If art, therefore, is capable of making a body inclined to perpetual motion, why should we not believe that nature can do it? It is the same with the other shapes: ones like a square seek a state of perpetual repose, others a sideways motion, others quiver in a partial movement: and when one of the round ones, whose essence is to move, comes into conjunction with one of the pyramidal ones, it may well be that they produce what we call “fire,” because fire not only moves restlessly, it also pierces and penetrates easily. Apart from this, the flame behaves differently, according to the type and size of the angles made between the pyramid and the sphere: so the flame produced by pepper, for example, is quite a different thing from a sugar flame: sugar produces a different one from cinnamon, cinnamon from cloves, and this last differs from the flame of a burning faggot

Cyrano de Bergerac ~ From Other Worlds

From Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology by Eric S. Rabkin