From the book
The Summary of Physics Restored
Attributed to Jean d’Espagnet · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordDiscord names a failure of proportion among the compound's constituents. Discrasia is the resulting ill mixture; cacophonia gives the parallel musical image.
- In the bookElemental excess or defect weakens the bond of matter and form. The author distinguishes inward, rooted causes from external, accidental disruptions, including harm to organs.
- In this editionTemperamentum is a balanced mixture or disposition, not chiefly a psychological personality. The theory is historical physiology, not a guide to diagnosis or treatment.
- A place to readCanons 229–231 move from disease to causes of discord and then clarify why elemental differences are not intrinsically contraries.
Meaning
Morbus names disease or sickness; discordia the disordered relation through which disease is explained here. The vocabulary presupposes a good mixture, not a simple uniform substance. Temperamentum arises from proportion, so its loss can involve quantities, intensities, or the relations among parts. Cacophonia extends the analogy to music; discrasia makes the corresponding point about the bodily mixture. The terms express a causal theory in which differentiated powers should cooperate, rather than a list of modern diagnostic categories.
Use in the book
The wider cosmology already gives disease more than a narrowly human scope. Canon 126 attributes disturbances and “diseases” to the bodies of the universe in differing ways according to their natures and degrees of perfection. Such accidents need not overthrow their essential persistence. The distinction prevents a local disruption from being equated automatically with total cosmic dissolution, and reserves absolute freedom from suffering to God. It also shows how disease language crosses scales through analogy.
The later account of life supplies the individual framework. Canon 187 makes life an actuality of matter and form in union; 213 locates their bond in the embrace of inward fire and radical moisture. Canon 229 describes what happens when elemental proportion fails. The failure can concern quantity or quality, including excessive intensity or relaxation. The harmonious consonance that constituted temperament is removed, and matter and form adhere poorly. Disease and eventually death are the consequences assigned to this faltering organisation. The author does not say that every difference or every change is pathological.
Canon 230 divides the proposed causes. Some are inward and radical: defective seed, faulty generation, and old age. Others are outward and accidental: excessive fullness or depletion and the resulting excess or deficiency in humours and spirits. The list also includes putrefaction, poison, wasting, grief, injury, and obstruction imposed upon the organs of life. These examples matter because they prevent a single abstract word, discord, from being mistaken for a uniform explanation with one remedy. They connect generative constitution, bodily provisioning, affect, and damaged instruments within the same historical model.
The closing reference to organs agrees with canon 164, where form acts according to the disposition of matter and the powers of organs. Formal primacy therefore does not make the bodily condition irrelevant. If the instruments are injured or obstructed, the living action can fail. Likewise, the assertion in 210 that qualities are instruments rather than efficient agents does not exclude their importance to a good or bad mixture; it assigns them a subordinate causal role.
Canon 231 clarifies the musical comparison. High and low are extremes, not enemies; intermediary tones are composed in differing proportions. Heat and cold, dryness and moisture likewise establish bounds for intermediate qualities. Perfect consonance is available through their proportionate difference, intensity, and relaxation. The lesson is not “less difference is always healthier,” but that an ordered ratio distinguishes a functional mixture from disorder. Canon 235's varied seasonal temperament reinforces this: unequal conditions can aid Nature's differing works at different times. No clinical advice follows from the analogy alone. A lexicon can explain the author's account without using it to interpret a reader's symptoms, prescribe a regimen, or validate a panacea.
Places to read
- Canon 126; 1653, pp. 89, 90LatinDisease language at cosmic scale, with accidental change distinguished from essential persistence.
- Canon 164; 1653, p. 116LatinFormal action depends on matter and organic powers.
- Canon 187; 1653, p. 134LatinThe living actuality as union of matter and form.
- Canon 210; 1653, pp. 152, 153LatinQualities retain an instrumental role although denied efficient agency.
- Canon 213; 1653, p. 155LatinThe proportionate bond of living constituents.
- Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167LatinDefective proportion produces discord and weakens the compound.
- Canon 230; 1653, p. 167LatinInward and outward causes; excess, deficiency, affect, and injured organs.
- Canon 231; 1653, p. 168LatinExtremes and differences are not intrinsic contraries.
- Canon 235; 1653, pp. 170, 171LatinSeasonally unequal temperaments can serve ordered natural work.
Translation in this edition
“An ill mixture” translates discrasia, while “discord … in natural music” renders cacophonia in musica naturali. At 229 the edition uses “balance” for the fitted blending described by temperamentum; “temperament” is the explanatory historical term used here, not a quotation of that canon's English. Neither term supplies a modern numerical equilibrium. Canon 230's radicalem is “radical” in the sense of inward and rooted, contrasted with extrinsecam & accidentalem. It does not mean that the author identifies every inward cause with the substance called radical moisture. Annotation 128 explains the musical and physiological relationship without adopting the theory as present medicine.
Proportion — proportionis
Proportion, the relation whose defect disturbs the living mixture. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Temperament — temperamenti
Of temperament or balance, the ordered blending of constituent qualities. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Intensity — intensione
Intensity, whose excess can disturb the compound. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Relaxation — remissione
Relaxation or abatement, likewise capable of excess. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Consonance — consonantiâ
Consonance, the fitted elemental relation compared with music. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Diseases — morbi
Diseases, ensuing when Nature's organisation falters. — Canon 229; 1653, pp. 166, 167.
Fullness — repletione
Fullness or repletion; with nimiâ, excessive fullness in the historical causal list. — Canon 230; 1653, p. 167.
Depletion — inanitione
Depletion, the contrasted condition of insufficiency. — Canon 230; 1653, p. 167.
Grief — mœrore
Grief, counted among disturbances that can do violence to Nature. — Canon 230; 1653, p. 167.
Organs of life — vitæ organis
Organs of life, whose injury or obstruction can impede action. — Canon 230; 1653, p. 167.
Harmonic tones — toni
Tones, the musical analogues of differing elemental qualities. — Canon 231; 1653, p. 168.