Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| ON THE COSMOS, TO ALEXANDER. Often, Alexander, philosophy has seemed to me to be something truly divine and superhuman, and most of all in this: that although it alone, soaring aloft to the contemplation of the universe, was eager to know the truth in these matters, and though everything else shrank back from it because of its height and its magnitude, philosophy did not fear the undertaking, nor did it judge itself unworthy of the finest things, but considered the study of them to be most akin to itself and most fitting for it. For since it was not possible for the body to arrive at the heavenly region and, leaving the earth behind, to survey that heavenly place at close range, as once the foolish Aloadae schemed to do, the soul at least, through philosophy, taking the intellect as its guide, made the crossing and traveled abroad, finding a road that costs no weariness, and by thought brought into concord things separated from one another by the greatest distances of place, recognizing with ease, I think, the things akin to it, and with the soul's divine eye grasping the divine things, and prophesying to human beings. This it experienced because, so far as it was able, it wished to share ungrudgingly with everyone the things it held precious. For this reason one might pity for their smallness of soul those who have gone to great pains to describe for us the nature of a single place, or the shape of a single city, or the size of a river, or the beauty of a mountain -- as some have already done, some telling of Ossa, others of Nysa, others of the Corycian cave, others of whatever particular thing happened to come their way -- struck with astonishment at some chance thing and thinking greatly of themselves over a trivial piece of observation.
2| This is what happens to them because they have never beheld the greater things -- I mean the cosmos, and the greatest things within the cosmos. For if they had genuinely turned their attention to these, they would never have marveled at anything else, but everything else would have appeared small to them and worth nothing beside the surpassing greatness of these. Let us, then, speak of these matters, and, so far as it is attainable, let us discourse on divine things concerning them all -- how each has its nature, its position, and its motion. And I think it is fitting for you too, being the best of rulers, to pursue the study of the greatest things, and to think nothing small worthy of philosophy, but to welcome the best of men with gifts of this kind.
3| The cosmos, then, is a system composed of heaven and earth and the natures contained within them. But cosmos is also spoken of in another sense, as the order and arrangement of the universe, kept safe by the gods and through the gods. Of this, the middle -- motionless and fixed -- is occupied by the life-bearing earth, which is both hearth and mother of every kind of living thing. Everything above it is entirely and in every direction bounded; the uppermost part of it, the dwelling-place of the gods, has been named heaven. Being full of divine bodies, which we are accustomed to call stars, moving with an everlasting motion, the whole of it dances together with them in a single revolution and circle, without ceasing, through eternity. Since the whole of heaven and the cosmos is spherical and, as I said, moves continuously, there are necessarily two motionless points, opposite each other, just as with a sphere turned on a lathe -- solid points remaining fixed and holding the sphere together, about which the whole cosmos moves. The cosmos, then, turns in a circle, and these points are called poles; and if we should conceive a straight line joining them, which some call the axis, it will be the diameter of the cosmos, having the earth as its midpoint and the two poles as its ends. Of these motionless poles, the one is always visible, being above the summit in the northern region, and is called the arctic pole;
4| the other is always hidden beneath the earth, in the southern region, and is called the antarctic pole. The substance of heaven and of the stars we call aether -- not, as some suppose, because it burns, being fiery (they are mistaken about a power that is very largely free of fire), but because it always runs in circular motion, being an element distinct from the other four, unmixed and divine. Of the stars contained within it, the fixed stars revolve together with the whole of heaven, keeping the same positions; among them the middle circle, called the zodiac, girds the heaven obliquely through the tropics, and is divided part by part into the regions of the twelve signs. But the planets, being wandering stars, are not so constituted as to move at the same speed either as the fixed stars or as one another, but move in different circles from each other, so that one of them is nearer the earth and another higher up. The number of the fixed stars is beyond human discovery, even though they move on a single surface, that of the whole of heaven; but the planets, summed up, come to seven parts, and are set in that many circles arranged one after another, so that the higher one is always greater than the one below it, and the seven are contained within one another, while all of them together are enclosed by the sphere of the fixed stars. Continuous with this in position is the circle called that of Phaenon, that is, of Cronus; next after it, the one called that of Phaethon, that is, of Zeus; then the fiery one, named after Heracles and Ares; next, Stilbon, which some call sacred to Hermes, others to Apollo;
5| after this, the star of Phosphorus, which some call that of Aphrodite, others of Hera; then that of the sun, and last of all, that of the moon, bounded all the way to the earth. The aether contains within it both the divine bodies and the order of their motion. After the aethereal and divine nature, which we declare to be ordered, and moreover unchanging, unalterable, and unaffected, there is continuous with it the nature that throughout is affected and changeable, and, to say it all at once, perishable and subject to decay. Of this itself, the first part is the fine-particled and flame-like substance, set on fire by the aethereal nature because of that nature's magnitude and the swiftness of its motion; and in this fiery region, called disordered, meteors dart across, flames are hurled, and beams and pits and what are called comets take their stand and are often extinguished. Next after this the air is spread out beneath, being murky and frost-like in its nature; but being lit up and at the same time heated through by motion, it becomes brighter and warm. In this region too, which is itself of the affected sort of power and undergoes change in every way, clouds gather and rains crash down, and snows and frosts and hailstorms, and gusts of winds and whirlwinds, and further, thunders and lightnings and the falling of thunderbolts and the colliding masses of countless dark clouds.
6| Next after the aerial nature, earth and sea are fixed in place, teeming with plants and animals, with springs and rivers, some of them winding across the land, others discharging into the sea. It is adorned besides with countless green growths, with lofty mountains and deep-wooded forests, and with cities, which that wise creature man has founded, and with islands in the sea, and with continents. Common opinion has divided the inhabited world into islands and continents, not knowing that the whole of it too is a single island, flowed around by the sea called Atlantic. It is likely that many other islands lie facing this one at a distance across the water, some larger than it, some smaller, but all of them, except this one, invisible to us; for what our islands are in relation to those seas, this inhabited world is in relation to the Atlantic Ocean, and many other such worlds are in relation to the whole sea; for these too are, in a sense, great islands, washed round by great oceans. The whole nature of the wet element, floating on top, growing up over certain patches of the earth called inhabited lands, would come next after the aerial nature above all. After this, in the depths, at the very middle of the cosmos, the whole earth, packed together and compressed, has been made to stand fast, motionless and unshaken;
7| And this is the whole of the cosmos that we call the lower region. These five elements, then, lying spherically in five regions, with the lesser always surrounded by the greater (I mean earth in water, water in air, air in fire, and fire in aether), constitute the whole cosmos, and the whole upper region it has shown to be the dwelling-place of gods, the lower the dwelling-place of creatures of a day. Now of this lower region itself, one part is wet, which we are accustomed to call rivers and springs and seas, and the other is dry, which we name earth, continents, and islands. Of the islands some are large, such as this entire inhabited world, as it has been called, and many others besides, encircled by great open seas, while others are smaller, and visible to us as lying within. Of these the notable ones are Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Euboea, Cyprus, and Lesbos; the lesser ones are named, some the Sporades, some the Cyclades, and some by other names. The open sea outside the inhabited world is called the Atlantic and Ocean, and it flows around us. On the western side, opening through a narrow strait at what are called the Pillars of Heracles, it makes its inflow into the inner sea as into a harbor, and then, gradually widening, spreads out, taking in great gulfs joined to one another, in places narrowing again to constricted necks, in places widening once more.
8| First, then, it is said to form a gulf on the right as one sails in through the Pillars of Heracles, in two places, into what are called the Syrtes, of which they call one the Great and the other the Small; on the other side it no longer forms gulfs in the same way but makes three seas, the Sardinian, the so-called Gallic, and the Adriatic, and next to these, running crosswise, the Sicilian, and after this the Cretan, and continuous with this on the one side the Egyptian, the Pamphylian, and the Syrian, and on the other the Aegean and the Myrtoan. Opposite to those named, being the most many-parted of all, lies the Pontus, whose innermost part is called Maeotis, while its outer part opens, toward the Hellespont, into what is called the Propontis. Again, toward the risings of the sun, Ocean flowing in, having opened up the Indian and Persian gulfs, reveals the Red Sea as continuous, having divided it off. On the other horn, running through a narrow and elongated neck, it widens out again, bounding Hyrcania and the Caspian; and the region above this, beyond Lake Maeotis, is a deep one. Then little by little, above the Scythians and Celtica, it constricts the inhabited world, toward the Gallic gulf and the aforementioned Pillars of Heracles, outside of which Ocean flows around the earth.
9| In this Ocean there happen to be two very great islands, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne, larger than those spoken of before, lying beyond the Celts. Not smaller than these are Taprobane, beyond the Indians, lying obliquely with respect to the inhabited world, and the one called Phebol, lying off the Arabian gulf. And no small number of small islands crown in a circle, around the British Isles and Iberia, this inhabited world, which we have called an island; its breadth, at the deepest part of the continent, is a little short of forty thousand stades, as those who have studied geography well say, and its length is about seventy thousand. It is divided into Europe, Asia, and Libya. Europe, then, is that whose boundaries in a circle are the Pillars of Heracles, the innermost parts of the Pontus, and the Hyrcanian Sea, at which point the narrowest isthmus extends to the Pontus; but some have named the river Tanais as the boundary from the isthmus. Asia is that which extends from the aforementioned isthmus, of the Pontus and the Hyrcanian Sea, as far as the other isthmus, which lies between the Arabian gulf and the inner sea, being bounded by this sea and by the encircling Ocean; but some set the boundary of Asia as running from the Tanais as far as the mouths of the Nile.
10| Libya is that from the Arabian isthmus to the Pillars of Heracles; but some say it runs from the Nile to those same Pillars. As for Egypt, which is surrounded by the mouths of the Nile, some attach it to Asia, others to Libya; and as for the islands, some make them a separate category, others assign them always to the neighboring divisions. Such, then, is the account we have given of the nature and position of land and sea, of what we are accustomed to call the inhabited world.
11| Let us now speak of the most notable affections in it and around it, summing up only what is necessary. For two exhalations, so to call them, are continually carried up from it into the air above us, fine in their parts and altogether invisible, except perhaps at dawn; and there are also those carried up through rivers and springs, which are observed directly. Of these, the one is dry and smoky, flowing off from the earth, the other moist and vaporous, exhaled from the wet nature. From this latter come mists and dews and forms of frost, clouds and rains and snows and hailstorms, while from the dry exhalation come winds and differences of winds, thunders and lightnings and fiery whirlwinds and thunderbolts and the other things that are akin to these. Mist is a vaporous exhalation unproductive of water, thicker than air but rarer than cloud; it comes about either at the beginning of a cloud or as a remnant of one. Opposed to it, as they say, and in fact so, is clear sky, which is nothing other than air free of cloud and free of mist. Dew is moisture carried down in fine composition out of clear sky, ice is a mass of water congealed out of clear sky, hoarfrost is congealed dew, and rime is half-congealed dew.
12| A cloud is a vaporous thickness drawn together, productive of water. Rain comes about by the squeezing-out of a cloud that has become well thickened, and it has as many differences as the compression of the cloud has degrees; for when the compression is gentle it scatters soft drops, and when it is forceful, coarser ones — and this we call a downpour, larger and continuous masses of drops than rain, borne down upon the earth. Snow comes about through the breaking-off of clouds that have been condensed, checked before their change into water; the breaking produces the frothy and whitish quality, while the freezing-together of the moisture within, not yet melted or made rare, produces the coldness. When this comes down violently and in a mass it is called a snowstorm. Hail comes about when a snowstorm is compacted, and its weight, from the packing, gains a swifter descent; and according to the sizes of the fragments broken off, the masses become larger and the falls more violent. These things, then, naturally result together from the moist exhalation. From the dry exhalation, when it is driven by cold so as to flow, wind arises; for this is nothing but a great quantity of air flowing and massed together, which is also called breath. Breath is also spoken of in another sense, as that which pervades plants and animals and all things, an animate and generative substance, about which it is not necessary to speak now.
13| The breaths that blow in air we call winds, and the exhalations carried out of moisture we call breezes. Of the winds, those that blow from moistened ground are called land-winds, and those that rush out of gulfs, gulf-winds; and analogous to these are those from rivers and lakes. Those that come about through the bursting of a cloud, effecting a dissolution of its thickness within themselves, are called storm-winds; and when water bursts out with them all at once, they are called rain-squalls. Those that blow continuously from the east are called Euros, those from the north Boreas, those from the west Zephyrs, and those from the south Notos. Of the easterly winds, the one blowing from the region of the summer sunrise is called Caecias, the one from the region of the equinoctial sunrise Apeliotes, and the one from the region of the winter sunrise Eurus. And of the opposite, westerly winds, the one from the summer sunset is called Argestes, which some call Olympias and others Iapyx; the one from the equinoctial sunset is Zephyrus, and the one from the winter sunset is Lips. And of the north winds, properly speaking, the one next to Caecias is called Boreas, the one next after it, blowing from the pole along the meridian, is Aparctias, and the one next to Argestes is Thrascias, which some call Caecias.
14| And among the south winds, the one blowing from the invisible pole, opposite to the north wind, is called notos; euronotos is the one between eurus and notos; and the one on the other side, between lips and notos, some call libonotos and others libophoenix. Of the winds, some are straight-blowing, namely those that blow forward continuously in a straight line, while others are recoiling, like the one called caecias. And some prevail in winter, as the south winds do, while others prevail in summer, as the so-called etesian winds do, which contain a mixture of winds blowing from the north and of west winds; and the so-called ornithiai, being certain spring winds, are north winds by kind. As for the violent blasts, a squall (kataigis) is a wind striking suddenly from above, a gale (thyella) is a violent wind that leaps upon one suddenly, a hurricane (lailaps) and a whirlwind (strobilos) are wind coiling from below upward, and an exhalation of earth (anaphysema) is wind carried upward as it rises from some depth or fissure; and when it is carried along coiling in great quantity, it is an earth-storm-cloud (chthonios prester). Wind coiled up within a cloud that is thick and moist, and forcibly bursting through it from without and rending the continuous compressions of the cloud, produces a great rumbling and crashing, called thunder, just as when wind is driven violently through water.
15| At the bursting of the cloud, the wind, set on fire and flashing, is called lightning; and this in fact reaches us before the thunder, though it occurs after it, since what is audible is by nature outstripped by what is visible — the one being seen even from far off, the other only when it draws near to the hearing — and especially since the one is the swiftest of existing things, I mean what is fiery, while the other, being airy, is less swift, arriving at the hearing only in the striking. What has flashed, being set ablaze, and running violently down to the earth, is called a thunderbolt; and if it is half-fiery, but otherwise violent and concentrated, it is a prester; and if it is entirely without fire, it is a typhon. Each of these, when it strikes down into the earth, is named a skeptos. Among thunderbolts, the sooty ones are called psoloeis, the swiftly darting ones argetes, the ones moving in a line-like course helikiai, and skeptoi are all those that strike down upon something. To sum up the appearances in the air: some occur by reflection, others by actual substance. By reflection are rainbows and rods and things of that kind; by actual substance are gleams (sela), and shooting stars, and comets, and things resembling these. A rainbow, then, is the reflection of a segment of the sun or moon, seen as an appearance in a moist, hollow, and continuous cloud, as in a mirror, along the circumference of a circle.
16| A rod is a straight reflection of a rainbow. A halo is the reflected radiance surrounding the brightness of a star; and it differs from a rainbow in that the rainbow appears opposite the sun and moon, while the halo appears in a circle around any star whatever. A gleam (selas) is the sudden kindling of fire, massed together, in the air. Of gleams, some are hurled like darts and some remain fixed. The dart-throwing kind is the generation of fire from friction, as it moves swiftly through the air and, because of its speed, presents the appearance of length; the fixed kind is an elongated extension without motion, and is, as it were, a flowing of a star; and when it spreads out on one side it is called a comet. Often, of these gleams, some persist for a longer time, while others are extinguished at once. Many other kinds of appearances are also observed, called torches (lampades), beams (dokides), jars (pithoi), and pits (bothynoi), named thus from their resemblance to these things. And of these, some are seen in the west, some in the east, some shining on both sides, but rarely in the north or south. All are unstable; for none of these has ever been recorded as remaining permanently visible. Such, then, are the phenomena of the air. But the earth also contains within itself, just as it contains springs of water, so too springs of wind and of fire.
17| Of these, some are invisible, being beneath the earth, but many have vents and outbursts, as at Lipara and Etna and the islands of Aeolus; and some also frequently flow like a river, and hurl up red-hot masses of stone. Some of these, being underground near springs of water, heat them, and cause some of the streams to issue lukewarm, others boiling hot, others of a well-tempered mixture. Likewise many mouths of winds too are opened in many places of the earth, of which some make those who approach them possessed, others make them waste away, others utter oracles, as those at Delphi and Lebadeia; while others destroy entirely, as the one in Phrygia. Often too a kindred wind of temperate quality, thrust aside within the earth into its inmost caverns, being driven out of its own proper places, shakes together many parts of the earth. And often, becoming abundant from outside, it is coiled up and shut in within the hollows of the earth, and, being denied a way out, shakes the earth violently as it seeks an outlet for itself, and produces this affection which we are accustomed to call an earthquake. Of earthquakes, those that shake sideways, inclining at acute angles, are called tilting quakes (epiklintai); those that hurl up and down at right angles are called upheaving quakes (brastai); those that produce subsidences into hollow places are called chasm-quakes (chasmatiai);
18| and those that open chasms and tear open the earth are called rending quakes (rhektai). Of these, some also throw up wind besides, others rocks, others mud, and others reveal springs that did not exist before. Some overturn things with a single thrust, and these are called pushers (ostai). Others toss things up and, by inclinations first to one side then the other and by tossings, continually right what is being shaken, and these are called tremblers (palmatiai), producing an affection like a shivering. There also occur bellowing quakes (mykētiai), which shake the earth along with a roar. And often a bellowing of the earth occurs without any earthquake, when the wind is not sufficient to shake the earth, but, being coiled up within it, is beaten about with the violence of a surging noise. The winds that enter in are also given a compact body by the hidden moisture within the earth. Analogous events to these occur also in the sea; for chasms of the sea occur, and frequent recessions, and onrushes of waves, sometimes involving a repelling backwash, sometimes only a forward thrust, as is recorded concerning Helice and Bura. Often, too, outbursts of fire occur in the sea, and gushings-up of springs, and outflows of rivers, and growths of trees, and currents and eddies analogous to those of winds, some in the middle of the open sea, others in straits and channels.
19| And many ebb-tides and risings of waves are said always to accompany the circuit of the moon, at certain fixed times. To sum up the whole matter: as the elements are mingled with one another, in air and earth and sea, resemblances of these affections naturally arise, bringing to the parts destructions and generations, while preserving the whole indestructible and ungenerated.
20| And yet someone has wondered how, if the cosmos is composed of opposite principles — I mean of dry and wet, cold and hot — it has not long ago been destroyed and perished, just as if some people were to wonder how a city continues to hold together though composed of opposite classes of people — I mean poor and rich, young and old, weak and strong, base and good. They do not know that this was the most wonderful thing about political concord, namely that it produces out of many a single and similar disposition out of dissimilar elements, receiving every nature and every fortune. And perhaps nature too longs for opposites, and produces concord out of these, not out of similars, just as, of course, it brought the male together with the female and not each with its own kind, and joined the first concord through opposites, not through similars. And art too seems, in imitating nature, to do this: for painting, by mixing together the natures of white and black, yellow and red colors, produces images that are in harmony with their models; and music, by mixing high and low, long and short notes in different voices, produces a single harmony; and grammar, by forming a blending of vowel and consonant letters, constructs the whole of its art out of them.
21| This same thing was also what was said by Heraclitus the obscure: “you would join together wholes and not-wholes, that which is being brought together and that which is being brought apart, that which is in harmony and that which is in discord; and out of all things one, and out of one all things.” So too, then, the constitution of the whole — I mean of heaven and earth and the entire cosmos — was arranged into a single harmony through the blending of the most opposite principles: for dry mixed with wet, hot with cold, heavy with light, and straight with curved, and the single power that pervades all things arranged the whole earth and sea, the aether and sun and moon and the whole heaven, out of things unmixed and different in kind — air and earth and fire and water — fashioning the entire cosmos and marking it off by a single spherical surface, compelling the most opposite natures within it to come to agreement with one another, and out of these contriving safety for the whole. The cause of this is the agreement of the elements, and the cause of the agreement is their equal apportionment and the fact that none of them has more power than another; for heavy things maintain an equal counterpoise against light things, and hot things against their opposite, nature teaching us in the case of greater things that equality is in some way preservative of concord, and concord is preservative of the cosmos that begets all things and is most beautiful.
22| For what nature could be superior to this one? For whatever one might name would be a part of it. And everything fine takes its name from this, and so does what is orderly, said to have been ‘set in order’ from the word ‘cosmos.’ And what among particular things could be made equal to the order and motion in the heavens of the stars, the sun and the moon, moving in the most exact measures from one age to another? And what freedom from falsehood could be like that which the beautiful and fruitful seasons of the whole preserve, bringing on summers and winters in due order, and days and nights, toward the completion of the month and the year? And indeed this same heaven is greatest in magnitude, swiftest in motion, brightest in radiance, and in power ageless and imperishable. This is what has separated out the natures of creatures of the sea and of land and of air, and has measured out their lives by its own motions. From this all living things draw breath and possess soul. From this too the surprising upheavals are brought to completion in due order — winds of every kind clashing together, thunderbolts falling from heaven, extraordinary storms breaking out. And through these the moisture that is squeezed out and the fiery element that is exhaled bring the whole into concord and settle it.
23| The earth too, luxuriant with plants of every kind, overflowing with streams and thronged about with living creatures, bringing forth all things in their season and nourishing them and receiving them back, bearing countless forms and experiences, likewise preserves its ageless nature, even though it is shaken by earthquakes and flooded by inundations, and set ablaze in parts by conflagrations. All these things seem to happen to it for its good, providing safety through the ages: for when it is shaken, the incursions of winds rush out through the fissures, providing outlets for breath, as has been said above; and when it is purified, all its diseased matter is washed away by rains, and when it is blown round by breezes, both the regions below it and those above it are made pure. And indeed flames fatten what is frost-bound, and frosts relieve the flames. And of particular things, some come into being, some are at their peak, and some perish; and comings-into-being check destructions, and destructions lighten the burden of comings-into-being. And a single safety, brought to completion out of all things through to the end, as they take one another’s place in turn, now prevailing and now being overcome, keeps the whole imperishable through the ages.
24| It remains, then, to speak in summary about the cause that holds the whole together, in the same manner as about the other matters; for it would be a fault, in speaking about the cosmos, even if not with exactness, still at least for the purpose of outline instruction, to leave aside what is most authoritative in the cosmos. There is, then, an ancient account, ancestral to all human beings, that all things are constituted from god and through god for us, and that no nature is by itself self-sufficient, if deprived of the safety that comes from him. For this reason some of the ancients too were led to say that all these things that appear to us through the eyes and through hearing and every perception are full of gods, laying down an account fitting for the divine power, though not indeed fitting for its substance. For god is truly the savior of all things and the begetter of whatever is brought to completion in this cosmos in whatever way, yet he does not undergo the toil of a creature that labors and works with its own hands, but employs an unwearying power, through which he prevails even over things that seem to be far off. He himself, then, has obtained the highest and first seat, and for this reason has been named ‘the highest,’ and, according to the poet, is established at the topmost peak of the whole heaven; and the body nearest to him enjoys his power most of all, in a certain way, and then the one after that, and so on in succession as far as the regions about us.
25| For this reason earth and the things upon earth, being at the greatest distance from the benefit that comes from god, seem to be weak and ill-matched and full of much disturbance; nonetheless, insofar as the divine is by nature such as to reach through to everything, the things about us are affected in a like manner; and the things above us, according to whether they are nearer to or farther from god, partake more or less of benefit. It is better, then, to suppose — and this is both fitting and most in keeping with god — that the power situated in heaven becomes the cause of safety even for the things that stand at the greatest distance, so far as that can be said, and indeed for all things together, rather than that, passing through and going about, it works with its own hands, in a place where it is neither fine nor seemly, the things upon earth. For this does not befit even human commanders — to preside in person over every chance task, such as, for a commander of an army or a city or a household, to tie up a bundle of bedding, or to perform any meaner task, which not even the least slave would do in the case of the great king; but rather, as is recorded of Cambyses and Xerxes and Darius, the outward show was arranged magnificently to a height of dignity and preeminence. For the king himself, as the account goes, was established at Susa or Ecbatana, invisible to all, occupying a marvelous royal house and enclosure gleaming with gold and amber and ivory;
26| and there were many gates in succession, and forecourts kept apart from one another by many stades, fortified with bronze doors and great walls; and outside these the first and most approved men were stationed in order — some about the king himself, spearmen and attendants, others as guards of each enclosure, called gatekeepers and ‘listeners,’ so that the king himself, called master and god, might see everything and hear everything. And apart from these there were established others as stewards of revenues, and generals of wars and of hunts, and receivers of gifts, and each of the rest as overseers of works according to need. And the entire rule of Asia, bounded by the Hellespont on the side toward the west and by the Indus on the side toward the east, had been divided by nation among generals and satraps and kings who were slaves of the great king, and day-runners and lookouts and messengers and watchers of beacon-fires. So great was the order, and especially that of the beacon-fires, blazing in succession to one another from the ends of the empire as far as Susa and Ecbatana, that the king knew on the very same day everything that was newly done in Asia. One must suppose, then, that the preeminence of the great king falls as far short of that of the god who holds the cosmos together as the preeminence of that god falls short of the meanest and weakest creature — so that if it would have been unseemly for Xerxes himself to be thought to do and accomplish everything he wished with his own hands, presiding over it in person, it would be far more unbecoming for god;
27| It is more solemn and more fitting that he himself should be seated in the highest region, while his power, extending through the whole cosmos, moves the sun and moon and turns the whole heaven around, and becomes the cause of preservation for the things on earth. For he has no need of contrivance and of service from others, as our own rulers need many hands because of their weakness; rather this was the most divine thing of all, to bring about, with ease and by a single simple motion, forms of every kind — just as, of course, great craftsmen do, producing through the release of a single mechanism many and varied effects. In the same way puppeteers, by pulling a single cord, make the animal's neck move, and its hand, and its shoulder, and its eye, and sometimes all the parts together, with a certain rhythm. So too the divine nature, from some simple motion of the first thing, gives its power to the things next in order, and from those again to the things farther off, until it has passed through the whole; for one thing, moved by another, itself in turn moved yet another, all in order, each acting according to its own particular constitution, though the path is not the same for all, but different and various, and for some even opposite — even though the first impulse, as it were, into motion was a single one. It is as if one were to throw a sphere and a cube and a cone and a cylinder together out of a bag:
28| each of them will move according to its own particular shape. Or as if one held in one's arms a water animal and a land animal and a winged animal together, and released them: clearly the swimming one will leap and swim off to its own habitat, the land animal will crawl off to its own haunts and pastures, and the aerial one, lifted from the earth, will depart flying aloft — one single first cause rendering to each its own proper ease. So it is with the cosmos as well. For through the simple revolution of the whole heaven, which is bounded by day and night, different courses come about for all things, even though they are contained within a single sphere, some moving faster and some more slowly, according to the lengths of their intervals and the particular constitutions of each. For the moon completes its own circuit in a month, waxing and waning and dwindling; the sun in a year, along with those that run an equal course with it, the Morning Star and the one called Hermes; the one called Pyroeis in twice that time; the one of Zeus in six times that; and last, the one called of Kronos in two and a half times the one below it. A single harmony arises out of all of them, as they sing and dance together in a chorus through the heaven, coming from one thing and ending in one thing — the whole rightly named 'cosmos' (order) and not disorder.
29| Just as in a chorus, when the leader gives the starting note, the whole chorus joins in, of men, and sometimes of women too, blending one melodious harmony out of different voices, some higher and some lower — so it is with the god who governs the whole. For at the signal given from above by the one who might fittingly be called the leader of the chorus, the stars and the whole heaven are moved continually, while the all-radiant sun travels two courses: in the one, marking off day and night by his rising and setting; in the other, bringing on the four seasons of the year, moving forward toward the north and back again toward the south. Rains come in their season, and winds and dews, and the phenomena that occur in the surrounding air, all through the first and primordial cause. Following upon these come the flowing of rivers, the swelling of the sea, the sprouting of trees, the ripening of fruits, the births of animals, and the nurture, prime, and decline of all things, the particular constitution of each thing also contributing to these, as I said. So whenever the leader and begetter of all things, invisible to anything but reasoning, gives his signal to every nature that moves between heaven and earth, the whole of it moves continuously in circles and within its own bounds, now vanishing, now appearing, bringing to light countless forms and then hiding them again, from a single origin.
30| What happens here closely resembles what happens especially in times of war, whenever the trumpet gives its signal to the camp. For then, each man on hearing the sound takes some action of his own: one takes up his shield, another puts on his breastplate, another fits on greaves or helmet or belt; one bridles his horse, another mounts a two-horse chariot, another passes along the watchword. At once the company commander takes his place at the head of his company, the battalion commander at the head of his battalion, the cavalryman on the wing, the light-armed soldier runs out to his own post; and all things are set whirling under a single signaler, according to the command of the general who holds the power. So too one must think about the universe. For when all things are roused by a single impulse, their own proper actions come about, and this impulse is invisible and unseen. This is in no way an obstacle either to that power's acting or to our believing it. For the soul too, through which we live and have households and cities, though invisible, is seen through its very works. For the whole order of life is discovered, arranged, and held together by it — the plowing and planting of the earth, the inventions of craft, the use of laws, the ordering of the constitution, deeds done at home, war fought beyond the borders, and peace.
31| These are the things one must think about god as well — that in power he is strongest, in beauty most fitting, in life immortal, in virtue mightiest; because, although he has become invisible to every mortal nature, he is seen from his very works. For the phenomena — all those that occur through the air, and those on earth, and those in water — could truly be said to be the works of the god who holds the cosmos together. From him, according to the natural philosopher Empedocles, come 'all things that were, and are, and shall be hereafter — trees sprang up, and men and women, beasts and birds and fish reared in the waters.'
32| It really is apt, though the image is a lesser one, to compare the cosmos to the so-called keystones in arches: stones set in the middle which, by their binding into the structure on either side, keep the whole shape of the arch in harmony, in order, and motionless. They also say that the sculptor Phidias, when fashioning the Athena on the Acropolis, impressed his own face in the middle of her shield and bound it to the statue by some hidden craftsmanship, so that necessarily, if anyone wished to remove it, he would have to loosen and destroy the whole statue. This, then, is the relation god has to the cosmos: he holds together the harmony and preservation of the whole — except that he is not in the middle, where the earth and this murky region are, but above, standing pure in a pure place, which we rightly call 'heaven' (ouranos), from being the boundary (horos) of the things above, and 'Olympus,' as being wholly bright and separated from all gloom and disorderly motion, of the kind that occurs among us through storm and the violence of winds — just as the poet Homer said: 'to Olympus, where they say the seat of the gods is ever secure. It is not shaken by winds, nor ever wetted by rain, nor does snow come near it, but the clear air is spread cloudless, and a white radiance runs over it.'
33| The whole of life bears witness to this too, in that it assigns the upper region to god. For all human beings raise their hands toward heaven when they make their prayers. It is in this sense that the line has rightly been proclaimed, "And Zeus obtained wide heaven, in the upper air and the clouds." This is also why the most honored of perceptible things occupy that same region — the stars, the sun, and the moon. And this is why the heavenly bodies alone, of all things, have been set in order so as always to preserve the same arrangement, and have never been altered or shifted from it, unlike the things on earth, which, being changeable, have undergone many transformations and disturbances. For violent earthquakes have before now torn open many parts of the earth, and extraordinary rains have burst forth and caused floods, and the advance and retreat of waves have often turned mainlands into sea and seas into mainland, and the force of winds and hurricanes has sometimes overturned whole cities, and there have been conflagrations and flames — some coming down from heaven, as they say happened once in the time of Phaethon, which burned up the regions toward the dawn, others bursting up and blowing out of the earth toward the west, as when the craters on Etna broke open and swept across the land like a torrent. It was there that the divine power showed exceptional honor to a family of pious men, who were overtaken by the stream because they were carrying their aged parents on their shoulders to save them.
34| for as the river of fire came near them it split apart, and turned the blaze aside, one part this way and one that, and kept the young men unharmed together with their parents. And, to put it generally, what a helmsman is on a ship, a charioteer in a chariot, a chorus-leader in a chorus, law in a city, a commander in an army, this god is in the cosmos — except that for the others ruling is toilsome, full of exertion and full of care, while for him it is free of pain and effort and detached from every bodily weakness. For established in a place that is unmoved, he moves and carries around everything, wherever he wishes and however, into different shapes and natures — just as, indeed, the law of a city too, being itself unmoved, resident in the souls of those who observe it, administers everything that concerns the constitution. For clearly it is in obedience to it that the magistrates go out to their offices, the thesmothetae to the courts assigned to them, councillors and assemblymen to the sessions that belong to them, and one man walks to the town hall to be fed at public expense, another to the judges to make his defense, another to the prison to die. And there arise as well the customary public feasts and the yearly festivals, sacrifices to the gods and honors paid to heroes and libations for the dead;
35| and other things, carried out by other people under a single command or lawful authority, preserve in truth the intention of the one who established them; and the city all at once is full of incense-smoke, and all at once full of paeans and of groans. This is how we must think of things in the case of the greater city as well — I mean this cosmos. For god is our law, impartial, admitting no correction and no alteration, and better, I think, and more secure than the laws inscribed on the public tablets. And as he leads, ever in motion and in harmony, the whole ordered system of heaven and earth is administered, apportioned according to all the natures through their own proper seeds into plants and animals, by genus and by species. For there are vines and palms and persea-trees and sweet figs and olives, as the poet says, and others that bear no fruit but supply other uses — planes and pines and box-trees, alder and poplar and fragrant cypress, and those that bear a sweet fruit of autumn but one otherwise hard to store — pear-trees and pomegranates and apple-trees splendid with their fruit; and of the animals, both the wild and the tame, those that feed in the air, on the earth, and in the water, come into being and reach their prime and perish, obeying the ordinances of god; for "for every creeping thing ranges the earth for pasture," as Heraclitus says.
36| Being one, he is called by many names, named after all the effects which he himself continually brings about anew. We call him both Zen and Dia, using the two names side by side, as if we were to say "the one through whom we live." He is said to be the child of Kronos and of time, extending from an age without limit into another age; he is called Lightener and Thunderer and Clear-Sky and Sky-Dweller and Bolt-Hurler and Rain-Giver, from the rains and thunderbolts and the rest. And indeed he is named Giver-of-Fruits from the fruits, and Guardian-of-Cities from the cities; and Ancestral, Household, Kindred, and Paternal from his sharing in these; Comrade and Friend and Guest-Protector and War-God and Bringer-of-Trophies, Purifier and Avenger-of-Bloodshed and Protector-of-Suppliants and Gracious-One, as the poets say, and truly Savior and Liberator; and, to say it all in one word, Heavenly and Earthly, being named after every nature and every fortune, since he himself is the cause of all things. This is why it has rightly been said as well, in the Orphic writings: "Zeus was born first, Zeus of the bright bolt is last; Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle; from Zeus all things are made. Zeus is the foundation of earth and of starry heaven. Zeus was born male, Zeus came to be an immortal bride. Zeus is the breath of all things, Zeus is the force of untiring fire. Zeus is the root of the sea, Zeus is the sun and the moon. Zeus is king, Zeus the ruler of all, of the bright bolt; for having hidden all things away, he brought them back again into the joyful light out of his sacred heart, working his mighty deeds."
37| And I think that Necessity too is said to be nothing other than this god — being, as it were, an unconquerable substance; and he is called Fate because he strings things together and proceeds without hindrance; and Destiny because all things have been bounded and nothing among the things that are is unlimited; and Portion, from having been divided; and Nemesis, from the apportionment made to each; and Adrasteia, being a cause that by nature cannot be escaped; and Aisa, from his always being. The matters concerning the Fates and the spindle incline in something like this direction too. For the Fates are three, divided according to the times, and of the spindle's thread one part is already spun out, one part is yet to come, and one part is being turned even now; and one of the Fates has been assigned to what has already happened — Atropos, since all things past are unturnable — and to what is to come, Lachesis, since the allotment that accords with nature remains in store for all things, and to what is present, Clotho, who completes and spins for each thing what belongs to it. And the story, too, is brought to its conclusion not without order. All these things are nothing other than god, just as the noble Plato also says. God, then, as the old account has it, holding the beginning and the end and the middle of all things that are, proceeds in a straight line, completing his course according to nature; and justice always follows with him, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law — a partnership in which whoever is to be happy ought, from the very beginning, straightaway to have his share, being thereby blessed and happy.