Galen on qualified experience 295
potential or virtual states present in the substance whose actualisation is
dependent on the circumstances, for example the nature of the particular
triggering factors?^66
It is not completely clear, at least not to me, which of these options
Galen preferred. In book 3 ofOn Mixtures, he repeatedly mentions the
condition that ‘no external agent should interfere with or impede’ ( # 3
D) !) ( ) the process of a-
(‘power’
or ‘potentiality’) developing into an
(‘actuality’);^67 and inOn
the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugshe stresses the connotations of
stability and regularity which he apparently considers to be inherent in the
notion of-
(3
3 4
).^68 But there is also some
evidence, albeit of a rather indirect nature, in favour of the second option.^69
A third possibility would be to include the
in the definition of
the-
, for example by saying that the power of honey-wine is ‘being
laxative under such and such conditions’.^70
At the core of this problem lies a certain ambiguity in the word-
which also occurs in earlier Greek medical thinking^71 and which, if I am
permitted to venture a rather speculative statement, might be seen as a not
completely successful attempt at applying the Aristotelian distinction be-
tween-
and
to the area of dietetics and pharmacology. For
it makes a great difference whether this distinction is applied to a situation
in which something has the powerto becomesomething else (to change in
a passive sense, i.e. to undergo change or be changed) or to a situation in
which something has the powerto cause something to undergo change or be
(^66) Cf.De temper. 3. 1 (p. 89. 1 – 14 Helmreich, 1. 651 K.);De simpl. med. fac. 3. 20 ( 11. 602 f.K.).
(^67) De temper. 3. 1 (p. 86. 14 – 15 Helmreich, 1. 647 K.); 3. 1 (p. 87. 5 – 6 Helmreich, 1. 647 K.).
(^68) De simpl. med. fac. 1. 2 – 3 ( 11. 384 K.).
(^69) SeeDe simpl. med. fac. 1. 3 ( 11. 384 K.): ‘And perhaps on some occasion you will say that water not
only has the power of cooling, but also of heating. For on some occasions it is evidently cooling in all
circumstances, whenever we come into contact with it, but on many other occasions it has effected
a heating reaction. One should therefore not leave these things without qualification for any drug
that is being examined, as I have said in On Mixtures’K A) 3 :3 2)
( :3 ! % -
0 " 1 !> . :$
0
1 !0
’J 8 #
=#C0 :!0 .
#
!# N !>
& % $
"
!
) 4 )0 P "C
) L. A clearer example isDe simpl. med. fac. 7. 10 ( 12. 36 K.): ‘Coriander
consists of opposite powers: it has much bitterness, which was shown to reside in its fine and earthy
texture, but it also has the power to produce quite a bit of watery, fatty moisture, and it also has
something astringent’K
[3 ]D ) ) R .
+ (0 Z
% H
0 ( S . H
H!#
+ 1 -
0
-: ) S #L. See alsoDe alim. facult. 1. 1. 11
(CMGv4, 2 ,p. 205. 16 – 23 Helmreich, 6. 460 K.).
(^70) See the passage fromDe alim. facult. 1. 1 quoted in n. 65 above
(^71) It can also be detected in the Hippocratic Corpus and in Diocles; see ch. 2 in this volume, pp. 79 ff.