ELEMENT

An element may be identified in any subject matter that is capable of analysis and synthesis and in any science or art in which such processes are studied. Compounds are known to be such when they can be resolved into simpler parts. The least parts into which anything can be divided, i.e., the ultimate units or parts out of which other things are formed by combination, are called elements. However, elements are only relatively indivisible, that is, in a certain way or context, or from a certain point of view. Thus, the letters of the alphabet and their sounds are elements of speech and writing, although in other respects they are divisible and are not elements.

Element in Philosophy. An element is a kind of material cause from which something is composed in a primary way, as bread is made of flour and water, and a meal of bread and wine (see matter; matter and form). Furthermore, an element is somehow in the compound in a positive way and remains in the compound. It is not like illness, which does not remain in the body after health has been recovered, but rather like nourishing food that does remain after eating. Moreover, an element has a specific character of its own, and one which is simple, that is, not further divisible into other species in the same line of division. Again, just as principles are related to consequences and causes to effects, so elements are related to compounds.

Various Usages. In arithmetic, the unit is the element of which numbers are composed. In geometry, lines determined by points are elements, and also surfaces and solids determined by lines. According to ancient and medieval science, the whole world was thought to be composed of four kinds of elementary bodies—viz, earth, water, air, and fire—all transformable one into another, and further entering into the formation of mixtures and compounds. Moreover it was thought that the animal body in temperament and health depends upon the mixture and proportion of four vital elements or humors, viz, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.

In modern biology, cells and tissues are the elements of complex organisms, while simple organisms are resolved into nucleus or nuclear materials and cytoplasm with its organic and inorganic parts. In modern physical science the elements are the chemically simple bodies, about 100 in number of kinds, that are classified with natural sequence in the periodic table (see below).

According to another meaning of the word, the elements of a science or art are its primary conceptions and demonstrations. These are the demonstrations that are made, not by long chains of reasoning, but by simple arguments consisting of three terms and employing only one medium of demonstration. In this sense one speaks of the elements of ethics or metaphysics, or of any science or art.

Presence in Compounds. A philosophical problem of importance is concerned with the manner in which elements exist in a compound. Some compounds seem to be mere mixtures of elements that retain their own characteristics and their own identity, as sea water is a mixture of water and various salts. On the other hand, a compound such as water or salt has its own characteristics, and seems to be a natural unit of a kind specifically different from its elements, which do not retain their own characteristics unmodified. In compounds such as these, the elements do not seem to retain their own existence, but have become parts of a new unit and exist in virtue of the new unit (virtualiter ), somewhat as food becomes part of one organism through digestion and assimilation. If the elements retained their own identity, the compound would not be one in kind, but many.

See Also: atomism; principle; causality.

Bibliography: m. j. adler, The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World (Chicago 1952) 1:400–412. a. van melsen, From Atomos to Atom, tr. h. j. koren (New York 1960). v. miano, Enciclopedia filosofica (Venice-Rome 1957) 1:1847–50.

[w. h. kane]