ABSTRACT

In the beginning there were four elements, fire, air, water and earth. Various proportions of these composed the blood, muscle, bone, tendons and nerves from which the body or soma was constructed. The ingredients of the blood determined intelligence so that the heart was the basis of the intellect and of mental life. This pre-Socratic idea of the fifth century BC, principally due to Empedocles, was developed further by Democritus who considered that each of the four elements was composed of a different kind of particle. He argued that the psyche or soul was composed of the lightest, fastest moving and most nearly spherical particles which are to be found throughout the body, especially concentrated in the brain. Particles of a lesser quality were to be found in the heart giving it a role in emotion whilst the most coarse particles were located in the liver, responsible for functions such as lust. Plato, in the fourth century BC, assigned specific geometrical shapes to each of the four kinds of particles. In addition he confronted the problem which these pre-Socratic ideas presented of how to relate the psyche to the body. A living thing for Plato was matter properly arranged to permit effectual intervention of the soul. Following Democritus, he claimed that there were three different kinds of psyche, namely that concerned with rational thought and behaviour which was associated with the head, that involved with passion and the emotions associated with the breast and the heart therein, and that concerned with desires which was associated with the liver. Only the rational psyche was immortal (Finger, 1994; Gross, 1998; White, 1996).