148 l/-23
it will be worse than man. And since this is absurd, one must hold that
the cosmos is both wise from the very beginning and a god.
- Nor does anything else exist which lacks nothing and is completely
equipped, perfect and fulfilled in all aspects and parts of itself, except
the cosmos. Chrysippus put the point well when he said that just as the
cover was made for the sake of the shield and the sheath for the sword,
in the same way everything else except the cosmos was made for the
sake of other things. For example, the crops and fruits which the earth
bears exist for the sake of animals, but animals for the sake of men; the
horse exists for riding, the ox for plowing and the dog for hunting and
guarding, but man himself was born for the sake of contemplating and
imitating the cosmos; he is not at all perfect, but he is a certain small
portion of what is perfect. 38. But since the cosmos embraces everything
and since there is nothing which is not in it, it is perfect in all respects.
How, then, can it lack what is best? But nothing is better than mind and
reason. Therefore, the cosmos cannot lack these things. Chrysippus also
uses comparisons to show effectively that everything is better in perfected
and full-grown [specimens], for example, better in a horse than in a colt,
in a dog than in a puppy, in a man than in a boy; similarly, what is best
in the cosmos as a whole ought to exist in something which is perfected
and completed; 39. but nothing is more perfect than the cosmos, nothing
better than virtue; therefore, virtue is a property of the cosmos. Indeed,
man's nature is not perfect, and for all that virtue is produced in man; how
much more easily, then, could it be produced in the cosmos; therefore, it
contains virtue. Therefore, it is wise and consequently a god.
Now that we have seen that the cosmos is divine, we should assign
the same sort of divinity to the stars, which are formed from the most
mobile and pure part of the aither and have no additional elements mixed
into their nature; they are totally hot and bright, so that they too are
also said quite correctly to be animals and to perceive and to have
intelligence. 40. And Cleanthes thinks that the evidence of two senses,
touch and sight, shows that they are totally fiery. For the sun's light is
brighter than that of any fire, seeing that it shines so far and wide across
the boundless cosmos, and the effect of its contact is such that it not
only warms but also often burns things; it could not do either of these
things unless it were fiery. "Therefore," he says, "since the sun is fiery
and is nourished by the moisture from the ocean (since no fire can persist
without fuel), it is necessary either that it be similar to the fire which
we use for our daily purposes or to the fire which is contained in the
bodies of animals. 41. But the fire which we are familiar with and which
we need for the purposes of daily life consumes and destroys everything
and wherever it penetrates it upsets and scatters everything. By contrast,