Archimedes Texts

SAGR. Go to; tell me, Simplicius, are not these affections
contrary to one another?

SAGR. Why these; Alterable, unalterable; passible, ^{*} impas

sible; generable, ingenerable; corruptible, incorruptible?

SIMPL. They are most contrary.

SAGR. Well then, if this be true, and it be also granted,
that Cœlestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible; I prove
that of necessity Cœlestial Bodies must be generable and corru
ptible.

SIMPL. This must needs be a Sophism.

SAGR. Hear my Argument, and then censure and resolve it.

Cœlestial Bodies, for that they are ingenerable and incorruptible,
have in Nature their contraries, which are those Bodies that be
generable and corruptible; but where there is contrariety, there
is also generation and corruption; therefore Cœlestial Bodies are
generable and corruptible.

Cœlestial Bodies
are generable and
corruptible, be
cause they are in
generable and in
corruptible.

SIMPL. Did I not say it could be no other than a Sophism?
This is one of those forked Arguments called Soritæ: like that

of the Cretan, who said that all Cretans were lyars; but he as
being a Cretan, had told a lye, in saying that the Cretans were ly
ars; it followed therefore, that the Cretans were no lyars, and
consequently that he, as being a Cretan, had spoke truth: And
yet in saying the Cretans were lyars, he had said true, and com
prehending himself as a Cretan, he must consequently be a lyar.
And thus in these kinds of Sophisms a man may dwell to eternity,
and never come to any conclusion.

SAGR. You have hitherto censured it, it remaineth now that
you answer it, shewing the fallacie.

SIMPL. As to the resolving of it, and finding out its fallacie,
do you not in the first place see a manifest contradiction in it?
Cœlestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible; Ergo, Cœle
stial Bodies are generable and corruptible. And again, the con

trariety is not betwixt the Cœlestial Bodies, but betwixt the E
lements, which have the contrariety of the Motions, sursùm and
deorsùm, and of levity and gravity; But the Heavens which move
circularly, to which motion no other motion is contrary, want
contrariety, and therefore they are incorruptible.

SAGR. Fair and softly, Simplicius; this contrariety whereby
you say some simple Bodies become corruptible, resides it in the
same Body which is corrupted, or else hath it relation to some o
other? I say, for example, the humidity by which a piece of Earth