Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 5 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
7. Now in regard there are four first bodies in the universe, which, by
reason of their number, their being uncompounded, and their efficacy,
are allowed for the most part to be the principles and beginnings of
all other,—that is to say, fire and water, air and earth,—is there not
the same necessity that there should be as many first and uncompounded
qualities? And what are they but heat and cold, drought and moisture,
by virtue of which it comes to pass that all the principles act and
suffer? Thus, as there are in grammar lengthenings and shortenings
of sounds, in music, deep and acute sounds, though not one of them
is the privation of the other; we must leave the dry opposed to the
moist principles, and the hot to the cold, if we intend to have the
effects answerable to reason and what is visible in Nature. Unless,
as it was the opinion of the ancient Anaximenes, we will not allow
either cold or hot to be in substance, but only to be common passive
qualities accompanying the alterations of the matter. For he affirms
the contraction and condensation of the matter to be cold; but the
rarefication and laxation of it (for by that word he calls it) to be
hot. Whence it may not be improperly said, that a man breathes hot and
cold at once. For the breath grows cold being compressed and thickened
by the lips, but coming out of the open mouth it is hot, as being
rarefied by that emission. But for this, Aristotle convinces the same
person of ignorance; for that when we blow with the mouth open, we blow
hot from our own bodies; but when we blow with compressed lips, we do
not breathe forth the air from ourselves, but the air that is before
our mouths, being cold, is thrust forward, and lights upon what is next
it.
8. But if we must grant that both heat and cold are substances, let us
proceed a little farther in our discourse, and enquire what sort of
substance is cold, and what is its first principle and nature.
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