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notice details or grasp matters clearly. A mixture that is too hot, mean-
while, is prone to dissipation, it could manifest itself as the lack of focus
or inattentiveness.
The effects of heating of the body by means of emotions and their
pathological effects are discussed fairly extensively by Galen,
but they
generally concern not so much the qualitative constitution of the psychic
pneuma as the heating of the body overall.
It has been pointed out in
scholarship that Galen generally accounts for strong emotions, such as
anger, as heating.
These emotions cause motion that heats the pneuma,
thus making it finer.
Finer pneuma is harder to contain and more liable
to dispersing. If pneuma disperses, the body is deprived of the activities
that it enabled.
The dispersion of pneuma pathologically has the same
effect as emptying the pneuma from the ventricles of the brain in the
experiment discussed in Book of the On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and
Plato. Although the main point of that passage is to show that the psychic
pneuma is the instrument of the soul, it also shows that the loss of an
instrument results in the loss of the capacity, even if temporarily.
By including the category of the psychic pneuma in his pneumatology,
Galen firmly plants himself within the tradition that often made a connec-
tion between psychic capacities and respiration, especially pneuma. His
theorisation of the role that the psychic pneuma plays is, however, quite
original. He is certainly indebted to the Aristotelian tradition, but whereas
Aristotle makes pneuma a special kind of substance whose particular
properties makes it specifically suited for perception,
Galen adopts a
different approach. It is true that it is an especially refined version of
The emotion, as the domain of the spirited soul, is understood as a physical phenomenon in
Galen, see (Havrda ); the problem of the substance of the soul only concerns the rational soul;
for a more extensive discussion of the emotions and the bodily states, see Singer ().
Emotion is a kind of heating in the body that can lead to pathological heating and illness, see San.
Tu. .. Koch (.K), where Galen argues that strong emotion (anger, grief, etc.) risks fevers;
while the weakness of spirit can produce a variety of ill bodily effects through the lack of the innate
heat. See the discussion in Hankinson () of the ways in which the irrational domain can affect
the rational by means of heating.
See Trompeter (: –).
MM . (.–K).
Trem. Palp. (.K) tr. Sider and McVaugh: ‘For warm things rarefy the pneuma and render
bodies fine and soft. But cool things thicken, bring together, and force the pores of bodies to close;
they thicken and solidify the pneuma and make it turbid. It is, therefore, easily retained, unable to
dissipate both because of its own thickness and because of the denseness of the bodies
surrounding it.’
PHP ..– de Lacy (.–K). See also Hankinson (: –).
To be precise, the ability to expand and contract (MA (a–)), which distinguishes them
from automata (MA (a–)); see also Berryman () and Corcilius and Gregoric ().
For Aristotelian model of respiration and pneuma, see Debru (: –).
Respiration and Transpiration
pneuma, but its significance lies not so much in its fineness as the role it
plays in the process, the role of a necessary instrument with distinct
activities irreplaceable by other parts. In other words, the point is not so
much that the psychic pneuma has properties uniquely suited for sense
perception, but that it has the properties suited for perception in the
particular anatomical arrangement. Its placement is just as important, if
not more important, as the capacities it derives from its mixture.
Therefore, its significance depends not only on the kind of substance it
is but also on where in the body it is placed, in other words, on the kind of
part it is. In parallel to the problem discussed in Chapter , the psychic
pneuma is significant because it is more like a bone than a stomach. It is
the structure of the vital processes of the body that makes it a uniquely
crucial component of perception.
. The Natural Pneuma
The vital and the psychic pneuma are the most important types for the
healthy maintenance of human physiological processes. On some occa-
sions, however, Galen also mentions the third type, the natural pneuma.
This kind of pneuma is a bit of a mystery, as Galen talks about both its
existence and properties with a high degree of uncertainty. As a result,
there is little schola rship on the natural pneuma. Julius Rocca’s study of
this pneum a is the only more extensive work published recently, and it
shows that Galen manages to avoid committing to anything definite about
it.
Why was he mentioning something so uncertain to begin with? The
answer seems to lie in the preceding medical tradition that distinguished
between natural and psychic types of pneuma,
prompting Galen to
consider the existence of the former type too. He did not engage with the
tradition unreflectively, however. Here, I argue that his claims about the
natural pneuma show that he was thinking about its possible existence
systematically, in parallel to his theorisations of the other types of
pneuma. Ultimately, while Galen’s conjecturing on the possible existence
of the natural pneuma comes up with few fi rm conclusions, it reveals
much about his approach and especially his tendency to systematise the
human body.
Rocca (: –); Temkin (: ) shows that later Galenists embraced it and claimed
the existence of three types.
Attributed to ‘the ancients’ in Ps. Galenic Int. . (, – Petit¼.K); see von Staden
(:n, –; :n, ); see also Singer () for the argument that Galen was more
influenced by medical rather than philosophical traditions of theorising pneuma.
. The Natural Pneuma
In the context of discussing fainting in On the Therapeutic Method,
Galen briefly summarises his arguments on the three types of pneuma and
their sources. First, he claims to have shown clearly that the brain is the
source of the psychic pneuma that is nourished by respiration and the rete
mirabile. He calls his demonstration (ἡἀπόδειξις) of the vital pneuma not
equally clear, while also noting that it is not unpersuasive (οὐἀπίθανόν)
that it is located in the heart and arteries, nourished by respiration and
blood. Both of these points are in line with what he says about these two
types of pneuma, including some degree of uncertainty about the vital
pneuma in other works, and his arguments have already been discussed in
this chapter. He then adds that ‘if there is also such a thing as the natural
pneuma, it would be contained in the liver and veins’,
adding that the
substances of capacities were discussed fully in On the Doctrines of
Hippocrates and Plato.
This description gives the impression that the lower the source of
pneuma is, the harder it is to ascertain its properties and its existence.
This tendency is, of course, incidental: the difficulty of learning about the
natural pneuma has little to do with how high it is located in the body;
instead, its obscurity comes from the methodological difficulties that arise
when studying the entire nutritive system to which this type of pneuma
belongs. After all, Galen wrote that it is harder to show that the liver is the
centre of the nutritive system than to demonstrate that the heart and the
brain control their respective systems.
Nutrition controlled by the liver
takes place gradually, and the results of its deprivation appear slowly too.
Ligating veins, therefore, does not achieve the same kind of obvious results
as ligating nerves or arteries. As much as this problem pertains to the study
of the liver itself, it becomes an even more insurmountable obstacle
when it comes to the finest substances in the liver-governed complex,
the natural pneuma.
This passage also makes it clear that Galen models the possible existence
and source of the third type of pneuma in accordance with the properties
and activities of the three central organs. Just like the brain and the heart
have a type of pneuma in their domains, so the liver too might have one.
If this were the case, this type of pneuma would be sent out via the veins.
If Galen is applying the tripartite model thoroughly, then he must think
that the natural pneuma must be connected with nourishment in some
MM . (.–K): εἰ δέ ἐστί τι καὶ φυσικὸν πνεῦμα, περιέχοιτ᾿ἂνκαὶ τοῦτο κατά τε τὸ
ἧπερ καὶ τὰς φλέβας.
PHP ..– de Lacy (.–K); see also the discussion in Chapter .
Respiration and Transpiration
way. Just as the pneuma in the brain is instrumental to psychic activities
and the vital pneuma to vital heat-regulating activities, so the natural
pneuma in the liver, the ruling organ of nutrition,
must be tied to
nutritive activities. And, indeed, if we follow Galen’s reference to On the
Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, we can find evidence corroborating this
line of reasoning.
Galen alludes to the third type of pneuma very brieflyinOn the
Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato. In a polemical context against
cardiocentrists,
notably the Stoics, he focuses on their argument that
the ruling part is the source of pneuma and then adds the premise that this
source is the heart. He takes this argument apart, pointing out that the
Stoics assume what is under investigation regarding the psychic pneuma.
If their claim concerns the vital pneuma, it does not follow that both
pneumas have the same source. He then praises Erasistratus for distin-
guishing between the sources of the two pneumas, and he goes on to say
that ‘if they say that neither of these pneumas is meant in the argument,
but rather the so-called material pneuma, which is analogous to dry and
moist nutriment, they will learn about this too from Hippocrates: “The
source of the nourishment of pneuma is mouth, nostrils, windpipe, lungs,
and breathing generally.”’
The identification of this third type of pneuma with nutriment is
presumably a Galenic addition, given the fact that the subdivision of
pneuma into types is not Stoic to begin with. Galen is saying that if the
cardiocentrists suppose that the heart is the source of the nutritious
pneuma, they are wrong, because, as Hippocrates says, pneuma is nour-
ished by the respiratory system. The way he describes the natural pneuma
indicates that it does have some bearing on nourishment in providing dry
and moist nutriment, although this is not the kind of nourishment that
pertains to the heart. Just like the vital pneuma maintains the innate heat
by both kindling and quenching it, so the natural pneuma, if it existed,
would maintain the proper level of nutriment by supplying both moist and
dry properties.
PHP ..– de Lacy (.–K); Cur. Rat. Ven. Sect. (.K). See also Harris (: )
and the discussion in Chapter .
For more on this, see Tieleman (: –).
PHP .. de Lacy (.K), tr. de Lacy (–: ): εἰ δ’ οὐδέτερον μὲν τούτων τῶν
πνευμάτων ἠρωτῆσθαι κατὰ τὸν λόγον ἐροῦσι, τὸ δὲἀνάλογον τῇ ξηρᾷ καὶὑγρᾷ τροφῇ, τὸ
προσαγορευόμενον ὑλικόν, ἀκούσονται καὶ περὶ τοῦδε παρ’ Ἱπποκράτους· ‘ἀρχὴ τροφῆς
πνεύματος στόμα, ῥῖνες, βρόγχος, πνεύμων, καὶἡἄλλη διαπνοή’. See also Hippocratic Alim.
(, – Heiberg¼. Littré).
. The Natural Pneuma
Generally, the property of moistness is associated with nutriment.
According to the general principles of the four-element theory that Galen
espouses, heat always consumes moisture, which results in dryness. The
cold, although consuming nothing, produces moistness.
When discuss-
ing replenishing bodies for health in Thrasybulus, Galen notes that when
there is a loss of dryness, nourishment must be given,
while the
‘cooking’ of the moistness produces dryness. It is also worth noting that
excessive dryness prevents the homoeomerous tissues from absorbing
nutriment.
It follows that the balance of the two properties would result
in the regulation of nourishment in the body. The natural pneuma, thus,
could be conceived as the regulator of these properties, in the same way as
vital pneuma is involved in the regulation of the balance between the hot
and the cold.
The principles of the four-element theory would also allow a conjecture
that the natural pneuma would be denser than the other two types.
Nourishment and the properties connected to it are generally associated
with density.
The same conjecture can be made on the ground of this
pneuma originating from the lower part of the body. Bearing in mind that
the psychic pneuma is generated by going upwards in the body and
gradually becoming finer, the natural pneuma, with its source located
below the heart and the lungs, might be much less (or not at all) elaborated
and, therefore, thicker.
Given its likely role as the regulator of nourishment, the next point of
discussion about the natural pneuma ought to be what it nourishes. There
are two – not mutually exclusive – possibilities: fleshy tissues and other
pneumata. In the first case, the natural pneuma might be aiding the blood
in delivering nourishment to the homoeomerous parts. Pneumatic sub-
stances change faster than any other substances, and thus the natural
pneuma might help to transfer the nourishment from the liquid to the
solid parts. In the second case, the natural pneuma might replenish the
vital pneuma, which, in the process of turning into the finer psychic
pneuma, might be, in some cases, turning too thin and scattered. Since
pneumatic substances change quickly, the vital pneuma would receive the
And generation, see Form. Foet. , Nickel (.K). See also Anonymous Londinensis .–
Manetti (: –), which reports allegedly Hippocratic views. Here an analogy between
‘soldier’ plants, rooted in moisture and moving around seeking moisture, and humans, rooted in
air, is established.
San. Tu. .. Koch (.K).
Thras. (, – Helmreich¼.K).
MM . (.K), see also Chapter .
See Debru ().
Respiration and Transpiration
much-needed nourishment more easily from another pneumatic sub-
stance, the natural pneuma, rather than any solid part.
Although the claims about the natural pneuma are few, they do show
how methodically Galen is approaching its hypothetical existence. He is
clearly theorising the possible existence of this type of pneuma systematic-
ally, with a reference to the tripartition of the main physiological domains,
both regarding the kind of role it would have in the body if it existed and
regarding the methodological difficulties in studying the entire system to
which it belongs. Thus, even his uncertainty about this type of pneuma is
very much in line with how he approaches and what he claims to know of
the three physiological domains. Despite the fact that Galen produced no
more than a hypothetical account of the natural pneuma, his examination
of its possible existence is revealing. It shows that his thinking about the
functioning of the body involves a strong assumption about systematicity,
modelled on the tripartition of the central physiological domains.
. Concluding Remarks: On Animal Unity
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the cardiac system is, in an
important way, the hallmark of animal vitality. The key motivation for the
claim is Galen’s understanding of the innate heat, whose source is the
heart. For all intents and purposes, its significance can be understood as
the kind of homeostatic regulation of temperature.
The animal life is
distinguished from the inanimate objects and plants by its motion. To be a
living animal being means to move, both literally and figuratively. Animals
are not only unrooted, but also capable of perceiving their environment
and reacting to it. Animals can be moved to anger or fear or joy. All of
these motions are underpinned by heat, produced by the heart. The more
heat, the more motions there are. Conversely, whenever a body is chilled
by either medicine or cold, arteries, nerves and muscles cease working.
It is for this reason that breathing is the sign of animal life too. Breath, by
cooling and kindling, preserves the appropriate degree of the innate heat in
all the tissues, and therefore to breathe is to be a living animal, with the
heart as the centre and the ruler of the animal life.
Pneuma contributes to animal motion in more than one way: in the
form of vital pneuma, it preserves the heat; in the form of the psychic
pneuma, it plays a role in voluntary motion and perception of animals.
Although the three main types of pneuma discussed in this chapter have
A point made by Hankinson in (, a, b).
PHP .. de Lacy (.K).
. Concluding Remarks: On Animal Unity
different roles and activities in the body, they share some fundamental
characteristics. Pneumata, even the thickest species of this genus, are the
finest substances in the body. This property enables them to perform
activities in accordance with their different type. The fineness allows
pneumata to change by means of qualitative alteration and the inherent
motion allows them to ‘transmit’ that change from one area or organ to
another one. The differences between the types of pneuma can be spelt out
in terms of the kind of properties they transmit. The natural pneuma,
whose existence is only presumed, is a supplier of dry and moist nutriment.
The vital pneuma, the crucial element of the cardiac system, ‘transmits’
thermal changes that ensure the optimal conditions for the maintenance of
the innate heat. The psychic pneuma participates in the transmission of
the sensory data. This is made possible by its extreme fineness, which is
achieved by extensive refinement not only in the arteries but also in the
ventricles of the brain, allowing this pneuma to transmit extremely fine-
grained impressions. Despite being the necessary instrument of perception,
the psychic pneuma is only one component of the complex process, which
is explored in greater depth in Chapter . Before turning to the nervous
system, it is worthwhile to note the significance of the cardiac system in the
animal body.
Unlike plants, animals are governed by two physiological systems, and
therefore they have not only the liver but also the heart as a governing part.
In Galen’s conceptualisation of the workings of the body, there are some
parallels between the two systems these two governing organs oversee. The
arteries extending from the heart are distributed throughout the body just
like veins, and while the vegetative system supplies nutriment through the
offshoots of the liver, the primary purpose of the cardiac system is to
supply heat-regulation to the rest of the body. The two systems are not just
parallel, they are also connected. As argued in Chapter , all the tissues are
capable of absorbing and converting nutriment owing to their natural
capacities, and the vegetative system helps to produce and to deliver that
nutriment to the parts. Analogously, the tissues also have some internal
heat, owing to the presence of the hot element in their mixtures. These are
the very same mixtures that underlie the natural capacities, so both
physiological systems are rooted in the same elemental composition.
However, the analogy stops when it comes to the proportions of
elements in that very same composition, especially in regard to proportion
heat. It is true that both systems possess some heat: Galen explicitly refers
to the mild kind of heat in plants, discussed Section ., contrasting it with
the significantly greater heat in animals, but the animal heat makes animals
Respiration and Transpiration
adifferent kind of living beings. This point is first made evident by the fact
that the animal heat is constantly re-supplied and tampered by breathing.
The increase of heat arrives with a further consequence: the differenti-
ation of tissues in terms of their viscosity arising from different degrees of
heat. The facts that animal bodies possess pneuma and that pneumata are
divided into different types are widely discussed in Galenic scholarship,
but his division of the body parts according to three different kinds of
viscosity received fairly little attention. As the discussion in this chapter
shows, the viscosity of tissues is very important for understanding the
variety of ways in which one body part can affect another: both in terms of
speed and degree.
Apart from the diagnostic and therapeutic significance discussed earlier,
the presence of three types of viscosity in the body has important implica-
tions for understanding animal vitality. The tripartite differentiation of
tissues is only possible in higher life forms, namely in animals, because
only animals possess pneuma (possibly three types of it, with slightly
different activities but similar principles of performing those activities).
Owing to its presence, there is significantly more motion in animal tissues
and bodies. Some of that motion is breathing, which sustains the innate
heat in a neat self-sufficient manner. However, the sense perception and
voluntary movement that animals are endowed with are also not possible
without heat-propelled motion, distributed and ‘communicated’ through-
out the body with the help of pneuma.
In Chapter , it was shown that the vegetative system represents a self-
sufficient system, creating unity and making the entire nutritive domain,
in an important way, one. When it comes to the cardiac system, a high
degree of self-sufficiency comes into the picture when it is considered not
by itself but together with the nutritive system. This is not entirely
surprising: the vegetative system can exist in isolation, as it does in plants.
The cardiac system cannot exist by itself: there is no animal that is heat-
regulated but does not eat and grow. At the same time, it would be wrong
to think of the animal as a plant with extra cardiac activities: its mixtures
are hotter and in a need of heat-regulation, unlike mixtures found in
plants. The presence of the cardiac system, in other words, affects the
vegetative states too, so that together they form an inter-twined and inter-
connected whole. Unlike plants, animals are capable not only of nourish-
ment and growth but also of a selection of nourishment that comes their
This principle also shows up in the analysis of voluntary motion, see the discussion in Chapter .
. Concluding Remarks: On Animal Unity
way by perceiving the sources of nourishment and moving towards that
better nourishment.
Furthermore, rational animals can also deliberate and make choices
about their nourishment. This kind of scenario involves an even greater
unity, the unity of three ruling principles. The role of the psychic pneuma
as an instrument of the soul hints at the connection between spirited
capacities and higher cerebral functions. As argued in this chapter, the
psychic pneuma behaves, in principle, like the vital one but its extensive
rendering in the arteries makes it extra fine and malleable, sensitive to very
fine alterations, all of which makes it most suitable for sense perception.
As Galen defines it, an organ is a part with a complete activity (as
discussed in Chapter ), and if the psychic pneuma is an organ, its
complete activity must be the very fine kind of alteration required for
sense perception. Within the range of parts that are called organs, the
psychic pneuma seems to be comparable to the nerve rather than, for
example, to the eye. The latter organ is performing its activity, seeing,
owing to its own parts, the most important of which is the lens. The
psychic pneuma, meanwhile, is simply an extremely viscous homoeomer-
ous tissue that extends and is subservient to a governing part. Interestingly,
the governing part it is subservient to is, technically, in charge of a different
physiological system. In this respect, the psychic pneuma resembles blood:
just like blood is circulated not only in veins but also arteries, so the
psychic pneuma is circulated not only in arteries but also in the brain and
some nerves. And if the cardiac system is the hallmark of animal life, then
the nervous system is the hallmark of animal, and especially human,
intelligence. The peculiar anatomy and properties of the nervous system,
together with its significance for the unity of human physiology, are
explored in Chapter .
Respiration and Transpiration
Perception and Voluntary Motion
The Nervous System
As noted in Chapters , together with a variety of explicit divisions of the
body into parts discussed so far, there is another prominent, but also
typically implicit, division according to the type of motion. This division
is simple, consisting of only two types: involuntary and voluntary motion.
The discussion in Chapters and focused on the physiological systems
that produce involuntary motion: the vegetative and the spirited ones.
However, the vital functions often involve the cooperation of different
systems, at least to some extent. For example, while nutrition belongs to
the vegetative domain, Galen divides the phenomenon of hunger into a
physical and a psychic stage: the reaction to the lack of nutriment in tissues
and the sensation of the lack via nerves (Chapter ). Similarly, while
breathing belongs to the domain of the cardiac system, according to
Galen it is a matter of providential design that breathing via nose and
mouth, that is respiration, obliges our will. The capacity for voluntary
motion means that we are able to exercise conscious control over our own
bodies. The voluntary motion is the domain of the nervous system alone,
and, it is a distinguishing feature of this system, differentiating it from both
the cardiac and the nutritive systems. Galen assigns it a special role when,
in Book of On the Usefulness of Parts, he cites Plato describing the liver as
a wild animal, adding: ‘The reasoning part of us, which is the real human,
is situated in the encephalon and has as its handmaiden and servant the
irascible [soul] to protect it against this wild animal. Wherefore our
Creator connected these parts with offshoots [nerves, veins, arteries] and
so contrived for them to heed one another.’
The language Galen uses here
UP . (., – Helmreich¼.–K) , tr. May (: ), slightly altered: τὸ δὲ
λογιζόμενον ὄντως ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, ἐν ἐγκεφάλῳ καθιδρυμένον ὑπηρέτην τέ τινα καὶ βοηθὸν ἔχον
τὸν θυμὸν ἐπίκουρον ἑαυτῷ κατὰ τοῦδε τοῦ θρέμματος. ὅθεν αὐτὰ διὰ τῶν ἀποφύσεων ὁ
δημιουργὸς ἡμῶν συνάψας ἐπαΐειν ἀλλήλων ἐτεχνήσατο.