80 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystus
Diocles does not deny that in all cases where a certain power B is present,
quality A is present as well (his argument allows the possibility that, for
instance, all things that are laxative are sweet as well). But he points out that
not all foodstuffs with quality A have power B, and the consequence of this
is that even in those cases in which power B and quality A are both present,
we cannot say that quality A is the cause of power B. Such an explanation
is not ‘sufficient’ (not/!, to use a word which Diocles mentions later
on in the fragment in section 9 ), because it does not account for situations
in which quality A is present but not power B. Nor does Diocles deny that
qualities may play a part in the production of a certain effect; but he insists
that they do not necessarily produce the effect in question, and that, if
they incidentally do so, they need not be the only factors involved in this
production. He thereby shows that claim one, apart from being sometimes
counterfactual, is also misleadingly formulated – or to put it in Aristotelian
terms: it is notquabeing sweet that a foodstuff is laxative, and the statement
‘sweet foodstuffs are laxative’ is not true universally.
Instead, in section 7 Diocles alleges that ‘what normally results from
each of them’ (i.e. the substances we are talking about) is caused by ‘the
whole nature’. The very fact that Diocles gives an explanation of this kind
already indicates that any attempt to associate him with Empiricism or
Scepticism is not very likely to be correct.^14 But what do these words ‘the
whole nature’ (% # -
) refer to? Most likely, I believe, is that
the nature of the substance is meant, the sum or total configuration of
elements, constituents or qualities the foodstuff consists of and the way
they are structured or interrelated – for instance, the proportion between
qualities such as warm and cold, dry and wet by which it is characterised.^15
(^14) As will become clear below, this ‘nature’ is not something which can be perceived empirically: it is
probably made up both from imperceptible entities such as humours, primary qualities, etc., and
from perceptible qualities such as flavours, tastes, etc. Cf. the disjunction in Galen,On the Natural
Faculties(De naturalibus facultatibus) 2. 8 (p. 191 , 10 – 11 Helmreich): ‘Some have discovered the power
of the substance by indication from the very nature of it, while others have done so on the basis
of experience only’K/ . - ) ($ % -
D # H! 0 / 5
!#L.
(^15) See Torraca ( 1965 ) 108 : ‘la composizione generale della sostanza... non essendo possibile schematiz-
zare e ridurre la causa ad una sola proprieta’, and Kullmann (` 1974 ) 351 , followed by W ̈ohrle ( 1990 )
174. This interpretation is in accordance with Galen’s use of the concept of ‘the whole nature’ (^ #
8 -
) or ‘the whole essence’ (^ # 8 () to denote the cause of the power a foodstuff or drug
has, for instance inOn the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs(De simplicium medicamentorum
temperamentis ac facultatibus, De simpl. med. fac.) 5. 1 ( 11. 705 K.);On the Composition of Drugs ac-
cording to Kinds(De compositione medicamentorum secundum genera, De comp. med. sec. gen.) 1. 16
( 13. 435 – 6 K.);On Mixtures(De temperamentis, De temper.) 3. 2 ( 1. 655 K.). For other references see
Harig ( 1974 ) 108 – 10 ;R ̈ohr ( 1923 ) 118 – 20. Smith’s translation is ambiguous on this point: ‘Rather,
one must consider that the whole nature (physis) is responsible (aitios) [for what usually occurs for
each].’