The Four Elements
Fire, Water, Air, and Earth as building blocks of reality.
The four elements are qualities and modes of being rather than physical substances. Fire is hot and dry, Water is cold and wet, Air is hot and wet, Earth is cold and dry. All things are composed of these in varying proportions.
From the four elements all things are made.
The elements represent fundamental qualities and modes of being.
Greek Philosophy
Written about in
- What Hermeticism says about illness and the body failing
The elements are defined as qualities rather than substances — fire hot and dry, water cold and wet — with all things made of them in varying proportion. Ancient medicine read illness as proportion gone wrong. It is a framework for thinking, not a diagnosis.