ingle verse of them. How, therefore, can
these people assert that the world was made by the fortuitous concourse
of atoms, which have no color, no quality--which the Greeks call
[Greek: poiotes], no sense? or that there are innumerable worlds, some
rising and some perishing, in every moment of time? But if a concourse
of atoms can make a world, why not a porch, a temple, a house, a city,
which are works of less labor and difficulty?

Certainly those men talk so idly and inconsiderately concerning this
lower world that they appear to me never to have contemplated the
wonderful magnificence of the heavens; which is the next topic for our
consideration.

Well, then, did Aristotle[163] observe: "If there were men whose
habitations had been always underground, in great and commodious
houses, adorned with statues and pictures, furnished with everything
which they who are reputed happy abound with; and if, without stirring
from thence, they should be informed of a certain divine power and
majesty, and, after some time, the earth should open, and they should
quit their dark abode to come to us, where they should immediately
behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should consider the vast
extent of the clouds and force of the winds; should see the sun, and
observe his grandeur and beauty, and also his generative power,
inasmuch as day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the
sky; and when night has obscured the earth, they should contemplate the
heavens bespangled and adorned with stars, the surprising variety of
the moon in her increase and wane, the rising and setting of all the
stars, and the inviolable regularity of their courses; when," says he,
"they should see these things, they would undoubtedly conclude that
there are Gods, and that these are their mighty works."

XXXVIII. Thus far Aristotle. Let us imagine, also, as great darkness as
was formerly occasioned by the irruption of the fires of Mount AEtna,
which are said to have obscured the adjacent countries for two days to
such a degree that no man could recognize his fellow; but on the third,
when the sun appeared, they seemed to be risen from the dead. Now, if
we should be suddenly brought from a state of eternal darkness to see
the light, how beautiful would the heavens seem! But our minds have
become used to it from the daily practice and habituation of our eyes,
nor do we take the trouble to search into the principles of what is
always in view; a