150 l/-23
circular revolution; nor can it be said that the heavenly bodies are com-
pelled by some greater force to move contrary to their nature-for what
force could be greater? The only remaining possibility is that the motion
of the heavenly bodies is voluntary.
Anyone who [so much as] sees them would be not only ignorant but
even impious to deny that there are gods. Nor does it really make much
difference whether he denies that or merely deprives them of all providen-
tial concern and activity; for in my view [a god] who does nothing might
as well not exist. Therefore, it is so obvious that there are gods that I
can hardly consider anyone who denies it to be in his right mind ....
- So I hardly think that I will go wrong to take my lead in discussing
this subject from a leading investigator of truth. Zeno, then, defines nature
thus: he says that it is a craftsmanlike fire which proceeds methodically to
the task of creation. For he thinks that creating and producing are most
characteristic of a craft and that nature (i.e., the craftsmanlike fire, as I
said, which is the instructor of all the other crafts) accomplishes the same
sort of thing as our hands do when they are used in human crafts, but
much more skillfully. And on this theory nature as a whole is craftsman-
like, because it has a kind of method and path to follow; 58. but the
nature of the cosmos itself, which constrains and contains all things in
its embrace, is said by the same Zeno not only to be craftsmanlike but,
to put it directly, a craftsman, since it looks out for and is provident
about all kinds of usefulness and convenience. And just as all other
natural entities are produced, grow and are held together each by its own
seeds, so too the nature of the cosmos has all the voluntary motions,
endeavours and impulses (which the Greeks call hormai) and carries out
the actions consequent on them, just as we ourselves do who are set in
motion by our minds and senses. For since the mind of the cosmos is
like this and can for this reason properly be called prudence or providence
(in Greek the term is pronoia), the principal concern of this providence
and its greatest preoccupation is, first, that the cosmos be as well suited
as possible for remaining in existence, second, that it be in need of
nothing, but most of all that it should possess surpassing beauty and
every adornment. - The cosmos as a whole has been discussed; so have the heavenly
bodies. We now have a pretty clear picture of a large number of gods
who are not idle, but who do not have to carry out the tasks they perform
with laborious and unpleasant effort. For they are not held together by
veins and nerves and bones; nor do they consume the sort of food and
drink which would make their humours either too sharp or too dense;
nor do they have the sorts of bodies which would lead them to dread