Chapter 11 De mixtione XVI: on Growth
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Abstract
In Chapter XVI Alexander investigates whether the Stoic notion of body going through body is applicable to the phenomenon of biological growth. If anything, growth through nutrition seems to recommend this Stoic notion. However, in Chapter XVI Alexander develops an Aristotelian explanation of growth, which is more convincing and does not rely on the Stoic notion. Since the Stoic notion of body going through body has been shown to be problematic in the earlier chapters of De mixtione, and the final chapter discards its utility even for an explanation of growth, we argue that the outcome of the treatise is that the Stoic notion should be abandoned. In this contribution we divide Alexander’s text in 9 sections and analyse it section by section, availing ourselves of other relevant texts, such as Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione I 5, Quaestio I 5 attributed to Alexander, and his Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorology IV. In the Appendix we discuss four points: (1) it is the nutritive capacity of the soul that is the efficient, formal and final cause of nourishment, (2) diminution in old age is due to the decreasing rate of absorption of digested nutriment, (3) for any episode of growth, some bit of matter needs to remain through it, which makes replacement of bodily ingredients a gradual process, (4) Chapter XVI is not extraneous to De mixtione or tucked at the end of it for want of a better place, as some scholars have suggested, but an integral part of the treatise at its right place.