FIRE. In early stages of civilization, humans learned to create fire by striking flint, drilling wood, and focusing solar rays. Myths attributed this wondrous, crucial acquisition to the daring of a culture hero, theft from a primordial bird or animal, burglary of heaven and obstinate gods who withheld it, emanation from the vagina of an old woman, or sometimes the outright gift of a divine being. Recognized as ambiguously creative and destructive, life-giving and life-taking, fire appeared in multiple mysteries of transmutation: of environs from cold, dark, and dangerous to warm, light, and secure; of food from raw to cooked; of substance from putrid to pure; of fields from sterile brush to fertile earth; of earth from ore to metal; of human bodies from disease to health; of spirits from profane to sacred; and of speech from babble to wisdom. Fire was identified in animals, plants, earth, air...