De Aeternitate Mundi

But if it becomes flame, then, when it approaches extinction, it will be extinguished all at once, and not partially or gradually. For the nutriment exists along with it; on which account, while there is a great deal of it, it increases and is diffused; but when it is stunted it becomes less. And any one might conjecture the truth of what takes place from what he sees happen among us. A lamp, when any one pours oil upon it, gives forth a most brilliant flame; but when any one ceases to supply it with that nutriment, and leaves only a small portion in the lamp, then the lamp is at once extinguished, and does not give out the smallest portion of flame.

If again this is not the case, but if the world becomes light, then again it changes altogether. Why so? Because it has no substance or character of its own, but is generated from flame, and when this is wholly and completely extinguished in all its parts, it follows of necessity that the light also must be extinguished, and that not partially, but altogether. For what flame is to nourishment, that also is light to flame.

As therefore the flame is extinguished concurrently with the want of nourishment, so also is the light simultaneously with the flame, so that it is actually impossible for the world to be capable of

Nevertheless, as Chrysippus says, some suppose that fire resolves all the arrangement of the universe when the elements are separated into itself, so that it becomes the seed of the world which is about to be made; and suppose in consequence that, of all the ideas which he and his sect have entertained on the subject, none are falsified. Granting, in the first place, that generation proceeds from seed, and that all dissolution is a resolving back into seed; in the second place, because it is argued by natural philosophers that the world is a rational nature, inasmuch as it is not only possessed of life, but is also endowed with intellect, and moreover even with wisdom; by these arguments he establishes the contrary proposition to that which he intends, namely, that it will never be destroyed.

But the proofs are ready at hand to those who do not fear to join in the investigation. Therefore the world resembles either a plant or an animal. But whether it is a plant or whether it is an animal, still, if it be destroyed by conflagration, it will never be itself its own seed. And the circumstances which take place among ourselves bear witness that nothing, whether greater or less, when destroyed, has ever been separated in such a manner as to engender seed.

Do you not see how many materials of plants susceptible of cultivation there are, and how many kinds of wild plants too are diffused over every portion of the earth? Every one of these trees, as long as the trunk is in good health, together with its fruit, produces also a seed to propagate its species; but becoming destroyed after a lapse of time, and being wholly withered, roots and all, it never becomes resolved into a ripened seed.

And so too in the same manner the different kinds of animals, which it is not easy even to enumerate by reason of their multitude, as long as they survive and flourish vigorously, produce a seed, which is calculated to propagate their species; but when they are dead there is no longer any seed. For it would be absurd for a man when he is alive to employ only the eighth part of his soul, which is called the generative power, for the propagation of a being like himself, but after he

And besides, there is no single existing thing which is brought to perfection by seed alone without its appropriate nourishment. For seed resembles the beginning, and the beginning by itself does not make perfect; for beware of imagining that the ear of corn blossoms and ripens solely from the seed, which is cast by the husbandman on the ploughed field; for in truth, dryness and moisture, the twofold moisture which is derived from the earth, co-operate in the greatest degree towards its growth. And so the creature which is fashioned in the womb is not permitted by nature to be brought to life and perfection by the seed alone, but also by the nourishment shed upon it from without, which the woman who has conceived supplies.

Why then do I say this? Because in the case of such a conflagration as that of which I have been speaking, the seed alone will be left, there being no nutriment remaining, since everything which was to have supplied nutriment will have been resolved into fire; so that the world, which would be to be formed, according to the principle of regeneration, will have a lame and imperfect form and character, since that which is chiefly required to co-operate towards its perfection, on which, as on a staff, the seminal origin ought to, and naturally does, lean, is destroyed; but this would be absurd, as is shown, and made manifest from the clearest evidence.

Again, all those things which derive their origin from seed are of a greater magnitude than the seed which gives them their existence, and are seen to fill a more extended space; for very often trees, whose tops reach to heaven itself, shoot up out of a very small grain of seed; and the fattest and tallest animals grow from a very small quantity of moisture, which is laid as their foundation; but there happens that which was mentioned a little while ago, that these, at the time nearest to their birth are very little, but that subsequently they keep on increasing in size till they arrive at complete perfection.