existence of the more perfect in as great a number as possible. Thus
bodies were created as well as spirits, since the one does not offer any
obstacle to the other; and the creation of matter was not unworthy of the
great God, as some heretics of old believed, attributing this work to a
certain Demogorgon.

8. Let us now proceed to physical evil, which is treated of in Chapter IV.
Our famous author, having observed that metaphysical evil, or imperfection,
springs from nothingness, concludes that physical evil, or discomfort,
springs from matter, or rather from its movement; for without movement
matter would be useless. Moreover there must be contrariety in these
movements; otherwise, if all went together in the same direction, there
would be neither variety nor generation. But the movements that cause [413]
generations cause also corruptions, since from the variety of movements
comes concussion between bodies, by which they are often dissipated and
destroyed. The Author of Nature however, in order to render bodies more
enduring, distributed them into _systems_, those which we know being
composed of luminous and opaque balls, in a manner so excellent and so
fitting for the display of that which they contain, and for arousing wonder
thereat, that we can conceive of nothing more beautiful. But the crowning
point of the work was the construction of animals, to the end that
everywhere there should be creatures capable of cognition,

_Ne regio foret ulla suis animalibus orba._

Our sagacious author believes that the air and even the purest aether have
their denizens as well as the water and the earth. But supposing that there
were places without animals, these places might have uses necessary for
other places which are inhabited. So for example the mountains, which
render the surface of our globe unequal and sometimes desert and barren,
are of use for the production of rivers and of winds; and we have no cause
to complain of sands and marshes, since there are so many places still
remaining to be cultivated. Moreover, it must not be supposed that all is
made for man alone: and the author is persuaded that there are not only
pure spirits but also immortal animals of a nature akin to these spirits,
that is, animals whose souls are united to an ethereal and incorruptible
matter. But it is not the same with animals whose body is terrestrial,
composed of tubes and fluids which circulate therein, and whose motion is
terminated b