Concept

Earth (classical element)

Overview

Earth is one of the classical elements, in some systems being one of the four along with air, fire, and water.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Earth (classical element) is discussed.

Moreover, calling these four bodies, earth, water, air, and fire, the first elements, they do (I know not how) make some of them simple and pure, and others compound and mixed. For they maintain that earth and water hold together neither themselves nor other things, but preserve their unity by the participation of air and force of fire; but that air and fire do both fortify themselves by…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
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Rock, when it is made up of equal particles, is fair and transparent, but the reverse when of unequal. Earth is converted into pottery when the watery part is suddenly drawn away; or if moisture remains, the earth, when fused by fire, becomes, on cooling, a stone of a black colour.
Plato, Timaeus
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26). The element fire is called ḥoshek because it is not luminous, it is only transparent; for if it were luminous we should see at night the whole atmosphere in flames. The order of the four elements, according to the natural position is here described; namely, first earth, above it water, air close to water, and fire above air; for by placing air over water, ḥoshek (fire), which is “upon the face of the deep,” is…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
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Sometimes also, even without losing its moisture, the earth is fused by the fire, and on cooling becomes a stone of a black colour.[326] In the same manner, when this earth is deprived of the water it holds in mixture, but yet has small particles and is of a saline nature, it forms a half-solid body, still capable of solution in water,—either nitre, which purifies both oil and earth, or else salt, a substance so…
Plato, The works of Plato
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Of these qualities, then, said he, some are principal ones, and others arise out of them. The principal ones are of one character and simple; but those which arise out of them are various, and, as it were, multiform. Therefore, air (we use the Greek word ἀὴρ as Latin), fire, water, and earth are principal ones; and out of them there arise the forms of living creatures, and of those things which are produced out of…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by
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Earth (classical element)

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In the original texts

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