Page:Aristotelous peri psuxes.djvu/234

224 Note 14, p. 26. So many writers as admit.] Heat is the antagonism to cold, for it is fixed, and with a tendency, while heat is mobile, and has an  upwards; heat, again, tends to dilate bodies, while cold acts by contracting them. Thus, as heat separates, and cold consolidates, they came to be looked upon as the elements or causes of destruction, (as heat appears to be self-motive and a cause of change,) and restoration. But as heat (ζέω to boil or be hot) is derived from, or is the synonym of life or living, (ζάω contr. ζῶ, ζάειν contr. ζῆν,) so some made life, from this supposed identity, to be heat; and others, from the resemblance between cold (ψυχρὸς or ψυχὸς) and the Vital Principle, (ψυχὴ) as breathing was supposed, by all the physiologists, to be a process for cooling the blood, made it to be cold. It is hardly possible to transfer to another, and that not a cognate tongue, the full sense of a passage which depends upon etymology; but the general import of these two opinions may, perhaps, be gathered from what is here said. Thus, Cervantes makes his knight fix upon the name Rocinante, because Rocin is a horse, or nag of the ordinary character; but, as his charger is to have renown, and to be distinguished from all other nags, it ought to have a sonorous and suitable appellation, and this is realised, in his own opinion, by the suffix ante, and hence, Rocinante.