xin FIRE IN THE CLOUDS 65 



gating ? Admitted. Only they are conveyed, they 3 

 do not proceed of themselves. Some force not 

 resident in the ether carries them down. For in 

 the ether no violent compulsion, no breach, no 

 interruption of the wonted continuity, can occur. 

 It preserves a fixed succession ; its fire cleansed of 

 impurity claims the upper regions as its own, and 

 performs its functions in preservation of the 

 universe with beautiful precision. It cannot leave 

 its place, no, nor even be thrust from it by external 

 force, because no disturbing body can find lodgment 

 in ether. Its fixed and ordered composition renders 

 conflict impossible. 



XIV 



SOME of your friends the philosophers, a critic may i 

 say to me, in giving an explanation of shooting 

 stars have told us that some parts of the atmosphere 

 contract fire which is drawn from these same 

 higher regions, and that the fires are kindled by the 

 glow of the ether. Yes, but I reply that it makes 

 all the difference whether the fire is alleged to fall 

 from the ether, which is incompatible with its 

 nature ; or whether it is asserted that from its 

 fierce glow the heat leaps the boundary between it 

 and the lower regions, firing them by its power. 

 For on the latter assumption, the fire does not fall 

 from the upper region, which is impossible, but is 

 kindled in the lower. Surely, too, when a widely 2 

 spread conflagration occurs in one of our cities, we 

 see detached blocks which have for long been 

 heated by the fire from a distance at last catch 

 fire of themselves. So in the upper atmosphere, 

 which is endowed with the power of drawing fire, 



