Temperament and balance

Use in the book

Part I introduces the claim through elemental nourishment (p. 24, I.024.1). Creatures are nourished and preserved by what constitutes them, and they consist of elements. The author then says that elements subjected to equal balancing and the supreme temperament can cure every disease. Temperament marks the proposed perfection of a common source, rather than the initial existence of elemental components in an untreated material.

Part II spells out the powers more concretely (pp. 74-75, II.074.2). Particular herbs strengthen head, heart or stomach, cleanse lungs, open obstructions or promote excretion. The author locates those restricted beneficial operations in rainwater and especially the universal subject, then connects all-disease healing with the possibility of balancing that subject. The catalogue explains why comprehensive balance is claimed to exceed each particular effect.³⁵

The next paragraph denies the same highest temperament to particulars (p. 76, II.076.1). Each retains its own limited power, or another material weakens or removes it. In that case none retains its right effect. The author consequently criticizes compound apothecary remedies. The reasoning concerns his theory of combining particular powers; it is not a tested general verdict on modern combination medicines.

The fuller explanation of anatisation clarifies what kind of imbalance is at issue (pp. 165-166, II.165.2). Disproportion and opposition belong to qualities and accidents, not essence. The perfected magistery is achieved by removing superfluities. The highest balance therefore does not require replacing the essential nature with a different substance or assembling unrelated essential constituents.

The author also reasons from the possibility of balancing back to the uniform first water (p. 165, II.165.1). Art can improve but not change nature. A raw yet uniform beginning can be perfected; a confused jumble of essentially alien natures would not supply the same continuity. Temperament is thereby linked to a claim about the subject’s origin, not simply to the pleasantness of its final sensory qualities.

The term should also remain distinct from moral temperament or an individual’s character. The cited paragraphs concern elemental conditions, powers and a medicinal end. The book has ethical requirements for the operator elsewhere, but they are not the immediate referent of summum temperamentum in these passages.

Places to read

1. Part I · I.024.1Elemental constitution and supreme temperament.
2. Part II · II.074.2; II.076.12Particular benefits and the denial of highest balance to particulars.
3. Part II · II.165.1; II.165.22Uniform origin and correction of accidental qualities.

Translation

Summum temperamentum is retained in the source-form list and explained as highest or perfected temperament. Balance of qualities is a contextual English explanation, supported by the later contrast of qualities and essence.

Equal should not be expanded into identical weights or an exact numerical recipe. The cited passages do not state those quantities. The source’s purification explanation is more secure than an invented formula for four equal constituents.

Connections

Anatisation treats the provisional technical rendering, while Universal medicine follows the intended comprehensive effect. Contrariety and Accident explain what can be corrected without changing essence. The present entry keeps the goal of balance separate from the name, sequence and evidential limits of the operation.

Cautions

The universal therapeutic conclusion belongs to the historical author. Explaining its relation to balance does not establish clinical efficacy.

The entry does not reconstruct a full humoral theory from the phrase alone. It follows the qualities, particulars and removals expressly named here.

summum temperamentum

summum temperamentum — Attested source form; the headword is a reading reference rather than an added historical lemma. I.024.1; II.074.2; II.076.1.

anatisirt

anatisirt — Attested source form; the headword is a reading reference rather than an added historical lemma. II.074.2.

qualitates & accidentia

qualitates & accidentia — Attested source form; the headword is a reading reference rather than an added historical lemma. II.165.2.