Greek Texts & Translations

"A world is a circumscribed portion of the universe, which contains stars and earth and all other visible things, cut off from the infinite, and terminating [and terminating in a boundary which may be either thick or thin, a boundary whose dissolution will bring about the wreck of all within it] in an exterior which may either revolve or be at rest, and be round or triangular or of any other shape whatever. All these alternatives are possible : they are contradicted by none of the facts in this world, in which an extremity can nowhere be discerned.

"That there is an infinite number of such worlds can be perceived, and that such a world may arise in a world or in one of the intermundia (by which term we mean the spaces between worlds) in a tolerably empty space and not, as some maintain, in a vast space perfectly clear and void. ^note It arises when certain suitable seeds rush in from a single world or intermundium, or from several, and undergo gradual additions or articulations or changes of place, it may be, and waterings from appropriate sources, until they are matured and firmly settled in so far as the foundations laid can receive them. 10.1.90 For it is not enough that there should be an aggregation or a vortex in the empty space in which a world may arise, as the necessitarians hold, and may grow until it collide with another, as one of the so-called physicists ^note says. For this is in conflict with facts.

"The sun and moon and the stars generally were not of independent origin and later absorbed within our world, [such parts of it at least as serve at all for its defence] ; but they at once began to take form and grow [and so too did earth and sea] ^note by the accretions and whirling motions of certain substances of finest texture, of the nature either of wind or fire, or of both ; for thus sense itself suggests.

"The size of the sun and the remaining stars relatively to us is just as great as it appears. ^note [This he states in the eleventh book "On Nature." For, says he, if it had diminished in size on account of the distance, it would much more have diminished its brightness ; for indeed there is no distance more proportionate to this diminution of size than is the distance at which the brightness begins to diminish.] But in itself and actually it may be a little larger or a little smaller, or precisely as great as it is seen to be. For so too fires of which we have experience are seen by sense when we see them at a distance. And every objection brought against this part of the theory will easily be met by anyone who attends to plain facts, as I show in my work On Nature. 10.1.92 And the rising and setting of the sun, moon, and stars may be due to kindling and quenching, ^note provided that the circumstances are such as to produce this result in each of the two regions, east and west : for no fact testifies against this. Or the result might be produced by their coming forward above the earth and again by its intervention to hide them : for no fact testifies against this either. And their motions ^note may be due to the rotation of the whole heaven, or the heaven may be at rest and they alone rotate according to some necessary impulse to rise, implanted at first when the world was made ... 10.1.93 and this through excessive heat, due to a certain extension of the fire which always encroaches upon that which is near it. ^note

"The turnings of the sun and moon in their course may be due to the obliquity of the heaven, whereby it is forced back at these times. ^note Again, they may equally be due to the contrary pressure of the air or, it may be, to the fact that either the fuel from time to time necessary has been consumed in the vicinity or there is a dearth of it. Or even because such a whirling motion was from the first inherent in these stars so that they move in a sort of spiral. For all such explanations and the like do not conflict with any clear evidence, if only in such details we hold fast to what is possible, and can bring each of these explanations into accord with the facts, unmoved by the servile artifices of the astronomers.

"The waning of the moon and again her waxing ^note might be due to the rotation of the moon's body, and equally well to configurations which the air assumes ; further, it may be due to the interposition of certain bodies. In short, it may happen in any of the ways in which the facts within our experience suggest such an appearance to be explicable. But one must not be so much in love with the explanation by a single way as wrongly to reject all the others from ignorance of what can, and what cannot, be within human knowledge, and consequent longing to discover the indiscoverable. Further, the moon may possibly shine by her own light, just as possibly she may derive her light from the sun ;