The 5 Elements

Creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind.

Mind is the ruling power. It persuaded necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection. This created the universe when the influence of reason got the better of necessity.

But if a person will truly tell of the way in which the work was accomplished, he must include the other influence of the variable cause as well. Wherefore, we must return again and find another suitable beginning, as about the former matters, so also about these.

We must consider:

• the nature of fire, water, air, earth, such as they were prior to the creation of the heaven
• what was happening to them in this previous state

No one has as yet explained the manner of their generation.

But we speak of fire and the rest of them, whatever they mean, as though men knew their natures, and we maintain them to be the first principles.

This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a third must be revealed.

There are 3 classes:

1. The Same: This had an intelligible pattern which was always the same.
2. This was only the imitation of the pattern, generated and visible.

4. This is the receptacle, the nurse of all generation.

The Same

Water, by condensation, becomes stone and earth. When melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air.

Air when inflamed, becomes fire.

Fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air

Air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist

From these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more.

Thus:

• generation is transmitted from one to the other in a circle*
• the several elements never present themselves in the same form.

*Superphysics note: In Hinduism, this is called Brahmacakra

That in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is alone to be called by the name ‘this’ or ‘that’.

But that which is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits of opposite qualities, and all things that are compounded of them, should not be called as this or that.

A person who transforms gold into various shapes will say that all those shapes are gold. They are not shapes.

The same argument applies to the universal nature which receives all bodies. It is always called the Same. It:

• receives all things, yet it never departs from her own nature
• assumes a shape like that of any of the things which enter into her

The Same is the natural recipient of all impressions. It is stirred and informed by them, and appears different from time to time because of them.

But the shapes which enter into and go out of her are the Likenesses of real existences.

For now, we conceive of 3 natures:

1. The nature in process of generation

2. The nature where the generation takes place

3. The nature of the thing generated as a resemblance

The receiving principle is like a mother. The source or spring is like a father. The intermediate nature is a child.

If this model is to take every variety of form, then the ouput matter will not be duly prepared unless it is formless and free from the impress of any of those shapes which it is hereafter to receive from outside.

If the matter were like any of the supervening forms, then whenever any opposite or entirely different nature was stamped upon its surface, it would take the impression badly, because it would intrude its own shape.

But that which is to receive all forms should have no form. For example, in making perfumes they first contrive that the liquid substance which is to receive the scent shall be as inodorous as possible; or as those who wish to impress figures on soft substances do not allow any previous impression to remain, but begin by making the surface as even and smooth as possible.

In the same way that which is to receive perpetually and through its whole extent the resemblances of all eternal beings should be devoid of any particular form.

Wherefore, the mother and receptacle of all created and visible and in any way sensible things, is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire, or water, or any of their compounds or any of the elements from which these are derived, but is an invisible and formless being which receives all things and in some mysterious way partakes of the intelligible, and is most incomprehensible.

Fire is that part of her nature which from time to time is inflamed.

Water that which is moistened, and that the mother substance becomes earth and air, in so far as she receives the impressions of them.

Is there any self-existent fire?

Do all those things which we call self-existent exist?

Or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name?

If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind.

If, however, as some say, true opinion does not differ from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as real and certain.

But we must affirm them to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature.

• The one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion.
• The one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason.
• The one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can
• Every man shares in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men.

Being (Nirguna), Space (Saguna), and Generation (Taraka?)

There is one kind of being which is:

• always the same, uncreated and indestructible
• never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only.

There is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense.

There is a third nature called space which is eternal. It cannot be destroyed. It provides a home for all created things. It is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real. This is like a dream. say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence.

Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense. We are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them.

The reality of an image belongs to its model and not to itself. It exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other. It must be inferred to be in another (i.e. in space), grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all.

But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things (i.e. the image and space) are different, they cannot exist one of them in the other and be one and two at the same time.

Big Bootup

Being, space, and generation existed in their 3 ways before the heaven. The nurse of generation was moistened by water and inflamed by fire. She received the forms of earth and air. She experienced all the affections which accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances.

She was full of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced and was never in a state of equipoise. Instead, she swayed unevenly here and there from being shaken by them. This motion again shook them. The elements thus moved were separated and carried continually. This is similar to grain shaken and winnowed by fans in the threshing of corn.

• The close and heavy particles are borne away and settle in one direction.
• The loose and light particles in another.

In this way, the 4 elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel which moved like a winnowing machine. The most dissimilar elements were scattered far away. The most similar elements were forced into close contact. This put the various elements in different places before they were arranged to form the universe.

At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of God.

In the first place, fire and earth and water and air are bodies.

Every body has solidity. Every solid must be contained in planes. Every plane rectilinear figure is composed of triangles. All triangles are originally of two kinds: both of which are made up of one right and two acute angles; one of them has at either end of the base the half of a divided right angle, having equal sides, while in the other the right angle is divided into unequal parts, having unequal sides.

These are the original elements of fire and the other bodies.

The isosceles triangle has one form only. The scalene or unequal-sided has an infinite number.

Of the infinite forms we must select the most beautiful, if we are to proceed in due order, and any one who can point out a more beautiful form than ours for the construction of these bodies, shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend.

The equilateral triangle is the most beautiful of all the many triangles.

Then let us choose two triangles, out of which fire and the other elements have been constructed, one isosceles, the other having the square of the longer side equal to three times the square of the lesser side.

It is wrong to imagine that all the four elements might be generated by and into one another. for there are generated from the triangles which we have selected four kinds—three from the one which has the sides unequal; the fourth alone is framed out of the isosceles triangle. Hence they cannot all be resolved into one another, a great number of small bodies being combined into a few large ones, or the converse.

But 3 of them can be thus resolved and compounded, for they all spring from one, and when the greater bodies are broken up, many small bodies will spring up out of them and take their own proper figures; or, again, when many small bodies are dissolved into their triangles, if they become one, they will form one large mass of another kind.

The first will be the simplest and smallest construction, and its element is that triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side.

When two such triangles are joined at the diagonal, and this is repeated 3 times, and the triangles rest their diagonals and shorter sides on the same point as a centre, a single equilateral triangle is formed out of 6 triangles; and 4 equilateral triangles, if put together, make out of every 3 plane angles one solid angle, being that which is nearest to the most obtuse of plane angles;

Out of the combination of these 4 angles arises the first solid form which distributes into equal and similar parts the whole circle in which it is inscribed.

The 2nd species of solid is formed out of the same triangles, which unite as 8 equilateral triangles and form one solid angle out of four plane angles, and out of six such angles the second body is completed.

The 3rd body is made up of 120 triangular elements, forming 12 solid angles. Each of them included in five plane equilateral triangles, having 20 bases in all. Each of which is an equilateral triangle.

The one element (that is, the triangle which has its hypotenuse twice the lesser side) having generated these figures, generated no more; but the isosceles triangle produced the 4th elementary figure, which is compounded of four such triangles, joining their right angles in a centre, and forming one equilateral quadrangle.

Six of these united form eight solid angles, each of which is made by the combination of three plane right angles; the figure of the body thus composed is a cube, having six plane quadrangular equilateral bases. There was yet a 5th combination which God used in the delineation of the universe.

He, however, who raises the question whether they are to be truly regarded as one or five, takes up a more reasonable position.

The earth element has a cubical form because the earth is the most immoveable of the four and the most plastic of all bodies.

The plane equilateral quadrangle has a more stable basis than the equilateral triangle, both in the whole and in the parts.

Rank	Movable	Smallness	Acuteness
1	Fire	Fire	Fire
2	Air	Air	Air
3	Water	Water	Water

According to strict reason and probability, the pyramid is the solid which is the original element and seed of fire. The next in the order of generation is air. The third is water.

We must imagine all these to be so small that no single particle of any of the 4 kinds is seen by us on account of their smallness.

but when many of them are collected together their aggregates are seen. And the ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and harmonized in due proportion.

Earth meets fire and is dissolved by its sharpness, whether the dissolution take place in the fire itself or perhaps in some mass of air or water, is borne hither and thither, until its parts, meeting together and mutually harmonising, again become earth; for they can never take any other form.

But water, when divided by fire or by air, on re-forming, may become one part fire and two parts air. 1 volume of air divided becomes 2 volumnes of fire.

When a small body of fire is contained in a larger body of air or water or earth, and both are moving, and the fire struggling is overcome and broken up, then two volumes of fire form one volume of air.

When air is overcome and cut up into small pieces, two and a half parts of air are condensed into one part of water.

When one of the other elements is fastened upon by fire, and is cut by the sharpness of its angles and sides, it coalesces with the fire, and then ceases to be cut by them any longer. For no element which is one and the same with itself can be changed by or change another of the same kind and in the same state.

But so long as in the process of transition the weaker is fighting against the stronger, the dissolution continues.

When a few small particles, enclosed in many larger ones, are in process of decomposition and extinction, they only cease from their tendency to extinction when they consent to pass into the conquering nature, and fire becomes air and air water.

But if bodies of another kind go and attack them (i.e. the small particles), the latter continue to be dissolved until, being completely forced back and dispersed, they make their escape to their own kindred, or else, being overcome and assimilated to the conquering power, they remain where they are and dwell with their victors, and from being many become one.

Owing to these affections, all things are changing their place, for by the motion of the receiving vessel the bulk of each class is distributed into its proper place.

But those things which become unlike themselves and like other things, are hurried by the shaking into the place of the things to which they grow like.

All unmixed and primary bodies are produced by such causes as these. As to the subordinate species which are included in the greater kinds, they are to be attributed to the varieties in the structure of the two original triangles.

For either structure did not originally produce the triangle of one size only, but some larger and some smaller, and there are as many sizes as there are species of the four elements. Hence when they are mingled with themselves and with one another there is an endless variety of them, which those who would arrive at the probable truth of nature ought duly to consider.