Wood, charcoal, and fuel

Meaning

Wood and charcoal occur both as actual fuel and as standards of comparison. Nature mocks the charcoal-burning worker whose fumes disturb his head. The Summary contrasts violent wood or charcoal fire with the nourishing warmth represented by its perpetual sun. The Way of Truth makes spent fuel part of a satire: calcination has successfully reduced the worker's wood and charcoal to ashes, but has produced no useful result. Elsewhere it compares the flames of wood with metals' greater resistance to fire, explaining the difference through degrees of coction. The collective label “fuel” does not merge these polemical, material, and explanatory functions, nor make the companions' several descriptions of fire interchangeable.