Page:Vitruvius the Ten Books on Architecture.djvu/64

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1. of all Thales thought that water was the primordial substance of all things. Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed by the Greeks on account of the obscurity of his writ­ings, thought that it was fire. Democritus and his follower Epi­curus thought that it was the atoms, termed by our writers "bod­ies that cannot be cut up," or, by some, "indivisibles." The school of the Pythagoreans added air and the earthy to the water and fire. Hence, although Democritus did not in a strict sense name them, but spoke only of indivisible bodies, yet he seems to have meant these same elements, because when taken by them­selves they cannot be harmed, nor are they susceptible of dissolu­tion, nor can they be cut up into parts, but throughout time eter­nal they forever retain an infinite solidity.

2. All things therefore appear to be made up and produced by the coming together of these elements, so that they have been distributed by nature among an infinite number of kinds of things. Hence I believed it right to treat of the diversity and practical peculiarities of these things as well as of the qualities which they exhibit in buildings, so that persons who are intending to build may understand them and so make no mistake, but may gather materials which are suitable to use in their buildings.

1. with bricks, I shall state of what kind of clay they ought to be made. They should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine gravel, because when made of these kinds they are in the first place heavy; and, secondly, when washed by