Water/Fire = Air:Fire:Air 1:1 is to 1:1:1
He
placed
water and air
in the
mean between
fire and earth
and made them
to have the same
proportion so far as was possible
as fire is to air so is
air to water,
and
as air is to water
so is
water to earth
Now the creation took up
the whole of each of the four elements;
for the
Creator compounded the world
out of all
the fire
and
all the water
and
all the air
and
all the earth
leaving no part of any of them
nor any
power of them outside
His intention was,
in the first place,
that the
animal should be as far as possible
a perfect whole and of perfect parts:
secondly, that it should be one,
leaving no remnants out of which
another such world might be created:
and also
that it should
be
free
from old age
and
unaffected by disease.
Considering that if heat and
cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them,
and by bringing diseases and old age upon them,
make them waste
away
-for this cause and on these grounds
he
made the world one whole,
having every part entire, and being therefore perfect
and not liable to
old age and disease.
And he gave to the world the figure which was
suitable and also natural.
Now to the animal which was to comprehend
all animals, that figure was suitable
which comprehends within itself all
other figures.
Wherefore he made the world
in the form of a globe,
round as from a lathe,
having its extremes in every direction
equidistant
from the centre,
the most perfect
and
the most like itself
of all figures
He who lived well
during his appointed time
was to return and dwell in his native star,
and
there he would have a blessed and congenial existence.
But if he failed
in attaining this, at the second birth
he would pass into a woman, and if,
when in that state of being,
he did not desist from evil,
he would
continually be changed into some
brute who resembled
him in the evil
nature which he had acquired,
and would not cease from
his toils and transformations until
he followed the revolution of the same and
the like
within him,
and overcame by the help of reason
the turbulent and
irrational mob of later accretions,
made up of
fire
and
air
and
water
and
earth,
and returned to the form of
his first and better state.
aka HE
Having given
all these laws to his creatures,
that he might be guiltless of future evil in
any of them,
the creator sowed some of them in the earth,
and some in
the moon, and some in the other instruments of time;
and when
he had
sown them
he committed to
the younger gods the fashioning of their
mortal bodies, and desired
them to furnish what was still lacking to the
human soul, and having made
all the suitable additions, to rule over
them, and to pilot the mortal animal in the best
and wisest manner
which they could,
and avert from
him all but
self-inflicted evils.
In the first place,
we see that what we just now called water,
by
condensation,
I suppose,
becomes stone and earth;
and this same
element,
when melted and dispersed,
passes into vapour and air.
Air,
again, when inflamed,
becomes fire; and again
fire,
when condensed
and extinguished,
passes once more
into the form of air;
and once more,
air,
when collected and condensed,
produces cloud and mist;
and from
these,
when still more compressed,
comes flowing water,
and from
water comes earth
and stones once more;
and thus generation appears to
be transmitted from one
to the other
in a circle.
Thus, then, as the
several elements
never present themselves in the same form,
how can
any one
have the assurance
to assert positively that any of them,
whatever it may be,
is one thing rather than another?
No one can.
But
much the safest plan
is to speak of them as follows:
-Anything which we
see to be continually changing,
as, for example, fire, we must not call
"this" or "that," but rather say
that it is "of such a nature";
nor let us
speak of water as "this";
but always as "such";
nor must we imply that
there is any stability in any of those things
which we indicate
by the use of the words
"this" and "that,"
supposing ourselves to
signify something thereby;
for they are too volatile
to be detained
in any such expressions
as "this," or "that," or "relative to this,"
or any other mode of speaking
which represents them as permanent.
We ought not to apply "this" to
any of them, but rather the word "such";
which expresses the similar
principle circulating in each and all of them;
for example, that should be
called "fire" which is of such a nature always,
and so of everything that
has generation.
That in which the elements severally grow up,
and
appear, and decay,
is alone to be called
by the name "this" or "that";
but
that which is of a certain nature,
hot or white, or anything
which admits
of opposite equalities,
and all things that are compounded of them,
ought not to be so denominated.
Let me make another attempt to explain
my meaning more clearly.
In the same way
that which is to receive perpetually
and through its whole extent the
resemblances of all eternal beings
ought to be devoid
of any
particular
form.
Wherefore, the mother and
receptacle of all created
and visible
and in any way sensible things,
is not to be termed earth, or air, or fire,
or water,
or any of their compounds
or any of the elements from which
these are derived,
but is an invisible and formless
being which receives
all things and in some
mysterious way partakes of
the intelligible, and is
most incomprehensible.
In saying this we shall not be far wrong ; as far,
however, as we can attain to a knowledge of her from the previous
considerations,
we may truly say that
fire is that part of her nature which
from time to time is inflamed, and
water that which is moistened, and
that the mother substance becomes earth and air,
in so far as she
receives the impressions of them.
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