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And since our discourse has brought us to it, what
is more beneficial to life than art? Yet fire invented and
preserves all manner of arts. And therefore Vulcan is
feigned to be the prince of all artificers. Man has allowed
him but a little time to live; and as Aristo said, sleep, like
a toll-gatherer, deprives him of the one-half of that too.
I would rather say that the darkness does this; for a man
may watch all night. But he would have no benefit of his
watchfulness unless fire afforded him all the benefit of the
light of day, and removed the difference between night and
day. Since then there is nothing more beneficial to man
than life, and this is prolonged by fire, why should not fire
be accounted the most beneficial of all things?
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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