NATURE’S MOVEMENT.

Nature’s movement is continuous and tireless, no less in the parts than in the whole. She always acts, unable to endure idleness, so that if she rested for a moment the fabric of the Universe, bound to the law of perpetual movement, would collapse. The standing earth, peaceful sea and tranquil air are not wholly at rest merely because we do not perceive them moving. As with a sleeping person, this rest is a relaxation of activity, not its loss or cessation. Nature acts inwardly, moves her instruments at every moment and never ceases from action. Even dead bodies undergo the movement of corruption; living things, though they may lack movement from place to place, are nevertheless moved by the activity of their organs.

Nature moves the structure of the Universe uniformly and in order, yet moves unequal and dissimilar things with unequal and dissimilar movement. Geometrical equity requires this law of inequality. Thus the movements of all heavenly bodies may be called equal in a geometrical proportion, taking account of their differences in size, distance and nature.

Nature, no less ingenious than powerful in forming and governing her works, attains her certain end through changing paths and wandering operations. This is especially evident in producing Earth’s offspring. Working the elements through an unequal blending of conditions, she fills Earth’s womb with fruitful seed chiefly in winter, procures an easy birth in Spring, ripens the fruits in Summer and makes them fall in Autumn.

This diversity proceeds chiefly from the Sun’s approach and withdrawal, established for that purpose by the Creator of the Universe. He appointed the Sun as governor of the elements, so that through its varied and unequal distance, inclination and reflection they might experience a varied and unequal balance of conditions. Thus aid is supplied to Nature as she performs different works through different seasons, and through the succession of times she fulfils her own alternations. This variety of Nature deserves the discerning consideration of a philosopher engaged in serious work.

Although heavenly bodies do not suffer the stain of alteration, their different inclinations and the varied movements of the wandering stars, which change their relative positions and distances and the configuration of Heaven, introduce manifold changes into this elemental region and breathe dispositions into it. Thus they variously shape and incline the wax-like natures of the elements and never cease to ferment them through their continuous influx.

THE WHOLE HEAVEN IS CONTINUOUS.

The entire substance of the heavens has continuous, rather than merely touching, parts. No one should therefore imagine the World to be a work of artifice when it is Nature’s work; she does not permit division into spheres and circles. Those who first divided the ethereal region into a plurality of orbs and circles aimed more at ease of teaching than at the truth of their teaching. Divine Nature, devoted to unity and herself unity, shuns multiplicity. We should not suppose that she established several heavens separated in matter and distinguished by surfaces, when a single body, continuous in matter though differing in the dignity and power of its parts, could have sufficed. Nor do the laws of the stars’ movements oppose this. Because we do not know those laws, we fashion a masked Astrology for ourselves and boldly subject divine power to the weakness of our own mind. Yet the continuity of Heaven does not oppose the movement of the stars and can supply laws suited to human reason.

The claim that there is some first movable sphere above the heavens, by whose exceedingly rapid movement the lower heavens rotate each day, is less an invention of divine wisdom than a prop for human ignorance. For if we assign a principle of movement to that first mover, why deny the same to the heavenly globe? Why needlessly invent an external cause of Heaven’s movement when it can be internal?

Just as this weak province of the Universe is subject to the rule of the middle one, so the middle, ethereal province has received its authority and delegated office from the highest, superheavenly one. For the Empyrean Heaven and the choir of intelligible beings breathe into the heavenly order powers received successively from the Archetype. They move the natures immediately beneath them, as the first instruments of the material World, in harmony. Through this movement the lower things are also stirred and perform their alternations like dances in measured time, borrowing whatever excellence they possess from the higher things.

INTELLIGENCES.

The Intelligences are illuminated directly, according to their orders, by the divine mind as by the source of eternal light. They feed upon that light as upon immortal food and in it, as in a mirror, read and receive the signs and commands of divine Majesty and are kindled towards the glory of obedience. This is the order and union of the Universe’s threefold nature, whose bond and Herculean knot is divine love. Thus this entire commonwealth of the World is completed in a triad, of which the Creator is in no way a part. Likewise unity is neither a number nor part of a number, although it constitutes every number: it is the principle and measure of number. Nor is the musician or lyre-player a part of the harmony, but its author.