Every art, gymnastic and
husbandry as well as medicine, is the reconciliation of opposites; and this
is what Heracleitus meant, when he spoke of a harmony of opposites: but in
strictness he should rather have spoken of a harmony which succeeds
opposites, for an agreement of disagreements there cannot be. Music too is
concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and
rhythm. In the abstract, all is simple, and we are not troubled with the
twofold love; but when they are applied in education with their
accompaniments of song and metre, then the discord begins. Then the old
tale has to be repeated of fair Urania and the coarse Polyhymnia, who must
be indulged sparingly, just as in my own art of medicine care must be taken
that the taste of the epicure be gratified without inflicting upon him the
attendant penalty of disease.
There is a similar harmony or disagreement in the course of the seasons and
in the relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, hoar frost and blight; and
diseases of all sorts spring from the excesses or disorders of the element
of love.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29