CLASSIFICATION OF BODIES.
9. So much then for what we had to say of sense-being, and the genus it constitutes. It remains to analyze it into species. Every sense-being is a body; but there are elementary and organized bodies; the former are fire, earth, water and air; the organized bodies are those of plants and animals, which are distinguished from each other by their forms. The earth and the other elements may be divided into species. Plants and bodies of animals may be classified according to their forms; or we could classify apart the terrestrial animals, that inhabit the earth, and those which belong to some other element. We might also analyze bodies into those that are light, heavy, or intermediary; the heavy bodies remaining in the middle of the world, the light bodies in the superior region which surrounds the world, and the intermediary bodies dwelling in the intermediary region. In each one of these regions the bodies are distinguished by their exterior appearance (or, figure); thus there exist the bodies of the (stars, or) celestial bodies, and then those that belong to particular elements. After having distributed the bodies according to the four elements, they could be blended together in some other manner, and thus beget their mutual differences of location, forms, and mixtures. Bodies could also be distinguished as fiery, terrestrial, and so forth, according to their predominating element.