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a confluence having been united to itself. Thus therefore water is generated, the cold moistening the earth, and the moisture being composed from the cold, and perfecting the whole nature of water in itself. Whence, having now been gathered, and having become a stream, wherever it might find a good path, along that it has opened up the earth. This is named a spring. A proof that coldness leads to the generation of waters is that the places towards the north and more frozen abound in waters. For both the sun-drenched and southern regions would be equally soaked with waters, if the absence of cold in no way hindered the generation of liquids. Just as rainwater, gathered from the confluence of drops, becomes torrents, but if one were to look at the drops themselves, a very small thing and as good as nothing will appear in each; so too the quantity of the liquid always being constituted subtly from below; when the collection of the fine streams becomes one out of many, such a thing develops into the nature of a river. But he who rejects these suppositions, from where would he think the ever-flowing rivers arise? Will he perhaps suppose some lakes within the hollows of the earth? But these too, if they did not have an inflow, will certainly be emptied in a short time, so that he will necessarily think that others lie above these; and the consequence of the argument will seek what replenishes the others too; and if he supposes other lakes to lie above those, he will necessarily investigate what origins the replenishment of the others has. And so the argument, proceeding to infinity, will nowhere stop, positing lakes upon lakes; so that the lakes near the springs do not fail, until he grasps the ultimate origins, through which the generation of water takes its beginning. Therefore, whatever is likely to be found as the cause of the primary nature of water, it would be much more reasonable to think this concerning the constitution of springs, and not to imagine subterranean lakes, from which immediately the downward-tending nature of water stands in opposition to the argument. For how will that flow upward whose nature has its own downward momentum? Then also, what size of those lakes does the continuous outflow of so much water allow one to conjecture, so that, pouring forth so much in so much time, it remains unemptied, with nothing from within replacing what goes out? But it would be clear through what has been examined, that the supply of water does not fail the river, the earth being transformed for this purpose. And the bulk of the earth is not diminished 113 by what is withdrawn, since the always-occurring transformation of dry vapors replenishes what is always being lessened from the bulk. With these things happening, the transformation of the elements into one another would no longer seem to us to be limping, but the argument is bound together by consequence, seeing the turning of each to the other as a generation of that into which it was changed, and its restoration again from that to its original state. For example, water, having been raised to the air through vapors, became air; the air, having been moistened, was dried out in the flame lying above; the earthy part of the liquid was separated out by the nature of fire; this, having come to be in the earth, was transformed into water through the cold quality; and thus it is uninterrupted, with nothing being diminished or increased, but remaining in its original measures for ever. Therefore, the sequence of what has been examined allows us to think of the waters above the firmament as something other than a moist nature, if indeed we have understood from what has been said that the nature of fire is not nourished by the expenditure of the moist.

For it has been shown in what was examined, that the hot is not nourished by the cold, but is extinguished; and the moist is destroyed by the dry, it does not increase. But it would be time to turn our contemplation to the other of the things sought, how after the third day all the luminaries in heaven were made. That therefore, for each of the wonders that occurred, a certain divine commanding word takes the lead, so Moses historically

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συῤῥοίας πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἑνωθείσης. Οὕτως οὖν ἀπογεννᾶται τὸ ὕδωρ, τοῦ μὲν ψυχροῦ τὴν γῆν καθυγραίνοντος, τῆς δὲ ὑγρότητος τῆς ἐκ τοῦ ψυχροῦ συνισταμένης, καὶ ὅλην τὴν τοῦ ὕδατος φύσιν ἐν ἑαυτῇ τελειούσης. Ὅθεν ἀθροισθὲν ἤδη, καὶ ῥεῖθρον γενόμενον, ᾗπερ ἂν εὐοδωθῇ, κατ' ἐκεῖνο τὴν γῆν. ἀνεστόμωσεν. Τοῦτο δὲ πηγὴ ὀνομάζεται. Τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦ καθηγεῖσθαι τὴν ψυχρότητα τῆς τῶν ὑδάτων γενέσεως, τὸ τοὺς πρὸς ἀρκτῴους τῶν τόπων καὶ μᾶλλον κατεψυγμένους εὐθηνεῖσθαι τοῖς ὕδασιν. Ἦ γὰρ ἂν ἐπίσης τὰ ἡλιούμενά τε καὶ νότια, διάβροχα τοῖς ὕδασιν ἦν, εἰ μηδὲν ἡ ἀπουσία τῆς ψύξεως τῇ γενέσει τῶν ὑγρῶν ἐνεπόδιζεν. Ὥσπερ δὲ τὸ ἐξ ὀμ βρίας ὕδωρ ἀθροισθὲν μὲν ἐκ τῆς τῶν σταγόνων συῤ ῥοίας, χειμάῤῥους γίνεται, εἰ δὲ αὐτὰς τὰς σταγόνας ἐφ' ἑαυτῶν τις βλέποι, βραχύ τι καὶ ἀντ' οὐδενὸς τὸ ἐν ἑκάστῃ φανήσεται· οὕτω καὶ ἡ τῆς κατὰ λεπτὸν κάτω θεν ἀεὶ τοῦ ὑγροῦ συνισταμένης ποσότητος· ὅταν ἓν ἐκ πολλῶν ῥείθρων τὸ τῶν λεπτῶν ἄθροισμα γέ νηται, τὸ τοιοῦτον εἰς ποταμοῦ φύσιν ἐκδίδοται. Ὁ δὲ ταύτας τὰς ὑπολήψεις παραγραφόμενος, πόθεν ἂν οἰηθείη τοὺς ἀεννάους τῶν ποταμῶν ἀναδίδοσθαι; Ἆρα μή τινας λίμνας ἐντὸς τῶν τῆς γῆς κόλπων ὑπονοήσειεν; Ἀλλὰ καὶ αὗται πάντως εἰ μὴ τὸ ἐπιῤ ῥέον ἔχοιεν, ἐν βραχεῖ κενωθήσονται, ὥστε κατ' ἀνάγκην καὶ ἄλλας τούτων ὑπερκεῖσθαι νομίσει· ἡ δὲ ἀκολουθία τοῦ λόγου, καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀναπληροῦν ἀναζητήσει· κἂν ἄλλας ὑπερκεῖσθαι λίμνας ἐκείνων ὑποτίθηται, καὶ τὸ τῶν ἄλλων πλήρωμα ποίας ἔχει τὰς ἀφορμὰς ἀναγκαίως διερευνήσεται. Καὶ οὕτως εἰς ἄπειρον προϊὼν ὁ λόγος οὐδαμοῦ στήσεται, λιμνῶν λίμνας ὑπερτιθείς· ἵνα αἱ πρὸς ταῖς πηγαῖς λίμναι μὴ ἐπιλείπωσιν, ἕως ἂν τῶν ἐσχάτων τὰς ἀφορμὰς καταλάβῃ, δι' ὧν ἡ τοῦ ὕδατος γένεσις τὴν ἀρχὴν λαμβάνει. Ὅπερ τοίνυν εἰκός ἐστι τῆς πρώτης τοῦ ὕδατος φύσεως αἰτίαν ἐξευρεθῆναι, πολὺ ἂν εὐλογώτε ρον εἴη τοῦτο περὶ τὴν τῶν πηγῶν σύστασιν ἐννοεῖν, καὶ μὴ τὰς ὑπογείους λίμνας φαντάζεσθαι, ἀφ' ὧν εὐθὺς καὶ τὸ κατωφερὲς τῆς τοῦ ὕδατος φύσεως ἐξ ἐναντίου πρὸς τὸν λόγον ἵσταται. Πῶς γὰρ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄνω ῥυήσεται οὗ ἡ φύσις ἰδίαν ἔχει τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ κάτω φοράν; Ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ ὅσον τὸ μέγεθος τῶν λιμνῶν ἐκείνων ἡ διηνεκὴς τῶν τοσούτων ὑδάτων ἀποῤῥοὴ στοχάζεσθαι δίδωσιν, ὥστε τοσοῦτον προ χεύουσαν ἐν τοσούτοις χρόνοις, ἀκένωτον μένειν, μη δενὸς ἔνδοθεν τὸ ἐξιὸν ἀντεισάγοντος; Ἀλλὰ δῆλον ἂν εἴη διὰ τῶν ἐξητασμένων, ὅτι τῷ ποταμῷ μὲν οὐ λείπει ἡ χορηγία τοῦ ὕδατος, τῆς γῆς πρὸς τοῦτο μεθισταμένης. Ὁ δὲ ὄγκος τῆς γῆς οὐκ ἐλαττοῦται 113 διὰ τοῦ ὑπεξιόντος, τῆς πάντοτε γινομένης τῶν ξηρῶν ἀτμῶν μεταβολῆς, τὸ ἀεὶ μειούμενον ἐκ τοῦ ὄγκου ἀναπληρούσης. Ὧν γινομένων, οὐκέτ' ἂν ἡμῖν ἡ εἰς ἄλληλα τῶν στοιχείων ἀλλοίωσις σκάζειν δοκοίη, ἀλλὰ δι' ἀκολούθου δεσμεῖται ὁ λόγος, τὴν ἑκάστου πρὸς τὸ ἕτερον τροπὴν, γένεσιν ἐκείνου τοῦ εἰς ὃ μετεβλήθη βλέπων, καὶ τὴν ἀπ' ἐκείνου πρὸς τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς πάλιν ἀποκατάστασιν. Οἷον τὸ ὕδωρ πρὸς τὸν ἀέρα διὰ τῶν ἀτμῶν ἀναχθὲν, ἀὴρ ἐγένετο· ὁ ἀὴρ ὑγρανθεὶς ἐν τῷ ὑπερκειμένῳ φλογμῷ κατεξηράνθη· τὸ γεῶδες τοῦ ὑγροῦ διὰ τῆς τοῦ πυρὸς φύσεως ἀπεκρίθη· τοῦτο ἐν τῇ γῇ γενόμενον διὰ τῆς ψυ χρᾶς ποιότητος εἰς ὕδωρ μετεποιήθη· καὶ οὕτως ἀδιάλειπτος, καὶ ἀνωμένου καὶ οὐδενὸς πλεονάζοντος, ἀλλ' ἐν τοῖς ἐξ ἀρχῆς μέτροις εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς διαμένοντος. Οὐκοῦν ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὴν ὑγρὰν φύσιν τὰ ὑπερκείμενα τοῦ στερεώματος ὕδατα νοεῖν, ἡ τῶν ἐξετασθέντων ἀκολουθία δίδωσιν, εἴπερ τῷ μὴ τρέφεσθαι τῇ τοῦ ὑγροῦ δαπάνῃ τὴν τοῦ πυρὸς φύσιν ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων κατενοήσαμεν.

∆έδεικται γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ἐξητασμένοις, ὅτι τὸ θερμὸν τῷ ψυχρῷ οὐχὶ τρέφεται, ἀλλὰ σβέννυται· καὶ τὸ ὑγρὸν τῷ ξηρῷ ἀφανίζεται, οὐ πλεονάζει. Ἀλλ' ἐπὶ τὸ ἕτερον τῶν ζητουμένων καιρὸς ἂν εἴη τρέψαι τὴν θεωρίαν, πῶς μετὰ τὴν τρίτην ἡμέραν πάντες οἱ κατ' οὐρα νὸν φωστῆρες πεποίηνται. Ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἑκάστου τῶν γινομένων θαυμάτων λόγος τις θεῖος καθηγεῖται προστακτικὸς, οὕτω τοῦ Μωσέως ἱστορικῶς