All the compound bodies--all of which exist in the region belonging to the central body--are composed of all the ‘simple’ bodies. For they all contain Earth because every ‘simple’ body is to be found specially and most abundantly in its own place. And they all contain Water because (a) the compound must possess a definite outline and Water, alone of the ‘simple’ bodies, is readily adaptable in shape: moreover (b) Earth has no power of cohesion without the moist. On the contrary, the moist is what holds it together; for it would fall to pieces if the moist were eliminated from it completely.
They contain Earth and Water, then, for the reasons we have given: and they contain Air and Fire, because these are contrary to Earth and Water (Earth being contrary to Air and Water to Fire, in so far as one Substance can be ‘contrary’ to another). Now all compounds presuppose in their coming-to-be constituents which are contrary to one another: and in all compounds there is contained one set of the contrasted extremes. Hence the other set must be contained in them also, so that every compound will include all the ‘simple’ bodies.
Additional evidence seems to be furnished by the food each compound takes. For all of them are fed by substances which are the same as their constituents, and all of them are fed by more substances than one. Indeed, even the plants, though it might be thought they are fed by one substance only, viz. by Water, are fed by more than one: for Earth has been mixed with the Water. That is why farmers too endeavour to mix before watering. Although food is akin to the matter, that which is fed is the ‘figure’--i.e. the ‘form’ taken along with the matter. This fact enables us to understand why, whereas all the ‘simple’ bodies come-to-be out of one another, Fire is the only one of them which (as our predecessors also assert) ‘is fed’. For Fire alone-or more than all the rest-is akin to the ‘form’ because it tends by nature to be borne towards the limit. Now each of them naturally tends to be borne towards its own place; but the ‘figure’--i.e. the ‘form’--Of them all is at the limits.
Thus we have explained that all the compound bodies are composed of all the ‘simple’ bodies.