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BOOK TWO
[p. 139]plated, or a garment when being woven? It is not so, however. Growth belongs to that which has already been completed in respect to its form, whereas the process by which that which is still becoming attains its form is termed not growth but genesis. That which is, grows, while that which is not, becomes.
PART 4
This also was unknown to Erasistratus, whom nothing escaped, if his followers speak in any way truly in maintaining that he was familiar with the Peripatetic philosophers. Now, in so far as he acclaims Nature as being an artist in construction, even I recognize the Peripatetic teachings, but in other respects he does not come near them. For if anyone will make himself acquainted with the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, these will appear to
him to consist of commentaries on the Nature-lore [physiology]
cf. Introduction, p. xxvi.
of Hippocrates - according to which the principles of heat, cold, dryness and moisture act upon and are acted upon by one another, the hot principle being the most active, and the cold coming next to it in power; all this was stated in the first place by Hippocrates and secondly by Aristotle.
cf. p. 15.
Further, it is at once the Hippocratic and the Aristotelian teaching that the parts which receive that nourishment throughout their whole substance, and that, similarly, processes of mingling and alteration involve the entire substance.
For definitions of alteration and mingling (crasis), "temperament") cf. Book I., chaps. ii. and iii.
