And there is another nature of the
same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created,
always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of
place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense. And there is a
third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of
destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is
apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious
reason, and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say
of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and
occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth
has no existence. Of these and other things of the same kind,
relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only
this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and
determine the truth about them. For an image, since the reality,
after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists
ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be
in another [i.e. in space ], grasping existence in some way or
other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason,
vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two
things [i.e. the image and space] are different they cannot exist
one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same
time.
Thus have I concisely given the result of my thoughts; and my
verdict is that being and space and generation, these three,
existed in their three ways before the heaven; and that the nurse
of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and
receiving the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the
affections which accompany these, presented a strange variety of
appearances; and being full of powers which were neither similar
nor equally balanced, was never in any part in a state of
equipoise, but swaying unevenly hither and thither, was shaken by
them, and by its motion again shook them; and the elements when
moved were separated and carried continually, some one way, some
another; as, when rain is shaken and winnowed by fans and other
instruments used in the threshing of corn, the close and heavy
particles are borne away and settle in one direction, and the
loose and light particles in another. In this manner, the four
kinds or elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel,
which, moving like a winnowing machine, scattered far away from
one another the elements most unlike, and forced the most similar
elements into dose contact. Wherefore also the various elements
had different places before they were arranged so as to form the
universe. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But
when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth
and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were
altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the
absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and
God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be consistently
maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as far as
possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair
and good. And now I will endeavour to show you the disposition
and generation of them by an unaccustomed argument, which am
compelled to use; but I believe that you will be able to follow
me, for your education has made you familiar with the methods of
science.
In the first place, then, as is evident to all, fire and earth
and water and air are bodies. And every sort of body possesses
solidity, and every solid must necessarily be contained in
planes; and every plane rectilinear figure is composed of
triangles; and all triangles are originally of two kinds, both of
which are made up of one right and two acute angles; one of them
has at either end of the base the half of a divided right angle,
having equal sides, while in the other the right angle is divided
into unequal parts, having unequal sides. These, then, proceeding
by a combination of probability with demonstration, we assume to
be the original elements of fire and the other bodies; but the
principles which are prior to these God only knows, and he of men
who is the friend God. And next we have to determine what are the
four most beautiful bodies which are unlike one another, and of
which some are capable of resolution into one another; for having
discovered thus much, we shall know the true origin of earth and
fire and of the proportionate and intermediate elements.
