On the Nature of Man

Contents

Reading pages: 1 · 2 · 3–4 · 5–6 · 7–15 · 16–24 · 25–32 · 33–38 · 39–43 · 44

1. 1Nemesius sets man on the border of the intelligible and the sensible, the bond of all creation, made neither plainly mortal nor immortal, for whom the irrational world was made, and praises his dignity.
2. 2Nemesius reviews the ancient opinions on the soul and argues that it is not a body, a harmony, a blending, an actuality, or a number, refutes Eunomius, traducianism, the Manichaeans and transmigration into animals, and concludes that the soul is a bodiless, immortal substance.
3. 3Nemesius explains, following Ammonius, how the bodiless soul is united to the body without confusion, applies the account more purely to the union of God the Word with the man, cites Porphyry, and rejects the Eunomian union of powers and union by good pleasure.
4. 4Nemesius describes the body as composed of the elements and the four humours, distinguishes parts of like and unlike substance, and notes differences among animals.
5. 5Nemesius defines the four elements and their paired qualities, shows how they are bound by intermediate elements and change into one another, reviews Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics and Apollinarius on the elements, cites Hippocrates against a single element, and turns to the body as the soul's instrument.
6. 6Nemesius defines imagination and the Stoic terms for presentation, places its organs in the brain, explains the five senses by their affinity to the elements, defines sensation, and divides the soul's powers into ruling and serving.
7. 7Nemesius reviews theories of vision (Hipparchus, the geometers, Plato, Galen, Porphyry) and explains what sight perceives by itself and with memory and thought, and how it is deceived.
8. 8Nemesius explains why the sense organs are double, why touch extends over the whole body and is necessary to life, how the nerves carry sensation, and what touch perceives alone and in common with sight.
9. 9Nemesius describes taste, its organs, and the simple and compound qualities of flavour.
10. 10Nemesius briefly describes hearing and its organs.
11. 11Nemesius briefly describes smell, its organ, and the kinds of odour.
12. 12Nemesius lists the activities of thought and places its organ in the middle ventricle of the brain.
13. 13Nemesius defines memory and recollection, places imagination, thought and memory in the front, middle and back ventricles of the brain, and proves it from injuries and from a case of phrenitis recorded by Galen.
14. 14Nemesius distinguishes inner from uttered speech and lists the organs of voice and articulation.
15. 15Nemesius reports the divisions of the soul of Zeno, Panaetius and Aristotle and turns to the irrational part.
16. 16Nemesius discusses whether the irrational is a separate soul or a part, divides it into desire and anger with their organs, and defines passion and its relation to activity.
17. 17Nemesius divides desire into the four passions of desire, pleasure, fear and pain and names their causes and cures.
18. 18Nemesius distinguishes pleasures of soul and body, classes bodily pleasures as necessary, natural, or neither, commends true pleasures of contemplation and virtue, and argues against defining pleasure as a coming-to-be.
19. 19Nemesius names four kinds of pain, calls all pain evil, and contrasts the passionlessness of the contemplative with the moderation of the good man.
20. 20Nemesius divides fear into six kinds, explains its bodily cause, and places the organ of pain in the mouth of the stomach, citing Galen and Thucydides.
21. 21Nemesius defines anger, its three kinds, and its role as the bodyguard of reason.
22. 22Nemesius names the powers of the part of the soul that does not obey reason.
23. 23Nemesius describes the four natural powers of nourishment, the excretions, and the organs and course of digestion and the making of blood.
24. 24Nemesius describes the vital power of the heart and arteries and the cooperation of vein, artery and nerve.
25. 25Nemesius explains that the generative power is natural but the act is in our power, describes the generation of seed, and reports the dispute over the woman's seed between Aristotle and Galen.
26. 26Nemesius divides the powers into psychic (by choice) and natural or vital (without choice).
27. 27Nemesius describes the organs of voluntary movement, nerves, tendons and muscles, the hands and feet, and the Creator's joining of natural and voluntary functions.
28. 28Nemesius shows that breathing belongs to the soul though it never ceases, describes the organs of breathing, and classifies the body's parts as made for their own sake, for others, or incidentally.
29. 29Nemesius introduces the voluntary and the involuntary and sets out tests for distinguishing them.
30. 30Nemesius defines the involuntary by force, treats mixed actions done under constraint, and denies that acts of desire or anger are involuntary.
31. 31Nemesius distinguishes acting through ignorance from acting in ignorance, holds that self-caused ignorance does not excuse, and lists the particular circumstances whose ignorance makes an act involuntary.
32. 32Nemesius defines the voluntary, excludes natural processes, and argues that acts done through anger and desire are voluntary.
33. 33Nemesius shows that choice is not the voluntary, appetite, wish, opinion or deliberation, and defines it as deliberative appetite for things in our power.
34. 34Nemesius distinguishes counsel from inquiry and shows that we deliberate only about things in our power, through us, of unclear outcome, and equally contingent.
35. 35Nemesius argues that astral fatalism destroys law, praise, prayer, providence and piety, and that the Stoic compatibilism of Chrysippus and Philopator in fact makes all things fated.
36. 36Nemesius refutes the Egyptian astrologers who hold that fate by the stars can be averted by prayer and rites.
37. 37Nemesius criticizes those who place choice in our power but outcomes under fate, ascribing outcomes instead to providence.
38. 38Nemesius reports Plato's account of fate as subordinate to providence and contingent on our choices, insists against it that providence acts contingently and that God is lord of necessity, and rejects the Stoic doctrine of endless cosmic restoration.
39. 39Nemesius proves that some things are in our power, since human actions cannot be ascribed to God, necessity, fate, nature, fortune or chance, and since deliberation, the virtues, exhortations and laws presuppose it.
40. 40Nemesius explains what is in our power, namely voluntary actions, the works of the soul, the arts and the virtues, answers objections from Scripture, and shows how providence, bodily temperament and choice combine.
41. 41Nemesius explains that free will comes with reason and changeability with created being, defends God against blame for human vice, and shows that vice lies not in our powers but in states acquired by choice.
42. 42Nemesius proves that providence exists from the order of the world, the exposure of crimes (Susanna, Ibycus), prayer, beneficence and prophecy, distinguishes providence from creation, and finds providence over individuals in the endless variety of human faces.
43. 43Nemesius defines providence as God's care and will for all things and shows that the Maker is also the Provider.
44. 44Nemesius reports Plato's threefold providence, rejects the second providence of the heavenly gods as fate, and begins to refute the Stoics, the Epicureans, Aristotle, Euripides and Menander, who deny providence over individuals.