De primo frigido

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.

Is cold therefore to be numbered among those privations that are not distinguished in their action? Rather the contrary, in regard that pleasures very great and beneficial to our bodies arise from cold things; as no less terrible mischiefs, pains, and stupefaction on the other side; which the heat does not always avoid and give way to, but many times enclosed within the body, withstands and opposes. Which contention of theirs is called quivering and shaking, at what time, if the cold overcome the heat, thence proceed numbness and stiffness of the limbs; but if the cold be vanquished by the heat, there follow a pleasing warmth and opening of the skin, which Homer expresses by the word ἰαίνεθαι. These things are past dispute; and chiefly by these passive qualities it is, that we find cold to be opposite to heat, as substance to substance, or passive quality to passive quality, not as negation or privation; neither is it the destruction or abolishing of hot, but a kind of nature and power tending to its destruction. Otherwise we should exempt the winter out of the seasons, and the north winds out of the number of the winds, as

Now in regard there are four first bodies in the universe, which, by reason of their number, their being uncompounded, and their efficacy, are allowed for the most part to be the principles and beginnings of all other,— that is to say, fire and water, air and earth,—is there not the same necessity that there should be as many first and uncompounded qualities? And what are they but heat and cold, drought and moisture, by virtue of which it comes to pass that all the principles act and suffer? Thus, as there are in grammar lengthenings and shortenings of sounds, in music, deep and acute sounds, though not one of them is the privation of the other; we must leave the dry opposed to the moist principles, and the hot to the cold, if we intend to have the effects answerable to reason and what is visible in Nature. Unless, as it was the opinion of the ancient Anaximenes, we will not allow either cold or hot to be in substance, but only to be common passive qualities accompanying the alterations of the matter. For he affirms the contraction and condensation of the matter to be cold; but the rarefication and laxation of it (for by that word he calls it) to be hot. Whence it may not be improperly said, that a man breathes hot and cold at once. For the breath grows cold being compressed and thickened by the lips, but coming out of the open mouth it is hot, as being rarefied by that emission. But for this, Aristotle convinces the same person of ignorance; for that when we blow with the mouth open, we blow hot from our own bodies; but when we blow with compressed lips, we do not breathe forth the air from ourselves, but the air that is before our mouths, being cold, is thrust forward, and lights upon what is next it.

But if we must grant that both heat and cold are substances, let us proceed a little farther in our discourse, and

They then who affirm that there are certain irregular triangular figures in our body, and tell us also that shuddering, trembling, and quivering, and whatever else we suffer of the same nature, proceed from the roughness of those figures, if they mistake in the parts, nevertheless derive the beginning from whence they ought. For we ought to begin the question—as it were from Vesta— from the substance of all things. By which it chiefly appears wherein a philosopher differs from a physician, a husbandman, or a piper. For it is sufficient for these to contemplate the last causes. For if the consideration of the nearest causes of the affection go no farther than to find that the cause of a fever is intenseness of heat, or the lighting of some humor where it ought not to be, that the cause of blasting is the scorching heat of the sun after rain, and that the cause why pipes give a bass sound is the inclination of the pipes or the bringing them near one to another; this is enough for the artist to know in reference to his business. But when a philosopher for contemplation’s sake scrutinizes into the truth, the knowledge of remote causes is not the end but the beginning of his proceeding in search of the first and ultimate causes. Wherefore Plato and Democritus, enquiring after the cause of heat and gravity, did not stop at the consideration of earth and fire, but bringing things perceptible to sense to beginnings intelligible only by the mind, they went on even to the smallest, as it were the seeds of what they sought for.

But it is much the better way for us in the first place to move forward upon those things which are perceptible to sense, wherein Empedocles, Strato, and the Stoics placed the substances of active qualities; the Stoics ascribing primitive cold to the air, Empedocles and Strato

Seeing then that fire is both hot and bright, therefore there must be something opposite to fire which is cold and dark. For as dark is opposite to light, so is cold to hot. Besides, as dark confounds the sight, so cold confounds the feeling. But heat diffuses the sense of feeling, as light diffuses the sense of seeing. Therefore that which is first dark in nature is first cold. Now that the air is first dark, was not unknown to the poets; for that they call the air darkness:

The thickened air the fleet with darkness covered,

Nor could the moonlight be from heaven discovered.

[*](Odyss. IX. 144.)

Then darkness scattered and the fog dispelled,

The sun brake forth, and all the fight beheld.

[*](Il. XVI. 649.)

But in regard corruption is the alteration of those things that are corrupted into that which is contrary to every one of them, let us consider whether it be a true saying, The death of fire is the generation of air. For fire dies like a living creature, being quenched by force or going out of its own accord. Now quenching makes the alteration of it into air more conspicuous. For smoke is a sort of air, or, according to Pindar, a fuliginous vapor and exhalation, lashing the air with steaming smoke. [*](Pind. Isthm. IV. 112.) On the other side, when fire goes out for want of fuel, as in candles, you shall observe a thick and cloudy air ascending from the top of them. Moreover, the vapor steaming from our bodies upon the pouring of cold water after hot bathing or sweating sufficiently declares the alteration of extinguished heat into air, as being naturally opposite to air; whence it follows that the air was at first dark and cold.

Then again, congelation, which is the most forcible and violent of all things that befall our bodies by reason of cold, is the affection of water, but the action of air. For water of itself is easily diffused, loose in its parts, and not readily congealed together; but it is thickened and compressed by the air, by reason of the coldness of it. Which is the reason of the proverb:

But if the southern wind provoke the north,

Snow straight will cover all the earth.

And therefore water drawn from a fountain soonest congeals; for the more of cold in the air overcomes the less of cold in the water. Thus if a man takes cold water out of a well and puts it into a vessel, and then lets the vessel down again into the well, so that it may not touch the water but hang for some time in the air, the water will be much colder. Whence it is apparent, that the coldness of the water is not the first cause of coldness, but the coldness of the air. For you do not find that any of your great rivers are ever thoroughly frozen, by reason of their depth. For the air doth not pierce through the whole; only so much as it can seize and embrace with its cold quality generally freezes, and no more. Therefore the barbarians never cross over frozen rivers till they have sent a fox before to try the depth of the ice. For if the ice be not very thick, but only superficial, the fox, perceiving it by the noise of the water floating underneath, returns. And some there are that melt the ice with hot water to make way for their lines, when they go to catch fish in winter. So that nothing suffers from cold in the depth of the water. Nevertheless, so great has been the alteration of the upper parts of the water by congelation, that several vessels riding in the stream have been bruised and broken by the forcible compressure and griping of the congelation; as we have heard from them who lately had their winter quarters with Caesar upon the Danube. And indeed, what happens to ourselves is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of this. For after hot bathings and sweatings, we are most sensible of cold, at what time, our bodies being open and the skin relaxed, we give a freer entrance to the cold together with the ambient air. And after the very same manner the water itself suffers. For

Those that allow it to water lean upon principles of the same nature. And this was intimated by Empedocles, where he says:

Behold the sun, how warm he is,

And shining everywhere;

But rain and tempests cold and dark

With horror fill the air.

This makes me admire at those who affirm the air to be cold because it is dark and obscure, unless it be because they find others affirming it to be hot because it is light. For dark is not so proper and familiar to cold, as heavy and stable; for many things that are void of heat partake of splendor and light, but there is nothing cold that is light, nimble, or apt to ascend upward. Even the clouds themselves, while they preserve the nature of air, tower aloft in the sky; but changing into moisture, they presently fall down, and having admitted coldness, they lose their lightness as well as their heat. And so on the other side, having regained their heat, they again return to motion, their substance being carried upward as soon as it is changed into air.

Neither is the argument produced from corruption true. For nothing that perishes is corrupted into what is opposite, but by what is opposite to it; as fire extinguished by water changes into air. And therefore Aeschylus spake not merely like a tragedian but like a philosopher, when he said,

The water curb, that punishment of fire.

She, weaving subtle trains and sly vagaries,

Fire in one hand, in th’ other water carries.

Now that great rivers never freeze downwards is but consentaneous to reason. For those parts which are frozen above transmit no exhalation outward; for this, being penned up within and forced downward, affords heat to the moisture at the bottom. A clear demonstration of which is this, that when the ice is dissolved, you may observe a steam arising out of the water upwards in a very great quantity. And therefore the bodies of living creatures are warmest within in the winter, for that the heat is driven inward by the ambient cold. Now those upward exhalations and ascensions of the vapors deprive the waters not only of their heat but of their coolness. And therefore they that vehemently desire their drink to be cold never move the snow nor the moisture that is pressed out of it; for motion would deprive them both of the virtue which is required from them.

Now that this virtue is not the virtue of air, but of water, a man may collect by reasoning thus from the beginning. First, it is not probable that the air, which is next the sky, and touching the fiery substance is also touched by it, should be endued with a contrary virtue; for otherwise it is not possible that the extremities of the one should touch

Therefore the air is of an equal temper in all places, but winter is not in all places alike nor equally cold; but some parts of the habitable world are cold and moist, others hot and dry, not by chance, but because there is but one substance of heat and dryness. For the greatest part of Africa is hot and without water. But they that have travelled Scythia, Thrace, and the Pontic regions report them to be full of vast lakes, and large and deep rivers. And as for those regions lying between, those parts that join upon lakes and marshes are most cold by reason of the exhalations from the water. Posidouius therefore, affirming the freshness and moistness of the air of marshes to be the cause of its cold, has no way disturbed the probability of our argument, but rather added to the strength of it; for the air would not always be the colder the fresher it is, unless cold has its original from moisture. And therefore Homer much more truly shows us the fountain of cold, when he says,

Chill from the river blows the wind

Before the coming morn.

[*](Odyss. V. 469.)

But water seems to be cold of itself, and that primitively too; for in respect of the coldness of it, it is opposite to the heat of the fire; as to drought in respect of its moisture, and to ponderosity in regard of its lightness. Lastly, fire is altogether of a dissipating and dividing nature; water, of a nature to fasten and contain, holding and joining together by virtue of its moisture. Which was the reason why Empedocles called fire a pernicious contention, but water a tenacious friendship. For the nourishment of fire is that which changes into fire, and it changes that which is as it were of kin and familiar to it. What is contrary to it, as water, cannot be changed by it, or at least only with great difficulty. True it is, that as for itself, as I may so say, it cannot be burned; but as for green wood and wet straw, it overcomes them with much struggling, while the heat and cold contending together, by reason of their moisture and their natural antipathy,

Compare these arguments with theirs, and consider them well. But Chrysippus, believing the air to be the primitive cold, because it is dark, makes mention only of those that say the water lies at farther distance from the sky than the air. And being desirous to give some answer to them, If so, says he, we may as well affirm the earth to be primitively cold, because it is the farthest distant from the sky; rejecting that, as altogether improbable and absurd. But for my part, I am of opinion that there might be many probable and rational arguments brought for the earth; beginning with that which Chrysippus chiefly makes use of for the air. What is this? First, that it is dark. For if he, assuming these two contrarieties of faculties, believes that the one follows the other of necessity, then there might be produced a thousand oppositions and repugnances of the earth in respect of the sky, which would of necessity follow upon this which we have mentioned. For it is not to be opposed only as heavy to light, or as that which tends downward to that which moves upward, or as slow and stable to swift and full of motion; but as that which is heaviest to that which is most thin, or lastly, as that which is immovable of itself to that which moves spontaneously, and as possessing the middle space to that which is in a perpetual circular motion. Would it not be absurd to aver that the opposition of heat to cold is accompanied with so many and such remarkable contrarieties? But fire is bright, the earth is dark, nay, the very darkest and most void of light of all things. The air first of all participates of light, is soonest altered, and being replenished with radiancy, diffuses the splendor of it far and near, and shows itself a vast body of light. For the sun rising, as one of the dithyrambic authors writes,

Presently doth fill

The spacious house of the air-prancing winds.

But this is nothing to the question. For we have shown that there are many cold things which are bright and transparent, and many hot things which are obscure and dark. But ponderosity, stability, density, and immutability are qualities more properly belonging to cold, of none of which the air partakes, but of all of which the earth has a far greater share than the water. And yet in all these things cold, by the judgment of sense itself, appears to be hard, to cause hardness, and to make resistance. For Theophrastus tells us of fish that have been frozen by extremity of cold, when they have chanced to bounce ashore, that their bodies have been broken and crumbled to pieces like a vessel of glass or potter’s clay. You yourself have heard at Delphi, how that certain persons ascending to the top of Parnassus to succor the Thyades that were overtaken with a violent storm of wind and hail, their coats were frozen so hard and into a substance so like wood, that being spread upon the ground they broke and crumbled to pieces. It also stiffens the nerves and deprives the tongue of motion, congealing the moist and softer parts of the body.

This being obvious to sight, let us consider the effect. Every faculty, wherever it prevails, changes into itself whatever it overcomes. Thus whatever is overcome by heat is set on fire; that which is vanquished by wind is changed into air. That which falls into water becomes well moistened, unless quickly saved. Of necessity, therefore, those things which are violently affected by cold must be changed into the primitive cold. For freezing is an excess of refrigeration; which congelation ends in alteration and petrifaction, when the cold, prevailing every way, congeals the liquid substance and presses forth the heat; so that the bottom of the earth is, as it were, a kind of congelation, and altogether ice. For there the cold inhabits simple and unmixed, and removed hard and rigid at

To go no farther, what means our own yearly practice to alter our lodgings and habitations, while we remove in the winter so far as we can into the upper parts of our buildings, but in the summer descend again and seek convenient refuge in the lower edifices, sometimes enjoying ourselves under ground in the very arms of the earth? Do we not do it, as being guided by our senses for coolness’s sake to the earth, and thereby acknowledging that to be the seat of primitive cold? And certainly our coveting to live near the sea in winter may be thought to be a kind of flight from the earth, since we seem to forsake it,