Theophrastus

“ When I can be informed how something of a vegetable or animal Nature can be produced otherwise than from Seed or Egg, I may come over to the Doctor's Opinion; that Corals have been formed by mere Apposition of Particles wash'd out of the neighbouring Rocks: But till then must believe, that no animal or vegetable Matter can be produced otherwise than by organized Growth: nor is there now the least Doubt that they are to be ranged in the animal Kingdom. ”

“ That Amber is a Stone, or native Fossile, the best of the modern Writers seem as certain, as that Gems, Rocks, or Minerals are so. It has, however, for many Ages, been judged by some, to be of a vegetable, and by others an animal, nature. And a thousand idle and incoherent Systems have been received as to its Formation: Dioscorides thought it an Exsudation of the black Poplar; and Pliny, of the Pine; and others, the Fat or Semen of Whales. And it is but of late, that the World has been again brought into the Opinion, that it is, as this Author esteemed it, a mere native Fossile. ”

“ Yet it is not strange that there should be some mountains which do not thus bear all things, but have a more special kind of vegetation to a great extent if not entirely; for instance the range of Ida in Crete [10] ; for there the cypress grows; or the hills of Cilicia and Syria, on which the Syrian cedar grows, or certain parts of Syria, where the terebinth grows. For it is the differences of soil which give a special character to the vegetation. ”

“ Yet it is absurd, while original, to say that sound permeates the entire body, and that when it has entered by the organ of hearing it is spread to every nook and cranny, as though perception here were due not to the ears but to the body entire. ”

“ When the patron buys a pair of shoes, the flatterer observes: “The foot is of a finer pattern than the boot”; if he calls on a friend, the flatterer trips on ahead and says: “You are to have the honor of his visit”; and then turns back with, “I have announced you.” Of course he can run and do the errands at the market in a twinkle.
Amongst guests at a banquet he is the first to praise the wine and, doing it ample justice, he observes: “What a fine cuisine you have!” ”

“ And in general, as we have said, we must not assume that in all respects there is complete correspondence between plants and animals. And that is why the number also of parts is indeterminate; for a plant has the power of growth in all its parts, inasmuch as it has life in all its parts. ”

“ Bragging is pretending to have excellences that one does not really possess. The braggart is the man who stands on the wharf and tells the bystanders how much capital he has invested in ships at sea, and tells how extensive is his business of loaning money, and how much he has made and lost by different ventures. As he talks thus magnificently, he sends his slave to his banker, where he has—exactly one shilling to his credit. ”

“ Anaxagoras holds that sense perception comes to pass by means of opposites, for the like is unaffected by the like. He then essays to review each sense separately. Accordingly he maintains that seeing is due to the reflection a in the pupil, but that nothing is reflected in what is of like hue, but only in what is of a different hue. Now with most [creatures] this contrast of hue [with that of the pupil] occurs by day, but with some by night, and this is why the latter are keen of vision by night. But, in general, night the rather is of the eye's own hue. ”

“ There is great Difference between changing the Substance, and only covering the Surface of a Body. These Petrifactions, as they are called, being no other than Precipitations of Matter too heavy to be longer sustained in the Water; and which, being very fine, adapts itself to every Prominence and Cavity of the Body it settles upon, and exactly assumes its Shape. ”

“ Indeed it might be suggested that we should classify in some cases simply by size, and in some eases by comparative robustness or length of life. For of under-shrubs and those of the pot-herb class some have only one stem and come as it were to have the character of a tree, such as cabbage [1] and rue: wherefore some call these 'tree-herbs'; and in fact all or most of the pot-herb class, when they have been long in the ground, acquire a sort of branches, and the whole plant comes to have a tree-like shape, though it is shorter lived than a tree. ”

“ The man himself, with an ancestry like that, is a foul fellow fit for the whipping-post.” In a company where his companions are maligning a man, he of course takes up the attack and says: “For my part I hate him of all men. He is a bad character, as one may see from his face, and as for his meanness, it has no parallel and here is a proof: His wife brought him a dowry of talents of money and yet after the birth of their first child, he gave her but three pence a day for household expenses and forced her to bathe in cold water on the festival of Poseidon in midwinter.” ”

“ Secondly, it is silly to assert that those have the keenest sense of smell who inhale most; for if the organ is not in health or is, for any cause, not unobstructed, mere breathing is of no avail. It often happens that a man has suffered injury [to the organ] and has no sensation at all. Furthermore, persons 'short of breath or at hard labour or asleep —since they inhale most air—should be most sensitive to odours. Yet the reverse is the fact. For in all likelihood respiration is not of itself the cause of smell, but is connected with it incidentally ”

“ It is found in the East and West Indies, and in Germany, Silesia, Bohemia, and England; but is little valued any where.
Woodward errs in thinking our Jewellers call this the Smaragdo-Prasus: that and the Chrysoprasus are both, indeed, called Species of it, but are much superior to it in Beauty and Value. The Chrysoprasus is a Stone of greater Lustre and Hardness than the Prasius, and is in Colour of an equal Mixture of green and yellow. And the Smaragdo-Prasus, a beautiful Gem, of a grass green, with the slightest Cast imaginable of yellow. ”

“ Those which belong to the qualities [1] and properties are such as hardness or softness, toughness or brittleness, closeness or openness of texture, lightness or heaviness, and the like. For willow-wood is light from the first, even when it is green, and so is that of the cork-oak; but box and ebony are not light even when dried. Some woods again can be split, [2] such as that of the silver-fir, while others are rather breakable, [3] such as the wood of the olive. Again some are without knots, [4] as the stems of elder, others have knots, as those of fir and silver-fir. ”

“ Boorishness is ignorance of good form. The boor is the sort of man who takes a strong drink and then goes to the Assembly. He insists that myrrh has not a whit sweeter smell than onions. His boots are too big for his feet and he talks in a loud voice.
He distrusts even friends and kinsmen, while his most important secrets are shared with his domestics, and he tells all the news of the Assembly to his farm hands. Nothing awakens his admiration or startles him on the streets so much as the sight of an ox, an ass, or a goat, and then he stands agape in contemplation. ”

“ And yet even here one might entertain a doubt whether sense perception actually is an alteration, and whether an opposite is cognizant of its opposite. But as for the thesis that sense perception is universally conjoined with pain, this finds no warrant in experience, inasmuch as some objects are actually perceived with pleasure, and most of them at least without pain. Nor is it reasonable. For sense perception is in accord with nature, and no such process does violence and brings pain, but the rather it has pleasure as its accompaniment,—a law whose operation is quite manifest. ”

“ Whatever may be the Case in the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms, it is the Misfortune in the Study of fossile Bodies, that such has been the Confusion and Intermixture of their constituent Particles at the general Deluge, that there are none such to be established in them; for there are so many heterogene Particles, of a thousand different Kinds, mixed even with the same Fossil in different Places, that there is no determining to any Certainty, even its Manner of Variation from its pure State. ”

“ In the case of trees we may thus distinguish the annual parts, while it is plain that in annual plants all the parts are annual: for the end of their being is attained when the fruit is produced. And with those plants which bear fruit annually, those which take two years (such as celery and certain others [23] ) and those which have fruit on them for a longer time—with all these the stem will correspond to the plant's length of life: for plants develop a stem at whatever time they are about to bear seed, seeing that the stem exists for the sake of the seed. ”

“ Moral folly is much the same everywhere; it is only the fool’s costume that changes in different countries. The folly of the miser is seen in his cheating himself of the real goods of life and in robbing himself of the respect of his fellows; the folly of the coward, in gaining personal safety by losing reputation for manliness; the folly of the flatterer, in his shallow self-serving which men see through, while they nudge their fellows and laugh at his weakness ”

“ For reason does not have its seat in all our members—in our legs and feet, for instance—but in determinate parts, even those by whose means, at the proper age, we exercise memory and the power of thought. Childlike, too, is his idea that men differ from animals— not in their essential nature, as animate things differ from inanimate,—but because they breathe purer air. ”

“ Impudence is easy to define; it is conduct that is obtrusively offensive. The impudent man is one who, on meeting respectable women in the street, insults them as he passes. At a play, he claps his hands after all the rest have stopped, and hisses the players when others wish to watch in silence. When the theatre is still, he suddenly stands up and disgorges, to make the audience look around. When the market-place is crowded, he steps up to the stalls where nuts, myrtle-berries, or fruits are for sale, and begins to pick at them as he talks to the merchant ”

“ The people of Ida say that the fir is liable to a kind of disease;—when not only the heart but the outer part of the trunk becomes glutted [26] with pitch, the tree then is as it were choked. This happens of its own accord through the excessive luxuriance of the tree, as one may conjecture for it all turns into pitch-glutted wood. This then is an affection peculiar to the fir.
[27] The silver-fir is either 'male' or 'female,' and has differences in its leaves [28] ; those of the 'male' are sharper more needle-like and more bent; wherefore the whole tree has a more compact appearance. ”

“ These, of all my Experiments on Copper, are what have afforded me the greatest Satisfaction in the Subject of the present Enquiry; as they shew, that Nature is so far from being tied to one single Menstruum for producing the Sapphirine Colour from Copper, that instead of the Colours of the blue Gems being owing only to the Effects of a single, scarce, indeed uncertain Menstruum on that Metal, we find they are producible from the Action of others, and those the most common, most abundant, and indeed, universal Menstruums of the fossile World. ”

“ His own statement is that colours are reflected in one another, but particularly the strong in the weak; consequently each of these—but especially black and the weaker colours generally—should possess the power of sight., For the reason just given, he holds that the organ of vision is of the same colour as the night, and that light is the cause of the visual reflection. But in the first place, we see light itself, without any image of it whatsoever; and in the second place, black objects and white objects alike lack light. ”

“ For, as with animals which do not submit to domestication, so a plant which does not submit to cultivation may be called wild in its essential character. However Hippon [3] declares that of every plant there exists both a cultivated and a wild form, and that 'cultivated' simply means [4] that the plant has received attention, while 'wild' means that it has not; but though he is partly right, he is partly wrong. It is true that any plant deteriorates by neglect and so becomes wild but it is not true that every plant may be improved by attention, [5] as has been said. ”

“ Spar is one Thing, of one Weight, one Hardness, and when pure can never be mistaken for any other Fossil. It is liable to have other Bodies mixt with it; and to be altered in its Condition by that Mixture: But 'tis itself the same. Wallerius distinguithes three Degrees of Hardness in this Fossil; but they are owing to those Mixtures; the least hard is the true Condition of Spar; the other Degrees arise from Iron, or other Additions.
It is the Opinion of Linnæus, that Spar owes its angulated Form to Sea Salt; and the Crystals to other Salts: But there is no Warrant in Nature for this Judgment. ”

“ There is no business he considers beneath him, but he is ready to follow the trade of crier, cook, or gambler. He does not support his mother, is caught at theft and spends more time in jail than in his home. He is the type of man who collects a crowd of bystanders and harangues them in a loud brawling voice; while he is talking, some are going and others coming, without listening to him; to one part of the moving crowd he tells the beginning of his story, to another part a sketch of it, and to another part a mere fragment. ”

“ Both kinds have branches like those of the chaste-tree, arranged in pairs opposite one another. The wood of the 'male' tree has no heart, but is hard throughout, like horn in closeness and strength; whereas that of the 'female' tree has heart-wood and is softer and goes into holes; wherefore it is useless for javelins. The height of the 'male' tree is at most twelve cubits, the length of the longest Macedonian spear, the stem up to the point where it divides not being very tall. The people of Mount Ida in the Troad say that the 'male' tree is barren, but that the 'female' bears fruit. ”

“ When Anaxagoras says that larger animals have better powers of sense, and that sense perception varies in general with the size of the organs of sense, one of these propositions raises the question whether small animals or large animals have better powers of sense. For it would seem to be essential to keener sense perception that minute objects should not escape it. And we might reasonably suppose, too, that an animal with power to discern smaller objects could also discern the larger. ”

“ I cannot but observe, that external Appearances are of little Weight in Philosophy; and I am sorry to say, that it was only a very superficial View of these Things, that could start an Objection to Copper's colouring the Sapphire, from them: For a more careful Examination of these very Bodies, must afford Arguments for the contrary, as it will evidently prove, that the Colour of the Sapphire cannot be owing to the same Substance with that of these Glasses: Since the very Heat necessary for forming them, would, in a few Minutes, wholly divest the finest Sapphire in the World of all its Colour. ”

“ In the winter season he quarrels with his slave because cucumbers have not been provided. He forces his children to wrestle and to run until they fall into a fever. When he is roughing it in the country and himself cooks the vegetables, he puts salt in the pot twice and so makes the dish impossible. When it rains and others declare that the sky is darker than pitch, he exclaims: “How sweet it is to consider the stars!” ”

“ As for the fig, [25] no cultivated kind is raised from its seed, but either the ordinary wild fig or some wild kind is the result, and this often differs in colour from the parent; a black fig gives a white, and conversely. Again the seed of an excellent vine produces a degenerate result, which is often of quite a different kind and at times this is not a cultivated kind at all, but a wild one of such a character that it does not ripen its fruit; with others again the result is that the seedlings do not even mature fruit, but only get as far as flowering. ”

“ Pleasure and pain, he holds, arise in the following way. Whenever the air mingles in large quantities with the blood and sublimates it,—since the air is now in its normal state and pervades the entire body,—there is pleasure. ”

“ When he has sacrificed an ox, he winds the head and horns with fillets, and nails them up opposite the entrance, in order that those who come in may see what he has been doing. When he parades with the cavalry, he gives all his accoutrements to his squire to carry home, and throwing back his mantle stalks proudly about the market-place in his spurs. ”

“ Wood becomes knotty when it has been ill nourished and has suffered severely whether from winter or some such cause; for in general a knotty habit is supposed to indicate lack of nourishment. When however, after being ill nourished, the tree recovers and becomes vigorous, the result is that the knots are absorbed [2] by the growth which now covers them; for the tree, being now well fed and growing vigorously, recovers, and often the wood is smooth outside, though when split it is seen to have knots. And this is why they examine the core of wood that has been split ”

“ The tongue, he holds, is pre-eminently the judge of pleasure, for it is exceedingly soft and of open texture and all the ducts lead into it. Very many symptoms with the sick are consequently found here in the tongue. And in other animals [the tongue] reveals the colours [of their skin] , for the variety and character [of these colours] are [there] reflected. Such is the manner and occasion, then, of perception's rise. Thinking, as was said, is due to pure dry air; for moisture clogs the intellect. Thought is at a low ebb consequently in sleep and in one's cups and in repletion. ”