Quintessence is the fifth essence

Quintessence is a concept rather old. There was a word for the first time in ancient philosophy. The first to use it was Aristotle.

In ancient times, there was a teaching, the creator of which was the doctor and philosopher Empedocles. According to his ideas, there were four elements. Empedocles believed that in the world everything (including the human body) consists of four components - fire, earth, water and air. In this case, the differences between, for example, plants and animals consist in the difference of the ratio of these elements, the predominance of one or the other of them, the degree of expression.

Aristotle added the fifth component to the components indicated by Empedocles. Quintessence is the fifth essence. Aristotle called it ether. However, according to the philosopher, the ether-quintessence is not complementing the basic four elements, but opposed to them. Aristotle believed that the "primary elements" form the region between the orbit of the Moon and the center of the Earth - the "sublunar" (inferior) world. And the world "super moon" - the stars and the sky - consist of this fifth element. But this essence is not subject to occurrence and destruction.

The concept of "quintessence" was very interested in the Renaissance. At that time, interest in alchemy, magic, antiquity was colossal. For thinkers of the Renaissance, quintessence is a kind of "spirit of the world" that animates the body. This idea was the basis of the teachings of Plato.

In the Renaissance, these ideas became relevant again. The followers of the ancient teaching maintained that the quintessence constituted the astral body, which in turn acted as a mediator between the soul, the immaterial and the immortal, and the physical body. In this direction, J. Bruno, Bacon developed their ideas. Agrippa of Nettesheim believed that the divine spirit can not directly influence bone material. To do this, you need some "link", in which the quintessence acted, which had a mixed nature - spiritual and physical. The idea of the "astral body" was developed in the occult.

Along with this, the doctrine of quintessence was criticized in ancient times. So, for example, the physicist and philosopher Straton claimed that the stars consist not of ether, but of fire. Thinker Xenarch wrote even a whole treatise "Against Quintessence." However, no criticism could prevent alchemists and Renaissance philosophers from developing ideas about the "fifth element".

Thinkers believed that the quintessence could be extracted from the body. Thus, their ideas were approaching the concepts of the elixir of life and the philosophical stone. The similar way speaks about the quintessence of Theophrastus Paracelsus. He was not only a great medic, but also an alchemist. The scientist considered that the fifth element of everything existing in the world was extracted by the God himself in the huge alchemic laboratory, which is the entire Universe. This quintessence is a person.

This idea also formed the basis of the famous film "The Fifth Element" directed by Luc Besson. It also creates an image of the perfect person, who reigns over all four elements, according to the idea of the creators.

It was the Renaissance that declared man "a measure for all things." And it was at that notorious time that an understanding of the quintessence arose that was reflected in the idea of Paracelsus. And this idea was picked up by the film director at the end of the second millennium.

At the same time, modern cosmology also uses the concept of the "fifth element". It can not be said that today knowledge is much broader than in antiquity. However, if earlier many concepts were not accepted and criticized (for example, negative energy, dark energy, etc.), today they are used quite widely. In this case, unlimited horizons of knowledge are open to the person.