Water is best, but gold is a flaming fire, says Pindar., i. 1. He, therefore, bluntly assigns the second place to fire; and Hesiod, 116. agrees with him in the words And first of all came Chaos into being; for most people believe that this is his name for water because it flows (chysis).Etymologizing (as in 948 e-f supra) chaos from chysis, diffusion of liquid. Yet the balance of witnesses on both sides seems to be equal. There are, in fact, someThe Stoics; cf., e.g., von Arnim, i, p. 27 (Zeno, frag. 98); cf. 1053 a-b; 1067 a; 1077 b. who state that fire is the first principle of the universe and, like a seed, creates everything out of itself and receives all things into itself when the conflagration occurs.On the Universal Conflagration of the Stoics see von Arnim, op. cit. ii, pp. 183 ff.; on that of Heraclitus, Cherniss, , p. 29, n. 108. Ignoring the authors, let us examine the arguments on both sides and see where they will lead us.

Is not that element the more useful of which most of all, everywhere, invariably, we stand in need as a household tool and, I swear, a friend, ready to help us at any time, in any emergency? Yet fire is not always useful; sometimes, indeed, we find it too much and interrupt our use of it. But water is used both winter and summer, sick and well, night and day: there is no time when a man does not need it. That, of course, is the reason why the dead are called alibantes, meaning that they are without libas, moisture, Cf. 736 a; Galen, i. 3 (i, p. 522 K.). and for lack of that deprived of life. Man has often existed without fire, but without water never. Besides, that which, from the beginning, was coincidental with the inception of man is more useful than that which was discovered later; for it is obvious that Nature bestowed the one as vitally necessary, while the other was brought to light by luck or contrivance for a superfluous use. Now, none may tell of a time when water was unknown to man, nor is any god or hero said to be its discoverer; it was, in fact, at hand instantly when man appeared and was itself the cause of his appearance. But the use of fire, they say,As, e.g., Aeschylus, , 254. The following words in lozenge brackets are conjecturally supplied. was discovered only a day or twro ago by Prometheus; (consequently all our preceding life was deprived of) fire, though it was not without water. And that this is no poetic fiction is proved by present modes of living; for there are certain races of man who live without fire, with no house or hearth, under the open sky. And DiogenesThis anecdote is told with rather more point and relevance in 995 c-d infra. the Cynic reduced the use of fire to a minimum, so that he even swallowed a squid raw, remarking, Thus, gentlemen, do I risk my life for you. But without water no one ever thought it good, or even possible, to live.

And why do I split hairs by discussing merely human nature? For though there are many, or rather countless, sorts of creatures, man is practically the only one that knows the use of fire, while all the others live and feed without it: they subsist, whether they range abroad or fly or crawl, upon roots or produce or flesh, all without fire; but without water no creature of the sea or land or air ever existed. For even flesh-eating animals, some of which Aristotle viii. 3 (601 b). says do not drink, nevertheless keep alive by using the fluids in the flesh. That element, therefore, without which no living nature can subsist or endure is the more useful.

Let us pass from the people who use fire to the things that we use, namely plants and produce,This must be one of the most remarkable transitions in literature (Sandbach, op. cit. p. 200). of which some are completely devoid of heat, while others have an infinitesimal and uncertain amount. Moisture, however, is the element in nature that makes them all burgeon, growing and bearing fruit. And why should I enumerate honey and wine and oil and all the rest that come to us from the vintage, the milking of herds, or taking off of honey - and it is obvious where they belongThat is, they must be classed as liquids. - when even wheat itself, though it is classed as a dry food, moves into the category of liquids by alteration, fermentation, and deliquescence?Cf. 968 a infra; here, however, the author seems to be talking about beer.