threefold production of the mind; one of which
depends on knowing things, and explaining nature: the other in defining
what we ought to desire, and what to avoid: the third in judging of
consequences and impossibilities: in which consists both subtilty 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 connexion 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
connexions 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 ari