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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 bodiesCf. 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 to go on carrying back sensible phenomena to rational origins until they reached, as it were, the minimum number of seeds.
