Ancient Medicine

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Body and Soul

The Emperor Commodus Leaving the Arena at the Head of the Gladiators by Edwin Howland Blashfield (not sure of the year). Sloane Collection, Hermitage Museum and Gardens, Norfolk, VA. Via Wikimedia Commons.

“The fact that our thoughts depend on our bodies and that they are not in themselves unaffected since they derive from our body’s changes—this becomes altogether clear in the case of those who are drunk and those who are sick. For it is extremely obvious that their thoughts are distorted by the affections of their body. And in fact the opposite becomes clear too when the body is affected along with the affections of the soul in cases of love and fear, pain and pleasure.”

Ὅτι αἱ διάνοιαι ἕπονται τοῖς σώμασι, καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν αὐταὶ καθ' ἑαυτὰς ἀπαθεῖς οὖσαι τῶν τοῦ σώματος κινήσεων. τοῦτο δὲ δῆλον πάνυ γίνεται ἔν τε ταῖς μέθαις καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἀρρωστίαις· πολὺ γὰρ ἐξαλλάττουσαι φαίνονται αἱ διάνοιαι ὑπὸ τῶν τοῦ σώματος παθημάτων. καὶ τοὐναντίον δὴ τοῖς τῆς ψυχῆς παθήμασι τὸ σῶμα συμπάσχον φανερὸν γίνεται περί τε τοὺς ἔρωτας καὶ τοὺς φόβους τε καὶ τὰς λύπας καὶ τὰς ἡδονάς.

Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomics 1, 805a1-8