xxix SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION 151 



forth from their full source in larger volume. Berosus, 

 the translator of [the records of] Belus, affirms that 

 the whole issue is brought about by the course of 

 the planets. So positive is he on the point that he 

 assigns a definite date both for the conflagration 

 and the deluge. All that the earth inherits will, he 

 assures us, be consigned to flame when the planets, 

 which now move in different orbits, all assemble 

 in Cancer, so arranged in one row that a straight 

 line may pass through their spheres. When the 

 same gathering takes place in Capricorn, then we 

 are in danger of the deluge. Midsummer is at 

 present brought round by the former, midwinter by 

 the latter. They are zodiacal signs of great power 2 

 seeing that they are the determining influences in 

 the two great changes of the year. I should myself 

 quite admit causes of the kind. The destruction of 

 the world will not be determined by a single reason. 

 But I should like to apply in this connection as 

 well, a principle which we Stoics adopt in regard to 

 a conflagration of the universe. Whether the world 

 is a soul, or a body under the government of nature, 

 like trees and crops, it embraces in its constitution 

 all that it is destined to experience actively or 

 passively from its beginning right on to its end ; 

 it resembles a human being, all whose capacities are 

 wrapped up in the embryo before birth. Ere the 3 

 child has seen the light the principle of beard and 

 grey hairs is innate. Albeit small and hidden, all 

 the features of the whole body and of every 

 succeeding period of life are there. In like manner 

 the creation of the world embraces sun and moon, 

 stars with their successive phases, and the birth of 

 all sentient life ; and no less the methods of change 

 in all earthly things. Among the latter is flood, 



