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but rather that it is stirred up by the [wind-induced] motion from the
deepest parts of the sea. This also happens to our own bodies, when they
warm up with motion and exercise.
Air itself, which is by nature the coldest [element], is hardly devoid
of heat. 27. Indeed, it is mixed with a very great deal of heat, since it
arises from the evaporation of bodies of water and air should be held to
be a kind of vapour arising from them; anyway, air comes to be as a
result of the motion of the heat contained in bodies of water. We can
see something like this when water is brought to a boil by putting a fire
beneath it.
What now remains is the fourth part of the cosmos; it itself is in its
entirety a hot nature and it communicates its salutary and life-giving
heat to all other natures. 28. From this it is argued that, since all the
parts of the cosmos are sustained by heat, that the cosmos itself is
preserved for an immense time by an exactly similarly nature, all the
more so since one ought to understand that this hot and fiery nature is
blended throughout all of nature in such a way that it contains in itself
the procreative power and cause of generation; all animals and everything
which is rooted in the earth must be born from and nourished by this
[principle of heat].
- There is, therefore, a nature which holds the entire cosmos together
and preserves it, and which is endowed with sense-perception and reason.
For every nature which is not isolated and simple, but rather is joined
and connected with something else, must have in itself some 'leading
part', like the mind in man and in a brute beast something analogous to
mind which is the source of its desires for things; in trees and plants
which grow in the earth the leading part is thought to reside in their
roots. By 'leading part' I mean that which the Greeks call hegemonikon;
in each type of thing there cannot and should not be anything more
excellent than this. Necessarily, then, that in which the leading part of
nature as a whole resides must be the best of all, and the most worthy
of power and authority over all things. 30. We see, moreover, that the
parts of the cosmos (and there is nothing in the whole cosmos which is
not a part of the whole) contain the powers of sense-perception and
reason. These powers must, then, be present in that part of the cosmos
which contains its leading part-and in a more acute and powerful form.
That is why the cosmos must be wise and why the nature which contains
in its grasp all things must surpass them in the perfection of its reason;
so the cosmos is a god and all the powers of the cosmos are held together
by the divine nature ....
32 .... One can also see that the cosmos contains intelligence from
the fact that it is without doubt better than any other nature. Just as