contact and organic unity, or organic adhesion as in the case of embryos. Organic unity differs from contact; for in the latter case there need not be anything besides the contact, but in organic unities there is something identical in both parts, which makes them grow together instead of merely touching, and be one in respect of continuity and quantity, though not of quality.— (4) 'Nature' means the primary matter of which any non-natural object consists or out of which it is made, which cannot be modified or changed from its own potency, as e.g. utensils, and wood the nature of wooden things; and so in all other cases; for when a product is made out of these materials, the first matter is preserved throughout. In this way people call the elements of natural objects also their nature, some naming fire, others earth, others air, others water, others something else of the sort, and some naming more than one of these, and others all of them. — (5) 'Nature' means the essence of natural objects, as with those who say the nature is the primary mode of composition, or as Empedocles [1] says:—
Nothing that is has a nature,
But only mixing and parting of the mixed,
And nature is but a name applied to them by men.
Hence as regards the things that are or come to be by nature, though that from which they naturally come to be or are is already present, we say they have not their nature yet, unless they have their form or shape. That which comprises both of these — matter and form — exists by nature, e.g. the animals and their parts; and nature is both the first matter (and this in two senses, either first, counting from the thing, or first in general, e.g. in the case of works in bronze, bronze is first with reference to them, but in general perhaps water is first, if all things that can be melted are water), and the form or essence, which is the end of the process of becoming. And from this sense of 'nature' every essence in general is in fact, by an extension of meaning, called a 'nature', because the nature of a thing is one kind of essence.
From what has been said, then, it is plain that nature in the
- ↑ Fr. 8 Diels, Vorsokratiker.
