21
We are, further, informed by physicians that generically earth is by nature astringent and cold, and they enumerate many metals that provide a styptic, staying effect for medicinal use. The element of earth is not sharp or mobile or slender or priekly or soft or ductile, but solid and compact like a cube.Cf. Mor. 288 e and Plato, Timaeus, 55 d-e. This is how it came to have weight; and the cold, which is its true power, by thickening, compressing, and squeezing out the humidity of bodies, induces shivering and shaking through its inequalityCf. 948 b supra.; and if it becomes complete master and expels or extinguishes all the heat, it fixes the body in a frozen and corpselike condition. This is the reason why earth does not burn at all, or burns only grudgingly and with difficulty. Air, on the other hand, often shoots forth flames from itself and, turning into fire, makes streams and flashes of lightning. Heat feeds on moisture,Cf. Mor. 649 b, 687 a, 696 b; Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 3 (983 b 23 ff.); Pseudo-Aristotle, Problemata, 949 b 29. for it is not the solid part of wood, but the damp part, that is combustible; and when this is distilled, the solid, dry part remains behind, reduced to ashes.Cf. Mor. 696 b. Those who emulously strive to prove that this too is changed and consumed, sprinkling it, perhaps, with oil or kneading it with suet and setting it alight, accomplish nothing; for when the oily part is consumed, the earthy remains as a permanent residue, do what they may. Not only, therefore, because the earth is physically immovable from its station, but also because it is unalterable in essence, it was quite appropriately called HestiaCf. Plato, Phaedrus, 247 a and 948 b supra with the note. For earth as Hestia see also Dio Chrys. xxxvi. 46 (L.C.L.) with Crosby’s note; Dion. Hal. ii. 66. 3; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 267; Koster, Mnemosyne, Suppl. iii (1951), p. 7, n. 6. by the ancients - in as much as she remains in the home of the gods - because of its stationary and compact nature; and coldness is what binds it together, as ArchelaüsDiels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. 5, ii, p. 48. the natural philosopher declared, since nothing can relax or soften it, as a substance that is subject to heating or warming might be loosened.
