De primo frigido

This little essay, or open letter to Favorinus, is not written in a controversial spirit, though a few sharp comments are made from time to time. Having established (chapters 5-7) that an element of Cold really exists, Plutarch proceeds to consider what that element may be. Since fire is obviously excluded, can it be air, as the Stoics believe (8-12), or water, as Empedocles, and an early Peripatetic, Strato, hold (13-16)? Or, indeed, may it be earth itself (17-22)? This latter opinion is apparently put forward by Plutarch as an original contribution to theoretical physics and there is no reason to believe it is not his. The essay closes, however, with a recommendation to scepticism,[*](See J. Schröter, Plutarchs Stellung zur Skepsis (Greifswald, 1911), pp. 23 and 40. He compares other recomendations to the suspension of judgement, such as Mor. 430 f - 431 a. Cf. also Hartman, De Plutarcho, pp. 253 f.) so that our author may not have regarded his attempted proof as cogent, as indeed it is not.

The work was probably written in Delphi (cf. 953 c-d and e) after A.D. 107-(949 e, note) and addressed to the young philosopher Favorinus,[*](For the details see Ziegler’s article on Plutarch in Pauly-Wissowa, RE, col. 675.) the great lover of Aristotle (Mor. 734 f), who is also a speaker in Symposiacs, viii. 10. Though Favorinus was in all

Bernardakis’s text of this work is one of his most unsatisfactory; even for an editio minor it is careless and confused to a deplorable extent. Nor are the means of correcting and supplementing it at hand, the fifth Teubner volume being still, one fears, in the remote future. Then, too. the only photographs available were those of E and Β. which are not likely to add much to our knowledge.[*](See the recent brisk controversy as to their relationship: Manton, Class. Quart. xliii (1949), pp. 97-104; Hubert, Rhein. Mus. xciii (1950), pp. 330-336; Einarson and De Lacy, Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 110, n. 56; Flaceliere, ed. Plutarch, Amatorius, pp. 35 ff. The evidence in this essay, for what it may be worth, seems to make it unlikely that B was here copied from either E or an immediate descendant; they both appear to go back to a common ancestor, perhaps through several intermediaries: see, e.g., 951 a, b, d, 953 e. See now Cherniss supra, pp. 27, note a; 31, 32.) Consequently the only course that seemed prudent was to return to

The work is no. 90 in the catalogue of Lamprias.

Is there, then, Favorinus,[*](See the introduction to this essay.) an active principle or substance of Cold (as fire is of Heat) through the presence of which and through participation in which everything else becomes cold? Or is coldness rather a negation of warmth, as they say darkness is of light and rest of motion? Cold, indeed, seems to have the quality of being stationary, as heat has that of motion; while the cooling off of hot things is not caused by the presence of any force,[*](As, for instance, the force of fire.) but merely by the displacement of heat, for it can be seen to depart completely at the same time as the remainder cools off. The steam, for example, which boiling water emits, is expelled in company with the departing heat; that is why the amount becomes less by cooling off; for this removes the heat and nothing else takes its place.

First of all, must we not be wary of one point in this argument ? It eliminates many obvious forces by considering them not to be qualities or properties, but merely the negation of qualities or properties, weight being the negation of lightness and hardness that of softness, black that of white, and bitter that of sweet, and so in any other case where there is a natural opposition of forces rather than a relation of positive and negative. Another point is that all negation is inert and unproductive: blindness, for

Besides, a negation does not permit degrees of less or more. Surely nobody will affirm that one blind man is blinder than another, or one dumb man more silent than another, or one corpse deader than its fellow; but among cold things there is a wide range of deviation from much to little, from very cold to not very, and, generally speaking, in degrees of intensity

For the opposition of a negation to a positive quality is an irreconcilable hostility, since the existence of the one is the annihilation of the other. The other opposition, however, of positive forces, if it occurs in due measure, is often operative in the arts, and very often indeed in various phenomena of nature, especially in connexion with the weather and the seasons and those matters from which the god derives his title of harmonizer and musician, because he organizes and regulates them. He does not receive these names merely for bringing sounds of high and low pitch, or black and white colours, into harmonious fellowship, but because he has authority over the association and disunion of heat and cold in the universe, to see that they observe due measure in their combination and separation, and because, by eliminating the excess of either, he brings both into proper order.

Furthermore, we find that cold can be perceived

And yet another point: privation of any sort is something simple and uncomplicated, whereas substances have many differences and powers. Silence, for example, is of only one kind, while sound varies, sometimes annoying, at other times delighting, the perception. Both colours and figures show the same variation, for they produce different effects on different occasions when they meet the eye; but that which cannot be touched and is without colour or any quality whatever, admits no difference, but is always the same.

Is cold, then, so like this sort of privation that

Furthermore, given four primary bodies in the universe[*](See Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, pp. 315 ff., Empedocles, frag. B 17. The doctrine is clearly stated by, for example, Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 10. The author of the Epinomis (981 c) adds a fifth element, aether (cf. 951 d infra).) which, because of their quantity, simplicity, and potentiality, most judges regard as being the elements or first principles of everything else - I mean fire, water, air, and earth - the number of primary, simple qualities must be the same. And what should these be but warmth and cold, dryness

Perhaps we should now leave the question whether heat and cold are substances; if so, let us advance the argument to the next point and inquire what sort of substance coldness has, and what is its first principle and nature. Now those who affirm that there are certain uneven, triangular formations in our bodies[*](Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 53 c, 54 b-c.) and that shivering and trembling, shuddering and the like manifestations, proceed from this rough irregularity, even if they are wrong in the particulars, at least derive the first principle from the proper place; for the investigation should begin, as it were from the very hearth,[*](Or, perhaps, with Hestia, as the first principle of the cosmos (see, for example, Ritter, on Plato, Phaedrus, 247 a, pp. 123-124 of his edition). This passage is somewhat obscurely quoted below in 954 f. There were already three different interpretations known to the scholiast on Plato, Euthyphro, 3 a (p. 2, ed. Greene).) from the substance of all things. This is, it would seem, the great difference between a philosopher and a physician or a farmer or a flute-player; for the latter are content to examine the causes most remote from the first cause, since as soon as the most immediate cause of an effect is grasped - that fever is brought about by exertion or an overflow of blood, that rusting of grain is caused by days of blazing sun after a rain, that a low note is produced by the angle and construction of the pipes - that is enough to enable a technician to do his proper job. But when the natural philosopher sets out to find the truth as a matter of speculative knowledge, the discovery of immediate causes is not the end, but the beginning of his journey to the first and highest causes. This is the reason why Plato and Democritus,[*](Wyttenbach suggested Xenocrates for Democritus in this passage, which may be right, though his proposal is not considered by either Mullach or Heinze.) when they were inquiring into the causes of heat and heaviness, were right not to stop their investigation with earth and fire, but

Nevertheless it is better for us first to attack things perceptible to the senses,in which Empedocles[*](Cf. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 319, frag. B 21, part of which is quoted below in 949 f.) and Strato[*](See Fritz Wehrli, Die Schule des Aristoteles, Part V. frag. 49.) and the Stoics[*](Cf.Mor. 952 c, 1053 f; von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, pp. 140 f.) locate the substances that underlie the qualities, the Stoics ascribing the primordially cold to the air, Empedocles and Strato to water; and someone else may, perhaps, be found to affirm that earth is the original substance of coldness.[*](As Plutarch himself: see below, 952 c ff. (chapters 17-22).) But let us examine Stoic doctrine before the others.

Since fire is not only warm but bright, the opposite natural entity (they say) must be both cold and dark: as gloomy is the opposite of bright, so is cold of hot. Besides, as darkness confounds the sight, so cold confuses the sense of touch. Heat, on the other hand, transmits the sensation of touching, as brightness does that of seeing. It follows, then, that in nature the primordially dark is also the primordially cold; and that it is air which is primordially dark does not, in fact, escape the notice of the poets since they use the term air for darkness:

1. Thick air lay all about the ships, nor could
2. The moon shine forth from heaven.[*](Homer, Odyssey, ix. 144-145. Words for air in Homer often mean mist or fog. )

So clad in air they visit all the earth.[*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 255.)

1. The air at once he scattered and dispelled the mist;
2. The sun shone forth and all the battle carne in view.[*](Homer, Iliad, xvii. 649-650.)

Since corruption, in each case, is a change of the things that are corrupted into their opposites, let us see whether the saying holds good that the death of fire is the birth of air. [*](Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 168, Heraclitus, frag. 76 (frag. 25, ed. Bywater, p. 11). Cf. Mor. 392 c-d.) Fire, indeed, perishes like a living creature,[*](Cf.Mor. 281 f, 702 e-f; 703 b.) being either extinguished by main force or dying out of itself. Now if it is extinguished, that makes the change of fire

Stabs at the air with unctuous smoke.

Moreover, freezing, which is the most extreme and violent effect of cold in bodies, is a condition of water, but a function of air. For water of itself is fluid, uncongealed and not cohesive; but when it is compressed by air because of its cold state, it becomes taut and compact. This is the reason for the saying[*](Included without authority among Callimachus’s fragments (787 = anon. 384) by Schneider, but rejected by Pfeiffer.)

If Southwind challenges North, instantly snow will appear.

Furthermore, portions of water will freeze sooner than the spring from which they are drawn, for the air more readily masters the smaller amount. If you will draw from a well cold water in a jar[*](Presumably Plutarch is thinking of a jar of porous earthenware, such as are commonly used to cool water in the Near East.) and let it down again into the well in such a way that the jar does not touch the water, but is suspended in the air, and if you wait a short time, you will find that the water has become colder.[*](Cf.Mor. 690 b-e.) This is very good evidence that the First Cause of coldness is not water but air. Certainly, none of the great rivers freezes through its entire depth; for the air does not penetrate down into the whole, but merely renders stationary as much as, by contact and proximity, it includes within the range of its coldness. And this is the reason why barbarians[*](The Thracians, according to 968 f ff. infra; cf. also Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 103; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 24; xiv. 26.) do not cross frozen rivers until they have tried them out with foxes: if the ice is not thick, but merely superficial, the foxes perceive this by the sound of the current running underneath and return to the bank. Some even catch fish by weakening and softening the ice with hot water - enough of the ice, at least, to admit their lines; so the cold has no effect at a depth. Yet the water near the surface undergoes so great a change through freezing that ships are crushed by it when it is forced in on itself and squeezed tight, as those relate who recently passed the winter

But the argument which attributes it to water finds in the same way facts to support it; Empedocles[*](Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 319, frag. B 21, lines 3 and 5. Plutarch apparently used a version different from those known to Aristotle and Simplicius. The evidence is complicated and may be consulted in Diels-Kranz. On Empedocles’ meaning see Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of the Presocratics, p. 110.) says something like this:

1. Behold the sun, everywhere bright and warm;
2. And then the rain, to all men dark and cold.

I am surprised, nevertheless, when those who maintain that the air is cold because it is dark do not perceive that others think it must be hot because it is light. For darkness is not so closely connected and akin to cold as heaviness and stability are; many things, in fact, which have no heat are bright, but nothing cold is buoyant, light, and soaring. Why, the very clouds, as long as they are akin to the substance of air, float aloft; but as soon as they change to moisture, they fall at once and lose their lightness no less than their warmth as coldness grows within them. Contrariwise, when heat supervenes, they reverse the movement again, for their substance begins to soar as soon as it has changed to air.

Nor is the argument from destruction true either; for when anything is destroyed, it does not perish by becoming its opposite, though it does perish by the action of its opposite, as fire, for instance, is changed by water into air. For of water Aeschylus[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 107-108, frag. 360.) speaks in tragic style, but accurately, as

The riot-quelling justicer of fire.

1. With guileful thoughts she bore
2. In one hand water, in the other fire.

It is reasonable that the lower portion of large rivers should not freeze; for the upper portion, being frozen, does not transmit the exhalation which is, accordingly, shut in and turned back, and so provides heat for the deep waters. A demonstration of this is the fact that when the ice melts again a great quantity of vapour rises from the waters. This is also the reason why the bodies of animals are warmer in the winter, because the heat is driven inwards by the cold from without and they keep it within them.

Now drawing off water and suspending it in the air[*](Cf. 949 f supra; Mor. 690 b-e.) not only takes away its warmth, but its coldness also; those, therefore, who want a very cold drink take care not to disturb the snowpacks[*](Cf.Mor. 691 c - 692 a for snow packed in chaff and the like.) or the wet matter that is formed from them by compression, for movement expels both heat and cold.

That such a function of cold belongs not to air, but to water, may be demonstrated as follows from a fresh

Then, too, air is everywhere equal; though neither winter nor cold is identical everywhere. It is no accident that some parts of the world are cold and damp, while others are hot and dry; it is due to the existence of a single substance that includes

The river-air blows chill before the dawn,

Our senses, moreover, often deceive us and we imagine, when we touch cold garments or cold wool, that we are touching moist objects: this is because wet and cold have a common substance and their natures have a close affinity and relationship. In very cold climates the low temperature often breaks vessels whether they are of bronze or of clay - not, of course, when they are empty, but only when they are full and the water exerts pressure by means of its coldness. Theophrastus,[*](The fragment is apparently omitted by Wimmer.) to be sure, declares that the air breaks these vessels, using the liquid as a spike. But take care[*](This seems to be addressed to Favorinus’s Peripatetic sympathies.) that there isn’t more wit than

Water, however, seems to be cold of itself, and primordially so. It is the antithesis, in its coldness, to the heat of fire, just as in its wetness to the dryness of fire, and in its heaviness to the other’s lightness. To sum up: fire is of a disintegrating and separative nature, while water is adhesive and retentive, holding and gluing together by means of its moistness. Empedocles[*](Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 318, frag. B 19. Plutarch seems to have mistaken Empedocles’ meaning, though some would invoke frag. B 34. In general, while Plutarch is said to have written ten books on Empedocles (Lamprias catalogue no. 43), he does not seek the difficult poet’s meaning very carefully.) alluded to this, when, as often as he mentioned them, he termed Fire a Destructive Strife and Water Tenacious Love. For the nourishment of fire is that which can be changed into fire and only things that have affinity and a close relationship to it can be so changed; while its opposites, like water, are not easily changed to fire. Water itself is practically incombustible, and it renders matter such as damp grass and moist timber very hard to consume; the greenness in them produces a dusky, dull flame because, by dint of cold, it struggles against heat as against its natural enemy.

Now you must pursue the subject by comparing these arguments with those of my opponents. For Chrysippus,[*](Von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, p. 140; cf. Mor. 1053 e.) thinking that the air is primordially cold because it is also dark, merely mentioned those who affirm that water is at a greater distance from the aether[*](See 951 d supra.) than is air; and, wishing to make them some answer, he said, If so, we might as well declare that even earth is primordially cold because it is at the

It straightway fills the mighty home of the air-borne winds.

This, however, has no relevance to the question under discussion; for it has been shown that there are many cold objects which are bright and many hot which are dull and dark. Yet there are qualities more closely connected that belong to coldness: heaviness, stability, solidity, and resistance to change. Air has no part at all in them, while earth has a greater share in all of them than water has. Cold, moreover, is perceptibly one of the hardest of things and it makes things hard and unyielding. Theophrastus,[*](Frag. 184 Wimmer.) for instance, tells us that when frozen fish are dropped on the ground, they are broken and smashed to bits just like objects of glass or earthenware. And at Delphi you yourself heard, in the case of those who climbed Parnassus to rescue the Thyiades[*](The Thyiades were Attic women, devotees of Dionysus, who went every other year to Delphi to join in the midwinter festival. See Guthrie, The Greeks and their Gods, p. 178.) The rites must have involved considerable discomfort and even risk, as Dodds says (edition of Euripides, Bacchae, p. xi).) when they were trapped by a fierce gale and snowstorm, that their capes were frozen so stiff and wooden that when they were opened out, they broke and split apart. Excessive cold, because of its hardness and immobility, also stiffens the muscles and renders the tongue speechless, for it congeals the moist and tender parts of the body.

In view of these considerations, regard the facts in the following light: every force, presumably, whenever it prevails, by a law of nature changes and turns into itself whatever it overcomes. What is mastered by heat is reduced to flames, what is mastered by wind turns to air; and anything that falls into the water, unless it gets out quickly, dissolves and liquefies. It follows, then, that whatever is completely frozen must turn into primordial cold. Now freezing is extreme refrigeration that terminates in a complete alteration and petrifaction when, since the cold has obtained complete mastery, the moist elements are frozen solid and the heat is squeezed out. This is the reason why the earth at its bottommost point is practically all solid frost and ice. For there undiluted and unmitigated cold abides at bay, thrust back to the point farthest removed from the flaming aether.[*](See 951 d above.) As for these features that are visible, cliffs and crags and rocks, Empedocles[*](Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, i, p. 296, frag. A 69; cf. Mor. 691 b and Hubert’s references ad loc. ) thinks that they have been fixed in place and are upheld by resting on the fire that burns in the depths of the earth; but the indications are rather that all these things from which the heat was squeezed out and evaporated were completely frozen by the cold; and for this reason they are called pagoi.[*](Crags and rocks are called pagoi (as the Areo-pagus, Mars Hill, at Athens), which Plutarch correctly connects with the verb meaning freeze or solidify and uses to confute Empedocles.) So also the peaks[*](Plutarch is speaking of volcanoes like Aetna with a lava bed on top.) of many of them have a black crust where the heat has been expelled and have the appearance of debris from a conflagration. For the cold freezes substances to a varying degree, but hardest those of which it is naturally a primary constituent. Thus, if