§2.7.1. We must look into the so-called complete blending of bodies.1 When one whole liquid is mixed together with another whole liquid, is it possible that each passes through each other or that one passes through the other? Whichever of these is the case doesn’t matter; the question is rather whether complete blending takes place at all.
We can leave aside those thinkers who attribute this to juxtaposition,5 since they are having the bodies intermingle rather than fusing together;2 if indeed blending should make the resulting whole completely homogeneous,3 with even the smallest part being composed of the substances that are said to be blended.
Some thinkers, then, have only the qualities fusing together while juxtaposing the matter of each of the bodies, though allowing the qualities deriving from both bodies to belong to the matter of each.410 They might be giving a plausible account insofar as they reject total blending both because (i) the magnitudes of the bodies’ masses will be divided all the way down into divisions [as opposed to parts] if no interval of either body remains [undivided], on the assumption that the division is supposed to be continuous and that one body passes15 through the other completely;5 and especially because of (ii) the cases when the ‘blended’ bodies take up more space than either body going into the blending – indeed, they take up as much space as both combined. And yet, as they point out, if the whole of the one had completely penetrated the whole of the other, the space taken up by the one, which the other charged into, should have remained identical.
As for those cases in which the space taken up by the body does not increase, they point to the departure of air as the cause, in place of which20 the other body entered. Further, (iii) how is the small body supposed to be extended within the large one and pass through it completely?6 And these thinkers advance many other arguments as well.
On the other side are those thinkers who introduce complete blending. (i) They might be able to maintain that the bodies are divided without being annihilated into these divisions, even when complete25 blending occurs, since they will be able to point to sweat not making divisions in the body or thoroughly perforating it. For even if someone were to concede that nothing prevents nature from having set things up in such a way that sweat goes through the skin, they will still maintain that, in the case of artefacts whose bodies are thin and continuous, one may observe moisture completely soaking them and flowing through to30 the other side. But given that these are bodies, how can this happen? It is not easy to conceive of it going through without dividing, but if the division is thorough, they will obviously destroy each other.
(ii) And when they say that in many cases expansion will not occur, they are conceding to the other camp the opportunity to point to the departure of air as the cause. And while there are certainly difficulties related to spatial expansion, what is to stop them from saying that this35 expansion occurs of necessity because each body brings its magnitude along with its other qualities into the blend? For just as the other qualities are not destroyed, neither should the magnitude be destroyed, and just as in the qualitative case another kind of quality is mixed from40 both, so, too, will there be another magnitude, where the mixing produces the magnitude resulting from both.
But in this case, what if the first camp were to say this to them: ‘If, on the one hand, the matter of the one body is juxtaposed with the matter of the other, and if the mass is juxtaposed with the mass and magnitude accompanies mass, then you would just be giving our account! If, on the other hand, the matter is completely blended along with the magnitude which belongs primarily to the matter, then what would happen45 would not be like a line being placed next to a line by touching7 at their end-points – which would in fact be a case of expansion – but it would be like what happens when a line coincides with a line, so that no expansion would result.’8
There remains the problem of (iii) a small body passing completely through an entire large body, indeed of the smallest body passing50 completely through the largest, which should occur in cases where fusion is obviously taking place. For in the non-obvious cases, one can deny that the smaller body reaches every part of the larger body, but at least in those cases where blending has obviously taken place, this problem must be acknowledged. Should they refer to the extensions of the masses,9 if they maintain that the smallest mass is extended to such a great magnitude, they are not saying anything particularly convincing. For they grant the small mass a larger extension even without having its body undergo any transformation, such as occurs when air comes to be55 from water.10
§2.7.2. And this must be examined on its own: what happens when that which was a mass of water becomes air? How is it that the greater size in the air came to be? Although both camps make many other points, let this do for now, and let us rather examine for ourselves what one ought5 to say about the following: which opinion is in harmony with the facts,11 or does some other opinion beyond the ones we have been discussing present itself?
So, when water flows through wool,12 or, when papyrus exudes the water in it, how can it not be that the entire watery body is going through papyrus? Or even when the water is not flowing through it, how are we supposed to have the matter in contact with the matter, and10 the mass in contact with the mass, and yet only include the qualities in the blending? For the matter of the water will certainly not be outside of the papyrus and juxtaposed with it, nor again will it be in ‘gaps’ within the papyrus. For the papyrus is completely wet, and its matter is at no point devoid of this quality; and if the matter is joined with the quality everywhere, then the water is everywhere in the papyrus. Or perhaps it is15 not the water, but the quality belonging to water. But in that case where is the water?13 Why, then, doesn’t the mass remain identical? Or perhaps what was added to the papyrus extended it. For it received a magnitude from what came into it.
But if the papyrus received a magnitude, some mass has been added to it; and if mass has been added to it, it has not simply been absorbed by the other body; and then the matter of these two bodies must be in two20 different places. But why can’t we say that, just as one body gives of its own quality and another body receives it, the same thing can happen with magnitudes? Because, when one quality joins another quality, it is not simply the quality it was but is together with another quality, and in being together with the other quality it is not pure and is not entirely the quality that it was; rather, it is obscured. But when a magnitude is joined25 to another magnitude, it is not obscured.
And one might give some attention to how one body going completely through another body is said to make divisions. For our position is that qualities go through bodies without making divisions. This is because they are incorporeal. But if their matter is also incorporeal,30 why, when both matter and qualities are incorporeal, do not the qualities – if they are such as to be few in number – pass through together with the matter in the identical manner? They cannot pass through solids because they have such qualities as prevent passing through. Or else they cannot do this because there is a bundle of many qualities together with the matter.14 If, then, this multiplicity of qualities35 is what makes the so-called dense body, then this multiplicity is the cause. If, on the other hand, density is a proper quality, just as what they call ‘corporeality’ is, this proper quality is the cause.15 So, it will not be qua qualities that they form a mixture but qua such qualities; and again it will not be qua matter that matter is not included in the mixture, but qua40 being together with such a quality, and especially if the matter has no magnitude of its own, unless it has not rejected magnitude outright.16 Let, then, our discussion of these difficulties end here.
§2.7.3. But since we have brought up corporeality, we ought to investigate whether corporeality is the composite of everything or whether corporeality is a certain form and certain expressed principle that, when present in the matter, makes a body. If, then, this is what body is, namely, what is composed of all the qualities together with5 matter, then this is what corporeality would be; and if there is an expressed principle whose addition to matter makes body, then, clearly, this expressed principle possesses and contains all the qualities. But then this expressed principle – if it is not just the definition that indicates a thing’s substantiality but an expressed principle that produces a thing –10 must not include matter; rather, it must be an expressed principle that relates to matter and that completes the body when it is present in matter. And body must be matter and an inherent expressed principle, while the expressed principle itself must be seen as a bare form without matter, even if it is very much inseparable from matter. For the separable expressed principle is different, namely, the one in the Intellect. And it is in Intellect because it is itself an intellect. But this has15 been discussed elsewhere.17
1 See SVF 1.102 (= Stob., Ecl. 1.152.19), 2.471 (= Stob., Ecl. 1.153.24).
2 See Anaxagoras, 59 A 54 DK and Democritus, 68 A 64 DK (= Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 214.19–20).
3 See Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 214.19–20, 231.26–27.
4 Plotinus is thinking of the Peripatetics. See Ar., GC 1.10.327a10–12; SVF 2.411 (= Galen, De meth. med. 1.2. Vol. 10.15–16 Kühn).
5 Cf. 4.7.82.7–18. See Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 221.34–222.3.
6 See SVF 2.479 (= D.L., 7.151).
7 Adding κέοιτο <τῷ> κατὰ with Theiler followed by HS4.
8 Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 219.9–22.
9 Cf. infra l. 21.
10 See Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 220.13–23.
11 Reading γενομένοις with Beutler-Theiler at ll. 5–6.
12 See Pl., Symp. 175D6.
13 Reading ὄντος with Armstrong and Ficino in l. 16.
14 Eliminating the question mark of HS2.
15 See Sext. Emp., M. 9.371–372.
16 Cf. 2.4.9.1–15.
17 Cf. 5.3.3.41–42.