Meteorology
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Aristotle
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 237737
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 13
subject: water
subject: earth
subject: sun
subject: heat
subject: bodies
subject: air
subject: webster
subject: book
subject: discussed
subject: causes
subject: nature
subject: aristotle
subject: meteorology
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
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plain html: aristotle-meteorology-80.htm
sort title: Meteorology
full text: 350 BC METEOROLOGY by Aristotle translated by E. W. Webster Book I 1 WE have already discussed the first causes of nature, and all natural motion, also the stars ordered in the motion of the heavens, and the physical element-enumerating and specifying them and showing how they change into one another-and becoming and perishing in general. There remains for consideration a part of this inquiry which all our predecessors called meteorology. It is concerned with events that are natural, though their order is less perfect than that of the first of the elements of bodies. They take place in the region nearest to the motion of the stars. Such are the milky way, and comets, and the movements of meteors. It studies also all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts. These throw light on the causes of winds and earthquakes and all the consequences the motions of these kinds and parts involve. Of these things some puzzle us, while others admit of explanation in some degree. Further, the inquiry is concerned with the falling of thunderbolts and with whirlwinds and fire-winds, and further, the recurrent affections produced in these same bodies by concretion. When the inquiry into these matters is concluded let us consider what account we can give, in accordance with the method we have followed, of animals and plants, both generally and in detail. When that has been done we may say that the whole of our original undertaking will have been carried out. After this introduction let us begin by discussing our immediate subject. 2 We have already laid down that there is one physical element which makes up the system of the bodies that move in a circle, and besides this four bodies owing their existence to the four principles, the motion of these latter bodies being of two kinds: either from the centre or to the centre. These four bodies are fire, air, water, earth. Fire occupies the highest place among the…