Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Why, when spider-webs are carried about in quantity, are they a sign of wind? Is it because the spider works in calm weather, and the webs are carried because the air, being chilled, contracts toward the earth, and chilling is the beginning of winter—so the carrying of the webs is a sign? Or is it that after rains and storms the mass-carrying of webs occurs, because the spiders have been working during the calm weather, since they are not seen working in winter, this being a thing they cannot bear the cold for; and being carried by the wind, they get unspooled a great deal. And after rains, winds generally tend to arise. Why are strong north winds in winter cloudy in cold regions, but clear outside them? Is it because they are at once cold and strong, and colder the nearer they are, so that they freeze the clouds before they can drive them off; and once frozen, the clouds remain, because of their weight? Farther out, the north winds work more by their strength than by their cold. BOOK 27. PROBLEMS CONCERNING FEAR AND COURAGE Why do those who are afraid tremble? Is it on account of the chilling? For the heat fails and contracts inward; that is also why, in many people, the bowels are loosened.
2| Why, then, do some also grow thirsty, as those about to be punished do? For one would not expect this, if they are being chilled. Or is it that the chilling and the heat are not in the same place, but the one is on the surface, from which the heat withdraws, while the other is within, so that it heats up the inner region? A sign of this is precisely the loosening of the bowels. Since, then, the governing region is being dried out, thirst results. This seems similar to what happens to those with ague, who feel thirsty at the same time as they shiver; for there too it is not the same region that is chilled and heated.
3| Why is it that in fits of anger, when the heat gathers inward, people are hot through and bold, but in fear the opposite happens? Is it that the heat does not gather in the same place—rather, in those who are angry it gathers around the heart, which is why they are also bold and flushed and full of breath, the motion being upward—while in those who are afraid the blood and the heat flee downward together, which is also why the bowels are loosened? Since even the throbbing of the heart is not alike in the two cases, but in the one it is, as it were, due to the withdrawal of heat, rapid and pricking, while in the other it is as though more heat were gathering; that is also why people speak, not badly but fittingly, of anger boiling up and being stirred and disturbed, and all such expressions. Is it, then, for this same reason that thirst occurs, since indeed dry spitting and stammering and the like come about through the rising of breath together with heat? And thirst too clearly arises when the body is being heated. How, then, is the same region dried out in both cases—the region by which we come to thirst—both in the frightened man and in the angry man? It is because fear too is thirst-producing, as those in flight show.
4| For nowhere else do people thirst like this. And so too do those in great anguish; that is why they rinse their mouths and sip a little, as the actor Parmenon used to do. Or is it that these people do not feel thirst at all, but a dryness that comes from the blood's having fled, which is also why they turn pale? A sign of this is that they do not drink much, but only gulp a little. Those in a rout, by contrast, thirst along with exertion. That is also why those who are about to be punished thirst; and there is nothing strange in this. In warfare some even of the brave, once they are drawn up for battle, tremble without being beside themselves, but while remaining confident; and their custom is to whip the body with a flat rod, or, failing that, to warm themselves by rubbing with their hands. It appears, then, that because of the sharpness and rush of the heat there is a kind of disturbing irregularity throughout the body.
5| Why are brave men, for the most part, fond of wine? Is it because brave men are hot, and their heat is concentrated about the chest? For it is there too that fear shows itself, arising as a kind of chilling. Hence in some the region about the heart cools less and stays put, while in others it leaps as it is chilled. Those, then, who have a lung full of blood have it hot, as if they were already wine-flushed, so that the mental image of the terrible does not chill them. Such men are also fond of drinking; for the desire for drink arises because of the heat of this part (this has been discussed elsewhere), and so does the desire for whatever stops that heat. Now wine is hot by nature, but it stops thirst better than water does, and especially in the same people; the reason for this has been given elsewhere. That is also why both those with pneumonia and the mad alike desire wine, even though in the one case the lung is hot because of feverish heat, and in the other because of disturbance. Since, then, the same people are generally, by their natural type, both thirsty and brave, and since thirsty people desire wine, and such people are fond of drinking, it is necessary that these natures generally accompany one another. That is also why the wine-flushed are braver than those who are not.
6| Why do cities honor courage above all, though it is not the best of the virtues? Is it because they are continually either making war or being warred upon, and courage is the most useful virtue in both cases? For they honor not the best things absolutely, but the things best for themselves. Why do the frightened tremble most of all in voice, hands, and lower lip? Is it because the affection is a failing of heat from the upper regions? That is also why they turn pale. It is because the voice comes from the chest that it trembles, since that by which it is moved is being chilled. The hands likewise tremble, for they are attached to the chest. But the lower lip, and not the upper, hangs down in the direction it naturally inclines; whereas for the lower lip to be drawn upward is against nature, and it is kept still up there only by the heat; when this heat is withdrawn because of chilling, the lip trembles. And in fits of anger too, for the same reason, the lip hangs loose. This is clear in the case of children, for in them the heat runs together toward the heart. Why do the frightened tremble, especially in voice, in the hands, and in the lower lip of the body? Is it because the heat departs from this region, in which the voice resides? And the lip and the hands tremble because they are the most easily moved parts and have the least blood. And they release their bile while drawing their genitals upward; they release the bile because the heat descending melts it away, and they draw the genitals up because the fear comes from outside; so the flight is toward the opposite direction.
7| Why do the frightened both thirst and shiver with cold? These are opposite affections. Is it that they shiver as they are chilled, but thirst as they are heated? Because in fear the heat and the moisture alike fail from the upper regions. The color of the face and the bowels show this: the face turns pale, and the bowels are sometimes loosened; the shivering, then, comes about because heat fails from the upper regions, and the thirst because of the moisture. Since both fear and pain are a kind of distress, why do those in pain cry out, while those in fear fall silent? Is it that those in pain hold their breath (which is why it comes out all at once, together with a cry, when it does escape), whereas in the frightened the body has been chilled and the heat has been carried downward, and it is heat that produces breath? Wherever, then, the heat has been carried most, there it also produces breath. That is also why the frightened break wind. The voice is a movement of breath somehow upward and occurring through certain passages. The reason those in pain hold their breath is that we all, by nature, as soon as we suffer, use without reasoning the aids that are innate in us, just as the other animals do too; for some defend themselves with horns, some with teeth, some with claws. And against pains, all or most of them, heat is a help. This is what holding the breath produces; for it heats and concocts the pain, drawing the heat together inside by means of the breath.
8| Why in the frightened are the bowels loosened and do they feel the need to urinate? Is it that the heat within us is like a living creature? This, then, flees whatever it fears. Since the fears from anguish and the like come from outside, and travel from the upper regions to the lower and from the surface to the interior, the regions about the belly and the bladder, being heated, are loosened, and this makes them ready to void. For dill and wormwood, and whatever is diuretic, are also heating. Likewise the drugs that act on the bowels are heating in the lower region; and some of these dissolve only what has been brought in, while others also produce a further melting, as garlic does with urine. The heat that gathers into these regions from the surface produces the same effect in such cases. Why do the frightened draw their genitals up? For one would expect the opposite, since the heat of the frightened gathers into this region, so that the parts should relax. Or is it that almost all the frightened are, as it were, in a state of shivering? Since the heat has failed from the surface, they contract. That is also why those in dreadful terror make a buzzing sound. The surface skin of those who shiver also seems to contract, since the heat has been driven out; that is also why they get goosebumps. The scrotum too is drawn up, and the testicles are pulled along with it as it contracts. This is seen to happen more quickly in sexual matters; for fear expels, and in many of those in great anguish or great fear the emission of seed is set in motion together with it.