happened. The next thing you know, his brother went to the country, too, and when he saw the girls, he fell in love with the other one. Well, their father pleaded with them to choose more respectable spouses, but since he could not convince them, he brought the girls from the country to brothers, where they persuaded their father to accept them, and he married them to his sons. And so they were called ‘kallipygoi’ by the people of the city, as Kerkidas of Megalopolis says in the Iambics:

‘There was a pair of nice butts among the women of Syracuse.’

And since the sisters had gotten hold of some wealth, they dedicated a temple to Aphrodite, calling the goddess ‘Kallipygos,’ as Arkhelaos also mentions in his Iambics.”

*καλλίπυγος / kallipygos / callipyge (latin) : combination of kalli (nice) and pygē (butt). Somewhere, I heard Sufjan Stevens mention the word, and I wanted to track down the story.

οὕτω δ' ἐξήρτηντο τῶν ἡδυπαθειῶν οἱ τότε ὡς καὶ Καλλιπύγου Ἀφροδίτης ἱερὸν ἱδρύσασθαι ἀπὸ τοιαύτης αἰτίας. ἀνδρὶ ἀγροίκῳ ἐγένοντο δύο καλαὶ θυγατέρες· αὗται φιλονικήσασαί ποτε πρὸς ἑαυτὰς προελθοῦσαι ἐπὶ τὴν λεωφόρον διεκρίνοντο ποτέρα εἴη καλλιπυγοτέρα. καί ποτε παρίοντος νεανίσκου πατέρα πρεσβύτην ἔχοντος ἐπέδειξαν ἑαυτὰς καὶ τούτῳ· καὶ ὃς θεασάμενος ἔκρινε τὴν πρεσβυτέραν· ἧς καὶ εἰς ἔρωτα ἐμπεσὼν ἐλθὼν εἰς ἄστυ κλινήρης γίνεται καὶ διηγεῖται τὰ γεγενημένα τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἑαυτοῦ ὄντι νεωτέρῳ. ὃ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐλθὼν εἰς τοὺς ἀγροὺς καὶ θεασάμενος τὰς παῖδας ἐρᾷ καὶ αὐτὸς τῆς ἑτέρας. ὁ δ' οὖν πατὴρ ἐπεὶ παρακαλῶν αὐτοὺς ἐνδοξοτέρους λαβεῖν γάμους οὐκ ἔπειθεν, ἄγεται ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ τὰς παῖδας αὐτοῖς, πείσας ἐκείνων τὸν πατέρα, καὶ ζεύγνυσι τοῖς υἱοῖς. αὗται οὖν ὑπὸ τῶν πολιτῶν καλλίπυγοι ἐκαλοῦντο, ὡς καὶ ὁ Μεγαλοπολίτης Κερκιδᾶς ἐν τοῖς Ἰάμβοις ἱστορεῖ λέγων·

ἦν καλλιπύγων ζεῦγος ἐν Συρακούσαις.

αὗται οὖν ἐπιλαβόμεναι οὐσίας λαμπρᾶς ἱδρύσαντο Ἀφροδίτης ἱερὸν καλέσασαι Καλλίπυγον τὴν θεόν, ὡς ἱστορεῖ καὶ Ἀρχέλαος ἐν τοῖς Ἰάμβοις.

Athenaeus, The Sophists’ Table (Deipnosophistae), 12.80 (p.223 Kaibel)

This epithet for Aphrodite shows up in Clement of Alexandria as well, where he tries to disparage the pagan gods as prudishly as only Clement of Alexandria can:

“Isn’t Baldheaded Zeus the one worshipped in Argos, while in Cyprus, it’s another one, Zeus the Avenger? Don’t the Argives sacrifice to Aphrodite who Does Obscene Things,* the Athenians to Aphrodite the Prostitute, and the Syracusans to Aphrodite of the Nice Butt—the one the poet Nicander called ‘of the Nice Bum’? I’ll not even mention Dionysus the Piglet-Tickler.* The Sicyonians revere this one, assigning Dionysus to the womanly part, worshipping the prince of hubris as the ephor of shame.”

Οὐχὶ μέντοι Ζεὺς φαλακρὸς ἐν Ἄργει, τιμωρὸς δὲ ἄλλος ἐν Κύπρῳ τετίμησθον; Οὐχὶ δὲ Ἀφροδίτῃ περιβασοῖ μὲν Ἀργεῖοι, ἑταίρᾳ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ καλλιπύγῳ θύουσιν Συρακούσσιοι, ἣν Νίκανδρος ὁ ποιητὴς «καλλίγλουτόν» που κέκληκεν; Διόνυσον δὲ ἤδη σιωπῶ τὸν χοιροψάλαν· Σικυώνιοι τοῦτον προσκυνοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῶν γυναικείων τάξαντες τὸν Διόνυσον μορίων, ἔφορον αἴσχους τὸν ὕβρεως σεβάζοντες ἀρχηγόν.

Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.39.2-3

*The scholiast is helpful on some of the obscure terms:

Scholia In Clementem Alexandrinum

περιβασοῖ: doer of obscene things. These are epithets of Aphrodite.

29, 7 περιβασοῖ] ἀσχημοποιῷ· ἐπίθετα δὲ ταῦτα τῆς Ἀφροδίτης.

χοιροψάλαν: according to Polemon in his letter to Attalus, Dionysus Piglet-Tickler is worshipped in Sicyon of Boeotia. It is a variation on the tickler (i.e., ‘plucker’) of piglets. ‘Piglet’ means a woman’s genitals.

29, 10 χοιροψάλαν] χοιροψάλας Διόνυσος ἐν Σικυῶνι τιμᾶται τῆς Βοιωτίας, ὡς Πολέμων ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἄτταλον ἐπιστολῇ. ἔστι δὲ μεταλαμβανόμενον ὁ τὸν χοῖρον ψάλλων, τοῦτ' ἔστι τίλλων· χοῖρος δὲ γυναικεῖον αἰδοῖον.

Endings

“Zeus, god of the gods, who rules with force of law, was able to see these things clearly. When he realized that good people were reduced to struggling, he wanted to grant them justice so that they might take control of themselves and return to harmony. He assembled all the gods together into their most honoured home, which, set at the centre of the entire cosmos, looks down upon all who share in creation, and once he had assembled them, he said:”*

θεὸς δὲ ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς ἐν νόμοις βασιλεύων, ἅτε δυνάμενος καθορᾶν τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἐννοήσας γένος ἐπιεικὲς ἀθλίως διατιθέμενον, δίκην αὐτοῖς ἐπιθεῖναι βουληθείς, ἵνα γένοιντο ἐμμελέστεροι σωφρονισθέντες, συνήγειρεν θεοὺς πάντας εἰς τὴν τιμιωτάτην αὐτῶν οἴκησιν, ἣ δὴ κατὰ μέσον παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου βεβηκυῖα καθορᾷ πάντα ὅσα γενέσεως μετείληφεν, καὶ συναγείρας εἶπεν:

Plato, Critias, 121B7-C5

*To the right is the last column of the Critias, written on parchment in one of the oldest manuscripts of Plato we have, Parisinus gr. 187 f. 151r. This manuscript is at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and it’s been been dated to around 850-875 CE.

The Critias ends mid-sentence. The Atlantans’ story is never resolved. Maybe Plato died before he finished it, maybe he couldn’t think of what Zeus was supposed to say. To mark this the copyist writes the εἶπεν (“he said”) with a colon in the centre of the last line—two dots bordering on universes of possibilities.

"Let him whip me when I'm not around" - Things Aristotle said, part I

Part I of the apophthegmata attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laertius.

“These very nice sayings are attributed to him:

When asked what profit is gained by those who tell lies, he said: ‘that whenever they speak the truth, they are not believed.’

Once, he was reproached because he gave charity to a lowly person, so he said, ‘I gave charity to a man, not a way of life.’

He always used to tell his friends and students, whenever and wherever he happened to be lecturing, that ‘as light comes to sight from the air, so it comes to the mind from mathematics.’*

Very often, referring to the Athenians, he said, ‘they discovered wheat and laws: they used the wheat, not so much the laws.’

He used to say, ‘the roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.’

When asked what gets old quickly, he said, ‘gratitude.’

When asked what is hope, he said, ‘a waking dream.’

When Diogenes offered him a dried fig, he knew if he didn’t take it, Diogenes would have some joke ready to go. So he took it and said, ‘Diogenes ruined the fig as well as the joke.’ Another time he offered them, he took them and, raising them up as if they were children, he said, ‘Great Diogenes!’

He said three things are required for education: nature, study, and practice.

When he heard that someone was saying bad things about him behind his back, he said, ‘let him whip me when I’m not around.’

He used to say beauty was a better recommendation than any letter. Some people say Diogenes defined it this way, but he said good looks are ‘a gift from god,’ Socrates, ‘a short-lived tyranny,’ Plato, ‘an advantage of nature,’ Theophrastus, ‘a silent deception,’ Theocritus, ‘a penalty made of ivory,’ Carneades, ‘a king without a body-guard.’

When asked how the educated differ from the uneducated, he said, ‘as much as the living from the dead.’

He used to say, ‘education is an adornment in good times and a refuge in bad ones;’ and that children’s teachers are more valuable than those who only gave them birth: for the one gives you a chance to live, the other to live well.

To someone who bragged that he was from a great city, he said, ‘one needn’t look into this, but rather, who is it who is worthy of a great heritage.’

When asked what a friend is, he said, ‘one soul dwelling in two bodies.’

He used to say, ‘there are two kinds of people: those who are as restrained as someone who will live forever, and those who are as excessive as someone who will die tomorrow.’

To the person who was curious why we spend so much time in the company of what is beautiful, he said, ‘that’s a blind man’s question.’”

*or perhaps, “studies”

[17] Ἀναφέρεται δ᾽ εἰς αὐτὸν καὶ ἀποφθέγματα κάλλιστα ταυτί. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί περιγίνεται κέρδος τοῖς ψευδομένοις, "ὅταν," ἔφη, "λέγωσιν ἀληθῆ, μὴ πιστεύεσθαι." ὀνειδιζόμενός ποτε ὅτι πονηρῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐλεημοσύνην ἔδωκεν, "οὐ τὸν τρόπον," εἶπεν, "ἀλλὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἠλέησα." συνεχὲς εἰώθει λέγειν πρός τε τοὺς φίλους καὶ τοὺς φοιτῶντας αὐτῷ, ἔνθα ἂν καὶ ὅπου διατρίβων ἔτυχεν, ὡς ἡ μὲν ὅρασις ἀπὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος [ἀέρος] λαμβάνει τὸ φῶς, ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων. πολλάκις δὲ καὶ ἀποτεινόμενος τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἔφασκεν εὑρηκέναι πυροὺς καὶ νόμους: ἀλλὰ πυροῖς μὲν χρῆσθαι, νόμοις δὲ μή.

[18] Τῆς παιδείας ἔφη τὰς μὲν ῥίζας εἶναι πικράς, τὸν δὲ καρπὸν γλυκύν. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί γηράσκει ταχύ, "χάρις," ἔφη. ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἐστιν ἐλπίς, "ἐγρηγορότος," εἶπεν, "ἐνύπνιον." Διογένους ἰσχάδ᾽ αὐτῷ διδόντος νοήσας ὅτι, εἰ μὴ λάβοι, χρείαν εἴη μεμελετηκώς, λαβὼν ἔφη Διογένην μετὰ τῆς χρείας καὶ τὴν ἰσχάδα ἀπολωλεκέναι: πάλιν τε διδόντος λαβὼν καὶ μετεωρίσας ὡς τὰ παιδία εἰπών τε "μέγας Διογένης," ἀπέδωκεν αὐτῷ. τριῶν ἔφη δεῖν παιδείᾳ, φύσεως, μαθήσεως, ἀσκήσεως. ἀκούσας ὑπό τινος λοιδορεῖσθαι, "ἀπόντα με," ἔφη, "καὶ μαστιγούτω." τὸ κάλλος παντὸς ἔλεγεν ἐπιστολίου συστατικώτερον.

[19] οἱ δὲ οὕτω μὲν Διογένην φασὶν ὁρίσασθαι, αὐτὸν δὲ θεοῦ δῶρον εἰπεῖν εὐμορφίαν: Σωκράτην δὲ ὀλιγοχρόνιον τυραννίδα: Πλάτωνα προτέρημα φύσεως: Θεόφραστον σιωπῶσαν ἀπάτην: Θεόκριτον ἐλεφαντίνην ζημίαν: Καρνεάδην ἀδορυφόρητον βασιλείαν. ἐρωτηθεὶς τίνι διαφέρουσιν οἱ πεπαιδευμένοι τῶν ἀπαιδεύτων, "ὅσῳ," εἶπεν, "οἱ ζῶντες τῶν τεθνεώτων." τὴν παιδείαν ἔλεγεν ἐν μὲν ταῖς εὐτυχίαις εἶναι κόσμον, ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἀτυχίαις καταφυγήν. τῶν γονέων τοὺς παιδεύσαντας ἐντιμοτέρους εἶναι τῶν μόνον γεννησάντων: τοὺς μὲν γὰρ τὸ ζῆν, τοὺς δὲ τὸ καλῶς ζῆν παρασχέσθαι. πρὸς τὸν καυχώμενον ὡς ἀπὸ μεγάλης πόλεως εἴη, "οὐ τοῦτο," ἔφη, "δεῖ σκοπεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅστις μεγάλης πατρίδος ἄξιός ἐστιν."

[20] ἐρωτηθεὶς τί ἐστι φίλος, ἔφη, "μία ψυχὴ δύο σώμασιν ἐνοικοῦσα." τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἔλεγε τοὺς μὲν οὕτω φείδεσθαι ὡς ἀεὶ ζησομένους, τοὺς δὲ οὕτως ἀναλίσκειν ὡς αὐτίκα τεθνηξομένους. πρὸς τὸν πυθόμενον διὰ τί τοῖς καλοῖς πολὺν χρόνον ὁμιλοῦμεν, "τυφλοῦ," ἔφη, "τὸ ἐρώτημα."

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 5.17-20

Pseudo-Alexander on why oil doesn't mix with water, how the soul is joined to the body, and why the head is like a little heaven

Why doesn't oil combine together with other liquids?

Because, since it is viscous and dense and unified and not cut up into fine parts like other liquids, it does not have space for another liquid to move into it and combine with it.

Some things that are joined, however, are joined with one another by mixture, like the qualities of the elements. They have primary qualities that are completely concealed and that produce other [qualities], but are able to be separated and liberated by nature once again. Honey-wine and sour-wine imitate nature, since to our perception they seem to exist as a mixture. In truth, however, and with respect to their substantial nature, they are not like the elements.

Other things are joined by juxtaposition, like water and oil; still others are joined by combination, like barley with wheat; others by cementing, like stone with stone; others by adhesion and similar processes, like blood with flesh or marrow or bone; others by nailing, like wood to wood because some nails were fitted between them; others, by attachment and weaving together, like links in a chain.

But in the case of ensouled things, as in the case of wrestlers*, the soul is not joined with the body in any these ways. That would be too absurd. Instead, the soul joins the body through a kind of suitable medium, which is to some extent receptive of the nature of both. And it [sc. the medium] embraces both a created and contrived thing and combines the incorporeal with the corporeal, the immortal with the corruptible, the pure with the impure, the divine with the earthly, as the discussion will show.

For when the blood is concocted in the liver and changed by the localized balanced proportion of heat and moisture, it generates a vapory pneuma. When this rises with the blood through the hollow-vein towards the heart, as it is heated and refined more, it [sc. the pneuma] becomes air-like. And again, when it is sent up through the carotid artery towards the base of the brain, being guided there by nature’s providence, casting off the immoderate boiling in accordance with a certain peculiar natural quality accompanying the coldness of the brain, the pneuma becomes aitherial, which is the soul’s instrument for activity.

So, just as wild horses are chastened by a bridle, so this [pneuma] is bridled by a certain irrational natural capacity. Furthermore, it is indeed through respiration that the air that has come into the heart is refined and goes up through the arteries towards the head, and it is made nourishment of the aetherial and psychic pneuma. If [the air] meets a body, let it strengthen the body; but if it meets finest, purest, most radiant [pneuma], then [let it strengthen] the rational soul, being somehow a corporeal incorporeal, an intermediate bound between extremes of contrary substance.

When this pneuma is properly stable, in everything it does, it manages, with the soul, to act rationally [κατὰ λόγον]. But when it is cooled immoderately and compressed and thickened, it becomes unsuitable for the intense activity of the soul [and] makes the activities idle and sluggish. When it has been cooled and thickened extremely immoderately, the generated body also causes the soul to depart due to the unsuitability of the substance, as in the case of lethargy, torpor and a draught of cold poison. On the other hand, when it is heated immoderately and is moved more than is needed, it causes the soul to act immoderately in accordance with the soul’s displacement [κατὰ τὰς ἐκστάσεις τῆς ψυχῆς] in [cases of] phrenitis. When this affection becomes even stronger, after it is exhausted, it will make the soul depart again by not preserving their being bound together.

Consider with me a different work of god. For since it was fated that it [sc. the soul] be confined from the heavenly and divine body to an earthly body, [the god] contrived the descent in shape, structure and colour. For the head itself it formed into a sphere, just like a little heaven. It arranged the brain—bright and without excess, having given seven passages to it representing the number of the movers of the stars—to rise above the whole body. For heaven, too, rises above everything in the world of coming to be and passing away.

*the image is of two people embracing and holding on to one another.

Διὰ τί τὸ ἔλαιον οὐδενὶ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναμίγνυται;

ὅτι γλίσχρον ὂν καὶ παχυμερὲς καὶ ἡνωμένον καὶ μὴ τεμνόμενον εἰς λεπτὰ μόρια καθάπερ τὰ ἄλλα ὑγρά, οὐ δίδωσιν χώραν ἑτέρῳ ὑγρῷ ἐγκαταβληθῆναι εἰς αὐτὸ καὶ ἀναμιχθῆναι αὐτῷ·

τὰ δὲ ὁμιλοῦντα ἑαυτοῖς ὁμιλεῖ τῶν κατὰ τὴν κρᾶσιν, ὡς αἱ ποιότητες τῶν στοιχείων παντελῶς ἔχουσαι τὰς πρώτας ποιότητας ἀφανιζομένας καὶ ἑτέρας γεννωμένας, δυναμένας δὲ πάλιν ὑπὸ φύσεως χωρισθῆναι καὶ σωθῆναι. τὸ δὲ μελίκρατον καὶ τὸ ὀξύκρατον μιμεῖται τὴν φύσιν, τῇ αἰσθήσει μὲν νομιζόμενα κατὰ κρᾶσιν, εἶναι μὴ ὄντα δὲ κατὰ ἀλήθειαν· καὶ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν οὐσιωδῶς, ὥσπερ τὰ στοιχεῖα.

τὰ δὲ κατὰ παράθεσιν, ὡς ὑδρέλαιον· τὰ δὲ κατὰ μῖξιν, ὡς κριθὴ πυροῖς· τὰ δὲ κατὰ κόλλησιν, ὡς λίθος λίθῳ· τὰ δὲ κατὰ πρόσφυσιν καὶ ὁμοίως, ὡς αἷμα σαρκὶ ἢ μυελῷ ἢ ὀστῷ. τὰ δὲ κατὰ γόμφωσιν, ὡς ξύλον ξύλῳ διὰ γόμφων τινῶν ἐν μέσῳ βαλλομένων. τὰ δὲ κατὰ ἀντοχὴν ἑαυτῶν καὶ περιπλοκήν, ὡς κρίκος κρίκῳ.

ἐπὶ δὲ ἐμψύχων, ὡς ἐπὶ παλαιόντων, κατ' οὐδένα τούτων τῶν τρόπων μίγνυται ἡ ψυχὴ σώματι. διὰ τὸ πολλὴν ἐπάγεσθαι ἀτοπίαν [mss. ἀντοπίαν], ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον κατ' ἐπιτηδειότητα ὁμιλεῖ σώματι ψυχὴ διὰ μέσου τινός, ὅπερ ἀμφοτέρων ἀναδεχόμενον φύσιν ποσῶς· καὶ προσφιλεῖ γινόμενον καὶ σοφιζόμενον, ἀμφότερον μίγνυσι τὸ ἀσώματον τῷ σώματι, τὸ ἀθάνατον τῷ φθαρτῷ, τὸ καθαρὸν τῷ ἀκαθάρτῳ, τὸ θεῖον τῷ γηΐνῳ, ὡς ὁ λόγος δείξει·

ἐν γὰρ τῷ ἥπατι τοῦ αἵματος πεττομένου καὶ μεταβαλλομένου ὑπὸ τῆς αὐτόθι συμμέτρου θερμότητος καὶ ὑγρότητος, γεννᾶται πνεῦμαἀτμοειδές· τοῦτο δὲ διὰ τῆς κοίλης φλεβὸς ἀνιὸν μετὰ τοῦ αἵματος πρὸς καρδίαν, καὶ ἐπὶ πλέον θερμαινόμενον καὶ λεπτυνόμενον, γίνεται ἀεροειδές· καὶ πάλιν ἀναπεμπόμενον διὰ τῶν καρωτίδων ἀρτηριῶν πρὸς τὴν βάσιν τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου κατὰ πρόνοιαν φύσεως ἐκεῖσε παιδαγωγούμενον κατ' ἰδιότητά τινα φυσικὴν ὑπὸ τῆς τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου ψυχρότητος ἀποβαλὸν τὴν ἄμετρον ζέσιν, γίνεται πνεῦμα αἰθεροειδές, ὅπερ ὄργανόν ἐστι ψυχῆς πρὸς ἐνέργειαν·

ὥσπερ ἄγριος ἵππος ὑπὸ χαλινοῦ σωφρονιζόμενος, οὕτω δὲ τοῦτο χαλιναγωγούμενον ὑπό τινος ἀρρήτου φυσικῆς δυνάμεως· ἔτι γε μὴν διὰ τῆς ἀναπνοῆς ὁ εἰσιὼν ἀὴρ ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ λεπτυνόμενος καὶ ἀνιὼν διὰ τῶν ἀρτηριῶν πρὸς ἐγκέφαλον, καὶ αὐτὸ τροφὴ καθίσταται τοῦ αἰθεροειδοῦς καὶ ψυχικοῦ πνεύματος· ὅπερ εἰ μὲν σῶμα τυγχάνει, προσωκείτω τῷ σώματι, εἰ δὲ λεπτότατον καὶ καθαρότατον καὶ διαυγέστατον φιλιοῦται, ψυχῇ λογικῇ σῶμα ἀσώματόν πως ὑπάρχον καὶ δεσμὸς ἔμμεσος τυγχάνει τῶν ἄκρων ἐναντίαν οὐσίαν ἐχόντων·

τοῦτο τὸ πνεῦμα καλῶς μὲν εὐσταθοῦν διάγει ψυχῇ πάντα κατὰ λόγον ἐνεργεῖν· ἀμέτρως δὲ ψυχόμενον καὶ πιλούμενον καὶ παχυνόμενον καὶ ἀνεπιτήδειον γινόμενον πρὸς ἐνέργειαν σύντονον ψυχῆς ποιεῖ τὰς πράξεις ἀργοτέρας καὶ νωθροτέρας· ἀμετρότατα δὲ ψυχθὲν καὶ παχυνθὲν καὶ σῶμα γενόμενον παρασκευάζει ταύτην ἀφίστασθαι διὰ τὸ ἀνεπιτήδειον τῆς οὐσίας, ὡς ἐπὶ ληθάργων καὶ κάρων καὶ πόσεως ψυχρῶν δηλητηρίων· πάλιν δὲ θερμανθὲν ἀμέτρως καὶ πλέον τοῦ δέοντος κινούμενον, παρασκευάζει ψυχὴν ἀμετρότερον ἐνεργεῖν κατὰ τὰς ἐκστάσεις τῆς ψυχῆς ταῖς φρενίτισιν· ἔτι δὲ πλέον τοῦτο παθὸν καὶ ἐκδαπανηθὲν ποιήσει πάλιν ψυχὴν ἀφίστασθαι τῷ μὴ εὐπορεῖν τοῦ δεσμοῦντος ἀμφότερα.

θεώρει δέ μοι ἕτερον ἔργον θεοῦ· ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ταύτην ἔμελλεν ἀπὸ σώματος οὐρανίου καὶ θείου κατακλείειν σώματι γηΐνῳ, σοφίζεται τὴν κάθοδον σχήματι, κατασκευῇ, χρώματι. αὐτὴν μὲν γὰρ τὴν κεφαλὴν σφαιροειδῆ διετύπωσε, καθάπερ μικρὸν οὐρανόν· τὸν δὲ ἐγκέφαλον λαμπρὸν καὶ ἀπέριττον ἔταξε δεδωκὼς αὐτῷ πόρους ἑπτὰ τῶν κινουμένων ἀστέρων τὸν ἀριθμὸν διατυπώσας. ὑπερέχειν δὲ τοῦ παντὸς σώματος· καὶ γὰρ ὁ οὐρανὸς ὑπερέχει πάντα τὰ ἐν γενέσει καὶ φθορᾷ.

Pseudo-Alexander, Problems, 2.67