The Summary of Physics Restored

237The 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.