The Discarded Image

Content Warning: This section includes descriptions of racist attitudes and biases put forth by the author.

Today, people understand that objects move in accordance with the laws of physics. In the Medieval Model, objects moved because of their sympathies, or their natural inclinations. Chaucer describes the “‘kindly enclyning’ of terrestrial bodies” (69) toward their rightful places. Despite the implication of this turn of phrase, medieval thinkers did not believe that objects were literally sentient. They recognized four existences: “mere existence (as in stones), existence with growth (as in vegetables), existence with growth and sensation (as in beasts), and all those with reason (as in men)” (70). Inanimate objects’ “enclyning” reflected God’s will at work in the universe. 

Everything in the Model was made up of four sympathetic and antipathetic properties called the Four Contraries: “hot, cold, moist, and dry” (71). When God created the universe out of Chaos, he combined these properties to form the four elements. Hot and dry became fire, hot and moist became air, moist and cold made water, and cold and dry made earth. Each element was arranged in its particular place in the universe. The Medieval Model was largely based on