508 ON GENERATION. 



twofold point of view, viz. either as they are specially re- 

 garded, and are comprehended within the limits of their own 

 proper nature, or are viewed as the instruments of some more 

 noble agent and superior power. For as regards their peculiar 

 powers, there is, perhaps, no doubt but that all things subject 

 to generation by birth, and to death and decay, derive their 

 origin from the elements, and perform their offices agreeably to 

 their proper standard ; but in so far as they are the instruments 

 of a more excellent agent, and are governed by that, not acting 

 of their own proper nature, but by the regimen of another ; 

 therefore is it, therein is it, that they seem to participate with 

 another and more divine body, and to surpass the powers of 

 the ordinary elements. 



In the same way, too, is the blood the animal heat, in so 

 far, namely, as it is governed in its actions by the soul; for it 

 is celestial as subservient to heaven; and divine, because it is 

 the instrument of God the great and good. But this we have 

 already spoken of above, where we have shown that male and 

 female were the instruments of the sun, heaven, and Supreme 

 Preserver, when they served for the generation of the more 

 perfect animals. 



The inferior world, according to Aristotle, is so continuous 

 and connected with the superior orbits, that all its motions and 

 changes appear to take their rise and to receive direction from 

 thence. In that world, indeed, which the Greeks called Ko<r^uoe 

 from its order and beauty, inferior and corruptible things wait 

 upon superior and incorruptible things ; but all are still sub- 

 servient to the will of the supreme, omnipotent, and eternal 

 Creator. 



They, therefore, who think that nothing composed of the 

 elements can show powers of action superior to the forces exer- 

 cised by these, unless they at the same time partake of some 

 other and more divine body, and on this ground conceive the 

 spirits they evoke as constituted partly of the elements, partly 

 of a certain ethereal and celestial substance these persons, I 

 say, appear to me to reason indifferently. In the first place 

 you will scarcely find any elementary body which in acting 

 does not exceed its proper powers : air and water, the winds 

 and the ocean, when they waft navies to either India and round 

 this globe, and often by opposite courses, when they grind, 



