[14] I am surprised, nevertheless, when those who maintain that the air is cold because it is dark do not perceive that others think it must be hot because it is light. For darkness is not so closely connected and akin to cold as heaviness and stability are; many things, in fact, which have no heat are bright, but nothing cold is buoyant, light, and soaring. Why, the very clouds, as long as they are akin to the substance of air, float aloft; but as soon as they change to moisture, they fall at once and lose their lightness no less than their warmth as coldness grows within them. Contrariwise, when heat supervenes, they reverse the movement again, for their substance begins to soar as soon as it has changed to air.
Nor is the argument from destruction true either; for when anything is destroyed, it does not perish by becoming its opposite, though it does perish by the action of its opposite, as fire, for instance, is changed by water into air. For of water Aeschylus
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speaks in tragic style, but accurately, as
Among the Persians it was the most compelling plea to gain an end, one which would admit no refusal, if the suppliant took fire, stood in a river, and threatened that if he lost his suit, he would drop the fire into the water. Now he got what he asked, but though he did so, he was punished for the threat, on the ground that it was contrary to law and against nature. Again, the familiar proverb that is on everyone’s lips,
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to mix fire with water, as an example of the impossible, seems to bear witness that water is hostile to fire, which is destroyed by it and so is punished by being extinguished
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; it is not so affected by air, which, on the contrary, supports fire and welcomes it in its changed form. For if anything into which the thing destroyed changes is its opposite, why will fire, any more than water, seem opposite to air ? For air changes into water by condensation, and into fire by rarefaction just as, on the other hand, water vanishes into air by rarefaction, but into earth by condensation. Now these processes take place, in my opinion, not because these elements are contrary or hostile to one another, but because they are in close affinity and relationship. But my opponents,
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whichever way they state their case, ruin their proof. Certainly it is perfectly absurd for them to say that water is frozen by air when they have never seen air itself freezing. For clouds, mists, and flecks in the sky are not congelations, but condensations and thickenings of air that is moist and vaporous. But waterless, dry air never admits loss of heat to the point where such a change might occur. There are, in fact, mountains which do not know clouds or dew or mist because their peaks reach a region of pure air that has no humidity at all. From this fact it is especially obvious that it is the condensation and density below that contribute to air the cold, moist element that is found in combination with it.
The riot-quelling justicer of fire.
And when Homer
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matched Hephaestus against the river and Apollo against Poseidon in the battle, he did it rather as a philosopher than as a poet. And Archilochus
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expressed himself well on a woman who was of two minds:
With guileful thoughts she bore
In one hand water, in the other fire.
De primo frigido. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.
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