Odour

Use in the book

Theophrastus's report associates abundant odour with outflow from fine and light bodies. His criticism asks whether this relation predicts the wrong rate of bodily wasting: if odour is effluence and effluence explains loss, the strongest-smelling things should perish quickest. Aromatic plants and other durable odorous things serve as counterexamples in his argument.

A separate objection insists that lightness is not enough; the body must also have odour present. Air and fire, though light, produce no olfactory sensation in his example. The distinction matters because it prevents a mechanical feature such as mobility or smallness from silently becoming the sensible quality it is supposed to transmit. These claims belong to Theophrastus's testing of the theory and should not be projected back as refinements which Empedocles explicitly accepted.

Places to read

1. A 86 § 9 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 9. Reports greater odour emitted from fine and light bodies.
2. A 86 §§ 20–21 (polemical)2Theophrastus, On the Senses 20. Contrasts durable fragrant things with the predicted wasting from effluence.
3. A 86 §§ 22–23 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 22. Insists that odour itself must be present, not merely lightness.

Translation in this edition

“Fragrant” in the plant objection is an English choice within a family meaning strongly odorous. The argument does not provide chemical identification or experimental measurements of the named quality.