and there is a unity.

Empedocles the Agrigentine, the son of Meton, affirms that there are
four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, and two powers which bear
the greatest command in nature, concord and discord, of which one is the
union, the other the division of beings. Thus he sings,

Hear first the four roots of all created things:--

Bright shining Jove, Juno that beareth life,
Pluto beneath the earth, and Nestis who
Doth with her tears water the human fount.

By Jupiter he understands fire and ether, by Juno that gives life he
means the air, by Pluto the earth, by Nestis and the spring of all
mortals (as it were) seed and water.

Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, and Plato son of Ariston, both natives
of Athens, entertain the same opinion concerning the universe; for
they suppose three principles, God, matter, and the idea. God is the
universal understanding; matter is that which is the first substratum,
accommodated for the generation and corruption of beings; the idea is
an incorporeal essence, existing in the cogitations and apprehensions of
God; for God is the soul and mind of the world.

Aristotle the son of Nichomachus, the Stagirite, constitutes three
principles; Entelecheia (which is the same with form), matter, and
privation. He acknowledges four elements, and adds a certain fifth body,
which is ethereal and not obnoxious to mutation.

Zeno son of Mnaseas, the native of Citium, avers these to be principles,
God and matter, the first of which is the efficient cause, the other the
passible and receptive. Four more elements he likewise confesses.

CHAPTER IV. HOW WAS THIS WORLD COMPOSED IN THAT ORDER AND AFTER THAT
MANNER IT IS?

The world being broken and confused, after this manner it was reduced
into figure and composure as now it is. The insectible bodies or
atoms, by a wild and fortuitous motion, without any governing power,
incessantly and swiftly were hurried one amongst another, many bodies
being jumbled together; upon this account they have a diversity in the
figures and magnitude. These therefore being so jumbled together, those
bodies which were the greatest and heaviest sank into the lowest place;
they that were of a lesser magnitude, being round, smooth, and slippery,
these meeting with those heavier bodies were easily broken into pieces,
and were carried into higher places. But when that force whereby
these variously particles figured particles fought wit