To begin again: for the use of fire as fire we do not need water; on the contrary, it would be in our way since it extinguishes and destroys it. But in most circumstances it is impossible to use water without fire. When water is heated, it is more useful; otherwise it is harmful. And it is heat which has made the sea more beneficial, its waters being warmer, since it differs from other waters in no other respect. This sentence was transferred here from the following chapter by Wegehaupt. So that of two things, that is better which of itself lends us its use without need of the other. Besides, water is solely beneficial to the touch, when you wash or bathe in it; but fire is profitable to all the senses. It can, in fact, both be touched and seen from a distance, so that in addition to its other uses, there is also its variegated character. The order of the sentences in this chapter, in addition to its many other corruptions, has been badly disturbed. For to say that man ever exists without fire is absurd, nor can he exist at all without it; but there are differences in kind as in other things. As for men who have no need of fire from without, they have this experience not because they do not need it, but because their own heat more than suffices. This must be predicated also of other animals which do not need fire. This clause was transferred here by the editor from 958 c infra at the end of the paragraph. So that in this respect, too, the use of fire is probably superior. Water is never in such a condition as to need no external support, but fire is self-sufficient because of its great excellence. As, then, a general is better who manages the affairs of his city so that it needs no allies from without, so also an element is superior which does not often need external assistance. Yet, to take the opposite point of view, that is more useful which we alone make great use of, since by the powers of our reason we are able to choose what is better. For what is more useful and more profitable to man than reason? But brute beasts do not have it. What then? Is what has been discovered by the foresight of our better part for this reason less useful? And since we have arrived at this point in our argument: What is more profitable to life than Art? And it was fire that discovered and still preserves all the arts. That is why they make Hephaestus the first of artificers. Man has been granted but a little time to live and, as Ariston Von Arnim, S.V.F. i. p. 90, frag. 403; cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , i. 13. 12 (1102 b 7). says, sleep, like a taxcollector, takes away half of that. But I would rather say that it is a question of darkness; for although a man might stay awake all night, yet no good would come of his wakefulness if fire did not give him the benefits of day and remove the difference between day and night. A very corrupt passage. Adler’s reconstruction ( Wien. Stud. xxxi. 308), with additions by Post, has been followed. If, then, there is nothing more advantageous to man than life and life is many times increased by fire, how should fire not be the most useful of all things? And, to be sure, will not that be the most advantageous of which each of the senses has the greatest proportion? Do you not perceive, then, that there is no one of the senses which uses moisture by itself without an admixture of air or fire; and that every sense partakes of fire inasmuch as it supplies the vital energy; and especially that sight, the keenest of the physical senses, Cf. Plato, Phaedrus , 250 d; cf. Mor. 654 d-e, 681 e. is an ignited mass of fire Cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, pp. 196, 199; but Post believes the words may mean a chain of fire linking the eye with its object. and is that which has made us believe It is the visible heavens and their fire that make us believe by declaring the glory of the celestial gods. See A. S. Pease, Caeli Enarrant, Harvard Theological Review , xxxiv (1941), pp. 163-200. in the gods? And further, through sight, as Plato Timaeus , 47 a-b. says, we are able to conform our souls to the movements of the celestial bodies.