Aristotle METEOROLOGY Complete

Translated by E. Webster.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

100 pages - You are on Page 79

Things that undergo a process of concoction necessarily become thicker and hotter, for the action of heat is to make things more compact, thicker, and drier.

This then is the nature of concoction: but inconcoction is an imperfect state due to lack of proper heat, that is, to cold. That of which the imperfect state is, is the corresponding passive qualities which are the natural matter of anything.

So much for the definition of concoction and inconcoction.

Part 3

Ripening is a sort of concoction; for we call it ripening when there is a concoction of the nutriment in fruit. And since concoction is a sort of perfecting, the process of ripening is perfect when the seeds in fruit are able to reproduce the fruit in which they are found; for in all other cases as well this is what we mean by 'perfect'. This is what 'ripening' means when the word is applied to fruit. However, many other things that have undergone concoction are said to be 'ripe', the general character of the process being the same, though the word is applied by an extension of meaning. The reason for this extension is, as we explained before, that the various modes in which natural heat and cold perfect the matter they determine have not special names appropriated to them. In the case of boils and phlegm, and the like, the process of ripening is the concoction of the moisture in them by their natural heat, for only that which gets the better of matter can determine it. So everything that ripens is condensed from a spirituous into a watery state, and from a watery into an earthy state, and in general from being rare becomes dense. In this process the nature of the thing that is ripening incorporates some of the matter in itself, and some it rejects. So much for the definition of ripening.

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