Concerning the First Principle of Cold (1-5)

Is there then, Favorinus, any first or principal power or existence of cold, as fire is the principle of heat, by the presence and imparting of which all other things of the same nature become cold? Or rather is not cold the privation of heat, as they say darkness is the privation of light, and rest the privation of motion? In regard that cold seems to be firm and stable, and heat always in motion; and for that the refrigeration of hot things is not caused by the presence of any active power, but by the departure of the heat. For we find the heat go off in great quantity, and then that which remains grows cold. Thus the vapor which boiling water sends forth ceases also when the heat is gone. Therefore refrigeration, expelling the heat, diminishes the quantity, while nothing supplies the place of it.

First, we might question this way of arguing, as being that which would abolish several manifest faculties, as being neither qualities nor habits, but the privations of habits and qualities; so as to make ponderosity the privation of levity, hardness the privation of softness, black of white, bitter of sweet, and so with other things which are naturally opposed to each other in their power and not as a privation to a habit. Or else for this reason, because all privation is a thing altogether sluggish and without action, as blindness, deafness, silence, and death; for they are the

Besides, no privation is capable of more and less. Neither can any man say, that one among those that cannot see is more blind than another, or that one among those that cannot speak is more silent than another, or that any thing is more dead than another among those things that never had life. But in cold things there is more and less, and excess and diminution to several degrees; in a word, there is both intensity and remission as well as in hot things; because the matter suffers in some things more violently, in others more languidly, and therefore some things are hotter, some things colder than others, according to the nature of the matter. For there is no mixture of habit with privation. Neither does any power admit of privation opposite to it, nor associate with it in the same subject, but it withstands it altogether. Hot things allow themselves to be mixed

Then again, we find that there is the same sense and feeling of cold as of heat; but privation is neither to be seen, heard, or felt, neither is it known to any of the other senses. For the object of sense is substance; but where no substance appears, there we understand privation to be,—which is a negation of substance, as blindness of sight, silence of voice, and vacuity of corporeal substance. For there is no sense or perception of vacuity by feeling; but where there is no body to be felt, there a vacuity is implied. Neither do we hear silence; but where we do not hear any thing at all, there we imply silence. In like manner we have no perception of blindness, nakedness, or being unarmed; but we know them from the negation of our sense. Therefore if cold were a privation of heat, there would be no being sensible of cold; but

Further then, privation of every kind is something single and simply particular; but in substances there are several differences and efficacies. For silence is a thing but of one sort; but of sounds there are great variety, sometimes molesting, sometimes delightful to the sense. There are also the same differences in colors and figures, which vary as they occur to the senses. But that which is not to be felt, which is without color and void of quality, can never be distinguished, but is always like itself.