THE NATURE OF THE GODS. 263objection ; for as running streams are seldom or never

tainted, while standing waters easily grow corrupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the censures of the cav iller, while the narrow limits of a discourse which is too concise is almost defenceless; for the arguments which I am enlarging upon are thus briefly laid down by Zeno : VIII. "That which reasons is superior to that which does not; nothing is superior to the world; the world, therefore, reasons." By the same rule the world may be proved to be wise, happy, and eternal ; for the possession of all these qualities is superior to the want of them; and nothing is superior to the world ; the inevitable conse quence of which argument is, that the world, therefore, is a Deity. He goes on: "No part of anything void of sense is capable of perception; some parts of the world have perception ; the world, therefore, has sense." He proceeds, and pursues the argument closely. " Nothing," says he, " that is destitute itself of life and reason can gen erate a being possessed of life and reason ; but the world does generate beings possessed of life and reason; the world, therefore, is not itself destitute of life and reason." He concludes his argument in his usual manner with a simile : " If well-tuned pipes should spring out of the olive, would you have the slightest doubt that there was in the olive-tree itself some kind of skill and knowledge ? Or if the plane-tree could produce harmonious lutes, surely you would infer, on the same principle, that music was con tained in the plane-tree. Why, then, should we not believe the world is a living and wise being, since it produces liv ing and wise beings out of itself?" IX. But as I have been insensibly led into a length of discourse beyond my first design (for I said that, as the existence of the Gods was evident to all, there was no need of any long oration to prove it), I will demonstrate it by reasons deduced from the nature of things. For it is a fact that all beings which take nourishment and increase contain in themselves a power of natural heat, without which they could neither be nourished nor increase. For everything which is of a warm and fiery character is agi tated and stirred up by its own motion. But that which

is nourished and grows is influenced by a certain regular