Theophrastus

Frankincense trees in Dhufar

The most important of his books are two large botanical treatises, Enquiry into Plants (Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, generally known as Historia Plantarum), and On the Causes of Plants (Greek: Περὶ αἰτιῶν φυτικῶν, Latin: De causis plantarum), which constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and the Middle Ages,[12] the first systemization of the botanical world; on the strength of these works some, following Linnaeus, call him the "father of botany".[10]

The Enquiry into Plants was originally ten books, of which nine survive. The work is arranged into a system whereby plants are classified according to their modes of generation, their localities, their sizes, and according to their practical uses such as foods, juices, herbs, etc.[45] The first book deals with the parts of plants; the second book with the reproduction of plants and the times and manner of sowing; the third, fourth, and fifth books are devoted to trees, their types, their locations, and their practical applications; the sixth book deals with shrubs and spiny plants; the seventh book deals with herbs; the eighth book deals with plants that produce edible seeds; and the ninth book deals with plants that produce useful juices, gums, resins, etc.[45]

Cinnamomum verum, from Köhler's Medicinal Plants, (1887)

On the Causes of Plants was originally eight books, of which six survive. It concerns the growth of plants; the influences on their fecundity; the proper times they should be sown and reaped; the methods of preparing the soil, manuring it, and the use of tools; and of the smells, tastes, and properties of many types of plants.[45] The work deals mainly with the economical uses of plants rather than their medicinal uses, although the latter is sometimes mentioned.[45] A book on wines and a book on plant smells may have once been part of the complete work.[46]

Although these works contain many absurd and fabulous statements, they include valuable observations concerning the functions and properties of plants.[45] Theophrastus detected the process of germination and realized the importance of climate and soil to plants. Much of the information on the Greek plants may have come from his own observations, as he is known to have travelled throughout Greece, and to have had a botanical garden of his own; but the works also profit from the reports on plants of Asia brought back from those who followed Alexander the Great:

to the reports of Alexander's followers he owed his accounts of such plants as the cotton-plant, banyan, pepper, cinnamon, myrrh, and frankincense.[6]

Theophrastus's Enquiry into Plants was first published in a Latin translation by Theodore Gaza, at Treviso, 1483;[lower-alpha 5] in its original Greek it first appeared from the press of Aldus Manutius at Venice, 1495–98, from a third-rate manuscript, which, like the majority of the manuscripts that were sent to printers' workshops in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, has disappeared.[lower-alpha 6] Christian Wimmer identified two manuscripts of first quality, the Codex Urbinas in the Vatican Library, which was not made known to J. G. Schneider, who made the first modern critical edition, 1818–21, and the excerpts in the Codex Parisiensis in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

His book Characters (Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) contains thirty brief outlines of moral types. They are the first recorded attempt at systematic character writing. The book has been regarded by some as an independent work; others incline to the view that the sketches were written from time to time by Theophrastus, and collected and edited after his death; others, again, regard the Characters as part of a larger systematic work, but the style of the book is against this. Theophrastus has found many imitators in this kind of writing, notably Joseph Hall (1608), Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16), Bishop Earle (1628), and Jean de La Bruyère (1688), who also translated the Characters.[12] George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus's Characters, most notably in her book of caricatures, Impressions of Theophrastus Such. Writing the "character sketch" as a scholastic exercise also originated in Theophrastus's typology.

A treatise On Sense Perception (Περὶ αἰσθήσεων) and its objects is important for a knowledge of the doctrines of the more ancient Greek philosophers regarding the subject. A paraphrase and commentary on this work was written by Priscian of Lydia in the sixth century.[45] With this type of work we may connect the fragments on Smells, on Fatigue, on Dizziness, on Sweat, on Swooning, on Palsy, and on Honey.[44]

Fragments of a History of Physics (Περὶ φυσικῶν ἱστοριῶν) are extant. To this class of work belong the still extant sections on Fire, on the Winds, and on the signs of Waters, Winds, and Storms.[48]

Various smaller scientific fragments have been collected in the editions of Johann Gottlob Schneider (1818–21) and Friedrich Wimmer (1842–62) and in Hermann Usener's Analecta Theophrastea.[12]

The Metaphysics (anachronistic Greek title: Θεοφράστου τῶν μετὰ τὰ φυσικά),[49] in nine chapters (also known as On First Principles), was considered a fragment of a larger work by Usener in his edition (Theophrastos, Metaphysica, Bonn, 1890), but according to Ross and Fobes in their edition (Theophrastus, Metaphysica, Oxford, 1929), the treatise is complete (p. X) and this opinion is now widely accepted. There is no reason for assigning this work to some other author because it is not noticed in Hermippus and Andronicus, especially as Nicolaus of Damascus had already mentioned it.[44]

Cut emeralds

In his treatise On Stones (Περὶ λίθων), which would become a source for other lapidaries until at least the Renaissance,[50] Theophrastus classified rocks and gems based on their behavior when heated, further grouping minerals by common properties, such as amber and magnetite, which both have the power of attraction.[51][52][53]

Theophrastus describes different marbles; mentions coal, which he says is used for heating by metal-workers; describes the various metal ores; and knew that pumice stones had a volcanic origin. He also deals with precious stones, emeralds, amethysts, onyx, jasper, etc., and describes a variety of "sapphire" that was blue with veins of gold, and thus was presumably lapis lazuli.[51]

He knew that pearls came from shellfish, that coral came from India, and speaks of the fossilized remains of organic life.[51] Theophrastus made the first known reference to the phenomenon, now known to be caused by pyroelectricity, that the mineral lyngurium (probably tourmaline) attracts straws and bits of wood when heated.[54] He also considers the practical uses of various stones, such as the minerals necessary for the manufacture of glass; for the production of various pigments of paint such as ochre; and for the manufacture of plaster.[51]

Many of the rarer minerals were found in mines, and Theophrastus mentions the famous copper mines of Cyprus and the even more famous silver mines, presumably of Laurium near Athens – the basis of the wealth of the city – as well as referring to gold mines. The Laurium silver mines, which were the property of the state, were usually leased for a fixed sum and a percentage on the working. Towards the end of the fifth century BCE the output fell, partly owing to the Spartan occupation of Decelea from c.  413 BCE. But the mines continued to be worked, though Strabo (c.  64 BCE to c.  24 CE) records that in his time the tailings were being worked over, and Pausanias (c.  110 to c.  180) speaks of the mines as a thing of the past. The ancient workings, consisting of shafts and galleries for excavating the ore, and washing tables for extracting the metal, may still be seen. Theophrastus wrote a separate work On Mining,[24] which – like most of his writings – is a lost work.

Pliny the Elder makes clear references to his use of On Stones in his Naturalis Historia of 77 AD, while updating and making much new information available on minerals himself. Although Pliny's treatment of the subject is more extensive, Theophrastus is more systematic and his work is comparatively free from fable and magic,[55] although he did describe lyngurium, a gemstone supposedly formed of the solidified urine of the lynx (the best ones coming from wild males), which featured in many lapidaries until it gradually disappeared from view in the 17th century.[56]

Theophrastus seems to have carried out still further the grammatical foundation of logic and rhetoric, since in his book on the elements of speech, he distinguished the main parts of speech from the subordinate parts, and also direct expressions (κυρία λέξις kuria lexis) from metaphorical expressions, and dealt with the emotions (πάθη pathe) of speech.[58] He further distinguished a twofold reference of speech (σχίσις schisis) to things (πράγματα pragmata) and to the hearers, and referred poetry and rhetoric to the latter.[59]

He wrote at length on the unity of judgment,[60] on the different kinds of negation,[61] and on the difference between unconditional and conditional necessity.[62] In his doctrine of syllogisms he brought forward the proof for the conversion of universal affirmative judgments, differed from Aristotle here and there in the laying down and arranging the modi of the syllogisms,[63] partly in the proof of them,[64] partly in the doctrine of mixture, i.e. of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion.[65] Then, in two separate works, he dealt with the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form and on the resolution of them;[66] and further, with hypothetical conclusions.[67] For the doctrine of proof, Galen quotes the second Analytic of Theophrastus, in conjunction with that of Aristotle, as the best treatises on that doctrine.[68] In different monographs he seems to have tried to expand it into a general theory of science. To this, too, may have belonged the proposition quoted from his Topics, that the principles of opposites are themselves opposed, and cannot be deduced from one and the same higher genus.[69] For the rest, some minor deviations from the Aristotelian definitions are quoted from the Topica of Theophrastus.[70] Closely connected with this treatise was that upon ambiguous words or ideas,[71] which, without doubt, corresponded to book Ε of Aristotle's Metaphysics.[44]

Theophrastus introduced his Physics with the proof that all natural existence, being corporeal and composite, requires principles,[72] and first and foremost, motion, as the basis of all change.[73] Denying the substance of space, he seems to have regarded it, in opposition to Aristotle, as the mere arrangement and position (taxis and thesis) of bodies.[74] Time he called an accident of motion, without, it seems, viewing it, with Aristotle, as the numerical determinant of motion.[75] He attacked the doctrine of the four classical elements and challenged whether fire could be called a primary element when it appears to be compound, requiring, as it does, another material for its own nutriment.[76]

Aristotle

He departed more widely from Aristotle in his doctrine of motion, since on the one hand he extended it over all categories, and did not limit it to those laid down by Aristotle.[77] He viewed motion, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own goal in itself (ateles), of that which only potentially exists,[78] but he opposed Aristotle's view that motion required a special explanation, and he regarded it as something proper both to nature in general and the celestial system in particular:

Surely, then, if the life in animals does not need explanation or is to be explained only in this way, may it not be the case that in the heavens too, and in the heavenly bodies, movement does not need explanation or is to be explained in a special way?

— Theophrastus, Metaphysics, 10a.16-29.[79]

He recognised no activity without motion,[80] and so referred all activities of the soul to motion: the desires and emotions to corporeal motion, judgment (kriseis) and contemplation to spiritual motion.[81] The idea of a spirit entirely independent of organic activity, must therefore have appeared to him very doubtful; yet he appears to have contented himself with developing his doubts and difficulties on the point, without positively rejecting it.[82] Other Peripatetics, like Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and especially Strato, developed further this naturalism in Aristotelian doctrine.

Theophrastus seems, generally speaking, where the investigation overstepped the limits of experience, to have preferred to develop the difficulties rather than solve them, as is especially apparent in his Metaphysics.[44] He was doubtful of Aristotle's teleology and recommended that such ideas be used with caution:

With regard to the view that all things are for the sake of an end and nothing is in vain, the assignation of ends is in general not easy, as it is usually stated to be ... we must set certain limits to purposiveness and to the effort after the best, and not assert it to exist in all cases without qualification.

— Theophrastus, Metaphysics, 10a.22–24, 11a.1–3.[83]

He did not follow the incessant attempts by Aristotle to refer phenomena to their ultimate foundations, or his attempts to unfold the internal connections between the latter, and between them and phenomena.[44] In antiquity, it was a subject of complaint that Theophrastus had not expressed himself with precision and consistency respecting God, and had understood it at one time as Heaven, at another an (enlivening) breath (pneuma).[84]

The bust inscribed "Θεόφραστος Μελάντα Ἐρέσιος (Theophrastos Melanta Eresios)"

Theophrastus did not allow a happiness resting merely upon virtue,[85] or, consequently, to hold fast by the unconditional value of morality. He subordinated moral requirements to the advantage at least of a friend,[86] and had allowed in prosperity the existence of an influence injurious to them. In later times, fault was found with his expression in the Callisthenes, "life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom" (vitam regit fortuna non sapientia).[87] That in the definition of pleasure, likewise, he did not coincide with Aristotle, seems to be indicated by the titles of two of his writings, one of which dealt with pleasure generally, the other with pleasure as Aristotle had defined it.[24] Although, like his teacher, he preferred contemplative (theoretical), to active (practical) life,[88] he preferred to set the latter free from the restraints of family life, etc. in a manner of which Aristotle would not have approved.[89]

Theophrastus was opposed to eating meat on the grounds that it robbed animals of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do.[90]