2. Now then, is not that the most useful to us, which in all places and always and most of all we stand in need of,—like a piece of household-stuff or a tool, nay, like a friend that is ready at all hours and seasons? But fire is not always useful; for sometimes it is a prejudice to us and we avoid it if we can. But water is useful, winter and summer, to the healthy and sick, night and day; neither indeed is there any time but that a man has need of it. Therefore it is that the dead are called _alibantes_, as being without moisture (λιβάς) and by that means deprived of life; and man may be without fire, but never was any man without water. Besides, that which was existent from the beginning and with the first creation of man must be thought more useful than what was afterwards invented. From whence it is apparent, that Nature bestowed the one upon us as a thing absolutely necessary, the other fortune and art found out for superfluity of uses. Nor was the time ever known when man lived without water, nor was it an invention of any of the Gods or heroes; for it was present almost at their generation, and it made their creation possible. But the use of fire was a late invention of Prometheus, at what time life was without fire, but not without water. And that this is no poetical fiction is demonstrable from this, that there are many sorts of people that live without fire, without houses, and without hearths, in the open air. And Diogenes the Cynic made no use of fire; so that after he had swallowed a raw fish, “This hazard,” said he, “do I run for your sakes.” But without water no man ever thought it convenient or possible to live. 3. But why do I so meanly confine my discourse to the nature of men, seeing there are many, nay, infinite sorts of creatures? The race of man is almost the only one that knows the use of fire; the others live and feed without fire. Indeed, beasts, birds, and creeping things live upon roots, fruits, and raw flesh, without fire; but without water neither fish nor fowl nor land animals can subsist. For all beasts that feed upon flesh, of which there are some (as Aristotle reports) that never drink, nevertheless support life and being merely by moisture. So that of necessity that must be most profitable without which no sort of life can subsist or endure. 4. Let us therefore make a step from animals that eat to things that we ourselves make use of, such are plants and fruits; of which some are altogether void of heat, others enjoy it but imperfectly and obscurely. But moisture causes all things to germinate, increase, and bring forth. Why should I stand to reckon up wine and oil, milk and honey, and whatever else we reap and bring forth and see before our eyes, when wheat itself, which is looked upon as a dry nourishment, grows by alteration, putrefaction, and corruption of the moist matter?