FABLE OF CUPID. 73 



with the mechanical arts which try matter, and if we 

 simply looked to the fabric of the world. For it is a kind 

 of pastoral philosophy, which tranquilly and as it were at 

 ease contemplates the world. For, indeed, he is not amiss 

 in laying down the mundane system, but miserably fails 

 upon the subject of the elements. And there is, indeed, in 

 his system itself a great failure, in its being supposed 

 capable of an eternal nature, the idea of a chaos and the 

 mutations of the universal scheme of things being alto 

 gether omitted. For that philosophy, whether of Telesius 

 or of the Peripatetics, or any other which so prepares and 

 furnishes its system as not to derive it from chaos, is 

 evidently of slight foundation, and altogether conceived 

 from the narrowness of human imagination. For so in 

 entire accordance with sense doth the philosopher assert 

 the eternity of matter, and deny that of the world (as the 

 world appears to us), which was the opinion of the wisest 

 ancients, and to which opinion Democritus seems to have 

 approached. And this is also the testimony of scripture; 

 but with this great difference, that the scriptures derive 

 the origin of matter from God, the philosophers from itself. 

 For we gather from our faith three dogmas on this point ; 

 first, that matter was formed from nothing ; secondly, that 

 the production of the system was through the word of 

 omnipotence, and not that matter endued itself with form 

 and of itself came forth from chaos; thirdly, that before 

 the fall that form was the best of those which matter (such 

 as it was created) could take : but to none of these dogmas 

 could these philosophical theories ascend. For they shudder 

 at the thoughts of a creation from nothing, and deem that 

 this form of things was produced after many windings and 

 attempts of matter, nor are they troubled as to conceiving 

 of the most excellent kind of system, since theirs is 

 asserted to be liable to decline and to change. We must 

 then rest upon the decisions of faith and upon its supports. 

 But perhaps we need not inquire whether that created 

 matter, after a long course of ages, from the power at first 

 put into it could gather and change itself into that most 

 excellent form (which, leaving these windings, it did imme 

 diately at the command of the divine word). For the 

 representation of time and the formation of a substance are 

 equally miraculous effects of the same omnipotence. But 

 the divine nature seems to have designed glorifying itself 

 equally in either emanation : first, by omnipotently working 

 upon ens and matter by creating substance from nothing ; 



