Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Water is best," says Pindar, while another poet calls blazing fire "golden"; so that this latter poet gave second place outright to fire. Hesiod agrees when he says, "Verily first of all came Chaos into being"; for most people think he named water this way, from the word for "pouring." But the testimony on each side is equal, since there are also those who declare fire to be the origin of the universe, holding that it is, as it were, a seed which makes all things out of itself and takes them back into itself at the conflagration. Let us leave these men aside, then, and consider which way the arguments on each side lead us.
Is it not, then, more useful, that of which we always and continually and most of all stand in need, as of a tool and instrument, and which, by Zeus, is present and ready as a friend at every season and every occasion? Fire, indeed, is not always useful; there are times when we find it burdensome and draw away from it. But the need of water is present both in winter and in summer, for the sick and for the healthy, by night and by day, and there is no time when a person does not need it. Indeed, people call the dead "alibantes" ("unmoistened"), as being in want of moisture — that is, of wetness — and it is on this account that those deprived of life are so called.
And there were many things without fire, but a human being never without water. Moreover, what is present from the beginning, together with the first origin of humankind, is more useful than what was discovered later; for it is clear that nature gave what is truly necessary, while art and a kind of contrivance discovered what serves mere abundance of use. As for water, one cannot say a time when it did not belong to human beings, nor is any discoverer of it named among gods or heroes — for it existed as soon as they came into being, and its very existence supplied it to them. But the use of fire, they say, is recent, dating from only yesterday, brought by Prometheus. Life existed with fire, but not without water. And that this story is not the invention of a poet is shown by
the way we ourselves live: for there are certain races of human beings who make their way of life without fire, houseless, hearthless, and living in the open air; and Diogenes the Cynic made the least possible use of fire, so that when he once swallowed an octopus raw he said, "For your sake, gentlemen, I am taking this risk." But without water no one has considered it either good or even possible to live. And why should I labor over trifling details in surveying the nature of human beings? For
among the many — indeed countless — races of living things, that of human beings is nearly alone in knowing the use of fire, while the rest live and are fed on diets without fire: grazing creatures, flying creatures, creeping creatures, all living on roots and fruits and flesh without fire. But without water nothing lives, neither creature of the sea nor of the land nor of the air; for even the flesh-eating animals, some of which Aristotle says do not drink,
nonetheless survive by using the moisture within their food. This, then, is more useful — that without which no form of life exists or endures. Let us pass on from the users to the things we use: plants and fruits. Of these, some partake not at all of heat, and some very little and imperceptibly; but the wet nature supplies all growing things, as they increase and bear fruit and
— why should I go on listing wine and oil and all the rest that we gather in the grape harvest and milk and gather as honey, lying there in plain sight, seeing that even fire, though thought to belong to dry nourishment, comes about through the change and decay and dissolution of moisture? Moreover, that is more useful which never does harm. Fire, then, when it runs loose, is most destructive, whereas the nature of water
is never harmful. Furthermore, of two things the more beneficial is the one that is cheaper and supplies its benefit from itself without need of any preparation. Now the benefit that comes from fire requires provision and fuel; for this reason the rich share in it more than the poor, kings more than private citizens. But water has this humane quality too, equality, likeness; for it needs no tools or instruments — it is a self-sufficient, complete
good. Furthermore, that which loses its benefit when multiplied is less useful; such is fire, a kind of all-devouring, ravenous beast that consumes what lies near it, and is beneficial more by method and skill and moderation than by its own nature; but water is never a thing to be feared. Moreover, of two things the one that is useful along with the other is more useful. Fire, then, does not admit the wet, nor is it useful in combination with it,
whereas water is beneficial even along with fire; at any rate hot springs are healing and readily responsive to treatment. One could never find fire that is wet, but water, just as it is beneficial when cold, is likewise beneficial to a human being when hot. Moreover, though there are four elements, water has of itself made the sea into a fifth element, so to speak,
no less beneficial than those others, both for other reasons and especially for the intermingling it produces; for although our life was wild and without common bond, this element joined it together and made it complete, correcting it through mutual aid and exchange, and creating fellowship and friendship. Heraclitus, then, says, "If there were no sun, there would be night"; and one may likewise say that if
there were no sea, the human being would be the wildest and most destitute of all creatures. As it is, the sea has given the Greeks the vine from the Indians, and to the peoples beyond the sea the use of the fruits of Greece; from Phoenicia it brought letters, as reminders against forgetfulness, and it kept the greater part of humankind from being wineless and fruitless and uneducated. How, then, is water not more useful,
being superabundant in this element? Or might someone argue from this very point to the opposite conclusion? Because there are four elements lying subject to god, like a craftsman, for the working of the universe, and among these, again, there is a difference from one another: earth and water are laid down like matter, being shaped and molded and sharing in order and arrangement, and in producing and generating, they say, only to the extent that they receive a share
from the others — namely from wind and fire, which do the making and the crafting, and which raise up into generation what had lain there dead until then. And of these two, again, fire rules and takes the lead. This is clear from the following: earth without the substance of heat is barren and fruitless, while fire, molten and diffusing, presents itself as eager for generation — for one could find no cause
why barren rocks and the parched parts of mountains are barren for everyone, except that they have no share of fire at all, or only a little. And in general water is so far from being self-sufficient for preservation or for the generation of other things that its very own destruction is the lack of fire; for heat holds each thing together in its being and preserves it in its own substance,
just as it does water among other things too; but when heat withdraws and fails, water rots, and death and destruction for water is the failing of heat. Indeed, standing waters and marshy pools, and certain waters lying in hollows with no outlet, are foul and eventually rot from having least share in motion — the very thing which, by fanning the heat in each thing, preserves it — whereas among the most moving and flowing of waters,
because the heat is sustained through the motion, we accordingly speak of them as "living." How, then, is it not more beneficial, of two things, the one that has supplied the other with its very cause of being — as fire has done for water? Moreover, that whose complete removal destroys the living creature is clearly more beneficial; for it is plain that that whose privation makes existence impossible is the thing that supplied the cause of existence, when
it existed. Now moisture, indeed, is present even in the dead and is not entirely removed, since otherwise dead bodies would not rot, decay being a change into the wet from the dry, or rather a destruction of the wet elements within the flesh. But death is nothing other than the complete failure of heat; the dead, accordingly, are the coldest of things; and if one tries it, the edges
of razors are blunted by the extreme coldness of corpses. And within the living creature itself, the parts that share least in fire are the least sensitive, such as bones and hairs and the parts farthest removed from the heart; for the difference produced by the absence of fire is generally greater than that produced by its presence. As for plants and fruits, it is not moisture that brings them forth but warm moisture;
indeed, cold waters are less fruitful, or not fruitful at all. And yet, if water were fruitful by its own nature, it ought always and by itself to bring forth fruit; but the opposite is true, and it is actually harmful. To begin from another point: for the use of fire as fire, we have no need of water — on the contrary, water becomes an obstacle, for it quenches and destroys fire. But water,
for most of its uses, cannot be used without fire; for when heated it becomes more beneficial, and cold, it is harmful. So that of the two, the one that supplies its usefulness from itself, without need of the other, is better. Furthermore, water is beneficial in only one way, by contact — for those who bathe or wash — whereas fire benefits through every sense; for it is perceived both by touch and, from a distance, by sight, so that its usefulness extends to others beyond
itself, and even its extravagance is felt at a distance. For to say that a human being could at some time exist entirely without fire is simply impossible. There are differences within a single class, just as there are among different things. And it was heat that made the sea more beneficial, as being the warmer part of waters, since otherwise, taken by itself, it would not differ from the rest. And even those creatures that do not need
fire from outside are not in this state because they lack it, but because of an abundance and excess of heat within themselves; so that on this count too the usefulness of fire proves superior, as one would expect. Water is never so self-sufficient as to have no need of things outside itself, whereas fire, through great excellence, is even self-sufficient; just as the better general is the one who has made his city need no
allies from outside, so too is the element superior that often supplies outside help without itself needing any. This same argument should be made about the other animals too, as many as have no need of fire. And yet one might take the opposite view — that the more useful thing is the one that we alone use, we who are especially able to grasp the better by reasoning; for what is more useful to human beings, or more
profitable, than reason? But the irrational creatures do not have it. What then? Is a thing, for that reason, less beneficial when it is discovered through the foresight of what is better? And since it is by reason that we have come to this point, what is more profitable to life than skill and craft? And fire both discovered and preserves every craft; for this reason they make Hephaestus their founder. Moreover, since only a short span of time and life is given to human beings,
Ariston says that sleep, like a toll-collector, takes away half of it; but I would say rather that this is why darkness stays perpetually awake through the night, and yet there is no benefit from that wakefulness, unless fire supplied us with the good things of day and removed the difference between day and night. If, then, nothing is more profitable to human beings than life itself, and fire
multiplies this many times over, how could it not be the most beneficial of all things? And moreover, would not that of which the mixture is shared most by the senses be most profitable? Do you not see, then, that the wet nature is not used by any of the senses in itself, without breath or fire mingled in, while of fire every sense partakes, since it produces, as it were, the very vital force, and above all
sight, which is the sharpest of the senses that work through the body, being a kindling of fire, and which has furnished proof of the gods; and further, as Plato says, we are able through sight to bring our soul into conformity with the motions of the heavenly bodies.