22 /-3
groundlessly reject the others, because of a failure to understand what
it is possible for a man to understand and what is not, for this reason
desiring to understand what cannot be understood. And again, it is
possible that the moon produces its own light, and also possible that it
receives it from the sun. 95. For in our own experience we see many
things which produce their own light, and many which receive it from
other things. And none of the meteorological phenomena is a hindrance
[to these possibilities], as long as one always remembers the method of
several different explanations, considers together the hypotheses and
explanations compatible with these, and does not, by looking to things
which are not compatible, give them a pointless importance and so slide,
in different ways on different occasions, into the method of unique
explanations. And the appearance of a face in [the moon] could occur
because of the variation among its parts, and because [some parts] are
blocked, and by all the methods one might consider which are consistent
with the phenomena. 96. For in the case of all the meteorological phenom-
ena one must not give up tracking down such [possibilities]. For if one
is in conflict with the clear facts, one will never be able to partake of
genuine freedom from disturbance.
The eclipse of the sun and the moon could also come to pass by
extinguishing, as is also observed to occur in our experience; and also
by being blocked by certain other bodies, either the earth or the heavens
or some other such thing. And one should in this way consider the
methods [of explanation] which are consistent with each other, and that
it is not impossible that some of them may occur together.^15
- And again, we should grasp the orderliness of the cyclical periods
[of the heavenly bodies] [as happening] in the same way that some of
the things which also happen in our experience [occur]; and let the nature
of the divine not be brought to bear on this at all, but let it go on being
thought of as free from burdensome service and as [living] in complete
blessedness. For if this is not done, the entire study of the explanations
for meteorological phenomena will be pointless, as it has already been
for some who did not pursue the method of possible explanations and
so were reduced to pointlessness because they thought that [the phenom-
ena] only occurred in one manner and rejected all the other explanations
which were also possible, and so were swept off into an unintelligible
- Scholiast: "He says the same in book 12 of On Nature, and in addition that the sun is
eclipsed by the fact that the moon darkens it, and the moon by the shadow of the earth,
but also by its own retreat. This is also said by Diogenes the Epicurean in book 1 of
his Selections."
