From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordEmphytos means implanted, inborn, or innate; to thermon is the hot or heat.
- In this workAfter the first entry of air, Aëtius attributes exhalation to the outward rush of innate heat, which presses the airy constituent away.
- In this edition“Vital heat” is a useful lookup label but can imply a later medical doctrine more systematic than the excerpt.
- A place to readGives innate heat an outward and inward movement governing air displacement.
Meaning
Emphytos means implanted, inborn, or innate; to thermon is the hot or heat. Hormē is an impulse or onrush. The phrase names an internal thermal agency in the reported mechanism of breathing, without defining a separate substance called life.
Use in the book
After the first entry of air, Aëtius attributes exhalation to the outward rush of innate heat, which presses the airy constituent away. Its inward retreat allows air to re-enter. Heat is thus given a moving and displacing role, rather than simply a static temperature. The later account of current breathing assigns the reciprocal movement to blood, but the summary does not explicitly identify the two agencies or explain how one succeeds the other. At A77 heat is also necessary for growth, and A85 links sleep and death with cooling of the heat in blood. These passages make internal warmth recurrently important to life processes. Their combination should still preserve the different relations: heat causes growth, is associated with moving breath, and is located in blood in the cooling account. None of them alone equates all life, soul, and fire.
Places to read
- A 74 (testimony)Aëtius. Gives innate heat an outward and inward movement governing air displacement.
- A 77 (testimony)Aëtius. Attributes growth to the presence of heat.
- A 85 (testimony)Aëtius, first notice. Distinguishes sleep and death by degrees of cooling of blood's heat.
Translation in this edition
“Vital heat” is a useful lookup label but can imply a later medical doctrine more systematic than the excerpt. The specific Empedoclean attribution is the mechanism reported here.