On the Principle of Cold (20-23)

And what is the meaning of our demand for a yearly change of habitation ? In winter we retreat to the loftiest parts of our houses, those farthest from the earth, while in summer we require the lower parts, submerging ourselves and going in quest of comfortable retreats, as we make the best of a life in the embrace of mother earth. Since we do this, are we not guided to the earth by our perception of its coldness ? Do we not acknowledge it as the natural seat of primordial cold ? And surely our living by the sea in the winter is, in a way, an escape from the earth, since we abandon the land as far as possible because of the frost and wrap ourselves in salt sea air because it is warm. Then again, in the summer by reason of the heat, we long for the earth-born, upland air, not

We are, further, informed by physicians that generically earth is by nature astringent and cold, and they enumerate many metals that provide a styptic, staying effect for medicinal use. The element of earth is not sharp or mobile or slender or priekly or soft or ductile, but solid and compact like a cube.[*] This is how it came to have weight; and the cold, which is its true power, by thickening, compressing, and squeezing out the humidity of bodies, induces shivering and shaking through its inequality[*]; and if it becomes complete master and expels or extinguishes all the heat, it fixes the body in a frozen and corpselike condition. This is the reason why earth does not burn at all, or burns only grudgingly

As for those who suppose that they feel cold air and water, but are less sensible of earth’s coldness, what they perceive is that portion of earth which is closest to them and has come to be a medley, a congeries, abounding in air and water, sun and heat. There is no difference between such people and those who

We must, therefore, believe that the reason why ancient learned men held that there is no commerce between earthly and celestial things was not that they distinguished up and down by relative position, as we do in the case of scales; but rather it was the difference in powers that led them to assign such things as are hot and bright, swift and buoyant, to the eternal and imperishable part of nature, while darkness and cold and slowness they considered the unhappy heritage of transitory and submerged beings. Then too, the body of a living creature, as long as it; breathes and flourishes, does, as the poets say, enjoy both warmth and life[*]; but when these forsake it and it is abandoned in the realm of earth alone, immediately frigidity and congelation seize upon it,

Compare these statements, Favorinus, with the pronouncements of others; and if these notions of mine are neither less probable nor much more plausible than those of others, say farewell to dogma, being convinced as you are that it is more philosophic to suspend judgement when the truth is obscure than to take sides.[*]