intellects from obscurity."

VII. "Nature," says my opponent, "gives me all this." Do you not
perceive when you say this that you merely speak of God under another
name? for what is nature but God and divine reason, which pervades the
universe and all its parts? You may address the author of our world
by as many different titles as you please; you may rightly call him
Jupiter, Best and Greatest, and the Thunderer, or the Stayer, so called,
not because, as the historians tell us, he stayed the flight of the
Roman army in answer to the prayer of Romulus, but because all things
continue in their stay through his goodness. If you were to call this
same personage Fate, you would not lie; for since fate is nothing more
than a connected chain of causes, he is the first cause of all upon
which all the rest depend. You will also be right in applying to him any
names that you please which express supernatural strength and power: he
may have as many titles as he has attributes.

VIII. Our school regards him as Father Liber, and Hercules, and
Mercurius: he is Father Liber because he is the parent of all, who first
discovered the power of seed, and our being led by pleasure to plant it;
he is Hercules, because his might is unconquered, and when it is wearied
after completing its labours, will retire into fire; he is Mercurius,
because in him is reasoning, and numbers, and system, and knowledge.
Whither-soever you turn yourself you will see him meeting you:
nothing is void of him, he himself fills his own work. Therefore, most
ungrateful of mortals, it is in vain that you declare yourself indebted,
not to God, but to nature, because there can be no God without nature,
nor any nature without God; they are both the same thing, differing only
in their functions. If you were to say that you owe to Annaeus or
to Lucius what you received from Seneca, you would not change your
creditor, but only his name, because he remains the same man whether you
use his first, second, or third name. So whether you speak of nature,
fate, or fortune, these are all names of the same God, using his power
in different ways. So likewise justice, honesty, discretion, courage,
frugality, are all the good qualities of one and the same mind; if you
are pleased with any one of these, you are pleased with that mind.

IX. However, not to drift aside into a distinct controversy, God bestows
upon us very many and very great benefits without hope of receiving any
ret