The classical elements typically refer to

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

, air,

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all

matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic pa ...

in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

had similar lists which sometimes referred, in local languages, to "air" as "wind", and to "aether" as "space". AMA Symbol of Meetei Sanamahism

These different cultures and even individual philosophers had widely varying explanations concerning their attributes and how they related to observable phenomena as well as

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

. Sometimes these theories overlapped with mythology and were personified in deities. Some of these interpretations included atomism (the idea of very small, indivisible portions of matter), but other interpretations considered the elements to be divisible into infinitely small pieces without changing their nature. While the classification of the material world in ancient

, Hellenistic Egypt, and

ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

into air, earth, fire, and water was more philosophical, during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

medieval

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

s used practical, experimental observation to classify materials. In

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the ancient Greek concept, devised by Empedocles, evolved into the systematic classifications of

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

and

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...

. This evolved slightly into the medieval system, and eventually became the object of experimental verification in the 17th century, at the start of the

Scientific Revolution The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of History of science, modern science during the early modern period, when developments in History of mathematics#Mathematics during the Scientific Revolution, mathemati ...

. Modern science does not support the classical elements to classify types of substances. Atomic theory classifies atoms into more than a hundred

chemical element A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons. The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8: each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its ...

s such as

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

, and mercury, which may form

chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...

s and mixtures. The modern categories roughly corresponding to the classical elements are the states of matter produced under different temperatures and pressures.

Solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...

liquid Liquid is a state of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape. Liquids adapt to the shape of their container and are nearly incompressible, maintaining their volume even under pressure. The density of a liquid is usually close to th ...

, gas, and plasma share many attributes with the corresponding classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire, but these states describe the similar behavior of different types of atoms at similar energy levels, not the characteristic behavior of certain atoms or substances.

Hellenistic philosophy

The

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

concept of four basic elements, these being earth ( ), water ( ), air ( ), and fire ( ), dates from

pre-Socratic Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of the ...

times and persisted throughout the

and into the

Early modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

, deeply influencing

an thought and culture.

Pre-Socratic elements

Primordal element

The classical elements were first proposed independently by several early Pre-Socratic philosophers. Greek philosophers had debated which substance was the '' arche'' ("first principle"), or primordial element from which everything else was made.

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...

() believed that water was this principle.

Anaximander Anaximander ( ; ''Anaximandros''; ) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus,"Anaximander" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes Ltd, George Newnes, 1961, Vol. ...

() argued that the primordial substance was not any of the known substances, but could be transformed into them, and they into each other. Anaximenes () favored air, and Heraclitus (fl. ) championed fire.

Fire, earth, air, and water

The Greek philosopher Empedocles () was the first to propose the four classical elements as a set: fire, earth, air, and water. He called them the four "roots" (, ). Empedocles also proved (at least to his own satisfaction) that air was a separate substance by observing that a bucket inverted in water did not become filled with water, a pocket of air remaining trapped inside. Fire, earth, air, and water have become the most popular set of classical elements in modern interpretations. One such version was provided by Robert Boyle in '' The Sceptical Chymist'', which was published in 1661 in the form of a dialogue between five characters. ''Themistius,'' the Aristotelian of the party, says:

Humorism (Hippocrates)

According to

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

, these elements were used by

() in describing the

human body The human body is the entire structure of a Human, human being. It is composed of many different types of Cell (biology), cells that together create Tissue (biology), tissues and subsequently Organ (biology), organs and then Organ system, org ...

with an association with the four humours: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water). Medical care was primarily about helping the patient stay in or return to their own personal natural balanced state.

Plato

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

(428/423 – 348/347 BC) seems to have been the first to use the term "element (, )" in reference to air, fire, earth, and water. The ancient Greek word for element, (from , "to line up") meant "smallest division (of a sun-dial), a syllable", as the composing unit of an alphabet it could denote a letter and the smallest unit from which a word is formed.

Aristotle

In '' On the Heavens'' (350 BC), Aristotle defines "element" in general: In his '' On Generation and Corruption'', Aristotle related each of the four elements to two of the four sensible qualities: * Fire is both hot and dry. * Air is both hot and wet (for air is like vapor, ). * Water is both cold and wet. * Earth is both cold and dry. A classic diagram has one square inscribed in the other, with the corners of one being the classical elements, and the corners of the other being the properties. The opposite corner is the opposite of these properties, "hot – cold" and "dry – wet".

Aether

added a fifth element, aether ( ), as the quintessence, reasoning that whereas fire, earth, air, and water were earthly and corruptible, since no changes had been perceived in the heavenly regions, the

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

s cannot be made out of any of the four elements but must be made of a different, unchangeable, heavenly substance. It had previously been believed by pre-Socratics such as Empedocles and

Anaxagoras Anaxagoras (; , ''Anaxagóras'', 'lord of the assembly'; ) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. In later life he was charged ...

that aether, the name applied to the material of heavenly bodies, was a form of fire. Aristotle himself did not use the term ''aether'' for the fifth element, and strongly criticised the pre-Socratics for associating the term with fire. He preferred a number of other terms indicating eternal movement, thus emphasising the evidence for his discovery of a new element. These five elements have been associated since Plato's ''Timaeus'' with the five

platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a Convex polytope, convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the face (geometry), faces are congruence (geometry), congruent (id ...

s. Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, and fire with the tetrahedron. Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarked, "...the god used tfor arranging the constellations on the whole heaven".

added a fifth element, aither (aether in Latin, "ether" in English) and postulated that the heavens were made of this element, but he had no interest in matching it with Plato's fifth solid.

Neo-Platonism

The Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus rejected Aristotle's theory relating the elements to the sensible qualities hot, cold, wet, and dry. He maintained that each of the elements has three properties. Fire is sharp ( ὀξυτητα), subtle ( λεπτομερειαν), and mobile ( εὐκινησιαν) while its opposite, earth, is blunt ( αμβλυτητα), dense ( παχυμερειαν), and immobile ( ακινησιαν); they are joined by the intermediate elements, air and water, in the following fashion:

Hermeticism

A text written in Egypt in

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

or Roman times called the '' Kore Kosmou'' ("Virgin of the World") ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (associated with the Egyptian god Thoth), names the four elements fire, water, air, and earth. As described in this book:

Ancient Indian philosophy

Hinduism

The system of five elements are found in

Vedas FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...

, especially Ayurveda, the '' pancha mahabhuta'', or "five great elements", of

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

are: #'' bhūmi'' or '' pṛthvī'' (

), #'' āpas'' or ''jala'' (

), #'' agní'' or '' tejas'' (

), #'' vāyu'', ''vyāna'', or ''vāta'' ( air or

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

) #'' ākāśa'', ''vyom'', or '' śūnya'' (space or zero) or ( aether or void). They further suggest that all of creation, including the human body, is made of these five essential elements and that upon death, the human body dissolves into these five elements of nature, thereby balancing the cycle of nature. The five elements are associated with the five senses, and act as the gross medium for the experience of sensations. The basest element, earth, created using all the other elements, can be perceived by all five senses — (i) hearing, (ii) touch, (iii) sight, (iv) taste, and (v) smell. The next higher element, water, has no odor but can be heard, felt, seen and tasted. Next comes fire, which can be heard, felt and seen. Air can be heard and felt. "Akasha" (aether) is beyond the senses of smell, taste, sight, and touch; it being accessible to the sense of hearing alone.

Buddhism

Buddhism has had a variety of thought about the five elements and their existence and relevance, some of which continue to this day. In the Pali literature, the '' mahabhuta'' ("great elements") or ''catudhatu'' ("four elements") are earth, water, fire and air. In early Buddhism, the four elements are a basis for understanding suffering and for liberating oneself from suffering. The earliest Buddhist texts explain that the four primary material elements are solidity, fluidity, temperature, and mobility, characterized as earth, water, fire, and air, respectively. The Buddha's teaching regarding the four elements is to be understood as the base of all observation of real sensations rather than as a philosophy. The four properties are cohesion (water), solidity or inertia (earth), expansion or vibration (air) and heat or energy content (fire). He promulgated a categorization of mind and matter as composed of eight types of " kalapas" of which the four elements are primary and a secondary group of four are colour, smell, taste, and nutriment which are derivative from the four primaries. Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1997) renders an extract of Shakyamuni Buddha's from Pali into English thus: Tibetan Buddhist medical literature speaks of the (five elements) or "elemental properties": earth, water, fire, wind, and space. The concept was extensively used in

traditional Tibetan medicine Traditional Tibetan medicine or Sowa Rigpa is the Tibetan medical system developed in the 8th century under King Trisong Detsen that incorporated the best international medical practices of that time.Claude Arpi, ''Glimpses on the Tibet History' ...

. Tibetan Buddhist

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

tantra Tantra (; ) is an esoteric yogic tradition that developed on the India, Indian subcontinent beginning in the middle of the 1st millennium CE, first within Shaivism and later in Buddhism. The term ''tantra'', in the Greater India, Indian tr ...

traditions, and "astrological texts" also spoke of them making up the "environment, umanbodies," and at the smallest or "subtlest" level of existence, parts of thought and the mind. Also at the subtlest level of existence, the elements exist as "pure natures represented by the five female buddhas", Ākāśadhātviśvarī, Buddhalocanā, Mamakī, Pāṇḍarāvasinī, and Samayatārā, and these pure natures "manifest as the physical properties of earth (solidity), water (fluidity), fire (heat and light), wind (movement and energy), and" the expanse of space. These natures exist as all "qualities" that are in the physical world and take forms in it.

Ancient African philosophy

Angola

In traditional Bakongo religion, the five elements are incorporated into the Kongo cosmogram. This sacred symbol also depicts the physical world (''Nseke''), the spiritual world of the ancestors (''Mpémba''), the Kalûnga line that runs between the two worlds, the circular void that originally formed the two worlds (''mbûngi''), and the path of the sun. Each element correlates to a period in the life cycle, which the Bakongo people also equate to the four

cardinal direction The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The ...

s. According to their cosmology, all living things go through this cycle. * Aether represents ''mbûngi'', the circular void that begot the universe. * Air (South) represents ''musoni'', the period of conception that takes place during spring. * Fire (East) represent ''kala'', the period of birth that takes place during summer. * Earth (North) represents ''tukula'', the period of maturity that takes place during fall. * Water (West) represents ''luvemba'', the period of death that takes place during winter

Mali

In traditional Bambara spirituality, the Supreme God created four additional essences of himself during creation. Together, these five essences of the deity correlate with the five classical elements. * Koni is the thought and void (aether). * Bemba (also called Pemba) is the god of the sky and air. * Nyale (also called Koroni Koundyé) is the goddess of fire. * Faro is the androgynous god of water. * Ndomadyiri is the god and master of the earth.

Post-classical history

Alchemy

The elemental system used in medieval alchemy was developed primarily by the anonymous authors of the Arabic works attributed to Pseudo Apollonius of Tyana. This system consisted of the four classical elements of air, earth, fire, and water, in addition to a new theory called the sulphur-mercury theory of metals, which was based on two elements: sulphur, characterizing the principle of combustibility, "the stone which burns"; and mercury, characterizing the principle of metallic properties. They were seen by early alchemists as idealized expressions of irreducible components of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

and are of larger consideration within philosophical alchemy. The three metallic principles—sulphur to flammability or combustion, mercury to volatility and stability, and

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

to solidity—became the ''tria prima'' of the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus. He reasoned that Aristotle's four element theory appeared in bodies as three principles. Paracelsus saw these principles as fundamental and justified them by recourse to the description of how wood burns in fire. Mercury included the cohesive principle, so that when it left in smoke the wood fell apart. Smoke described the volatility (the mercurial principle), the heat-giving flames described flammability (sulphur), and the remnant ash described solidity (salt).

Chinese

Chinese traditional concepts adopt a set of elements called the ('' wuxing'', literally "five phases"). These five are

Metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

or Gold, Wood,

Water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

, and

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

or Soil. These can be linked to Taiji, Yinyang, Four Symbols, Bagua, Hexagram and I Ching. *Gold (West) represents the lesser yin symbol,

autumn Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemisphe ...

, the

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

color, and White Tiger mascot, Taotie creature (Earth). *Wood (East) represents the lesser yang symbol, spring, the

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

color, and Azure Dragon mascot, Feilian creature (Wind). *Water (North) represents the great yin symbol,

winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...

, the

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

color, and Black Turtle-Snake mascot. *Fire (South) represents the great yang symbol,

summer Summer or summertime is the hottest and brightest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, daylight hours are the longest and darkness hours are the shortest, with day ...

, the red color, and

Vermilion Bird The Vermilion Bird ( zh, c=朱雀, p=Zhūquè) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. According to Wuxing (Chinese philosophy), Wu Xing, the Taoism, Taoist five elemental system, it represents the Fire (Wu Xing), Fire element, ...

mascot. *Soil (Center) represents the Qi symbol, intermediate season, the

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

color, and Yellow Dragon mascot, Hundun creature (Void).

Japanese

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese traditions use a set of elements called the (''godai'', literally "five great"). These five are

/air, and void. These came from Indian Vastu shastra philosophy and Buddhist beliefs; in addition, the classical Chinese elements (, ''wu xing'') are also prominent in Japanese culture, especially to the influential Neo-Confucianists during the medieval

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. * Earth represented rocks and stability. * Water represented fluidity and adaptability. * Fire represented life and energy. * Wind represented movement and expansion. * Void or Sky/Heaven represented spirit and creative energy.

Medieval Aristotelian philosophy

The Islamic philosophers al-Kindi,

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi followed

in connecting the four elements with the four natures heat and cold (the active force), and dryness and moisture (the recipients).

Medicine Wheel

The medicine wheel symbol is a modern invention attributed to Native American peoples dating to approximately 1972, with the following descriptions and associations being a later addition. The associations with the classical elements are not grounded in traditional Indigenous teachings and the symbol has not been adopted by all Indigenous American nations. *Earth (South) represents the youth cycle,

, the Indigenous race, and cedar medicine. *Fire (East) represents the birth cycle, spring, the Asian race, and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

medicine. *Wind/Air (North) represents the elder cycle,

, the European race, and sweetgrass medicine. *Water (West) represents the adulthood cycle,

, the African race, and sage medicine.

Modern history

Chemical element

The Aristotelian tradition and medieval alchemy eventually gave rise to modern

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

, scientific theories and new taxonomies. By the time of Antoine Lavoisier, for example, a list of elements would no longer refer to classical elements. Some modern scientists see a parallel between the classical elements and the four states of matter:

solid Solid is a state of matter where molecules are closely packed and can not slide past each other. Solids resist compression, expansion, or external forces that would alter its shape, with the degree to which they are resisted dependent upon the ...

, gas and weakly ionized plasma. Modern science recognizes classes of

elementary particle In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. The Standard Model presently recognizes seventeen distinct particles—twelve fermions and five bosons. As a c ...

s which have no substructure (or rather, particles that are not made of other particles) and composite particles having substructure (particles made of other particles).

Western astrology

Western

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...

uses the four classical elements in connection with astrological charts and horoscopes. The twelve signs of the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...

are divided into the four elements: Fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, Earth signs are Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, Air signs are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, and Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces.

Criticism

The Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis writes that the theory of the classical elements "was bound to exercise a really harmful influence. As is now clear, Aristotle, by adopting this theory as the basis of his interpretation of nature and by never losing faith in it, took a course which promised few opportunities and many dangers for science."

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

says that Aristotle's thinking became imbued with almost biblical authority in later centuries. So much so that "Ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century, almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine".

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

External links

*
Section on 4 elements in Buddhism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Classical Element Natural philosophy History of astrology Technical factors of astrology Concepts in Chinese philosophy Theories in ancient Greek philosophy Indian philosophy Hindu cosmology Buddhist cosmology Taoist cosmology Esoteric cosmology Timaeus (Plato)