ON MUSIC
445
points ont that the extract given by Porphyry shows some
differences from our text and contains some things quite
unworthy of Euclid; hence he is inclined to think that the
work as we have it is not actually by Euclid, but was ex
tracted by some other author of less ability from the genuine
‘ Elements of Music ’ by Euclid.
(5) Works on mechanics attributed to Euclid.
The Arabian list of Euclid’s works further includes among
those held to be genuine ‘ the book of the Heavy and Light ’.
This is apparently the tract Be levi et ponderoso included by
Hervagius in the Basel Latin translation of 1537 and by
Gregory in his edition. That it comes from the Greek is
made clear by the lettering of the figures; and this is con
firmed by the fact that another, very slightly different, version
exists at Dresden (Cod. Dresdensis Db. 86), which is evidently
a version of an Arabic translation from the Greek, since the
lettering of the figures follows the order characteristic of such
Arabic translations, a, h, g, d, e, z, h, t. The tract consists of
nine definitions or axioms and five propositions. Among the
definitions are these : Bodies are equal, different, or greater in
size according as they occupy equal, different, or greater spaces
(1-3). Bodies-are equal in power or in virtue which move
over equal distances in the same medium of air or water in
equal times (4), while the power or virtue is greater if the
motion takes less time, and less if it takes more (6). Bodies
are of the same kind if, being equal in size, they are also equal
in power when the medium is the same; they are different in
kind when, being equal in size, they are not equal in power or
virtue (7, 8). Of bodies different in kind, that has more power
which is more dense (solidius) (9). With these hypotheses, the
author attempts to prove (Props. 1, 3, 5) that, of bodies which
traverse unequal spaces in equal times, that which traverses
the greater space has the greater power and that, of bodies of
tire same kind, the poiver is proportional to the size, and con
versely, if tire power is proportional to the size, the bodies are
of the same kind. We recognize in the potentia or virtue
the same tiling as the Svrafjus and ia-\vs of Aristotle. 1 The
1 Aristotle, Physics, Z. 5.