NUMEROLOGY
ELEMENTS, THE FOUR: The alchemical theory that all matter was composed of four components: earth, air, fire, and water. Each element had two spectrums of quality: hot/cold and dry/wet. For instance, earth was cold and dry. Water was cold and wet. Fire was hot and dry, and so on. Varying combinations of elements resulted in the * four bodily humors of the physical body. Like the Chain of Being, the elements were arranged hierarchically, with varying elements given qualities that made them subordinant or dominant. The lowest, earth, was beneath all the other elements. The highest, fire, was above all the others. References to the elements appear frequently in medieval and Renaissance literature, and these allusions often have complex but easily overlooked political, spiritual, and cosmological significance if one does not recall the hierarchical nature of the elements in alchemical models. http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_E.html
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In ancient Greece, Hippocrates postulated that four bodily humors or liquids existed in the body corresponding to the four elements existing in matter. These four liquids determined a human's health and psychology. An imbalance among the humors--blood, phlegm, black bile (or tears), and yellow bile (or choler)--resulted in pain and disease, and good health resulted through a balance of the four humors.
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