Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

296 Late antiquitychanged into something else. While the physiological description of theseprocesses of change in terms of qualities acting on, or competing with,each other may not be very different in either type of situation, 72 the formaldescription in terms of a power, or powers, being realised does present adifficulty. There seems to be an awareness of this difficulty on Galen’s part.On the one hand, his definition of the concept of in On Mixturesbook 3 contains the same normative and teleological elements as Aristotle’snotion of potentiality: 73 it certainly is Nature’s intention that the will actually be realised, as Galen’s use of and indicates, 74 and this seems to be the normal, natural way ofaffairs; the possibility implied in the condition ‘nothing external occurringas an impediment’ ( ), alsoderived from Aristotle’s analysis of change, 75 seems to rule out only exceptionalcases (such as monstrosities). On the other hand, when it comes tothe power to bring about change, Galen, in his discussion of the powers offoodstuffs and drugs, uses a slightly different concept of , which isdefined in the first chapter of On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugsas an , 76 an ‘active cause’, and which in its turn allows of adistinction between two stages: a stage of ‘being about to’ ( )and an actual stage (’ ). 77 Thus the power of hotness (i.e. ofcausing something else to become hot) is ‘actually’ present in fire, but ‘aboutto be’ present in a flint. Now, with this concept of , the normativeor teleological connotation is more difficult to maintain, and the condition‘nothing external occurring as an impediment’ ( 72 This would be along the lines that Aristotle draws in On Coming to Be and Passing Away and thefourth book of the Meteorologica and that Galen himself applies in On Mixtures, on which seeHarig (1974) 105ff. Galen refers to Aristotle in De temper. 3.3 (p. 98.23 Helmreich, 1.666 K.) and 3.4(p. 102.16 Helmreich, 1.672 K.)73 De temper. 3.1 (p. 86.9–15 Helmreich, 1.646–7 K.): ‘For we say that what is not yet such as it issaid to be, but has the nature to become like that, is present potentially . . . In all cases that whicheach of these things is about to become, if no external factor gets in the way, this we say is alreadypresent . . . Potentially in the strictest sense we call only those things where nature itself brings aboutthe completion (of the process), if no external factor gets in the way’ ’ .Cf.De temper. 1.9 (p. 32.17–19Helmreich, 1.560 K.); 2.2 (p. 51.21–22 Helmreich, 1.590 K.).74 De temper. 3.1 (p. 86.18–19 Helmreich, 1.647 K.): ‘What is potentially is incomplete and still about tobe and as it were suited to become (what it is to be), but it is not yet (what it is to be)’ ’ ’ 75 Arist., Phys. 199 a 11; b18, 26; 215 a 21; 255 b 7. Cf.Rh. 1392 b 20 and Pol. 1288 b 24.76 Cf. De simpl. med. fac. 1.1 (11.380 K.); cf. On the Seed (De semine) 1.1 (CMG v3, 1, p.64.5 De Lacy,4.512 K.).77 De simpl. med fac. 1.1 (11.380 K.).