Appendix I Aristotle on Plants
There are only a handful of references to a separate study of plants in the Aristotelian corpus. A few (but not all) have been discussed in this book. I collect them here to offer a synoptic view of how Aristotle refers to the study of plants in his extant works. To give the reader an idea of what prompted these references, I provide some textual context for each of them.
Gustav Senn offered an extensive review of these references in an old but still useful article.Footnote 1 He reached three main conclusions. The first is that not all of them can be dismissed as later additions. On the contrary, a few are part and parcel of the fabric of the text, so they are to be regarded as authentic. While not trivial, this conclusion is not especially controversial. By contrast, his second conclusion raises a few eyebrows. According to Senn, all the cross-references to plants in the Aristotelian corpus are references to the extant works on plants by Theophrastus. Senn argues that Aristotle did not write on plants but delegated this task to Theophrastus. Last but not least, Senn saw an especially close relation between these references and CP.Footnote 2 Crucial for this third conclusion are two passages from HA V 1 and GA I 1. They are printed below as texts [A] and [B]. In both passages, Aristotle is concerned with the modes of generation in plants, with a focus on parasitic plants – that is, plants that grow on other plants. In the second passage, he explicitly mentions the mistletoe. For Senn, this can only be a reference to CP II 17, where Theophrastus offers an extensive discussion of the mistletoe.
Otto Regenbogen responded to Senn.Footnote 3 He argued that Aristotle could not be referring to CP II 17 in texts [A] and [B] because Aristotle and Theophrastus offer alternative accounts of how the mistletoe grows in their extant writings. While Aristotle believes that the mistletoe is generated spontaneously from some rotten part of the host plant, Theophrastus thinks that the mistletoe always grows from seed.Footnote 4 Moreover, CP II 17 contains an implicit correction of Aristotle’s account of how the mistletoe is generated.Footnote 5 When Aristotle refers to an investigation of plants in text [A], and refers to it as an investigation that is already in place when he writes HA V, he can only be referring to his own lost work on plants.
What do we learn from this scholarly controversy? At the very least, that we should be very careful when we try to establish a connection between the corpora of writings written by Aristotle and Theophrastus. The putative cross-references between their works are self-consciously crafted in impersonal terms. As for the reference to the investigation of plants in text [A], we cannot be sure that this is a reference to a lost work by Aristotle. But we cannot rule it out either.Footnote 6
A similar point can be made in connection with the cross-reference in text [C]. Aristotle signals that the study of flavors offered in Sens. 4 is to be integrated with what is said on the same topic in the part of the study of nature that deals with plants. Scholars read into this passage a reference to the discussion of flavored juices and odors transmitted as CP VI. In this scenario, the cross-reference to the study of plants in the Aristotelian corpus would match the impersonal reference to the study of animals found at the outset of CP VI, where we are told that “the nature of flavored juice and odor has been defined elsewhere.”Footnote 7 By reading the passage in this way, we find some support for a division of labor within the early Peripatos on the topic of plants and animals. While Aristotle would have concerned himself with animals, Theophrastus would have concentrated his attention on plants. What is especially interesting is that neither Aristotle nor Theophrastus takes ownership of the study of either animals or plants. Rather, they regard their works on animals and plants as separate yet coordinated contributions to a single shared research program.
This conclusion comes very close to the position I defended in this book, except that I do not see a rigid division of labor between Aristotle (animals) and Theophrastus (plants). I refer the reader to Appendix II for the evidence that Theophrastus wrote on animals. What is important here is that both Aristotle and Theophrastus agree that animals and plants are to be studied separately. Consider text [D], which marks the beginning of Aristotle’s study of the non-uniform parts in PA II 10.Footnote 8 Aristotle argues that two parts are the most indispensable for animals: the part for taking in nourishment and the part for discharging useless residue as it is not possible to grow without nourishment. Since nutrition is common to all living beings, the part for taking in nourishment is also found in plants. But plants do not have a part for the elimination of the useless residue. Aristotle’s explanation for this absence is that plants take in concocted nourishment from the soil.Footnote 9 But this also means that plants do not have the part dedicated to receiving and processing unconcocted nourishment (the stomach). This stretch of text is interesting because Aristotle is engaged in a unified study of perishable living beings. And yet there is not much else Aristotle is able, or willing, to say on the topic of plants and animals insofar as they are both living beings. Rather than building a bridge between the study of animals and that of plants, he ends up arguing for their separation.
Notwithstanding the fact that Aristotle envisions separate studies of animals and plants, he offers scattered remarks on the topic of plants. While these remarks do not constitute a systematic study of plants, they show that Aristotle is knowledgeable about plants. It is not my goal in this appendix to discuss all the passages where Aristotle mentions plants.Footnote 10 Here I call attention to the stretch of text printed in [F]. Aristotle remains persuaded that the phenomenon of plant propagation requires a separate discussion. He makes this point, explicitly and unequivocally, in text [B]. His view is that there cannot be such a thing as a common treatment of generation in animals and plants. Nonetheless, he develops scientific concepts that can be employed in the separate treatments of animals and plants. One of them is “κύημα” (imperfectly rendered here as “fetus”). It refers to the first mixture of the generative contributions coming from the male and the female. Aristotle is willing to apply this concept beyond the narrow boundaries of his theory of sexual generation. In text [F], he tells us that what we call seed in plants is the equivalent of the first mixture of the male and the female. This term is also employed in the account of plant propagation Theophrastus offers in CP.Footnote 11
Texts
[A] [Certain modes of reproduction] happen to be common to animals and plants. Some plants are generated from the seed of other plants, while others are generated spontaneously when some seed-like source [of generation] is formed. Among spontaneously generated plants, some take their nourishment from the earth, while others are generated in other plants, as we stated in the study of plants [ὥσπερ εἴρηται ἐν τῇ θεωρίᾳ τῇ περὶ φυτῶν]. Likewise with animals: some are generated from animals whose form is of the same kind, while others are generated spontaneously and not from animals of a common kind. Among the spontaneously generated animals, some are generated from rotting earth and plants, which is the case in many insects, while others [are generated] in the animals themselves out of the residues in their parts. (Aristotle, HA V 1, 539a15–25)
[B] Animals that are not capable of locomotion, as for instance the hard-shelled animals and those that live by growing attached [to something else], are similar in substance to plants: just as in the latter so also in these animals there is no female and male. However, they have come to be called female and male in virtue of a similarity or analogy, since they have some such small differentiation. Indeed, among plants too, there are trees in the same kind that bear fruit and trees that do not do so but contribute to the concocting in those that bear, as occurs with the fig and the caprifig. It is the same with plants, since some plants are generated from seed, while others as though by nature acting spontaneously. The latter happens either when the earth is rotting or when some parts in the plants are; for some plants are not constituted separately by themselves but are generated on other trees (e.g., the mistletoe). But plants ought to be investigated separately by themselves [περὶ μὲν οὖν φυτῶν αὐτὰ καθ’αὑτὰ χωρὶς ἐπισκεπτέον]. (Aristotle, GA I 1, 715a16–716a2)
[C] We have spoken about flavors and tastes; the other attributes of flavors are the specific object of research in the part of the study of nature that is concerned with plants [τὰ γὰρ ἄλλα πάθη τῶν χυμῶν οἰκείαν ἔχει τὴν σκέψιν ἐν τῇ φυσιολογίᾳ τῇ περὶ τῶν φυτῶν]. (Aristotle, Sens. 4, 442b24–26)
[D] Let us now make, as it were, a fresh start again, beginning first from what is first. Two parts are the most necessary in all animals that are complete: that by which nourishment is taking in that by which the residue is discharged. Plants – we say that they too are alive – have no place for the useless residue because they take their nourishment concocted from the earth, and instead of this they yield seeds and fruit. A third part, present in all animals, is between these two, in which is the source of life. The nature of plants, being stationary, does not have many kinds of uniform parts. The reason is that their use of the organs is for fewer activities. This is the reason why the visible character of plants ought to be studied separately [διὸ θεωρητέον καθ’αὑτὰ περὶ τῆς ἰδέας αὐτῶν]. (Aristotle, PA II 10, 655b28–656a3)
[E] The same happens in the case of animals and plants. In plants, males live for the most part longer [than females]. Their upper body is larger than their lower body (the male is more dwarf-like than the female), and the heat is in the upper part while the cold is in the lower part. Among plants, too, those that have a large head live longer. Such are those that are not annual but are like a tree: their upper part – namely their head – are the roots, and the plants that are annual grow downward toward their fruit. But this topic will be determined separately in the works in which plants are discussed by themselves [ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν τούτων καὶ καθ’αὑτὰ ἐν τοῖς περὶ φυτῶν διορισθήσεται]. For the time being, the cause of the length and shortness of life in the other animals is stated. There remains for us to study youth and old age, as well as life and death. When these topics are determined, the investigation into animals will have reached its conclusion. (Aristotle, Long. 6, 467a30–b9)
[F] Thus, in all the animals that are capable of locomotion, the female is separate from the male, and one animal is female and another male, although in form they are the same (e.g., both are a human being or a horse). By contrast, these capacities are mixed in plants and the female is not separated from the male. That is why plants generate out of themselves and emit not semen but rather a fetus [κύημα] – what we call seeds [σπέρματα]. Empedocles says this well, poetizing: “In this way tall trees bear eggs: first olive-trees.” The reason is that the egg is a fetus [κύημα], and from some of it the animal is produced, while the remainder is nutriment, and the growing plant is produced from a part of the seed, while the remainder becomes nutriment for the shoot and the first root. In a way, the same thing happens also in the animals that have the female and the male separated. When they need to generate, they become unseparated, as in plants, and their nature wants to become one. This thing is evident to sight when they unite and couple: a single animal comes to be from both. And the animals that do not emit semen remain naturally connected for a long time, until the fetus [κύημα] is being constituted, like the insects that couple; but others until one of their inserted parts send forth that which will constitute the fetus in a certain amount of time, as in the case of blooded animals. The former animals remain connected for a part of the day, while the semen in the latter animals takes several days to constitute the fetus, but they detach themselves once they have emitted this sort of thing. And animals seem just like divided plants, as if someone, when plants produce seed, were to tear them apart and separate them into the female and male that is present in them. Moreover, nature crafts all this reasonably. The reason is that there is no function or action in the being of plants other than the coming to be of the seed, so that since this comes about by means of the coupling of the female and the male, nature has arranged them with each other by mixing them. That is why in plants the female and the male are unseparated; however, it was investigated about plants elsewhere [διὸ ἐν τοῖς φυτοῖς ἀχώριστον τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ ἄρρεν· ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν τούτων ἐν ἑτέροις ἐπέσκεπται].Footnote 12 By contrast, the animal’s function is not only generating (this is in fact common to all living things), but all animals participate in some form of cognition – some more, some less, and some very little indeed. (Aristotle, GA I 23, 730b33–731a33)
[G] The source of the nutritive soul is [located] in the middle of the three parts,Footnote 13 and is evident by perceptual observation and by rational argument. Many animals, whenever either one of the two parts (the one that is called head and the one that receives the nourishment) is cut off, go on living with the part in the middle. This is clear in the case of insects such as wasps and bees. Moreover, many animals that are not insects can continue to live when cut off due to their nutritive capacity. While it is one in actuality, such a part is potentially more than one. [These animals] are formed in the same way as a plant. Plants, when they are cut off, go on living separately and become many trees from a single origin. The reason why some plants cannot go on living when cut up, whereas other plants grow from cuttings, will be the object of another study [δι’ἢν δ’αἰτίαν τὰ μὲν οὐ δύναται διαιρούμενα ζῆν, τὰ δ’ ἀποφυτεύεται τῶν φυτῶν ἕτερος ἔσται λόγος]. (Aristotle, Juv. 2, 468a20–b1)
[H] Among animals, evidently humans go bald most of all. Still, such a condition is something general. Among plants, some are evergreen while others are deciduous, and birds that hibernate shed their feathers. Such is baldness in those humans to whom such a condition occurs. Leaves are partially shed in plants, and so are feathers and hair in those animals that have them. However, when the condition occurs all at once, it is described by the name mentioned: it is called “going bald” and “falling of the leaves.” The cause of this condition is the lack of hot moisture. Among fluids, fat has it most of all. This is the reason why oily plants tend to be evergreen. But, with regard to these plants, the cause is to be discussed elsewhere, for other causes too contribute to this condition in their case [ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν τούτων ἐν ἄλλοις τὸ αἴτιον λεκτέον· καὶ γὰρ ἄλλα συναίτια τούτου τοῦ πάθους αὐτοῖς]. (Aristotle, GA V 3, 783b8–22)
1 Reference SennSenn 1930: 113–140.
2 According to Senn, Theophrastus wrote CP before HP when he was still working under the shadow of Aristotle. By his lights, Theophrastus attempted to break free from Aristotle only in HP. I will not try to review the putative evidence for this suggestion. Let me only say that chronological claims of this sort do not withstand scrutiny. What Senn takes to be evidence in HP that Theophrastus attempted to mark a distance from Aristotle is best understood as a reminder that the study of plants cannot be fully assimilated to the study of animals. As such, these remarks are compatible with the Aristotelian requirement that scientific progress is possible only if we pay due attention to what is specific to the object of study. See Chapter 4, Section 2.
3 Reference RegenbogenRegenbogen 1937: 469–475.
4 For Theophrastus, the mistletoe grows from seed when birds eat the fruit of the mistletoe and let their droppings fall on the host plant. See Theophrastus, CP II 17.5.
5 Suzanne Amigues agrees that Theophrastus is implicitly correcting the account of the mistletoe (Reference AmiguesAmigues 2012: 221).
6 Robert Mayhew has recently returned to the account of the mistletoe offered in CP II 17 (Reference MayhewMayhew 2021: 463–475). He argues that here Theophrastus is relying on data presented by Aristotle in HA VIII (IX). I do not think that we can establish this conclusion beyond any reasonable doubt. I offered my reasons in Chapter 4, Section 2.
8 I discuss this text in Chapter 2, Section 5.
10 A reasoned collection of all these passages can be found in Reference WimmerWimmer 1838.
11 More on this in Chapter 5, Section 2.2.
12 Aristotle tends to look ahead to the study of plants as a study that follows in the order of exposition the study of animals. But here he refers to a study that is already in place. See text [A] for another such case.
13 The three parts are that by which the animals receive nourishment, that by which they discharge the residues, and the part located midway between the two. Compare text [A].
Appendix II Theophrastus on Animals
The titles listed in Table AII.1 are found in the catalog of books reported in Theophrastus’s Life of Theophrastus.Footnote 2 An educated guess is that this catalog goes back to the pinacographical activity of Hermippus of Smyrna (third century bc). In this scenario, Hermippus drafted his catalog (πίνακες) as an appendix to his Life of Theophrastus.Footnote 3
Table AII.1 Theophrastus on animals
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The information preserved in the catalog helps us correct the impression that Theophrastus was engaged in a study of plants to the exclusion of animals. His interest was in both kinds of perishable living beings, and his research output on the topic of animals was second only to that of Aristotle. It is not difficult to see why the subsequent tradition has transmitted his works on plants to the exclusion of his writings on animals. His writings on animals were largely concerned with difficult or remarkable cases. Of course, they are difficult or remarkable cases for a certain theory: the theory that can be extracted from the extant works on animals transmitted under the name of Aristotle. But this also explains why his writings on animals enjoyed limited success. They were taken to be secondary with respect to Aristotle’s works on animals, and they were even considered to be expendable with respect to the zoological theory that can be extracted from those works. I will not try to correct this impression. Instead, I would like to stress that there is no need to read in Theophrastus’s focus on difficult or remarkable cases an attempt to challenge, let alone reject, Aristotle’s theory. His motivation to deal with these cases must be found within this theory. To the extent that they can be reconstructed, his writings betray the ambition to make sense of these difficult cases in terms of the theory. This is so even when the question of the extent to which the theory can be applied to these cases is not explicitly answered.Footnote 4
Let us consider the only extant work on animals by Theophrastus, which is transmitted in the manuscript tradition with the rather misleading title On Fish.Footnote 5 This work is almost certainly identical to the fifth item on our list: On [Animals] That Live on Land, one book.Footnote 6 Theophrastus is concerned with animals that live in water but also spend time on dry land. These animals live a double life with respect to water and dry land. In Aristotle’s terminology, they dualize (ἐπαμφοτερίζειν).Footnote 7 Theophrastus adopts Aristotle’s explanation of how animals control their bodily temperature by taking in water or air to deal with a few remarkable cases. What makes these cases remarkable is that the animals appear to take in both water and air. The qualification “θαυμαστόν” (remarkable) qualifies a few of the cases discussed by Theophrastus.Footnote 8 The subsequent tradition lost interest in the underpinning zoological theory but preserved a gusto for the remarkable as such; by contrast, Theophrastus was driven by a theoretical agenda he shared with Aristotle.
An interest in remarkable cases can also be inferred from the following titles: On [Animals] That Appear in Swarms, On [Animals] That Change Color, and On Animals That Are Said to Be Malicious. The extant information regarding the first of these three lost essays (On [Animals] That Appear in Swarms) is especially interesting. Photius was still able to read this short text in Byzantium in the ninth century ad, so he left a record of its contents.Footnote 9 Based on Photius’s synopsis, Sharples suggested that Theophrastus carried out a study of spontaneous generation.Footnote 10 While this is quite possible, the focus of the work must have been broader. Animals that swarm include snails, frogs, snakes, and mice. These animals swarm after they have been generated sexually often due to exceptional atmospheric phenomenon such as heavy rains and sudden floods. Theophrastus’s interest in the phenomenon of spontaneous generation is at any rate documented by the title On Animals Generated Spontaneously. This work may have fulfilled a promise Theophrastus made in the context of his study of plants.Footnote 11 Photius has also summarized the contents of the essays On Animals That Change Colors and On Animals That Are Said to Be Malicious.Footnote 12 The first was concerned with the ability of the octopus, the chameleon, and the very mysterious tarandosFootnote 13 to change color in order to take on the colors of the adjacent plants, rocks, and localities.Footnote 14 The second deals with our projection of human motives onto animal behavior. Put differently, the focus of this work is on animals that are said to be malicious but in fact are not.
The remaining titles transmitted in the catalog imply that Theophrastus had an interest in animal behavior with a special focus on hibernation, habitat, and ecology. Robert Sharples has argued that the differences in voice discussed are those linked to local variation.Footnote 15 On this suggestion, the essay On the Diversity of Voice in Animals of the Same Kind also circulated under the title On Differences According to Locality.Footnote 16
The entry On Animals, seven books, need not refer to a separate work on animals. It may well be evidence that the seven short monographs, which were written as independent and self-contained essays by Theophrastus, were subsequently assembled into a single work.Footnote 17
The title Summary of Aristotle’s On Animals, six books, is noteworthy because it contains an explicit reference to Aristotle. Apparently, this title refers to an abridgment in six books of the works on animals authored by Aristotle. At the very least, we can infer from this title that Aristotle’s works on animals were clearly distinguished from what writers such as Theophrastus himself and Eudemus of Rhodes may have contributed to the study of animals. This is far from a trivial observation, especially if we bear in mind that, at least in his extant writings on plants, when Theophrastus refers to the study of animals, he never distinguishes what Aristotle has accomplished from what he may have contributed to this study. His references to the study of animals are self-consciously impersonal. I argued that this practice suggests the existence of a shared project within the Peripatos. Still this title suggests that the works that Aristotle contributed to the study of animals enjoyed a somewhat special status.Footnote 18
I do not see any reason to doubt that Theophrastus compiled an abridgment of Aristotle’s study of animals. We do not know the motivations that may have prompted Theophrastus to produce such a compilation. We should recall, however, that Aristophanes of Byzantium in the third century bc wrote a summary of Aristotle’s works on animals. His stated goal was to make everything Aristotle wrote on animals available to the reader in one place.Footnote 19 While we have no reason to think that there was any special relation between the extant summary by Aristophanes and the abridgment made by Theophrastus, we can speculate that, very early on, the corpus of works on animals was felt to be too large and too technical. As a result, a condensation and simplification of this corpus – maybe also motivated by didactic reasons – was deemed necessary.
We should not rule out that Aristophanes and Theophrastus approached Aristotle’s corpus of writings on animals from different angles. Recall that Aristophanes was a grammarian interested in Homeric textual criticism, Attic comedy, and a lexicography. His goal was to produce a reference work for scholars and poets interested in scientific data for their own literary activity.Footnote 20 By contrast, Theophrastus was Aristotle’s colleague and his most important collaborator. We can safely assume that his summary reflected the scientific concerns that motivated Aristotle’s study of animals in the first place.
Finally, we cannot rule out that other titles in the catalog may have dealt with animals. It has been suggested, for instance, that the lost On [Kinds of] Hair may fit well with the project of GA 5 – that is, explaining accidental features of animals in terms of material causes.Footnote 21
1 I supply “animals.” Robert Sharples amplifies his translation with “creatures.” But this amplification ends up obfuscating the distinction between animals and plants.
2 Diogenes Laertius V 42–50. Full discussion of these titles is in Reference RegenbogenRegenbogen 1950: 1423–1434 and Reference SharplesSharples 1995: 41–48.
3 For Hermippus and his biographical writings, the reference book is Reference BollanséeBollansée 1999. On the origin of the catalog, see Reference BollanséeBollansée 1999: 168–170 (with additional bibliographical information).
4 This addition is needed since the lack of an explicit answer in the text can in principle be taken to imply a challenge.
5 An edition of the Greek text is in Reference SharplesSharples 1992.
6 Athenaeus (Deipn. VII 312 B, 317 F) quotes from this book, which he knows under the title On [Animals] That Spend Time (διαιτωμένων and διατριβόντων instead of διαμενόντων) on Dry Land. The most likely title for our short essay is the one preserved in the catalog rather than the one transmitted by the manuscript tradition.
7 Theophrastus adopts this technical term at the outset of the essay to signal that he is concerned with dualizers (On Fish 1.5–10). On dualizers, see Reference LloydLloyd 1983: 44–53.
8 Here are the first three occurrences of the term in connection with the first two cases discussed: “most remarkable of all” (θαυμαστότατον) is the case of the so-called outsleeper, a fish that makes its bed on dry land every day (On Fish 1). “Remarkable” (θαυμαστά) are the little fish found in India that come out of the rivers onto the dry land and jump around and go back into the water again like frogs (On Fish 2). In the end, however, this case is “less remarkable” (ἦττον θαυμαστόν) than the case of the outsleeper.
10 Reference SharplesSharples 1995: 43–44.
11 Theophrastus, CP I 5.5.
13 Compare [Aristotle], Mir. 30, 832b8–16. The tarandos is described as a wild animal native to Scythia, having the size of an ox and the head of a deer. Instead of changing the color of its skin like the octopus and the chameleon, the tarandos reportedly changed the color of its hair.
14 On this lost work, see Reference IerodiakonouLerodiakonou 2020a: 81–119.
15 This is a topic taken up by Aristotle in HA IV 9, 535a28–536b33 GA V 7, 786b7–788b3.
17 For this hypothesis, see Reference BollanséeBollansée 1999: 167–168. Sharples (in Reference SharplesSharples 1995: 41–42) remains skeptical.
18 Aristotle’s cross-references to plants are equally impersonal. See Appendix I.
19 Aristophanes, Epitome II 1: “I will try to do this so that you need not go through Aristotle’s study of animals [πραγµατεῖα περὶ ζῴων], which is spread over many books, but you could have the factual information [ἱστορία] on each animal together in one place” (my emphasis). More on Aristophanes and his project in Reference FalconFalcon 2022b: 421–442.
20 Reference HatzimichaliHatzimichali 2021: 228–245 and Reference FalconFalcon 2022b: 421–442. Compare also Hellmann 2006: 354–355.
21 Reference LefebvreLefebvre 2016b: 18.
Appendix III [Aristotle], On Plants
1 Problems of Authorship and Dating
A full study of the complex and fascinating history of the transmission of this text can be found in Reference Drossaart Lulofs and PoortmanDrossaart Lulofs-Poortman 1989. Here are the bare bones of the story. The original Greek of this work is not extant, but this work enjoyed great success in the Aristotelian tradition since it was translated into Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin. A Greek retroversion based on the Latin version was made in the second half of the thirteenth century ad. This retroversion is the text printed in the Bekker edition of Aristotle.Footnote 1 The historical and philological relevance of the extant Greek text is negligible.Footnote 2 Far more important is the Arabic translation made by Isâq ibn Hunayn (ca. 900 ad) – most likely after the lost Syriac translation. This Arabic translation was the basis for both the Latin translation produced by Alfred Sarashel (ca. 1200 ad) and the Hebrew translation prepared by Qalonymos ben Qalonymos (1314 ad).
The Arabic tradition ascribes our text to “Nicolaus,” who is said to have explained (i.e., commented on) the lost work on plants by Aristotle.Footnote 3 I have already indicated that the relation between our extant text and the lost work by Aristotle on plants is, to say the least, poorly understood.Footnote 4 H. J. Drossaart Lulofs, who is also the last editor of our work, believes that vestiges of the lost work on plants by Aristotle can still be found in our text.Footnote 5 He also believes that Nicolaus, the author of the work on plants, is the same person as Nicolaus of Damascus, the author of a compendium of Aristotelian philosophy. He also defends the traditional identification of Nicolaus, the author of the compendium of Aristotelian philosophy, with the advisor and friend of King Herod of Judea and Emperor Augustus, as well as preceptor of the twin children of Cleopatra and Antonius. If this identification is accepted, both our extant work on plants in two books and the compendium of Aristotelian philosophy must be dated to the end of the first century bc.
Drossaart Lulofs addresses the question of the relation between the compendium of philosophy and the work on plants. His main results can be summarized as follows: this relation remains difficult to ascertain, but it is not likely that the work on plants was originally part of the compendium.Footnote 6 And yet, the modus operandi might have to be the same in both works. In fact, the way in which Nicolaus condensed and abbreviated Aristotle’s philosophy in the compendium may help us understand how Nicolaus operated in the work on plants. Arguably, the most original feature of the compendium is the attempt to complete the Aristotelian project with results reached in fields of study left untouched, or only briefly touched, by Aristotle. In those cases, Nicolaus availed himself of the results reached by Theophrastus.Footnote 7 In light of this, the compendium is best described as a summary of Peripatetic philosophy. And yet it is presented as a summary of Aristotle’s philosophy.Footnote 8 Following this, it is hard to resist the following conclusion: Nicolaus considered Theophrastus a loyal pupil of Aristotle and regarded his research output as a straightforward contribution to Aristotle’s philosophy.
The complicated edifice I outlined above rests on a double identification – namely, the identification of Nicolaus the author of the work on plants with Nicolaus of Damascus and the identification of Nicolaus of Damascus with the author of compendium of Aristotelian philosophy. But how solid is this foundation? Silvia Fazzo has challenged the second identification on the ground that the Aristotelian compendium betrays knowledge of a Metaphysics that includes the second book (Alpha elatton).Footnote 9 In brief, she does not believe that a Metaphysics that included this book could circulate before Alexander of Aphrodisias (end of second century to beginning of third century ad). If she is right, the author of the Aristotelian compendium should be dated after Alexander of Aphrodisias. I will not follow her argument in any detail. What matters is her conclusion: Nicolaus the author of the compendium of Aristotelian philosophy should be identified with Nicolaus of Leodicea in Syria (fourth century ad). Bernhard Herzhoff, in an article specifically concerned with the extant work on plants attributed to Aristotle, has accepted this conclusion.Footnote 10 He has also built on the suggestion made by Fazzo to read the activity of Nicolaus of Leodicea in connection what was attempted around the same time by Themistius. This connection has led Herzhoff to venture the following suggestion: we should abandon the patchwork hypothesis that has dominated scholarship on and around the work on plants attributed to Aristotle in favor of the alternative hypothesis that this treatise is largely based on the lost work on plants written by Aristotle. While we cannot exclude an infusion of materials from the Peripatetic tradition, and in particular from Theophrastus, we should operate on the assumption that the extant work is a condensation of the original arguments and claims made by Aristotle rather than an amalgam of Peripatetic ideas.
In the almost complete absence of independent evidence about the lost work on plants by Aristotle, it remains difficult, if not impossible, to isolate what is by Aristotle from what is not. One example will clarify this point. The work opens with a doxographical section that has no parallel in the extant writings by Aristotle. While it is quite possible that this section goes back to his lost work on plants, this cannot be confirmed in the absence of any other source of information.
2 Outline of the Contents
What follows is a review of the work on plants transmitted under the name of Aristotle. The goal is to provide the reader with an idea of its contents. A full analysis of the claims made, or a complete discussion of their putative source (or sources), goes beyond the scope of this appendix.Footnote 11
The work begins with the statement that life is found in animals and plants, but it is patent and obvious in animals whereas it is hidden and not clear at all in plants (815a10–13). The text goes on to announce a preliminary inquiry into whether plants have soul, capacity for desire and pleasure, and power of discrimination (815a13–15).Footnote 12 The ensuing review of reputable opinions on the topic of plants has no parallel in the extant writings by Aristotle. However, it has one in the doxographical tradition.Footnote 13 A look at this tradition suggests that the debate on whether plants are ensouled beings remained very much alive after Aristotle both in Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic times. This may explain why Nicolaus felt the need to open his work on plants with a review of this debate. His diagnosis of the source of this disagreement is the inability of philosophers to find any intermediate between life and its privation (815a35–816a1). His solution consists in carving out the theoretical space for a kind of life that does not require cognition in the form of sense-perception or the capacity to feel pleasure and pain. None of this is terribly original.
Next, Nicolaus turns to the topic of the presence or absence of sexes in plants. This investigation is motivated by recalling Empedocles and his view that the male and the female are mixed in plants (816b30–817a3, 817a9–11). Nicolaus objects that for two things to mix, they have first to exist separately. Nicolaus replaces the Empedoclean view with the Aristotelian claim that the two sexes are not separate in plants. He explains this claim by recalling that the seed (σπέρμα) is analogous to the first κύημα in animals. In other words, the seed of a plant is analogous to the first mixture of the generative contributions coming from the male and the female principles of animal life (817a28–36). What we read in this stretch of text seems to be an intelligent reworking of what we find in GA I 23.Footnote 14
The rest of the first book is an abridgment of what Theophrastus says on the topic of plants in HP I and HP II. The original topics and their order of discussion are still detectable even though the work by Nicolaus has been considerably abbreviated by its translators to the point that it is at times hard to follow his original train of thought. A discussion of the bodily parts in plants, with a concentration on the difficulties that the investigator has to face in deciding what counts as a genuine part, is offered (818a36–b27).Footnote 15 The largest kinds of plants Theophrastus gives as a first orientation to the study of plants are also found in our text (819a41–b3).Footnote 16 An attempt at their definition is followed by a review of the way (or rather ways) in which plants differ from one another, with an emphasis on the distinction between domesticated and wild plants (819b27–39) and on the relation between plants and their habitat (819b39–820a10).Footnote 17 After a review of how plants differ with respect to their juices and fruit, the focus shifts to the modes of generation. The rest of the first book appears to be a condensed version of what we find in HP II 1–7.
The second book begins with an account of nutrition and growth in plants. The details of the discussion are difficult to follow because of the lack of the original source combined with the fact that this source has been abbreviated and condensed to an extreme point. The translation from the Greek to the Syriac and from the Syriac to the Arabic has yielded a text that is garbled in a few places.
Concoction (πέψις) appears to be the key natural process that explains how the moisture taken from the soil is assimilated by the plant. We are told that concoction requires the interaction of three powers that can be traced back respectively to earth, water, and fire (822a12–14). This interaction is most clearly at work in the production of pottery. To make pottery, we need clay, water as a kind of glue, and fire. When wet clay is baked, the moisture is dispersed, and the particles of clay cohere together (822a16–24).
The explanation of what happens when a compound of earth and water is solidified by the agency of fire is discussed at the most general level for the formation of stones and metals as well as the generation of the bodily parts of animals and plants. It is only when this common account is in place that the focus shifts to what is specific to the case of plants. What we are told at the start of the second book can be described as an attempt to give a common account of the formation of organic and inorganic bodies. It reminds us of what Aristotle says in Meteorology IV.
What is specific about concoction in plants is described in the following terms: the dryness of the plant draws moisture from the soil; as this moisture moves up in the plant, it is also warmed up (822b1–6).Footnote 18 We are not told what agent is responsible for warming up the moisture drawn from the soil, but this agent can only be the innate heat of the plant that is associated with fire. Growth is understood as the outcome of a straightforward process of solidification: once heated, the moisture drawn from the soil becomes solid and is added to the body of the plant. Since plants are relatively simple living bodies, they can grow quickly. For instance, small herbaceous plants grow in a single day (822b5–6). This is not true for animals because their bodies are more articulated; in addition, their nutriment requires further processing to be assimilated by animals (822b6–8).Footnote 19
What is drawn from the soil is distributed to the entire body of the plant and whatever is in excess flows out (822b18–20). The explanation of how the moisture can move from the roots up to the rest of the plants is a major concern in this stretch of text. An analogy is offered with the formation of springs and rivers in the mountains. Whenever an excess of water is forced into a narrow channel, the excess of steam rising from them seeks an exit on the surface. The reader is also referred to the Meteorology for a fuller discussion of this phenomenon (822b32–34).Footnote 20
After a long and tortuous discussion of a few meteorological phenomena, the focus shifts to the role that the habitat plays in the growth of the plant. We are told that a plant needs two things: proper nutrition and a position suitable to its nature (824a36–39). What follows is a review of the effects of exceedingly cold or hot places, sandy and salty places, on the growth of the plants, as well as a discussion of plants that grow on the surface of water, or in a wet or rocky soil. The impact of the soil, the presence or absence of water, as well as the quality of the surrounding air are discussed. Reference to concoction is made a few times. This appears to be reference to a process taking place in the soil rather than within the plant; moreover, this is a process that is due to the action of the sun and the surrounding air.Footnote 21 Upon reflection, it becomes clear that the concoction that takes place in the soil and the one that happens in the plant work together in the explanation of how a plant grows. An educated guess is that the nutriment concocted in the soil is distributed to the entire body of the plant, where it undergoes a second concoction. This second concoction amounts to a straightforward solidification of the moisture drawn from the soil, which is added to the body of the plant.
Fruiting follows growth in the order of inquiry.Footnote 22 Depending on the nature of the plant, the fruit can appear before, after, or at the same time as the leaves. When the plant has a considerable amount of viscous juice, the inner heat of the plant is responsible for its concoction producing the fruit before the leaves. By contrast, when the plant has a considerable amount of moisture, the production of the fruit is delayed; as a result, leaves will appear before the fruit. When the plant has a considerable amount of both moisture and viscous juice, the fruit and the leaves may appear at the same time. But how is the growth of leaves to be explained? When the moisture is abundant and is not fully concocted by the combined agency of the inner heat and the sun, we obtain leaves rather than the fruit (827a24–33). Leaves are for the protection of the fruit from the intensity of the sun (827a33–35).Footnote 23
Perhaps it is still possible to see an overall argument in the next stretch of text, which at first sight appears to be concerned with a random list of topics. Dealing with the predominantly green coloration of the surface of plants can be seen as a logical continuation on the topic of leaves. Their green color is explained as the effect of concoction on the inner moisture. The concoction in question is the one that happens in the plant, not in the soil. It is due to the action of the innate heat of the plant and the sun.Footnote 24 Discussing the directions in which plants grow (whether upward or downward) becomes the occasion for a few additional remarks on the topic of the two concoctions that are characteristic of plants – namely, the one taking place in the soil and the one occurring in the plant. In this context, we learn that plants do not undergo a third concoction, which is limited to animals. This further concoction is needed for the articulation of the bodies of animals and the divergence in their nature (828a6–13).Footnote 25 The explanation of why trees shed their leaves is a natural complement to this discussion. The channels that bring the moisture to the leaves narrow down and eventually close up. As a result, the leaves do not receive nutriment and dry up (828a32–39).
The focus returns to fruiting and the factors controlling fructification in the next section. If water predominates in the plant (presumably if the inner moisture in the plant is not viscous enough), the plant hardly bears fruits for the combination of three factors: because the concoction that happens in the plant cannot solidify the inner moisture, the inner channels in which the moisture flows are too wide, and the root system is too weak.Footnote 26 This is true for all herbaceous plants as well as for some vegetables (828b8–14). Flowers are produced by using the finer portion of the nutriment at the start of the process of concoction and for this reason the flower comes before the fruit. The color of the fruit ranges between a deep blue and white with yellow in between (828b34–40).
The exudation of a milky juice in some trees is traced back to the nature of their inner moisture, which is concocted until it becomes viscous, like milk, which is then attracted to the extremities of the plant. All milky juices have a tendency toward coagulation, so that if the outside of the tree is cold, the milk coagulates; the outcome of that process is the formation of gum, and the ability or inability of the plant to concoct it (829a4–15).
Toward the end of the work, attention turns to the nature of the juices in the fruit, which can range between bitter or sweet. As a rule, the fruit is bitter when the process of concoction is not complete. A discussion of how the surrounding environment and the nature of the soil may impact the quality of the juices in the fruit is offered. We are told that trees grown by acidic waters tend to produce sweet fruit (829b2–10) and that trees that bear fruit for the first time tend to produce bitter fruit (829b23–25).
When we look at our work as a whole, we see a prolegomenon to the study of plants that, at least in part, is based on Aristotle’s DA and GA followed by a condensed version of the ὅτι-stage of the research on plants largely based on the data collected in Theophrastus’s HP I and HP II 1–7. The inquiry should continue with an attempt to explain the phenomena at the διότι-stage of research. It is no surprise that growth and fructification emerge as the two main explananda. This is exactly how Theophrastus proceeds in CP I and CP II. And yet what we read in our text does not appear to be based on Theophrastus. It is quite possible that the second book goes back, in toto or in part, to the lost work on plants by Aristotle. Unfortunately, we have no way to substantiate this hypothesis.
What is specific about plants remains the focus throughout the second book, but this focus requires recalling results reached in the study of animals. It is only when those results are available that a full appreciation of plants as a distinct form of life is possible.
1 Reference BekkerBekker 1831: 815a10–830b4.
2 Reference Drossaart LulofsDrossaart Lulofs 1957: 75. Compare Reference Drossaart Lulofs and PoortmanDrossaart Lulofs-Poortman 1989: “On the whole, it must be admitted that [the Greek translation] is even less reliable than Alfred’s Latin version. The ‘law’ that in each subsequent translation the text deteriorates appears to be inexorable, and the naive expectation of the Greek [translator] that he could restore a lost work of Aristotle for his compatriots was not realized” (575).
3 Hağği Khalîfa (died in 1658 ad), Lexicon bibliographicum V, p. 16 nr. 10564: “The book on plants of Aristotle in two treatises which Nicolaus explained and Ishâq ibn Hunayn translated with correction by Tâbit ibn Qurra.” The book on plants is attributed to Nicolaus by Ibn al-Nadîm (254.1–4 Flügel) and Ibn al Qiftî (336.5–12 Lippert).
4 See the Introduction.
5 For more on how Drossaart Lulofs sees the complicated relation between the extant versions of this summary and the lost work on plants by Aristotle, I refer the reader to the diagram printed at the outset of the wonderful edition of the five extant versions of this summary that Drossaart Lulofs jointly produced with E. L. J. Poortman (Reference Drossaart Lulofs and PoortmanDrossart Lulofs-Poortman 1989: xiv).
6 H. J. Drossaart Lulofs describes the relation between the extant work on plants and the compendium as follows: “all things considered, the question whether De plantis was part of Nicolaus’ Compendium does not admit of a definite answer, but the odds are against its being positive” (Reference Drossaart Lulofs and PoortmanDrossaart Lulofs-Poortman 1989: 20–21).
7 Hidemi Takahashi (in Reference TakahashiTakahashi 2002: 189–224) goes a long way toward explaining how Nicolaus operated in connection with the extant fragments from book 7. In his words, this book “was devoted to a summary presentation of those sciences left untouched by Aristotle and developed by Theophrastus (mineralogy, botany, and hydrology, along with some new elements of zoology).”
8 The transmitted title of the compendium is On the Philosophy of Aristotle. See the evidence collected in Reference DamascenusDrossaart Lulofs-Poortman 1965: 9–11.
9 Reference FazzoFazzo 2008: 99–126. Further evidence for a later dating of Nicolaus the author of the compendium is offered in a joint article by Silvia Fazzo and Mauro Zonta (Reference Fazzo and ZontaFazzo-Zonta 2008: 681–690).
10 Reference HerzoffHerzhoff 2016: 135–187.
11 A more in-depth review of the contents of this work is offered in Reference MorauxMoraux 1973: 487–514. Reference Aristotele and FerriniFerrini 2012 contains a rich apparatus of endnotes helping the reader to navigate the work.
12 At least at this early stage of the inquiry, we should not presuppose any specific view on how the power of discrimination may be related to the capacity to feel pleasure and pain and the capacity to desire.
13 Aëtius, Placita V 26.1–4 (= Dox. gr. 440.4–20). For more on the doxographical tradition going back to Aëtius, see Chapter 1, Section 1.
14 The relevant passage is printed as text [F] in Appendix I. For more on the Aristotelian solution and its theoretical implications, see Chapter 5, Section 2.2.
18 At 822b1, I am following the Arabic version, which reads (in Drossaart Lulofs’s translation) as follows: “within plants movement is easy because dryness, which is one of the powers of earth, draws moisture.” We are not told why the dryness of the plant draws the moisture from the soil. Recall, however, that Theophrastus invokes antiperistasis for the explanation of why an “empty” plant draws its nutriment from the soil (see Chapter 5, Section 3).
19 At least for Aristotle, animals take in unconcocted nutriment. As a result, their nutriment requires further work before it can be assimilated and added up to their bodies. This further work is not needed in the case of plants because they draw concocted moisture from the earth. The moisture in the soil is concocted by the agency of the sun and the surrounding air. See the main text for more on this point.
20 This reference gives rise to an excursus on a few meteorological phenomena such as the cause of earthquakes, the formation of sand by the sea, and the formation of salt water. In addition to Aristotle’s Meteorology, Nicolaus must have used Theophrastus’s Meteorology. It has long been noted that the source of the explanation of the saltiness of water agrees with what we know about Theophrastus’s views on the topic. See Reference MorauxMoraux 1973: 509 and Reference Drossaart Lulofs and PoortmanDrossaart Lulofs-Poortman 1989: 318.
21 References to concoction are made at 825a32, 825b20, 826a28, and 826b37.
22 The same order of explanation can be observed in CP I. See Chapter 5, Section 3.
23 Compare Aristotle, DA II 1, 412b1–2.
24 This excerpt can be usefully compared with what is said in the work on colors attributed to Aristotle, where we find similar claims regarding coloration in plants. [Aristotle] Color. 5, 794b19–22: “the original color is green in all plants: shoots, leaves, and the fruit are green at first.” Color. 5, 795a12–20: “in those shoots that remain unmixed with the rays of the sun the white color remains … in all plants the parts above the earth are green at first but beneath the earth stalks and roots are white.” In this context, green is seen as the first color between white and black.
25 This confirms what we read at 822b6–8.
26 Presumably, it does not draw enough concocted moisture from the soil.
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