De Aeternitate Mundi

And what is there that can hinder men from shooting up now out of the ground like plants, as they say that they did in former times? For the earth has not yet grown old so as to appear to have become barren by reason of the lapse of time, but it remains in the same condition as before, being always young, because it is a fourth part of the universe, and for the sake of ensuring the duration of the universe it is bound not to decay, because its kindred elements, water, air, and fire, all remain for ever exempt from old age.

And there is a visible proof of the uninterrupted and everlasting vigour of the earth in the plants which spring from it, for being purified, either by the overflowing of rivers, as they say that Egypt is, or by annual rains, by such irrigation it refreshes and recruits its exhausted powers, and then, having rested for a while, it recovers its natural powers to the full extent of its original vigour, and then it begins again with a repetition of the production of similar things to those which it produced before to supply abundant food to every description of animal.

In reference to which fact it appears to me that the poets were very felicitous in the appellation which they gave to the earth when they called it Pandora, inasmuch as it gives all things, [*](πάντα δωρουμένην.) both such as are required for use and such as serve to pleasure and to enjoyment, and that not to some only but to all animals which enjoy life. Accordingly, if any one, when the spring was in its prime, should be borne on wings and raised aloft, and look down from his height upon the

and rich also in the fragrant airs which are borne around from flowers, and the indescribable peculiarities of the various flowers which are diversified by divine skill. And then, if he turns aside his eyes from those trees which admit of cultivation, and beholds in their turn poplars, and cedars, and pines, and ashes, and the lofty oaks, and the dense and unceasing masses of all the other wild trees which overshadow the most numerous and the greatest of the mountains, and the greater part of the border country wherever there is any deep soil, he will then know that the vigour of the earth, which is always young, is unremitting, unsubdued, and unwearied.

So that since it is in no degree deprived of any portion of its former strength, if it had ever done so before, it would be bringing forth men now also, for two most forcible reasons, one in order that it might not quit the classification belonging to it, especially in the sowing and production of that most excellent of all the creatures which dwell upon the earth, the ruler of all, man, and secondly for the sake of giving assistance to women, who after they have conceived are for about ten months weighed down with the most severe pains, and when they are about to bring forth do very often die in the very pains of labour.

Is it not then altogether a terrible piece of stupidity to imagine that the earth contains any womb calculated for the production of men? for the womb is the place which vivifies the animal, being as some one has called it the workshop of nature, in which it fashions nothing but animals; but it is not a portion of the earth, but of a female animal, carefully fashioned so as to be adapted for the production of living creatures, since

and in addition to this, as it is necessary that a child just born must be fed on milk, so also must he avail himself of the protection of clothing on account of the injury which ensues from cold or heat to children while they are being reared, on which account nurses and mothers, to whom the care of infants when just born is of necessity committed, wrap them up in swaddling clothes; but if they were produced out of the earth, how would it be possible that, being left completely naked, they would not be at once destroyed either by the coldness of the air on the one hand, or the burning heat of the sun on the other? for when great cold or great heat gets the mastery, it produces diseases and corruptions.

But after the inventors of fables once began to neglect the truth they then ventured to add to their monstrous stories the fiction that those men who sprung from seed were born also in complete armour; for what smith, or what new Vulcan, was there under the earth so skilful as in a moment to prepare so many suits of armour? and what experience had creatures just born to enable them to use their weapons? for man is a very peaceful animal, nature having given to him reason as his especial honour, by means of which he charms and tames the savage passions. It would have been much better instead of arms to give him a herald’s wand, a symbol of agreement and peace suitable to a reasonable nature, in order that he might so proclaim peace instead of war to all men everywhere.

We have now then discussed at sufficient length the nonsense in opposition to truth which is uttered by those who build up falsehood and fables. But we must be well assured that men have from all eternity sprung from other men in constant succession, the man implanting the seed in the woman as in a field, and the woman receiving the seed so as to preserve it, and nature by her unseen operations fashioning everything, and each separate part of the body and of the soul, and giving to the whole race of mankind that which each

But Critolaus, in arguing in support of his opinion, brought forward an argument of this kind, —"That which is the cause to man of his being in health is itself free from disease, and, in like manner, the cause of his keeping awake must itself be sleepless; and if this is the case, that which is the cause of his existing for ever must itself also be everlasting." Now the cause of man’s existing for ever is the world, since it is so to all other things whatever; therefore the world also is immortal.