Quintessence - a concept quite ancient.There was a word for the first time in ancient philosophy.The first who started to use it, was Aristotle.
In ancient times, there were teaching the creator of which was a physician and philosopher Empedocles.According to his ideas, there were four elements.Empedokles believed that all of the world (including humans) consists of four components - fire, earth, water and air.At the same time the differences between, for example, plants and animals are made up of the difference ratios of these elements, the predominance of one or the other of them, degree.
Aristotle to these components Empedocles added a fifth.Quintessence - the fifth essence.Aristotle called it ether.However, according to the philosopher, the quintessence of ether - is not supplementing the basic four elements, and contrasts them.Aristotle believed that the "primary elements" form a region between the orbit of the moon and the center of the Earth - "sublunary" (lower) world.And the world "superlunary" - the stars and the sky - composed of this fifth element.But the essence is not affected by the emergence and destruction.
concept of "quintessence" is very interested in the Renaissance.While interest in alchemy, the magic of antiquity was enormous.For the quintessential Renaissance thinkers - it is a "spirit of peace", animating the body.This idea was the basis of the teachings of Plato.
In the Renaissance, these ideas again become relevant.Followers of the ancient scholars argue that was the essence of the astral body, which in turn acts as an intermediary between the soul, the immaterial and immortal, and the physical body.In this direction, we develop their ideas J. Bruno, Bacon.Agrippa of Nettesheim believed that bone matter to influence the divine spirit itself can not.To do this, a "link", as the quintessence of which is presented, which had a mixed nature - spiritual and physical.The idea of the "astral body" was developed in the occult.
At the same time the doctrine of the quintessence criticized in antiquity.For example, a physicist and philosopher Strato argued that the stars are not made of air and fire.Thinker Ksenarh even wrote an entire treatise "Against the quintessence."However, no critic could not prevent the alchemists and philosophers of the Renaissance to develop ideas about the "fifth element".
thinkers believed that it was possible to extract the essence of the body.Thus, their ideas were approaching the notions of the Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone.Similarly, says Theophrastus Paracelsus quintessence.He was not only a great doctor, but also an alchemist.Scientists believe that by God himself in the vast alchemical laboratory, which is the entire universe, was ejected fifth element of all existing in the world.This is the essence of man.
This idea and the basis for the famous film "The Fifth Element," directed by Luc Besson.It is also on the idea of the founders created the image of the perfect man, who reigns over all four elements.
It announced the Renaissance man "to the measure of all things."And it was not unknown at the time and there was such an understanding of the quintessence of which is reflected in the idea of Paracelsus.This idea was picked up by film-maker at the end of the second millennium.
With this modern cosmology also uses the term "fifth element".We can not say that today knowledge is much broader than in the past.However, if the earlier many of the concepts are not accepted and criticized (for example, negative energy, dark energy, etc.), but today they are used widely.At the same time before man discovered the boundless horizons of knowledge.
