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Prelude to Chap. XIII.
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elements, combination and proportion, it seems to typify, as it were, an atomic theory. Hippocrates[1], also, taught that the human body cannot be exclusively, either of air or fire, water or earth, or any single element; although, he adds, "I do not quarrel with such as think otherwise." Plato[2], likewise, “derived all things, so to say, from these four elements, in due proportion and relation to one another; so that what fire is to air, that air is to water, and water to earth, and each is, by affinity, united with others, to form whatever is visible and tangible.”