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Aristotle, Meteorology

A student of Aristotle may begin by exploring the principles of human knowledge (Metaphysics), then move on to physics (Physics), cosmology (On the Heavens), and sublunar matter theory or change in general (Generation and Corruption). Next, Aristotle concluded his inquiries into physical nature with the Meteorology:

We have already dealt with the first causes of nature [Metaphysics] and with all natural motion [Physics]; we have dealt also with the ordered movements of the stars in the heavens [On the Heavens], and with the number, kinds, and mutual transformations of the four elements, and growth and decay in general [Generation and Corruption]. It remains to consider a subdivision of the present inquiry [i.e., physical nature] which all our predecessors have called Meteorology. Its province is everything which happens naturally but with a regularity less than that of the primary element of material things [aither], and which takes place in the region
which borders most nearly on the movements of the stars.
[ Aristotle, Meteorology, I.I; Aristotle, Meteorologica, trans. H. D. P. Lee, Loeb Classical Library, no. 397 (London: Heinemann, 1952), 5.]

Thus Aristotle situated meteorology with respect to the previous inquiries in two ways:

• first, by stipulating its sublunar subject matter and,
• second, by noting a relative lack of intelligibility due to the inherent instability of sublunar nature.

The subject matter of meteorology, for Aristotle, included not only comets, the Milky Way, shooting stars, rainbows, winds, storms, various forms of precipitation, and other phenomena which he regarded as atmospheric, but also earthquakes, the ebb and flow of the seas or tides, marine fossils located far from present shores; or generally, “all phenomena that may be regarded as common to air and water, and the various kinds and parts of the earth and their characteristics.” This is why phenomena that we today would not consider related to weather (e.g., geology) were discussed by Aristotle in the Meteorology, and also why meteorites got their name, though they were not known to Aristotle.

Aristotle went on to add that the subsequent area of inquiry would consider plants and animals, situating his meteorological theory of the Earth as a prelude to his biological corpus, e.g., History of Animals, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals, etc. (p. 7).

Aristotle’s Meteorology is the primary text containing his theory of the Earth, and later writers on the Earth drew upon it extensively as the point of departure. Key passages in the Meteorology include arguments that the interior of the Earth is cavernous; a versatile and extremely long-lived theory of exhalations and vapors; pioneering investigations of the qualities of different kinds of earths; and observations on earthquakes and volcanos.

Yet in the Meteorology Aristotle also offered a refutation of Plato’s Tartarus, the alleged source of all rivers pulsing to and fro through the center of the Earth (355b32–356a19). Following Aristotle, Plato’s views on the perpetual oscillation of waters running through the center of the Earth were also rejected by Plutarch (The Face on the Moon, 924b), Cicero, and Ovid, among others.

Most importantly, however, Aristotle emphasized the gradual displacement of the land and the sea due to shifting shorelines wherein the ocean gradually displaces the land and then uncovers it again. To demonstrate the reality of this mechanism Aristotle documented examples of the deposition of dry land by rivers silting up at their mouths, shifting the shoreline many miles from ancient port cities. This geological process would explain why one finds seashells far from the present seas. Aristotle suggested that:

these changes escape our observation because the whole natural process of the land’s growth takes place by slow degrees and over periods of time which are vast compared to the length of a human life, and whole peoples are destroyed and perish
before they can record the process from beginning to end.
[Aristotle, Meteorology I.XIV; 351b8–13; trans. Lee, 108–109.]

The later Roman poet Ovid described an Aristotelian perspective in oft-quoted lines:

“The face of places, and their forms decay;
And that is solid earth, that once was sea;
Seas, in their turn, retreating from the shore,
Make solid land, what ocean was before.”
Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV.

The fundamental Aristotelian analysis is still echoed by contemporary popular geology writers, as in this remark from a Pulitzer Prize winning tome nearly 700 pages in length: “If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” John McPhee, Annals of the Former World (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998), 124. Following Aristotle, many ancient and early modern writers have said the same. The Aristotelian perspective also echoes in these lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson:

O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
(Memoriam, VII)

Aristotle synthesized the diverse aspects of his theory into a coherent framework which applied his principles of physics, cosmology, and matter theory. Aristotle thus portrayed the Earth as a functional entity in an immutable cosmos, where cyclical motions of terrestrial generation and corruption correspond to the permanent revolutions of the heavenly orbs as the expression of an intelligible natural order. The comprehensive coherence of his theory, with intimate relations between his cosmology and thinking about the Earth, is evident in his summary of the relations between the land and the sea:

It is therefore clear that as time is infinite and the universe eternal that neither Tanaïs nor Nile always flowed but the place whence they flow was once dry: for their action has an end whereas time has none. And the same may be said with truth about other rivers. But if rivers come into being and perish and if the same parts of the earth are not always moist, the sea also must necessarily change correspondingly. And if in places the sea recedes while in others it encroaches, then evidently the same parts of the earth as a whole are not always sea, nor always mainland, but in process of time all change.
[Aristotle, Meteorology I.XIV; 353a15–25; trans. Lee, 118–121.]

Recurring discussion of the possible eternity of the world from Aristotle through the 17th century was due in part to the persuasiveness of Aristotle’s Meteorology.

Dive Deeper

The significance of seashells and Aristotle’s Meteorology for ancient natural knowledge of the Earth is analyzed by Adrian J. Desmond, “The Discovery of Marine Transgression and the Explanation of Fossils in Antiquity,” American Journal of Science 1975, 275: 692-707.

	HSCI 3013. History of Science to 17th century Kerry Magruder, Instructor, 2004-14 Brent Purkaple, TA Report typos or broken links	Go to this course at Janux spellcheck.net | wordcounter.net Many thanks to the pedagogical model developed in Mythology and Folklore and other online courses by Laura Gibbs, which have been an inspiration for this course.	Academic Calendar
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