Sextus Empiricus: Physics 369
sense]. Consequently, a great difference can be observed in the arguments.
Think about it: Archilochus, although he is poetic, is not better than
Socrates, who is not; and Aristarchus, although he is a grammarian, is
not better than Plato, who is not.
- In addition to these arguments, the Stoics and those who agree
with them try to establish the existence of the gods from the motion of
the cosmos. For anyone would agree on the basis of many considerations
that the entire cosmos is in motion. 112. So, it is moved either by nature
or intention or by the necessity of a vortex. But it is not reasonable that
it should be moved by the necessity of a vortex. For the vortex is either
orderly or disorderly. If it is disorderly, it would not be able to move
something in an orderly way. And if it moves something in an orderly
and harmonious way, it will be something divine and supernatural. 113.
For the universe would not have been able to move something in an
orderly way that preserves it if it were not intelligent and divine. And
being such, it would no longer be a vortex, for a vortex is something
disorderly and lasts for a short time. So, the cosmos would not be moved
according to the necessity of a vortex, as Democritus and his followers
said. 114. Nor is it moved by a nature deprived of the power of presenta-
tion, since intelligent nature is better than this and such natures are seen
to be contained in the cosmos. Therefore, it necessarily has an intelligent
nature by which it is moved in an orderly way, which evidently is
a god ....
- This, then, is the nature of these arguments. Let us then examine
next the kind of absurd consequences that follow for those who reject
the divine.
If the gods do not exist, there is no piety-which is one of the virtues.
... [Here there is a corrupt phrase.] For piety is the knowledge of how
to serve gods, and it is not possible for there to be service to non-existent
things; therefore, there is no knowledge of such service. Just as it is not
possible for there to be knowledge of how to serve non-existent entities
like hippocentaurs, so, if the gods do not exist, there will be no knowledge
of how to serve them. So, if the gods do not exist, piety is non-existent.
But piety exists. Therefore, the existence of gods ought to be declared.
- Again, if gods do not exist, holiness is non-existent, holiness being
a sort of justice in relation to gods. Indeed, holiness exists according to
the common conceptions and basic grasps of all men, insofar as something
holy exists. Therefore, the divine exists. 125. But if gods do not exist,
wisdom, the knowledge of divine and human things, is abolished. And
since there is no [generic] knowledge of human and hippocentaurian
things, for one exists and the other doesn't, so there will be no [generic]
