[56a]
Wherefore, we are preserving the probable account when we assign this figure to earth, and of the remaining figures the least mobile to water, and the most mobile to fire, and the intermediate figure to air; and, further, when we assign the smallest body to fire, and the greatest to water, and the intermediate to air; and again, the first in point of sharpness to fire, the second to air, and the third to water. As regards all these forms, that which has the fewest bases must necessarily be the most mobile,
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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