Everything about Theophrastus totally explained
Theophrastus (
Greek:
Θεόφραστος;
371 – c.
287 BC), a native of
Eressos in
Lesbos, was the successor of
Aristotle in the
Peripatetic school. His interests were wide-ranging, extending from
biology and
physics to
ethics and
metaphysics. His two surviving
botanical works,
Enquiry into Plants and
On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on
medieval science. There are also surviving works
On Moral Characters,
On Sensation,
On Stones, and fragments on
Physics and
Metaphysics. In philosophy, he studied
grammar and
language, and continued Aristotle's work on
logic. He also regarded
space as the mere arrangement and position of bodies,
time as an accident of motion, and
motion as a necessary consequence of all activity. In
ethics, he regarded
happiness as depending on external influences as well as on
virtue, and famously said that "life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom." He succeeded
Aristotle at the
Lyceum.
Life
All the biographical information we've of him was provided by
Diogenes Laërtius'
Lives of the Philosophers, written four hundred years after Theophrastus' time, though "there is no intrinsic improbability in most of what Diogenes records." His given name was
Tyrtamus, but he later became known by the nickname "Theophrastus", given to him, it's said, by Aristotle to indicate the grace of his conversation (ancient Greek: Θεός = God and φραστος = to phrase i.e divine expression).
According to some sources, Theophrastus' father was named Messapus, and was married to a woman named Argiope and was the father of Cercyon -- but, this isn't certain.
After receiving his first introduction to
philosophy in Lesbos from one Leucippus or Alcippus, he proceeded to
Athens, and became a member of the Platonist circle. After
Plato's death he attached himself to
Aristotle, and in all probability accompanied him to
Stagira. The intimate friendship of Theophrastus with
Callisthenes, the fellow-pupil of
Alexander the Great, the mention made in his will of an estate belonging to him at Stagira, and the repeated notices of the town and its museum in the nine books of his
Enquiry into plants and his six books of
Causes of Plants point to this conclusion.
Aristotle in his will made him guardian of his children, of whom
Nicomachus also became his
eromenos. Aristotle likewise bequeathed to him his library and the originals of his works, and designated him as his successor at the
Lyceum on his own removal to
Chalcis.
Eudemus of Rhodes also had some claims to this position, and
Aristoxenus is said to have resented Aristotle's choice.
Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-five years, and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes. He is said to have remarked "we die just when we're beginning to live".
Under his guidance the school flourished greatly— there were at one period more than 2000 students, Diogenes affirms, and at his death, according to the terms of his will preserved by Diogenes, he bequeathed to it his garden with house and colonnades as a permanent seat of instruction. The comic poet
Menander was among his pupils. He was honoured with a public funeral, and "the whole population of Athens, honouring him greatly, followed him to the grave." He was succeeded as head of the
Lyceum by
Strato of Lampsacus.
Writings
From the lists of
Diogenes Laërtius, giving 227 titles, it appears that the activity of Theophrastus extended over the whole field of contemporary knowledge. His writing probably differed little from Aristotle's treatment of the same themes, though supplementary in details. Like Aristotle, most of his writings are
lost works.
Thus Theophrastus, like Aristotle, had composed a first and second
Analytic. He had also written books on
Topics; on the
refutation of fallacies; as well as books on the
Principles of Natural Philosophy (
Physica Auscultatio), on
Heaven, and on
Meteorological Phenomena. The work of Theophrastus
On Affirmation and Denial seems to have corresponded to that of Aristotle's
On Judgment.
In addition, he wrote on the
Warm and the Cold,
the Sea, Likewise we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers
Anaximenes,
Anaxagoras,
Empedocles,
Archelaus,
Diogenes of Apollonia,
Democritus, which were made use of by
Simplicius; and also on
Xenocrates, against the
Academics, and a sketch of the political doctrine of
Plato. on
Royalty, on the
Best State, on
Political Morals, and particularly his works on the
Laws, one of which, containing a recapitulation of the laws of various
barbarian as well as
Greek states, He also wrote on
oratory and
poetry. Theophrastus, without doubt, departed further from Aristotle in his
ethical writings, as also in his
metaphysical investigations respecting
motion, the
soul, and
God.
Besides these writings, Theophrastus was the author of several collections of problems, out of which some things at least have passed into the
Problems which have come down to us under the name of Aristotle, and commentaries, partly
dialogues, to which probably belonged the
Erotikos,
Megacles, and
Megarikos, partly books on
mathematical sciences and their history.
Many of his works which we do have, exist only in fragmentary form. "The style of these works, as of the botanical books, suggests that, as in the case of Aristotle, what we possess consists of notes for lectures or notes taken of lectures," his translator Arthur Hort remarks. "There is no literary charm; the sentences are mostly compressed and highly elliptical, to the point sometimes of obscurity." The text of these fragments and extracts is often so corrupt that the well-known story of the fate of the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus (see
Apellicon) might very well be true.
On Plants
The most important of his books are two large botanical treatises,
Enquiry into Plants, and
On the Causes of Plants, which constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and the Middle Ages, the first systemization of the botanical world; on the strength of these works some call him the "father of
Taxonomy".
The
Enquiry into Plants was originally ten books, of which nine survive. The work is arranged into a system whereby plants are classified according to their modes of generation, their localities, their sizes, and according to their practical uses such as
foods,
juices,
herbs, etc. The first book deals with the parts of plants; the second book with the reproduction of plants and the times and manner of sowing; the third, fourth and fifth books are devoted to
trees, their types, their locations, and their practical applications; the sixth book deals with
shrubs and spiny plants; the seventh book deals with herbs; the eighth book deals with plants which produce edible seeds; and the ninth book deals with plants which produce useful juices,
gums,
resins, etc.
On the Causes of Plants was originally eight books, of which six survive. It concerns the growth of plants; the influences on their fecundity; the proper times they should be sown and reaped; the methods of preparing the
soil,
manuring it, and the use of
tools; of the
smells,
tastes, and properties of many types of plants. The work deals mainly with the
economical uses of plants rather than their
medicinal uses, although the latter is sometimes mentioned.
Although these works contain many absurd and fabulous statements, as a whole they've many valuable observations concerning the functions and properties of plants. Theophrastus detected the process of
germination and realized the importance of
climate and
soil to plants. Much of the information on the Greek plants may have come from his own observations, as he's known to have travelled throughout Greece, and to have had a botanical garden of his own; but the works also profit from the reports on plants of Asia brought back from those who followed
Alexander the Great:
"to the reports of Alexander's followers he owed his accounts of such plants as the
cotton-plant,
banyan,
pepper,
cinnamon,
myrrh and
frankincense." (Hort).
Theophrastus'
Enquiry into Plants was first published in a Latin translation by
Theodore Gaza, at Treviso, 1483; in its original Greek it first appeared from the press of
Aldus Manutius at Venice, 1495-98, from a third-rate manuscript, which, like the majority of the manuscripts that were sent to printers' workshops in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, has disappeared. Wimmer identified two manuscripts of first quality, the
Codex Urbinas in the
Vatican Library, which wasn't made known to J.G. Schneider, who made the first modern critical edition, 1818-21, and the excerpts in the
Codex Parisiensis in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The Characters
His book
The Characters, if it's indeed his, deserves a separate mention. The work contains thirty brief, vigorous and trenchant outlines of moral types, which form a most valuable picture of the life of his time, and in fact of human nature in general. They are the first recorded attempt at systematic
character writing. The book has been regarded by some as an independent work; others incline to the view that the sketches were written from time to time by Theophrastus, and collected and edited after his death; others, again, regard the
Characters as part of a larger systematic work, but the style of the book is against this. Theophrastus has found many imitators in this kind of writing, notably
Hall (1608),
Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16),
Bishop Earle (1628) and
Jean de La Bruyère (1688), who also translated the
Characters.
George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus' Characters, most notably in her book of caricatures,
Impressions of Theophrastus Such. Writing the "
character sketch" as a scholastic exercise also originated in Theophrastus's typology.
On Sensation
A treatise on sensuous perception and its objects is important for a knowledge of the doctrines of the more ancient Greek philosophers regarding the subject. With this type of work we may connect the fragments on
Smells, on
Fatigue, on
Dizziness, on
Sweat, on
Swooning, on
Palsy, and on
Honey.
Physics
We also possess in fragments a
History of Physics. To this class of work belong the still extant sections on
Fire, on the
Winds, and on the signs of
Waters,
Winds, and
Storms. Theophrastus released the first recorded
message in a bottle in order to show that the
Mediterranean Sea was formed by the inflowing
Atlantic Ocean.
Various smaller scientific fragments have been collected in the editions of
Johann Gottlob Schneider (1818–21) and
Friedrich Wimmer (1842—62) and in
Hermann Usener's
Analecta Theophrastea.
On Stones
We possess a treatise
On Stones, in which Theophrastus classified rocks based on their behavior when heated, further grouping minerals by common properties, such as
amber and
magnetite which both have the power of attraction. He also comments on the effect of heat on minerals, and their different
hardnesses.
He describes different
marbles; mentions
coal, which he says is used for heating by metal-workers; describes the various
metal ores; and knew that
pumice-stones had a
volcanic origin. He also deals with precious stones,
emeralds,
amethysts,
onyx,
jasper, etc., and describes a variety of "sapphire" which was blue with veins of gold, and thus was presumably
lapis-lazuli.
He knew that
pearls came from
shell-fish, that
coral came from
India and speaks of the
fossilized remains of organic
life. Theophrastus made the first known reference to the phenomenon of
pyroelectricity, noting that the mineral
tourmaline becomes charged when heated. He also considers the practical uses of various stones, such as the minerals necessary for the manufacture of
glass; for the production of various pigments of
paint such as
ochre; and for the manufacture of
plaster. He discusses the use of the
touchstone for
assaying gold and gold alloys, an important property which would require the genius of
Archimedes to resolve in quantitative detail when he was asked to investigate the suspected debasement of a crown a few years later.
Many of the rarer minerals were found in mines, and he mentions the famous
copper mines of
Cyprus and the even more famous
silver mines, presumably of
Laurium near
Athens, and upon which the wealth of the city was based, as well as referring to
gold mines. The Laurium silver mines, which were the property of the state, were usually leased for a fixed sum and a percentage on the working. Towards the end of the 5th century the output fell, partly owing to the
Spartan occupation of
Decelea. But the mines continued to be worked, though
Strabo records that in his time the tailings were being worked over, and
Pausanias speaks of the mines as a thing of the past. The ancient workings, consisting of shafts and galleries for excavating the ore, and washing tables for extracting the metal, may still be seen. Theophrastus wrote a separate work
On Mining, From both these early texts was to emerge the science of
mineralogy, and ultimately
geology. Pliny is especially observant on
crystal habit and mineral
hardness for example.
Metaphysics
There are nine short chapters which appear to be fragments of a larger treatise on
Metaphysics. There is no reason for assigning this work to some other author because it isn't noticed in
Hermippus and
Andronicus, especially as
Nicolaus of Damascus had already mentioned it.
Philosophy
How far Theophrastus attached himself to Aristotle's doctrines, how he defined them more accurately, or conceived them in a different form, and what additional structures of thought he placed upon them, can be determined only partially due to the scantiness of available statements.
Logic
Theophrastus seems to have carried out still further the
grammatical foundation of
logic and
rhetoric, since in his book on the elements of
speech, respecting what others had written, he distinguished the main parts of speech from the subordinate parts, and also direct expressions (
kuria lexis) from metaphorical expressions, and dealt with the emotions (
pathe) of speech. He further distinguished a twofold reference of speech (
schisis) to things (
pragmata) and to the hearers, and referred
poetry and rhetoric to the latter.
Concerning
judgment, he wrote at length on its unity, on the different kinds of negation, and on the difference between unconditional and conditional necessity. In his doctrine of
syllogisms he brought forward the proof for the conversion of universal affirmative judgments, differed from Aristotle here and there in the laying down and arranging the
modi of the syllogisms, partly in the proof of them, partly in the doctrine of mixture, for example of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion. Then in two separate works he dealt with the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form and on the resolution of them; and further, with hypothetical conclusions. For the doctrine of
proof,
Galen quotes the second
Analytic of Theophrastus, in conjunction with that of Aristotle, as the best treatises on that doctrine. In different
monographs he seems to have tried to expand it into a general theory of
science. To this too may have belonged the proposition quoted from his
Topics, that the
principles of opposites are themselves opposed, and can't be deduced from one and the same higher genus. For the rest, some minor deviations from the Aristotelian definitions are quoted from the
Topica of Theophrastus. Closely connected with this treatise was that upon ambiguous words or ideas, which, without doubt, corresponded to book E of Aristotle's
Metaphysics.
Physics and Metaphysics
Theophrastus introduced his Physics with the proof that all natural existence, being corporeal and composite, requires
principles, and first and foremost,
motion, as the basis of all
change. Denying the substance of
space, he seems to have regarded it, in opposition to Aristotle, as the mere arrangement and position (
taxis and
thesis) of bodies.
Time he called an accident of motion, without, it seems, viewing it, with Aristotle, as the numerical determinant of motion.
He departed more widely from Aristotle in his doctrine of motion, since on the one hand he extended it over all
categories, and didn't limit it to those laid down by Aristotle; and on the other hand, while he viewed motion, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own goal in itself (
ateles), of that which only potentially exists, and therefore couldn't allow that the activity expended itself in motion, he also recognised no activity without motion, and so referred all activities of the
soul to motion: the
desires and
emotions to corporeal motion,
judgment (
kriseis) and
contemplation to spiritual motion. The idea of a spirit entirely independent of organic activity, must therefore have appeared to him very doubtful; yet he appears to have contented himself with developing his doubts and difficulties on the point, without positively rejecting it. Other Peripatetics, like
Dicaearchus,
Aristoxenus, and especially
Strato, developed further this
sensualism in the Aristotelian doctrine.
Theophrastus seems, generally speaking, where the investigation overstepped the limits of experience, to have shown more acuteness in the development of difficulties than in the solution of them, as is especially apparent in the fragment of his
Metaphysics. In a penetrating and unbiased conception of phenomena, in acuteness of reflection and combination respecting them and within their limits, in compass and certainty of experimental knowledge, he may have stood near Aristotle, if he didn't come quite up to him: the incessant endeavour of his great master to refer phenomena to their ultimate foundations, his greater insight in unfolding the internal connections between the latter, and between them and phenomena, were not possessed by Theophrastus. Hence even in antiquity it was a subject of complaint that Theophrastus hadn't expressed himself with precision and consistency respecting
God, and had understood it at one time as
Heaven, at another an (enlivening) breath (
pnemua).
Ethics
Theophrastus didn't allow a
happiness resting merely upon
virtue, or, consequently, to hold fast by the unconditional value of
morality, and had subordinated moral requirements to the advantage at least of a
friend, and had allowed in prosperity the existence of an influence injurious to them. In later times, fault was found with his expression in the
Callisthenes, "life is ruled by fortune, not wisdom," . That in the definition of pleasure, likewise, he didn't coincide with Aristotle, seems to be indicated by the titles of two of his writings, one of which dealt with pleasure generally, the other with pleasure as Aristotle had defined it; he was at the same time disposed to set the latter free from the restraints of family life, etc. in a manner of which Aristotle wouldn't have approved.
Theophrastus was opposed to eating
meat on the grounds that it robbed animals of life and was therefore unjust. Non-human animals, he said, can reason, sense, and feel just as human beings do. In this he was strongly opposed to
Aristotle's argument that non-human animals ranked far below humans in the
Great Chain of Being, and that they'd no interests of their own.
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