in which the predominant quality of
the world is found. The world, therefore, must necessarily be possessed
of wisdom; and that element, which embraces all things, must excel in
perfection of reason. The world, therefore, is a God, and the whole
power of the world is contained in that divine element.

The heat also of the world is more pure, clear, and lively, and,
consequently, better adapted to move the senses than the heat allotted
to us; and it vivifies and preserves all things within the compass of
our knowledge.

It is absurd, therefore, to say that the world, which is endued with a
perfect, free, pure, spirituous, and active heat, is not sensitive,
since by this heat men and beasts are preserved, and move, and think;
more especially since this heat of the world is itself the sole
principle of agitation, and has no external impulse, but is moved
spontaneously; for what can be more powerful than the world, which
moves and raises that heat by which it subsists?

XII. For let us listen to Plato, who is regarded as a God among
philosophers. He says that there are two sorts of motion, one innate
and the other external; and that that which is moved spontaneously is
more divine than that which is moved by another power. This self-motion
he places in the mind alone, and concludes that the first principle of
motion is derived from the mind. Therefore, since all motion arises
from the heat of the world, and that heat is not moved by the effect of
any external impulse, but of its own accord, it must necessarily be a
mind; from whence it follows that the world is animated.

On such reasoning is founded this opinion, that the world is possessed
of understanding, because it certainly has more perfections in itself
than any other nature; for as there is no part of our bodies so
considerable as the whole of us, so it is clear that there is no
particular portion of the universe equal in magnitude to the whole of
it; from whence it follows that wisdom must be an attribute of the
world; otherwise man, who is a part of it, and possessed of reason,
would be superior to the entire world.

And thus, if we proceed from the first rude, unfinished natures to the
most superior and perfect ones, we shall inevitably come at last to the
nature of the Gods. For, in the first place, we observe that those
vegetables which are produced out of the earth are supported by nature,
and she gives them no further supply than is sufficient to preserv