CHAPTER IV

THEORY OF SOUL AS HARMONY

             THERE is another opinion handed down about the soul, acceptable to many, and in no way inferior to the theories already discussed, yet chastised, as it were, and condemned even in public discussions. For some call the soul a kind of harmony.§§ 132-3

             And they say that harmony is a composition or tempering of opposites, and that the body is compounded of opposites.§ 134

             Yet a harmony is either a proportion in the components [of a compound] or the composition itself; and the soul cannot be either of these.§ 135

             Further [active] movement, which all attribute to the soul, does not pertain to harmony.§ 136

             It would be more appropriate to call health a harmony, and in general the powers of the body, rather than of the soul. This is evident if one tries to explain the passions and operations of the soul by some harmony: it is difficult indeed to correlate these!§ 137

             Further, we speak of harmony with two considerations in mind. Primarily as a correctly proportioned measurement, in what has motion and position, of component parts, so that nothing is missing that is becoming to them. Secondly, the ratio of this composition. In neither way is this [predication of harmony to the soul] reasonable. The composition of the parts of the body is very easy to examine for there are many and various such compositions. Of what and how can one suppose the mind to be a composition? Or sensation? Or appetite? It is no less absurd to account the soul the ratio of a composition. The synthesis of elements for bone is not the same as that for flesh. There would have to be many souls [in one body]; and indeed [a soul] for every body, if each is a mixture of elements, and the ratio of the mixture a harmony and a soul. §§ 138-40

             One might at this point question Empedocles. He says that each of these exists in virtue of a proportion. Is this proportion then the soul; or is soul some other thing, thus inborn in the members?§ 141

             Or further: is concord the cause of any chance combination, or only of one based on some ratio?§ 142

             And whether this concord is the ratio of the composition or something else? These are the kinds of problem involved in this hypothesis.§ 143

             But if the soul is other than the composition, why does it perish together with the essence of flesh and of other parts of the body? Moreover, granted that each of these parts has a soul, if the soul is not the ratio of the whole composition, what is it that is corrupted when the soul departs?§ 144

             It is evident, then, from what has been said, that the soul cannot be a harmony, or move by revolving. It can, however, be moved and move itself, incidentally, in so far as what it dwells in moves and is moved by the soul. In no other way can it move in place.§ 145