n
judging of consequences and impossibilities, in which consists both
subtlety in disputing and also clearness of judgment. Now, with what
pleasure must the mind of a wise man be affected which continually
dwells in the midst of such cares and occupations as these, when he
views the revolutions and motions of the whole world, and sees those
innumerable stars in the heavens, which, though fixed in their places,
have yet one motion in common with the whole universe, and observes the
seven other stars, some higher, some lower, each maintaining their own
course, while their motions, though wandering, have certain defined and
appointed spaces to run through! the sight of which doubtless urged and
encouraged those ancient philosophers to exercise their investigating
spirit on many other things. Hence arose an inquiry after the
beginnings, and, as it were, seeds from which all things were produced
and composed; what was the origin of every kind of thing, whether
animate or inanimate, articulately speaking or mute; what occasioned
their beginning and end, and by what alteration and change one thing
was converted into another; whence the earth originated, and by what
weights it was balanced; by what caverns the seas were supplied; by
what gravity all things being carried down tend always to the middle of
the world, which in any round body is the lowest place.

XXV. A mind employed on such subjects, and which night and day
contemplates them, contains in itself that precept of the Delphic God,
so as to "know itself," and to perceive its connection with the divine
reason, from whence it is filled with an insatiable joy. For
reflections on the power and nature of the Gods raise in us a desire of
imitating their eternity. Nor does the mind, that sees the necessary
dependences and connections that one cause has with another, think it
possible that it should be itself confined to the shortness of this
life. Those causes, though they proceed from eternity to eternity, are
governed by reason and understanding. And he who beholds them and
examines them, or rather he whose view takes in all the parts and
boundaries of things, with what tranquillity of mind does he look on
all human affairs, and on all that is nearer him! Hence proceeds the
knowledge of virtue; hence arise the kinds and species of virtues;
hence are discovered those things which nature regards as the bounds
and extremities of good and evil; by this it is discovered to what