who first saw fire, approached it with the same caution, as those who are familiar with its effects, so as to be warmed only and not burnt; and it is reasonable to think that the intolerable pain which, at its first appearance, it must produce upon ignorant curiosity, would sow perpetual enmity between this element and mankind; and that the same principle which incites them to crush a serpent, would incite them to destroy fire, and avoid all means by which it would be produced, as soon as they were known.  These circumstances considered, how men became sufficiently familiar with it to render it useful, seems to be a problem very difficult to solve:  Nor is it easy to account for the first application of it to culinary purposes, as the eating both animal and vegetable food raw, must have become a habit, before there was fire to dress it, and those who have considered the force of habit will readily believe, that to men who had always eaten the flesh of animals raw, it would be as disagreeable dressed, as to those who have always eaten it dressed, it would be raw.  It is remarkable that the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego produce fire from a spark by collision, and that the happier natives of this country, New Zealand and Otaheite, produce it by the attrition of one combustible substance against another:  Is there not then some reason to suppose that these different operations correspond with the manner in which chance produced fire in the neighbourhood of the torrid and frigid zones?  Among the rude inhabitants of a cold country, neither any operation of art, or occurrence of accident, could be supposed so easily to produce fire by attrition, as in a climate where every thing is hot, dry, and adust, teeming with a latent fire which a slight degree of motion was sufficient to call forth; in a cold country therefore, it is natural to suppose that fire was produced by the accidental collision of two metallic substances, and in a cold country, for that reason, the same expedient was used to produce it by design:  But in hot countries, where two combustible substances easily kindle by attrition, it is probable that the attrition of such substances first produced fire, and here it was therefore natural for art to adopt the same operation, with a view to produce the same effect.  It may indeed be true that fire is now produced in many cold countries by attrition, and in many hot by a stroke; but perhaps upon enquiry there may appear reason to conclude that this has arisen from the communication of one country with another, and that with respect to the original production of fire in hot and cold countries, the distinction is well founded.

There may perhaps be some reason to suppose that men became gradually acquainted with the nature and effects of fire, by its permanent existence in a volcano, there being remains of volcanoes, or vestiges of their effects, in almost every part of the world:  By a volcano, however, no method of producing fire, otherwise than by contact, could be learnt; the production and application of fire therefore, still seem to afford abundant subject of speculation to the curious.[93]