1
He turns to water.
2
Water serves Adam in drinking, washing, agriculture, crafts, channels, and transport.
3
It can be mixed, heated, frozen, colored, polluted, diverted, and compelled through artificial channels.
4
Because it changes under conditions and can be used against its own natural flow, Aristides concludes that it is subject rather than sovereign.
5
He then treats fire in the same way.
6
Fire serves cooking, metalwork, craft, warmth, and other human needs, yet it can be extinguished and constrained.
7
Wind likewise rises, falls, ceases, drives ships, nourishes fields, and can be captured or redirected by human devices.
8
Each element possesses real power, but none possesses independent divine sovereignty.
9
The proper response is therefore gratitude for creation, not worship of creation.